by Dorien Kelly
“What are these?” Liam asked, placing a hand on the papers atop an old many-drawered piece of furniture.
Vi glanced over at the pile. “Letters and such. Now be quiet or I’ll send you home with Rog.”
Silence came, but it wasn’t the creative sort. It was the silence he’d felt last night in the library as he’d watched Vi sleep and asked himself how long until she, too, was gone from his life.
To distract himself, he leafed through the stack he’d asked Vi about. It held e-mail print-outs and envelopes bearing postage not only from Ireland, but England and France, too. Before looking more, he glanced at Vi.
“Go ahead, nose about if it pleases you,” she said.
It did, so Liam began to read in more detail. Requests for information mixed with headier notes, suggesting gallery showings and even a licensing opportunity.
“Have you answered any of these?” he asked.
“Not quite yet. My business manager forwarded them when we parted ways. Career-planning issues,” she added at his “Why?”
Liam inventoried dates and postmarks. “Not quite yet” seemed to connote up to a six-month delay.
“And why have you not answered?”
“I’ve nothing to show.”
He loved the very breath of her, but there were times he did not understand her at all.
“Jesus, Vi, you’re stockpiled to the Second Coming.” He walked to a large piece of silk stretched tight and painted in abstract with a scene of storm over roiling sea. “This? What’s the matter with this?”
“The gray of the sky has too much green.”
“Too much green for whom?”
She ignored his question, frowning and pointing a finger at the lower left corner of the picture. “And look down there, the silk snagged a bit when I accidentally knocked it against another piece. Can’t you see the pull?”
“It’s visible only to you.”
“And to anyone else with eyes.” She picked up her pencil and began to tap it against the side of her work table, the rhythm hard and fast.
“Only if you point it out,” he said.
Liam took her hands in his, stilling the angry tapping. “What’s this about? I’ve seen the paintings lined up at the back door of your house, and now this hostage-taking in your studio. This can’t be the same woman with people begging for her work.”
“It’s not ready,” she said to him. Liam recognized her tone of voice, for it very much matched what Vi’s mam had used on her minutes earlier.
He knew this was a topic to be pushed no farther, yet he couldn’t help himself. “Did it occur to you that your art is the better for its flaws?”
“The better? And one of your salvage jobs, is it the better if you make a sod-all mess of it?”
He grabbed the storm painting. “We’re not talking about sod-all messes, Vi. We’re talking about human imperfection.”
“I can do better. I have to.”
“Or what will happen?”
“I don’t know.” She paced the room, then swung back to face him. “I don’t bloody know, but it will be bad.”
“Telling the future, are you? I’m thinking you might be a bigger witch than your nan.”
He’d meant it as a harmless joke, to lighten the moment, but if Vi could hurl lightning bolts, he would be dead.
She reached into the pocket of her trousers.
“My car keys,” she said, then flung them at him. “Go where you have to, and be gone by the time I’m back. Roger! Walk!”
The wee dog slunk from beneath Vi’s work table, looking at Liam as though seeking intercession. Liam gave him a “sorry, old friend” shrug of the shoulders. Vi flung on her cape, snapped Roger’s lead to his collar, then strode out the door.
Liam watched from the front window. On the downhill slope, Roger kept up admirably well with Vi’s long legs. The uphill, Liam feared, would be another matter, for she was walking like a woman driven.
After she and her dog were gone from sight, Liam walked outside and turned over the sign on the studio door from Dúnta to a welcoming Oscaillte. The act was symbolic, considering that art-shoppers looked to be rarer than placid redheads on this cold Ballymuir day, and likely temporary, too, since Vi would see the change on her return. But she would grasp his message and not his throat, for Liam planned to give her miles of space for the rest of the day. After all, he was a gambler, but never foolhardy. Except perhaps in love…
Men. Bloody awful, annoying, know-everything men. He was no artist. He had no idea the troubles in the process or the deathly lack of certainty.
