“No!” My cheeks flush with heat again. I look out the window. “I mean; I don’t fancy either of them.”
Catriona laughs. “Ya might want to tell that to your face then, because it is saying something different. Ya know what I think?”
“Lawd help me! Do I really want to know the answer to that question?”
“Aidan hasn’t been himself since he returned from Afghanistan.”
“Afghanistan?”
“Our Aidan did two tours over there.”
“Was he wounded? I noticed the scar behind his ear.”
“Yes.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“He seems different, more intense. The Aidan Gallagher I remember loved the craic.”
“What has Aidan told you?”
“Nothing. Why?”
She draws a breath, sucking the air between her teeth so it makes a whistling noise. “It’s not my place to tell me brother’s tales. He’ll tell ya, when he is ready.” She turns off the road onto a dirt track lined with fruit trees. “Until then, try not to take his moods personally. Our Aidan is haunted by ghosts he can’t exorcise.”
I think of that day in the cottage, when I asked Aidan if he believed in ghosts, the sad, faraway look in his eyes, and my heart aches. I don’t know what happened to Aidan in Afghanistan—I’m not sure I want to know—but it must have been dreadful to have made such a profound impact on him. How strange. I’ve listened to the news reports about the problems in the Middle East, watched footage of soldiers fighting insurgents in places like Kandahar, Kabul, and Mazar-i-Sharif, but they always seemed like scenes from a gritty movie. Flickering scenes that shock, sadden, then fade away. In my mind, I put Aidan in one of those scenes. I see him crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, bullets whizzing over his head, and I feel sick, even a little panicked.
We have reached the end of the dirt track. Two stone barns lie straight ahead, separated by an asphalt parking lot. Ailean, Aidan’s great beast of a dog, is stretched out in a patch of grass between the two buildings, sound asleep despite the pervasive, drizzly rain.
“Here we are,” Catriona says, parking beside the first barn. “Are ya ready?”
“For what?”
“We have come to see your man, remember?”
“Aidan is not my man. Stop calling him that!”
She looks over at me, grinning. “Ah, but he will be, to be sure. And if I am wrong, I will eat an entire tin of those biscuits.”
I roll my eyes.
We climb out of the car and walk toward the barn. A heavy wooden door opens and a man in orange coveralls steps out.
“Catriona! Didn’t expect to see ya here today.”
“Hiya Billy,” Catriona says. “This is my friend, Tara. She’s brought a little something for Aidan. Is he inside or is he acting the maggot in the ring?”
“Johnny is putting him through the paces.”
Catriona shakes her head. “Bowsie eejit.”
“You know the way.”
“Ta Billy.”
Billy smiles at me.
“Pleased to meet ya, Tara.”
“Nice to meet you, Billy.”
Catriona links her arm through mine and we walk in the drizzling rain to the second barn, a big, beautiful modern building designed to look like an old, traditional Irish barn, with arched doors painted glossy red and steep slate roof.
“So Aidan works on a farm?”
“Mmmm,” Catriona murmurs.
Aidan. A farmer. He always said he wouldn’t be like his father, toiling over a patch of earth to eke out a humble existence. Now, there isn’t anything wrong with being a farmer. After all, my six times great-grandfather started Black Ash Plantation with only a handful of rice seeds. It’s just, well, I always imagined Aidan working as a deep-sea fisherman, police sniper, Coast Guard rescue swimmer, or covert operative. An adventurous, testosterone-heavy job. I look at the rolling countryside, hear the wind rustling the leaves of the apple trees, and I think I get it. After surviving two tours to the war-torn Middle East, Aidan’s soul probably craves the peace and quiet of the country. Solace and the softer things in life. That’s what he’s after.
Chapter Nineteen
“Ready?”
We are standing at the entrance to the first barn. Catriona’s hand is on the door pull.
Ready? For what? Pitchforks and bales of hay?
“Sure.”
