"No." As if on cue she heard the sound of a tractor, then saw Murphy riding in the far field. "I'm concentrating on my career."
"I know how that is." Maggie lifted her hand in a wave. "He'll be going back to his bog to cut turf. It's a fine day for it, and he prefers peat to wood or coal."
Peat fires and bogs, Shannon thought. But God, didn't he look fine riding over his land with the sun streaming down on him. "Will he do it all alone?"
"No, there'll be help. It's rare that a man cuts turf by himself. Not many do it now, it takes such time and effort. But Murphy always makes use of what he has." Maggie paused a minute to turn a slow circle. "He'll have a fine crop this year. After his father died, he put everything he is into this place. And he's made it shine like his father, and mine, never could." As they walked again, she slanted Shannon a look. "This was Concannon land once."
"Murphy mentioned that he'd bought it." They went over the next wall. They were close to the farmhouse now, and Shannon could see chickens scratching in the yard. "Was this your house, then, before?"
"Yes, but not in my memory. We grew up at Blackthorn. If you go back a few generations, the Muldoons and Concannons were related. There were brothers you see, who inherited all the land here, and split it between them. One couldn't but plant a seed that it would spring out of the earth. And the other seemed to grow nothing but rocks. But it's said he drank more than he plowed.
There was jealousy and temper between them, and their wives wouldn't speak if they met face to face."
"Cozy," Shannon commented and was too intrigued to remember to put the borrowed jacket on the back stoop.
"And one fine day the second brother, the one who preferred beer to fertilizer, disappeared. Vanished. In the way of the inheritance, the first brother owned all the land now. He let his brother's wife and children stay in the cottage-which would be my house now. Some said he did so out of guilt, for it was suspected that he did away with his brother."
"Killed him?" Surprised, Shannon glanced over. "What's this? Cain and Abel?"
"A bit like, I suppose. Though the murdering brother inherited the garden rather than being banished from it. Their name was Concannon, and as time passed one of the daughters of the missing brother married a Muldoon. They were given a slice of land by her uncle and worked it well. And over the years the tide turned. Now it's Muldoon land, and the Concannons have only the edges."
"And you don't resent that?"
"Why should I? It's fair justice. And even if it weren't, even if that long ago brother fell into some bog in a drunken stupor, it's Murphy who loves the land as my own da never did. Here we are. This is what's mine."
"It's a lovely house." And it was, she mused, studying it. A bit more than a cottage, she decided, though that was certainly the heart of it. The pretty stone that was so typical of the area rose up two floors. There was an interesting jog in the line of it, what she assumed was an addition. And the artist's touch, she thought, in the trim that was painted a peacock purple.
"We added to it, so that Rogan could have office space, and there'd be a room for Liam." Maggie shook her head as she turned away. "And, of course, the man insisted we add another room or two while we were about it. Already planning a brood, though that slipped past me at the time."
"Looks like you're accommodating him."
"Oh, he's blissful at the idea of family, is Rogan. Comes from being an only child, perhaps. And I've discovered I feel much the same. I've a knack for motherhood, and a pride in it. Strange how one person can change everything."
"I don't think I realized how much you love him," Shannon said quietly. "You seem so ... individual."
"What's one to do with the other?" Maggie let out a breath and frowned at the stone building that was her solitude, her sanctuary. Her shop. "Well, let's do this then. But the deal says nothing about you putting your hands all over things."
"The famed Irish hospitality."
"Bugger it," Maggie said with a grin and crossed over to open the door.
The heat was a shock. It explained the rumbling roar Shannon had begun to hear a full field away. The furnace was lit. Realizing it made her feel guilty for keeping Maggie from work.
"I'm sorry. I didn't realize I'd be holding you up."
"I've nothing pressing."
The guilt didn't have a chance against fascination. Benches, shelves were stacked with tools, scattered sheets of paper, works in progress. There was a large wooden chair with wide arms, slots, and dips carved and sanded into the sides. Buckets filled with water or sand.
In a corner, like lances stacked, were long metal poles.