Vi couldn’t walk quickly enough to escape her anger at Liam or the uncomfortable sense of foreboding that had set in just prior to Mam’s arrival.
And Mam. Bloody awful, annoying, know-everything Mam, for that matter. What was to come next?
More walking, at least that was for certain.
Vi crisscrossed her village’s small net of streets, returning greetings, but stopping for no talk. As she passed in front of O’Connor’s pub, she recalled that tonight would be sessiun night, and for the first time in nearly forever, she had no desire to attend.
She walked to the edge of town and looked longingly to the hills. High above Ballymuir sat beehive huts—small stacked stone structures that had been there likely before the New Faith replaced the Old. Some said that holy people would use them as places of meditation and rest on their solitary pilgrimages. Vi needed both contemplation and quiet, but rather doubted that she or Rog were suited to lives of asceticism.
Realizing that in the end, she had nothing to do but go back the way she came, Vi turned toward town center…such as it was. Hungry, she paused to take a peek in the windows of Spillane’s market. Seamus ran an account for her, so having been careless enough to bolt her studio without pocket money would not make her go hungry. She tethered Rog to the lamppost out front, assuring him that the indignity would be short-lived.
Vi stepped into the warmth of Spillane’s, greeted Seamus, and then headed to the sweets section. She was not a chocolate-eater by nature, but today she felt deserving. There, in front of the sweets stood her sister-in-law Kylie, hands on hips, large belly jutting out of the dark blue coat that would clearly no longer button over her smock. Vi dragged her gaze back to Kylie’s face, which seemed to bear marks of tension, much as Vi imagined hers did.
Kylie greeted Vi in Irish and they continued the conversation in that language solely, as they always did when it was just the two of them. Much as they tried to teach the others, they were the only fluent members of the family.
“I’m glad to have run into you,” Kylie said. “I’ve had a bit of a surprise.”
“It seems to be going around,” Vi answered rather dryly. “You’ve seen Mam, right?”
“Seen but not spoken to. I saw Pat leading her out to the workshop this morning, but they made no stop at the house. I did call Michael and gave him the news. I expect he’s taking the slow road home from Kenmare, just now.”
“All the better,” Vi said. “Mam’s in a mood.”
Kylie dropped an Aero bar into her basket, then said, “Which is sure to change one way or another. Your da’s on his way here, too.”
“He is? But I’d heard nothing.”
“As I’d heard nothing about he and Mam. You might have told me they were having more troubles, Vi.”
“I didn’t want to upset you.” Or have to look at you too much longer and know what I have not, she could have added.
“I’m pregnant, not ill,” Kylie said, then scooped up a CurlyWurly and a Dairy Milk, adding them to her stash. “I’ve offered him a room at our house. I know Michael will be glad for the help finishing the baby’s room.”
“You might not be ill, but aren’t you a bit…erm, overextended for guests just now?”
“Not at all,” Kylie said. “I’ve already tidied the spare bedroom and the second bath.”
To microscopic cleanliness, no doubt. Vi selected a Dairy Milk of her own.
It sounded somehow healthier than the other chocolates.
“And I’m planning a family luncheon for tomorrow,” Kylie said. “I’ve a baby coming any day and I’m tired of watching Mam and Da bicker and the lot of you act like martyrs every time you’re in the same town.”
Vi had never experienced quite this level of bluntness from her sister-in-law. It wasn’t that Kylie didn’t have the matter by the throat, simply that she was usually a woman of softer words and a gentler approach. Vi put the change down to Kylie’s altered body.
“If either of us does the cooking,” Vi said, “Mam and Da will either be poisoned by poor skills or on the road in no time.”
“That’s why I’ve settled on a luncheon. I can’t foul up a chilled platter and surely you can manage a green salad. And bring your man, too.”
“My man?” Word traveled faster than sound in Ballymuir.
“Breege called to tell me about your Liam.”
Of course, Breege. She’d always been a surrogate nan to Kylie, and had no doubt rushed home to share the news.
