When she was young, it felt as if Patrick and John each commanded so much attention in his way that she was an afterthought. She dated a girl once who said this was why Bridget had gone to New York. To be seen as something other than herself in relation to the rest of them. That stayed with her. It was true. Moving to New York had saved her life. But sometimes it felt like a kind of exile. In her heart, she believed that she belonged here, among her family, in the only place she had ever thought of as home.
In her work, she saw such cruelty and injustice. She saw that people could be truly awful. But for all the sadness and the head-scratching, there was goodness to balance it out. A guy came in once with a Saint Bernard he’d found tied up, abandoned. The dog had a prong collar embedded in her neck. The guy came by and walked the dog every Saturday. After a couple of months, he told Bridget he was moving away the next weekend and wouldn’t be back. He said a tearful good-bye to the Saint Bernard. But when Saturday morning came, there he was, rolling up in a U-Haul.
“I couldn’t leave without her,” he said. “I think she’ll like Virginia.”
—
The main drag was empty.
Out of habit, she waited for the light to change, then crossed over the road and into the public parking lot of Nantasket Beach.
She arrived at the seawall and let the dog pull her down the stairs to the sand. It was low tide. No one else in sight. Bridget let Rocco off his leash. He ran to the surf, chasing it in and out like a puppy. She pulled a ball from her pocket and tossed it into the waves. There were flurries in the air.
She missed Patrick. His sweetness, his craziness. The family looked different to her now. When one of them vanished, those who remained were transformed into something new. This happened again and again, and would keep happening, despite however much they might wish it wouldn’t.
But to her surprise, she felt a burst of joy, of hope, in spite of it. Natalie’s influence, she supposed. Her faith that love was everything in the end, even if it was an imperfect love, a love that depended on memory, on some former version of who they were. Natalie believed that if they let her, Nora would surprise them. Maybe there was no reason not to wish for it.
Bridget looked out at the water, the land on the other side too far away to see. She said a silent prayer for the departed, and for the ones who were yet to come.
23
TWO HOURS EARLIER, five-thirty in the morning, Nora was lying in bed, mind ravaged, thinking of what she had done. She had been up all night, on and off. Thrashing in the sheets, bolting upright, awake, and at the same time unsure of whether she had yet gone to sleep.
John had driven her home from the wake the night before. As they turned out of O’Dell’s parking lot, she saw her sister at the corner, getting into a taxi. Theresa looked so alone. Nora felt something unhinge in her. She was cruel, terrible. Still, she didn’t do a thing to make it right. She turned to Maeve in the backseat and asked if she was hungry for lasagna.
At the house, full of people, she thought only of the ones who were absent. Charlie. Her Patrick, whom all the wishing in the world could never conjure now. And Theresa. Nora realized it, standing at the stove, and the presence of everyone else became unbearable. Voices from other rooms were an invasion. They didn’t care. Not enough.
She sent them away. Embarrassing to think about it now, but it had felt beyond her control.
In bed, at first, Nora had a strong sense that her sister had deserved the harsh treatment. Theresa could come to the funeral if she liked. They didn’t have to speak. But Nora couldn’t stick to her anger. Her thoughts kept wandering in another direction.
She wondered why she had made that call in the first place. She thought it was a punishment at the time. Not about her at all. But perhaps her better angels had somehow known she needed Theresa here. She had never believed that Theresa loved Patrick. Not the way she did. But standing over his body with Theresa, Nora felt it. Her sister’s grief, as palpable as her own.
For some reason, she thought of Maeve in that moment, how the orphanage said someone had left her wrapped in a pink blanket in a crowded market, where she would easily be found. Diapers and coins sprinkled around her as offerings. Symbols of a mother’s love, her devotion. Nora thought of Theresa running from the house that final night, leaving Patrick to her care. She thought of the medal that arrived in the mail seventeen years later, with him when he was born and when he was laid to rest.