Catriona opens the door and we walk inside. I was expecting a dimly lit, musty barn, littered with tractor parts and farming tools. I was not expecting a bright, airy gymnasium, with weight benches, barbells, and cardio equipment. A massive circular playpen stands in the middle of the barn—or is it a trampoline enclosed by a chain-link fence? I can’t tell. Aidan is inside the pen, shirtless, sweaty, and barefoot. He is wearing headgear and boxing gloves and facing an opponent double his weight, an ox of a man with a big head and no neck. They are circling around each other, warily. The ox lumbers forward, throwing a punch that lands on Aidan’s cheek like a battering ram. Aidan’s head swivels violently to the right. I hold my breath and wait for him to hit the mat, but the punch doesn’t knock him out. It doesn’t even bring him to his knees.
Suddenly, Aiden charges at the ox. Crouching low, fists moving with stunning, blurring speed, he pummels his opponent’s ribs again and again. The ox is driven back, back, his meaty body pressing against chain-link fence. My heart is thudding fast, as fast as Aidan’s punches. Thud-thud, thud-thud. Then, just as fast, inexplicably, Aiden stops punching and moves back.
“He had him. Why did he stop?”
“It isn’t sporting to pin a fella.”
Even though there is a lot of mat between them, the ox throws a double jab and lands them both.
“Get out of his strike zone, ya fecking eejit!” Catriona yells at Aidan. “Avoid the clinch!”
The ox jabs, slides right, jabs, slides right. Aidan moves with his opponent, even though each jab is landing.
“Jaysus,” Catriona mutters.
It’s a terrible, perverse thing to watch, Aidan following his opponent around, taking brutal blows, blows that would make most men claw their way across the mat and hurl themselves over the fence to get out of the cage.
Catriona cups her hands around her mouth.
“Stop chasing him. Make him come to you.”
Aidan moves in close, sweeps his left leg out, and knocks the ox off his feet.
I have never enjoyed boxing. It’s too bloody, too barbaric. This doesn’t look like boxing, though. It’s faster, less structure, like something you would see if two highly trained fighters got into a bar brawl. They’re on the ground, grappling like wrestlers.
“They’re on the ground. I didn’t think that was allowed in boxing.”
“This isn’t boxing, Tara; it’s MMA.”
“MMA?”
“Mixed Martial Arts,” she says, her gaze fixed on the men in the cage. “It’s a mixture of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. It’s fecking brutal and our Aidan is savage, he is.”
The men are up again, jabbing and weaving, jabbing and weaving. Some blows glance or miss completely, but most land with bone-jarring force. My chest aches from holding my breath each time the ox throws a punch.
“I can’t watch anymore,” I say, turning away.
“Don’t ya be worrying about our Aidan, Tara. He comes from a long line of warriors who fought for Ireland, scrappers who fought for freedom.”
I take a peek back at the men exchanging blows in the cage and a wave of nausea rises in my throat.
“I can’t,” I say, turning to leave. “I am sorry, but I can’t stand here and watch Aiden get hurt. I’ll wait outside.”
“Suit yourself,” she says. “But ya might want to wait in the other barn, out of the rain.”
I leave without looking back. Ailean is waiting outside, his grizzled coat beaded with raindrops, his long, mop of a tail sweeping back and forth over the wet a
sphalt. I open one of the tins and take out a cookie, holding it on the flat of my hand in offering to the beast, half-expecting him to bite off a finger. He nudges my hand with his nose and then gently, ever so gently, takes the cookie, his whiskers tickling my skin.
I put the lid back on the tin and walk to the other barn. Ailean trots close behind me, my shaggy shadow. I open the door and step inside. Ailean sits like a sentry just outside the door, his stony gaze fixed straight ahead. I motion for him to follow, but he doesn’t budge or blink a feathery gray lash.
“Stoic and stubborn,” I say, petting the damp fur on his head. “Just like his master.”
This barn isn’t filled with exercise equipment. This barn is a factory, with large steel tanks and wooden shelves filled with oak barrels. The steel tanks are the same type I saw when I went on the Austin Brewery Tour with some of my fellow students from the culinary institute. Fermentation tanks for aging ingredients that will eventually turn into an alcoholic beverage—like Irish hard cider.