“Perhaps Mam will watch her words if he’s there,” Kylie suggested.
“Until he crosses her. Shall I bring anything else to this gathering of yours?”
Kylie smiled. “Fishes and loaves and perhaps a stray miracle or two.”
Vi was beginning to feel as though it would take a raft of miracles to refloat her family.
Chapter Eighteen
Each child as he is reared, and the duck on the water.
—IRISH PROVERB
“If you don’t wish to, you really needn’t come to the luncheon,” Vi said yet again to Liam as they started the drive into the hills where her brother lived.
“Too late now, my fire. And as I told you the last three times you said that, if I hadn’t wanted to come, I would have said so.”
The fact of it was, Liam could think of places he’d rather be, but none of them held Vi. They had negotiated a tenuous peace last night, and he planned to hold on to it as long as possible. This morning, while she had painted, he’d remained at Muir House, where Dev and Jenna had offered him use of the house’s office. Liam had made reservations to return to Boston on Friday. He intended to tell Vi this…no later than Thursday night. He knew he was delaying the inevitable, but sometimes an inevitability was best delayed. The news he needed to give echoed too strongly of the last time he’d left. Even he, a generally blundering male, could grasp that.
Sooner than he expected, Vi pulled up to a solid-looking white farmhouse with several cars already out front.
“It looks as though we’re the last ones here, so be prepared,” she said after she’d turned off her car. She reached into the back seat and juggled forward a large plastic bowl, nearly losing its cover and spilling its contents into his lap.
She said something in Irish that Liam knew for a curse, then snapped on the bowl’s lid.
“Nerves, I’m thinking,” she said. “I’ve had a case of them since yesterday. Would you mind carrying the salad?”
“Better carrying it than wearing it,” he teased, easing the bowl from her tense grip.
They were climbing the steps when the front door opened. A man Liam knew had to be the younger Michael Kilbride greeted them.
Vi gave her brother a warm hug, affording Liam the time to look at the two of them together. Physically, they bore a resemblance, as both had the same shade of green eyes, but it seemed more than that. The way they had with each other spoke of a kinship of spirit that Liam couldn’t say he possessed with any of his innumerable siblings.
“Liam, this is Michael.”
They shook hands and Liam said, “It’s been a long time.”
Michael smiled. “Aye, it has.”
“You two have met?” Vi asked. “When?”
“A lifetime ago,” Michael said. “Nan had me to visit alone the summer you must have been eight or so.”
“And your brother and I were caught swilling from whiskey glasses at Da’s pub while your nan and the rest of them sang,” Liam added.
Vi shook her head. “Bloody Philistines. Have you no appreciation for fine music?”
“Some, but more for whiskey,” Michael replied. “And I’m ready for one now.”
Vi swatted his arm, then said, “Let’s get this done with.”
As they were heading to the dining room with Vi, naturally, in the lead, Michael lagged back and said to Liam, “If you see me going to the kitchen, offer to come help. I’ve a bottle at the ready. And trust me, we’ll be needing it.”
It took not an hour in the combined company of the Kilbrides to see what Michael had meant. Pat and Danny sat at the far end of the table, one in competition with the other to see who could say the least. Vi’s da tried to carry the conversation for a time, but became weary, joining his youngest children in silence. Michael devoted his energies to assuring that his wife lifted nothing heavier than a fork. And Vi and Kylie kept slipping off to the kitchen, claiming some task or another to complete. But for Kylie’s pregnant state, he’d think the women were at the same bottle that he’d earlier managed to sample with Michael.
Liam toyed with his wedge of cold smoked salmon and brown bread, thinking what next to float out there as conversation. Just then, Kylie said something to Vi in Irish. Liam had no idea what, but Vi very quickly masked a look of concern. She responded to Kylie, and of course he stood no chance of catching those words, either.
“In English,” Maeve Kilbride decreed. “It’s not polite to cut the rest of us out.”