—
At six, she dressed and went downstairs, expecting to find a mess. She would have fifty people here later. There was so much work to be done.
When Charlie died, she could not bring herself to make dessert. It was simply one step more than she could manage. So she cheated and went to a fancy bakery in Hingham and bought brownies and lemon squares, just that once. When they asked, in complimentary tones, “Did you make these yourself?” she sputtered, “Of course.”
Last night, she had gone much further. She had let them all see the worst of her.
Now, at the foot of the stairs, peering into the living room, Nora found, with some degree of amazement, that her children had cleaned to perfection.
As she neared the kitchen, she could hear a foot tapping on the floor. She wondered if it was Patrick and then she wondered how much longer her mind would play this trick, not entirely unwelcome.
John sat there, elbows on the table, hands in his hair, a notepad in front of him.
“You’re working today?”
“No,” he said. “It’s the eulogy.”
“Oh.”
He had made coffee. She poured herself a cup.
“Did you sleep?” he said.
“Not much.”
John wrote something down on the page and then looked up at her.
“Did you see that article in the paper on Sunday? The one about Rory.”
“Yes,” she said. “Nice photograph.”
“But did you read it?”
“No. I got busy with other things. I’m sorry.”
“There was a kid called O’Shea. A blind kid. Do you know who I’m talking about?”
Peter O’Shea. Nora had prayed for him every night since the first time she heard his name.
She looked John in the eye. “Yes.”
“You were right, you know,” John said. “I should have found a way. We had our differences, but we were brothers.”
She knew his list of grievances—the money, Maeve’s confirmation, how Patrick had stopped him from going to Saint Ignatius. She had wondered why Patrick hadn’t just told John the truth about the school: that, right or wrong, it was for John’s own protection that he had done what he did. Maybe she ought to have told John herself. Someone could save your life without you ever knowing it. It happened more than most people realized.
I should have found a way.
“It’s not easy,” she said. “I know that as well as anyone.”
John looked surprised.
“Yeah,” he said. “Right. Of course.”
“You should get some more sleep, John. You look so tired.”
“I am.”
“Go on then. I need to run out. I’ll be back soon.”
He looked at the clock. “Now?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to come?”
“No thank you. Go upstairs to your family. I’ll wake you when I’m back.”
—
She was in the car by six-fifteen. In Dorchester a half hour later.
The old neighborhood had changed so much. She wondered if Theresa would even recognize it. Nowadays Edison Green had a tall brick senior center right in the middle. No more grass, no more boys playing ball. Mrs. Quinlan’s house and all the others around it were full of Vietnamese people. The Irish had mostly moved on. The dance halls had closed long ago.
Dorchester had always been Patrick’s favorite. So many other young people wanted to get away. He had come back, opened the bar here, of all places. He was the most loyal person she
had ever known. Had he been there to see his best friend stumbling drunk into his own wake, Patrick would have found a way to excuse it.
She thought of how much Theresa had loved Dorchester too, when they were young. She thought even further back than that. To home.
Nora had told the children they couldn’t afford to go to Ireland, which was partly true. But the whole of it was, she didn’t want to go. She thought she would die without ever seeing home again.
John had been so proud when he surprised them with a trip. She could hardly say no. He flew the whole family over. Nora and Charlie sat in first class. She had kept the little bottles of champagne they handed out. She still had them, at the back of a kitchen cabinet.
She was so afraid that someone in town would slip. In advance of the trip, and even on the plane, she thought of just telling the children the truth—I have a sister. We haven’t spoken in years. But she didn’t do it. Time ran out. Naturally, after a long flight to Shannon and an early morning drive, bleary-eyed and on the wrong side of the road, the first person the family ran into on the High Street in Miltown Malbay was a girl Nora knew from school.
“How’s Theresa doing?” was the first thing out of her mouth.
Nora startled, but then she saw that her children hadn’t thought anything of it. They knew two dozen Theresas back home.