"Are those pipes?"
"Pontils. You gather the glass on the end of them, do melts in the furnace. You use the pipe to blow the bubble." Maggie lifted one. "You neck it with the jacks."
"A bubble of glass." Engrossed, Shannon studied the twists and columns, the bowls and tapers Maggie had setting helter-skelter on shelves. "And you make whatever you want with it."
"You make what you feel. You have to do a second gather, roll and chill it to form what we call a skin. You do a lot of the work sitting down in your chair, getting up countless times to go back to the furnace. You have to keep the pontil or the pipe moving, using gravity, fighting it." Maggie tilted her head. "You want to try it?"
Too enthralled to be surprised by the invitation, Shannon grinned. "You bet I do."
"Something simple," Maggie muttered as she began to set things up. "A ball, flat on the bottom. Like a paperweight."
In moments Shannon found her hands encased in heavy gloves with a pontil in her hand. Following instructions, she dipped the tip into the melt, turned it.
"Don't be so greedy," Maggie snapped. "Takes time."
And effort, Shannon discovered. It wasn't work for a weakling. Sweat trickled down her back and went unnoticed when she saw the bubble begin to form on the end of the pipe.
"I did it!"
"No, you haven't." But Maggie guided her hands, showing her how to make the second gather, to roll it over the marble. She explained each step, neither of them fully aware they were working in tandem and enjoying it.
"Oh, it's wonderful." Giddy as a child, Shannon beamed at the glass ball. "Look at those swirls of color in it."
"No use making something ugly. You'll use this to flatten the base. Careful now, that's good. You've got smart hands." She shifted the pipe, showing Shannon how to attach the other end to a pontil. "Now strike it sharp, there."
Shannon blinked when the ball detached from the pipe, holding now to the pontil.
"Back in the furnace first," Maggie instructed, impatient now. "To heat the lip. That's it, not too much. Into the oven it goes. To anneal. Now take that file, strike it again."
When the ball landed on a thick pad of asbestos, Maggie closed the oven in a businesslike manner and set the timer.
"That was wonderful!"
"You did well enough." Maggie bent down to a small refrigerator and took out two cold drinks. "You're not ham-handed or stupid."
"Thanks," Shannon said dryly. She took a long drink. "I think the hands-on lesson overbalanced the bargain."
Maggie smiled. "Then you owe me, don't you?"
"Apparently." Casually Shannon brushed through the sketches littering a workbench. "These are excellent. I saw some of your sketches and paintings in New York."
"I'm not a painter. Rogan isn't one to let any bit of business pass by, so he takes what he likes from them, has them mounted."
"I won't argue that your glasswork is superior to your drawing."
Maggie swallowed the soft drink before she choked. "Won't you?"
"No. But Rogan has an excellent eye, and I'm sure he culls out your best."
"Oh, to be sure. You're the painter, aren't you? I'm sure it takes tremendous talent to draw advertisements."
Challenged, Shannon set down her drink. "You don't really think you're better at it than I am."
"Well, I haven't seen anything of yo
urs, have I? Unless I flipped by in a magazine waiting to have my teeth cleaned."
Shannon set her own and snatched up one of Maggie's hunks of charcoal. It took her longer to find a sketch pad and a clean sheet. While Maggie leaned her hip idly on the edge of the bench, Shannon bent over her work.
She started with fast strokes, annoyance pushing her. Then she began to find the pleasure in it, and the desire for beauty.
"Why, 'tis Liam." Maggie's voice went soft as butter as she saw her son emerge. Shannon was drawing just the head and shoulders, concentrating on that impishness that danced in his eyes and around his mouth. The dark hair was mussed, the lips quirked on the verge of a laugh.
"He always looks as though he's just been in trouble, or looking for it," Shannon murmured as she shaded.
"He does, yes. He's a darling, my Liam. You've caught him so, Shannon."
Alarmed by the catch in Maggie's voice, Shannon glanced over. "You're not going to start crying. Please."
"Hormones." Maggie sniffled and shook her head. "Now I suppose I'll have to say you've a better hand than I at drawing."