Kylie and Vi rose simultaneously, though it took Kylie a bit longer.
“We’ll be right back,” Vi said to her mam in English, then shot Liam a look he interpreted as an order to follow, though her expression was none clearer to him than the Irish she’d been using.
He was about to make his excuses when Pat and Danny stood.
“Cigarette,” Danny said, apparently speaking for both twins. The front door slammed behind them two heartbeats later.
“Michael, if you could give me hand,” Kylie called from the kitchen.
“Sorry,” Michael said. “I’ll be right back, too.”
And then there were three…
Liam cleared his throat and gave up playing with his food. He’d just taken a mouthful of water when Vi’s father spoke.
“So, do you plan to marry our Violet this time round?”
When he’d managed to stop sounding like a drowning victim, Liam said, “We’ve not talked marriage. With Vi, considering our history, I feel lucky enough that she doesn’t smother me in my sleep.”
Maeve puffed up. “Is that meant to be humorous?”
It was, and harmless, too, though he supposed he might have better considered his audience. He pushed back his chair.
“I think I hear Vi calling me,” he said. “Might I get you anything from the kitchen?”
“A few family members,” Vi’s da said, then smiled. “And some of the fuisce I know you and Michael junior had to be trying.”
That, at least, redirected Mrs. Kilbride’s ire to her spouse. “Michael! You know how I feel….”
After giving Michael the elder a smile in exchange for the man’s broad wink, Liam escaped. A man could do miles worse than Mr. Kilbride as a father-in-law.
In the kitchen, Liam found Michael glaring at Vi, Kylie looking a bit pale, and Vi as though she wished herself someplace else.
“I’m thinking it’s time we leave,” she said to Liam.
“That would have been before I had your mam ready to see me dead.”
“She’s just treating you as part of the family,” Vi said. “Now, Michael, tell me where you’ve put my cape and Liam’s jacket, and—”
Kylie gasped. When she’d gotten her breath back she muttered something to Vi that sounded like “ten minutes” in Irish. Liam was pleased that his grasp of the language had stretched that far.
“Jackets, Michael?” Vi said again, sounding nearly alarmed.
“Ten minutes, an
d what?” Michael asked, ignoring his sister.
Kylie raised one finger, then walked to the other side of the kitchen. Back to them, she braced her hands against the sink. Liam watched, transfixed, as her slight shoulders rose and fell. He’d seen this before, when Beth was in labor. He looked to Vi, whose eyes were dark with something like panic.
Vi grabbed Liam’s hand. “We’ll just be going now.”
Michael stayed his sister, one hand on her upper arm. “Violet, ten minutes, and what?” he repeated.
“Nearly made it, too,” Vi said, glancing longingly toward the kitchen door. She let go of Liam’s hand, but moved a step closer to him. “Michael, it seems Kylie’s been in labor since early this morning.”
Liam watched as all color drained from Michael Kilbride’s face. He recalled that terrified feeling well, for no amount of classes or cheerful films prepared a man for the moment of truth.
Kylie returned, her hands bracing her lower back.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Michael said to his wife, tipping up her face as though he could determine her progress by checking the whites of her eyes.
“I didn’t mean not to tell you,” Kylie said. “I was thinking it was more of those false contractions. I’m sure we have hours yet before anything happens.”
“Anything, love? As in you having the baby and we’re not even packed for the hospital? That anything?”
“If it helps you, we’ll go upstairs and pack as soon as I’ve—”
An odd, almost whimsical expression crossed her face.
“What?” her husband asked. “Is it another pain? Shall I go—”
Kylie took Michael’s hands. “Love, promise me you won’t panic, but my waters have just broken.”
She took a step back. All who could see Kylie’s feet, which excluded Kylie, looked to the floor. Sure enough, the pale blue cloth rug where she’d stood displayed a darker blue splotch.
Vi grabbed a tea towel. “Slip out of your shoes,” she told her sister-in-law.