It horrified her to find the old house in shambles, as if it had never meant a thing to anyone. She supposed this was why she never threw anything away. It mattered, having something you could claim as your own.
When she and Theresa stopped speaking, their brother kept them apprised of each other. But after he died, there was silence. Charlie’s brother and his wife organized Martin’s small funeral. Nora didn’t go back for it. Brian was only three years old then.
On the family trip to Ireland, when her brother’s name was mentioned, they expected her unending thanks for what they had done. They had not even bought him a proper headstone, only a flat granite marker, while Nora was busy giving their people a king’s send-off on the other side of the ocean. She stood before her family’s graves for a long while, her children beside her, unable to fathom what she had lost. She thought of how hurt she had felt when Bridget moved to New York. No one else in the family had children who went away like that. She herself had gone so much farther. Never returned until now. It wasn’t right that you could only understand your parents’ pain once you’d experienced the things they had, and by then, in her case anyway, they were gone.
Miltown Malbay was a different place than the one she left. Cars lined every sidewalk downtown, just like in Boston. The dance hall where Charlie first kissed her was a furniture store with rows of sofas and armchairs filling the once wide and empty floor. He spun her for a turn anyway, landing them both in a recliner. A memory she would hold for the rest of her life.
She had never seen the sweeping Cliffs of Moher before, twenty minutes from where they grew up. When she went there with the children, Nora saw how beautiful the cliffs were, how majestic. John read aloud from a guidebook about the stone walls, miles of them, laid by hand thousands of years ago. He wanted to tell her the story of her own life.
There was a plaque now, not far from the house where she grew up, commemorating the site of the Rineen Ambush of 1920. It told of the blood in the streets, the children killed, the homes burned. Her own father would have been ten years old then. He had never mentioned it. Had it been too painful to say out loud, or had he spared his children the knowledge, as Nora spared hers in her way?
Nora met up with her old friend Oona Donnelly for tea. Over the years, their letters had dwindled down to a yearly Christmas card. Oona seemed happy. She was plump now, with silver hair. She looked much older than Nora did, or so Nora wanted to believe.
She had seven grandchildren already. Their photographs covered every inch of her refrigerator. Oona said three of them were being raised in Stockholm, by their father, her son, and the Swedish woman he had fallen in love with at university but never felt the need to marry. The rest lived just down the road. All Oona’s grandkids were sent to the Gaeltacht on Inishmore in summertime, to learn their history. They spoke perfect Irish.
Nora was at once envious of her and embarrassed for her. There was something depressing about that country kitchen with its dim lighting, the folding chairs, a collection of porcelain cats on the windowsill. The countertops were crowded with cookbooks and circulars; newspapers and half-empty soda bottles; pans in a precarious pile. Nora felt an urge to put everything back where it belonged. There was a small television, which Oona kept switched on even as they talked, glancing over at the set from time to time.
Before they parted, Oona asked after her sister. Nora had written to her about Theresa becoming a nun, and about their falling-out, but she had never told Oona about Patrick. It was too difficult to explain in a letter. The thought of putting it down on paper seemed too great a risk.
Sitting there in Oona’s kitchen, Nora considered telling her. But she only said, “We don’t talk anymore. She has her life and I have mine.”
She could see that the answer didn’t quite satisfy Oona, but she took it no further.
The old Friel’s Pub had the name Lynch over the door now, but everyone—even the Lynches—still called it Friel’s. When Nora left Oona’s house and found the others there, her children were in high spirits, proud of themselves for making the reunion possible. They thought having the chance to catch up over tea would delight her. They didn’t think how it might stoke pain, bring back the memory of saying good-bye to Oona.
In all her years in America, Nora had never made such a friend.
—
She turned onto Dorchester Avenue on purpose. She didn’t have to go this way. But Nora wanted to see the bar, even closed, as it would certainly be at this hour. It was the place Patrick had last been himself. The place he had last been.