"Acknowledgment accepted." Shannon dashed her initials at the corner of the page, then carefully tore it off. "Fair trade for a paperweight," she said, handing it to Maggie.
"No, it's not. The balance has tipped again. I owe you another boon."
Shannon picked up a rag to wipe the charcoal dust from her hands. She stared at her own fingers. "Tell me about Thomas Concannon."
She didn't know where the need had come from, and was no less surprised than Maggie that she had asked. The question hummed for several long seconds.
"Come inside." Maggie's tone was suddenly gentle, as was the hand she set on Shannon's arm. "We'll have tea and talk of it."
It was there Brianna found them when she walked into Maggie's kitchen with Kayla and a basket of soda bread.
"Oh, Shannon. I didn't know you were here." And she would never have pictured her there, sitting at Maggie's table while Maggie brewed tea. "I ... I brought you some bread, Maggie."
"Thanks. Why don't we slice some up? I'm starving."
"I wasn't going to stay-"
"I think you should." Maggie glanced over her shoulder, met Brianna's eyes. "Kayla's gone to sleep in her carrier, Brie. Why don't you put her down for a nap here?"
"All right." All too aware of the tension in the room, Brianna set the bread down and took the baby out with her.
"She's worried we'll start spitting at each other," Maggie commented. "Brie's not one for fighting."
"She's very gentle."
"She is, yes. Unless you push the wrong spot. Then she's fierce. Always seems fiercer because it's never quite expected. It was she who found the letters your mother wrote. He'd kept them in the attic, you see. In a box where he liked to put things important to him. We didn't go through it, or some of his other things, for a long time after he'd died."
She brought the pot over, sat. "It was difficult for us, and my mother was living with Brie in the house until a couple years ago. To keep what peace could be kept, Brie didn't speak much of Da."
"Were things really so bad between your parents?"
"Worse than bad. They came to each other late in life. It was impulse, and passion. Though he told me there'd been love once, at the start of it."
"Maggie?" Brianna hesitated at the doorway.
"Come and sit. She wants to talk of Da."
Brianna came in, brushing a hand over Shannon's shoulder, perhaps in support, perhaps in gratitude, before she joined them. "I know it's hard for you, Shannon."
"It has to be dealt with. I've been avoiding it." She lifted her gaze, looked closely at each of her sisters. "I want you to understand I had a father."
"I would think it would be a lucky woman who could say she had two," Maggie put in. "Both who loved her." When Shannon shook her head, she barreled on. "He was a loving man. A generous one. Too generous at times. As a father he was kind, and patient, and full of fun. He wasn't wise, nor successful. And he had a habit of leaving a chore half done."
"He was always there if you needed cheering," Brianna murmured. "He had big dreams, outrageous ones, and schemes that were so foolish. He was always after making his fortune, but he died more rich in friends than in money. Do you remember the time, Maggie, when he decided we would raise rabbits, for the pelts?"
"And he built pens for them and bought a pair of those long-haired white ones. Oh, Mother was furious at the money it cost-and the idea of it." Maggie snickered. "Rabbits in the yard."
Brianna chuckled and poured out the tea. "And soon they were. Once they bred he didn't have the heart to sell them off to be skinned. And Maggie and I were wailing at the idea of the little bunnies being killed."
"So we went out one night," Maggie said, picking up the story, "the three of us sneaking about like thieves, and let them out, the mother and father and the babies. And we laughed like fools when they went bounding off into the fields." She sighed and picked up her tea. "He didn't have the heart, or the head, for business. He used to write poetry," she remembered. "Terrible stuff, blank verse. It was always a disappointment to him that he didn't have the words."
Brianna pressed her lips together. "He wasn't happy. He tried to be, and he worked hard as any man could to see that Maggie and I would be. But the house was full of anger, and as we found later, his own sorrow went deeper than anyone could reach. He had pride. He was so proud of you, Maggie."
"He was proud of both of us. He fought a terrible battle with Mother to see that I went to Venice to study. He wouldn't back down from that. And what he won for me cost him, and Brianna."