Bánánach Brew.
No wonder Aidan always has apples and bottles of cider in his rucksack. He works in a cider-making factory.
Orange lines painted on the ground form a path. I follow the lines, like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, until I arrive at a tasting area, with a long refectory table and stools fashioned from old oak barrels. An iron sign hangs over the table, suspended from the ceiling by chains.
BÁNÁNACH BREW
AIDAN GALLAGHER, PROPRIETOR
FOUNDED 2016
Aidan is the owner of a cider mill? And a Mixed Martial Arts fighter? Here I thought he was a farm hand, picking apples, and seeking solace in the hills of Donegal. I thought I had him all figured out, but now I realize I don’t know him at all. At some point, Aidan Gallagher went from being a person I knew very well to a person I used to know. It makes sense, but it also makes me sad.
I don’t know why I am so surprised to discover he has changed, grown up and away from me. So many life-shaping events occur between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight. High school graduation, leaving home, going off to college, making new friends, first love, second love, college graduation, first job, complete financial independence.
In Aidan’s case, he left home to join the military. I can’t imagine the experiences he had while he was a soldier, the character building and defining experiences that transformed him from an easygoing, craic-seeking boy into this . . . this intense stranger. Something happened. Something powerful and, most likely, tragic.
Waves of sadness and longing wash over me, building, crashing, pushing me down, down, until I feel as if I am drowning in grief. Why do things have to change, without warning or consideration? I thought my daddy would live a long life and Black Ash would remain in our family for generations to come. I thought Aunt Patricia would live to see my children running around Tásúildun. I thought I would always live close to my sisters, and we would walk into each other’s houses without knocking, and gather for Sunday dinner. I thought Aidan . . .
If I am being perfectly honest, I thought about Aidan a lot through the years. Not just when Grayson and I were on a break, either. It sounds cliché, but I always thought of Aidan as the one that got away. He was the boy who made me laugh, made me sigh, but never, not once, made me cry. When Grayson worked my last nerve with his severely right-leaning political views, I would think of Aidan and remember how we would sit on the beach below Tásúildun and talk about anything, about everything, until the moon reflected on the ocean. Aidan was the best companion because he didn’t just talk, he listened, he really listened.
Lawd Jesus, how he used to make me laugh!
What happened to that boy? Where did he go? Is he lost to me forever, like Daddy and Aunt Patricia?
Sure, I am sad for myself, for all of the people I have lost, but I am sad for Aidan, too. I saw the look on his face when he talked about his ghosts, the weary, haunted expression in his eyes, as if he was carrying a terribly heavy burden.
People exorcise their ghosts, their grief and guilt, in different ways. Some turn to the bottle, some turn to the Lord, and some turn to baking. I think Aidan turns to fighting. I think he climbs into a cage and risks grave bodily injury as a way to exorcise his ghosts.
I don’t know much about PTSD or traumatic brain injury—only what I have gleaned from television news soundbites—but the little I do know has me mighty concerned for Aidan. He has a scar behind his ear that looks like a war wound. Catriona said he returned from Afghanistan a changed man, moody, intense, less social. I know he suffers from insomnia because I hear him moving about the old school room. Then there’s the Mixed Martial Arts, an extremely dangerous sport. Isn’t self-destructive behavior another of the signs of PTSD?
A thick, salty lump has formed in my throat. Poor Aidan. I just want to hug him up, hug him something fierce.
I am sitting beneath the sign, sniffling like an overwrought fool, when Aidan arrives. He’s put on a pair of shoes and has a towel draped over his head and shoulders like a hood. He looks at my cheeks, wet with tears, and his brows knit together, his lips pull down in a frown.
“I suppose ya don’t approve of fighting?” he snaps.
His face is hard, his eyes angry, defensive, as if he’s still in the cage and I am his opponent. My daddy always said the best way to pierce a calloused heart isn’t with a sharp gesture, but a soft word.