There was nobody behind her. She slowed down as she came to the bar and saw flowers heaped at the curb. The sight of them made her cry. The grate was up, the door wide open. As she passed by, Nora could make out a figure sitting alone inside.
He made so many people so happy, Brian’s girlfriend had said last night.
She was not the woman Nora would have chosen for him, but none of them would ever end up with the person she’d imagined for them. Nora thought of Bridget, holding Natalie’s hand, bringing her up in line with the family. The answer to a question she had never wanted to ask, even of herself. It was crushing in its way, and yet, life went on. She didn’t want to be so terrified anymore.
She turned onto Morrissey Boulevard. Two minutes later, she pulled into the motel parking lot, eager to get Theresa away from this place.
In the lobby, a boy of nineteen or twenty stood behind a desk, staring down at his phone. He didn’t look up when she came in.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for someone. A guest.”
“I can’t give you anyone’s information, ma’am,” he said, trying to sound stern, looking nervous.
She realized he must think she was a scorned wife on the trail of a cheating husband. That was the sort they got around here.
“She’s my sister,” Nora said. “A nun. I’m here to pick her up for a family funeral.”
“Oh.” His face flooded with relief. “Up on the second floor. Room two zero nine.” He looked back at his phone and then up again. “So she really is a nun?”
Nora went to the elevator, her hand trembling as she pressed the button.
Once on the second floor, she went to the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.
Her sister appeared, wearing a cotton nightgown. Her feet were bare. Her hair hung to her shoulders. She looked beautiful. She looked like herself as a girl.
“You don’t wear the habit to bed, then?” Nora said.
Theresa looked surprised, and then she smiled.
“No,” she said. “Not usually.”
Nora was already imagining the two of them driv
ing to Hull, Theresa’s packed suitcase in the back. They could stop at the beach for a minute, look out at the ocean. There were so many things she wanted to tell her sister.
“I shouldn’t have acted that way last night,” Nora said. “Please forgive me.”
Theresa bowed her head. She opened the door wider, as far as it would go.
“Nora, forgive me,” she said. “Come in.”
Acknowledgments
I am, as always, indebted to my editor, Jenny Jackson, and my agent, Brettne Bloom, both of whom worked tirelessly on this book. And to the friends and family members who took the time to read various drafts and provide invaluable feedback at every stage: Helen Ellis; Liz Egan; Stuart Nadler; Hilary Black; Ann Napolitano; my husband, Kevin Johannesen; and my parents, Joyce and Eugene Sullivan.
Though the words, thoughts, and actions of my characters are entirely fictional, many people helped me establish the facts of their world. For sharing stories of the ocean crossing and the Boston Irish in the 1950s and onward, I am grateful to Jack Cronin, Mary Sheehan, Kathleen Ahern, Mary McCarthy, Catherine Wyse, Caitlain Hutto, Owen O’Neill, and Ralph Cafarelli. Thank you all for answering my many questions.
In Ireland, interviews with Madeleine McCarthy, Mary O’Halloran, Patsy Jones, Kitty Meade, Charlie Lynch, Cyril Jones, and Harry Hughes aided me in painting a picture of Miltown Malbay, the town where my great-grandmother was born. Thanks to Cormac McCarthy at Cuimhneamh an Chláir and Séamus Mac Mathúna at Oidhreacht an Chláir for making it possible. And to my cousins, Mary and Pat Meade, who were so welcoming to us.
Thank you to Mother Abbess Lucia Kuppens and everyone at the Abbey of Regina Laudis, who showed me such warmth and hospitality. And to my aunt, Nancy Hickey, and Martha Kuppens for telling me about the abbey in the first place.
Two documentaries were of great assistance. Malbay Manufacturing and Dalgais Labels, made by Youthreach Miltown Malbay, helped me fill in the details of Nora’s work. And HBO’s God Is the Bigger Elvis transported me back to Regina Laudis after I returned home.
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