"It didn't-"
"It did." Maggie cut Brianna off. "All of us knew it. With me gone there was no choice but to lean on you, to depend on you to see to the house, to her, to everything."
"It was what I wanted, too."
"He'd have given you the moon if he could." Maggie laid a hand over Brianna's. "You were his rose. It was how he spoke of you the day he died."
"How did he die?" Shannon asked. It was hard to put the picture together, but she was beginning to see a man, flesh and blood, faults and virtues. "Was he ill?"
"He was, but none of us knew." It was painful for Maggie, would always be to go back to that day. "I went looking for him, in O'Malley's. I'd just sold my first piece of glass, in Ennis. We celebrated there. It was a huge day for both of us. It was cold, threatening rain, but he asked me to drive with him. We went out to Loop Head, as he often did."
"Loop Head." Shannon's heart stuttered, clutched.
"It was his favorite of all places," Maggie told her. "He liked to stand on the edge of Ireland, looking across the sea toward America."
No, Shannon thought, not toward a place. Toward a person. "My mother told me they met there. They met at Loop Head."
"Oh." Brianna folded her hands and looked down at them. "Oh, poor Da. He must have seen her every time he went there."
"It was her name he said, when he was dying." Maggie didn't mind the tears, and let them fall. "It was cold, bitter cold, and windy, with the rain just beginning to blow in. I was asking him why, why he'd stayed all these years in unhappiness. He tried to tell me, to explain that it takes two people to make a marriage good or bad. I didn't want to hear it. And I wondered if there'd ever been anyone else in his life. And he told me he'd loved someone, and that it was like an arrow in the heart. That he'd had no right to her."
After a shaky breath, she continued. "He staggered and went gray. The pain took him to his knees, and I was so scared, shouting at him to get up, and trying to pull him. He wanted a priest, but it was just the two of us alone there, in the rain. He was telling me to be strong, not to turn my back on my dreams. I couldn't keep the rain off him. He said my name. Then he said Amanda. Just Amanda. And he died."
Abruptly Maggie pushed the chair back and walked out of the room.
"It hurts her," Brianna murmured. "She had no one to help, had to get Da into the truck
by herself, drive him all the way back. I need to go to her."
"No, let me. Please." Without waiting for assent, Shannon stood and walked into the front room. Maggie was there, staring out the window.
"I was alone with my mother when she went into the coma she never revived from." Leading with her heart, Shannon stepped closer, laid a hand on Maggie's shoulder. "It wasn't at the end of the earth, and the sun was shining. Technically, she was still alive. But I knew I'd lost her. There was no one there to help."
Saying nothing, Maggie lifted her hand, rested it over Shannon's.
"It was the day she told me about-myself. About her and Tom Concannon. I was angry and hurt and said things to her I can never take back. I know that she loved my father. She loved Colin Bodine. And I know she was thinking of her Tommy when she left me."
"Do we blame them?" Maggie said quietly.
"I don't know. I'm still angry, and I'm still hurt. And more than anything I don't know who I really am. I was supposed to take after my father. I thought I did." Her voice cracked, and she fought hard to even it again. "The man you and Brie described is a stranger to me, and I'm not sure if I can care."
"I know about the anger. I feel it, too. And I know, for different reasons, what it's like to not be sure who and what is really inside you."
"He wouldn't have asked for more than you could give, Shannon." Brianna stepped into the room. "He never asked that of anyone." She slipped her hand over Shannon's so that the three of them stood together, looking out. "We're family, by the blood. It's up to us to decide if we can be family by the heart."
Chapter Twelve
She had a great deal to think about, and wanted the time to do it. Shannon knew she'd turned one very sharp corner in Maggie's kitchen.
She had sisters.
She couldn't deny the connection any longer, nor could she seem to stop the spread of emotion. She cared about them, their families, their lives. When she was back in New York, she imagined the contact would continue, with letters, calls, occasional visits. She could even see herself returning to Blackthorn Cottage for a week or two now and again through the years.
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