“I couldn’t stand there watching while some ox pummeled you senseless,” I confess. “It made me sick. What if you had been seriously hurt? What if he had killed you? I don’t want to think about . . .”
. . . what it would be like to live at Tásúildun, to climb the hills we climbed as children, knowing I would never see you again.
“What don’t ya want to think about?”
I can’t tell him what I was thinking. We just aren’t that close anymore—not deep-feelings-and-secrets close.
“I don’t want to think about losing another person I care about.”
He pushes the towel off his head and sits down beside me, putting his legs on either side of mine so I am trapped, forced to look at him. His blue, blue eyes. The sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks, faintly visible beneath his fading tan. His bare chest.
“Ya care about me?” he asks, his voice gravelly.
“I’ve always cared about you, Aidan Gallagher.”
“Ya didn’t answer my letters.”
“What letters?”
“I wrote to you when I joined the military.”
“I never got any letters. I swear.”
We look into each other’s eyes—searching for answers to questions we aren’t ready to ask. I want to know what he said in those letters and how he really felt about me that summer, because I went home thinking our kisses meant little to him. He was an outrageous flirt, a scandalous charmer with a long line of sighing, lovesick girls trailing behind him wherever he went, and I was a naïve skinny girl with a massive fatgirl complex who found it difficult to believe any boy could love her, truly, forever and ever, Amen love (Thank you, Grayson On-Again, Off-Again Calhoun).
“Ya could have written to me.” He presses his bare knees against my legs. “Why didn’t ya?”
I want to tell him I didn’t write to him because I was terrified he wouldn’t answer and his rejection would have been too bitter a pill to swallow. I left Ireland with memories of my perfect summer romance with a boy who seemed to like me, really like me. I cherished those memories. What if I had written to him and he ignored my letters? Or, worse, wrote back to tell me I had misunderstood what happened between us, that it was just a thing, a silly, meaningless thing and I was being a silly, lovesick girl. No, Aidan was the perfect boy in my perfect summer romance. The one that got away, not the one who ran away (to Crawdad Cravath).
I am plumb out of words. I don’t want to lie and my pride won’t let me tell the truth. So, I just slap a Band-Aid on this painful situation. I hide my pain beneath a smile.
“Ah,
I see,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and smiling back at me. “Ya didn’t want your fella to know about me. What was his name? Gaylord?”
“Grayson,” I say. “His name was Grayson.”
“Grayson. I knew it was a poncey name.”
“He isn’t a ponce!”
“Ya told me he took ya to a dance and got well fluthered after drinking something called a Furry Navel.” He laughs. “If that’s not a ponce, I don’t know what is.”
“It was the prom and the drink is called a Fuzzy Navel. It’s made with peach schnapps.”
“Peach schnapps?” He shakes his head. “Ya could crawl to every pub in every county in Ireland and ya wouldn’t find a single Irishman drinking peach schnapps. What self-respecting man gets fluthered drinking peach schnapps?”
“Leave it to an Irishman to judge another man’s masculinity by how much he can drink,” I say.
“I question his masculinity because he chose drinking girly cocktails with the lads over dancing with you . . . and he made ya cry once when he said he thought ya needed to lose weight. The fuck?”
The last bit comes out as a confused exclamation, which I assume is Aidan’s way of saying, what is up with that? I’m not gonna lie, y’all, the sentiment behind his profanity makes me absurdly happy.
“I can’t believe you remember that story.”
“I remember everything about ya, Tara.” He smiles—not the half-teasing, half-mocking grin he flashed me a few seconds ago, but a smile so sweet it makes my teeth ache. “I don’t remember ya being such a worrier, though. The Tara I knew back then would have climbed in the cage and challenged me to a fight.”
I laugh. Aidan always brought out my feisty, fearless side, the side that didn’t worry about spilling tea on my dress, or running barefoot, or scandalizing the neighbors with my tom-girl tree climbing. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I liked coming to Donegal, because I could let my perfectly coiffed hair down and forget about my perfectly proper Southern roots. I could just be . . . me.
“I like knowing ya were worried about me,” he says, pressing his knees against my legs.
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