“Ailey, no. It hasn’t been your turn yet.”
“Maybe there won’t be any more turns.”
“But you’re the last ones. You and Kate. You’re not thinking about what it’s done for us.”
“Put you in the hospital.”
“Reminded us of who we are. Everything is laid bare with the lace, isn’t it, like Colleen said,” Moira told her. “You’re tired, that’s all. You need to go home and rest.”
“It’s not worth it,” Aileen continued as if Moira hadn’t spoken. “After what happened to you.”
“I could have died, but I didn’t,” Moira said. “I’m still here, and so are you.”
Chapter 23
Wear It Well
Aileen got home well past midnight. Sile and Rourke were asleep, Sile with an arm around her doll, Fi—she still loved her dolls and stuffed animals; the other children, except for her son Tom, who had his beloved Mr. Bear when he was small, hadn’t had much use for them. But Sile, her baby, who was getting breasts and hips, who’d just had her first period at the age of twelve, clung to the remnants of childhood and was still willing, every now and then, to take her mother’s hand.
Rourke must have stayed awake as long as he could, judging by the Dick Francis mystery open on his chest, waiting for Aileen to get home. He was sleeping on his back again, his natural position, to which he returned at every opportunity, catching a few blissful winks until she nudged him to roll over because he was snoring again. Despite the sharpness of Aileen’s general disposition, she could be gentle, and she was gentle with her husband, because in spite of outward appearances—he was a large man—he was more sensitive, easily hurt, than people realized. She stood in the sliver of light from the hall, watching him. He slept on the right side, she on the left. He still had a fine profile. With his hands clasped over his chest, he looked like a sleeping king. All he needed was a crown and scepter.
Aileen didn’t wake the one child who remained in the house, the husband who dreamed. When it was quiet like this, she felt her love for them keenly, touched the mementos on the bookcase, the pictures of her and Rourke at the seaside taken years ago, when he tossed her in the water, shrieking, then dove after her, held her so close it felt as if they were one person, skin to skin. Their faces were soft then, unlined, filled with wonder, at the start of it all. She sighed, thinking of how young they’d been, how quickly the years had passed, incidents, large and small, hurts and joys, passing, passing, until she reached this point, standing in her living room, remembering everything, as the moments continued to slip away, becoming part of the irretrievable past.
Her mind circled in on itself when she stayed up late like this. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. It seemed like such a long time ago that Sorcha called, that Aileen tore down the road to Moira’s house. She knew she should try to get some sleep, but her mind raced, one thought plowing into the next with relentless momentum. It was like being on a sinister carousel; she couldn’t make it stop, couldn’t get off. She looked in Rosheen’s room, clean now, because Aileen had neatened it to cope with her absence, to avoid acknowledging the space devoid of her daughter’s presence, the chaos that was Rosheen. It appeared her daughter had come home, briefly, when Aileen wasn’t there, to retrieve a T-shirt and pair of jeans. Aileen wondered if she timed her visits, spying from the hedge to make sure she was out. The thought saddened her.
She kept thinking a dramatic event would force Rosheen to admit she needed her: that a friend would overdose, or Ronnie would cheat on her, or there would be an accident, and she would call Aileen, her voice shaking, tearful, Mam, please, come get me, Aileen crying too, coming to the rescue at last. Aileen could see it as if she were watching a film, she the star, the mother, who would do anything for her children.
But it wasn’t a movie, was it? There was no phone call. Life didn’t work like that. Not hers, anyway.
There was only that empty room with the fringed purse missing from the doorknob, letting her know Rosheen was moving farther away from her with each passing day, until she’d reach the point of no return. Aileen hoped it didn’t come to that. But what could she do? She felt trapped inside herself, inside that life, clutching the snarled cord of their relationship, seemingly impossible to unravel.
Aileen sat by the window, arms locked across her chest, fingers pressing into her skin hard enough to leave marks. She gazed at the shelled drive, bits of broken cockle and periwinkle glowing dimly in the half-light, the winding lane, deserted now. A scythe of moon pierced a torn cloud. Wings fluttered in the dark, an owl or a bat most likely, though she let herself believe it was Rosheen somewhere nearby. The minutes crept by, Aileen sitting there, waiting, the futility finally too much for her, hands a-fidget in her lap. She had to do something.
And then she knew. She nearly laughed, wondering why she hadn’t thought of it before. She went upstairs, the idea taking shape in her mind. She searched Rosheen’s overstuffed drawers until she found what she was looking for: a plain sensible bra her daughter no longer wore, shoved in the back of the bureau, near some days-of-the-week knickers she wouldn’t be caught dead in now.
Downstairs, at the kitchen table, Aileen took out her scissors and cut. She’d watched Kate lay the foundations; she knew what to do. She labored until morning, not in haste or fury but in concentrated precision, working the lace, the ribbons, until light, not from the buzzing bulb overhead, but the wide open sky, filled the room and revealed what she’d made. She held up her hands, those veined and roughened hands that had changed nappies and washed dishes and done laundry and slapped smart-mouthed faces and clenched in rage, hands that had made this one beautiful thing she hoped her daughter would like.
The finches in the hedgerow, where Rosheen had hidden as a little girl, sang as the sun rose, marking the beginning of another day. Aileen smiled to herself as she laid the bra on her daughter’s bed, where she was sure to find it, the lace a cross and bones on the left breast. It was exquisite, that skull, true.
“I love you,” she whispered. “Wear it well.”
Chapter 24
Famine Ghosts
Sullivan had continued to be distant since the night by the tower. It was as if the walls of that place now stood between him and Kate, keeping them apart. He had to go out of town again, to a craft fair up the coast, he said, selling the pottery, conducting his business, and Kate told herself it was better that way. That perhaps a brief separation would give him the opportunity to realize he missed her, that it was time to talk.
Or would he reach the conclusion that he was better off on his own?
“We need to send out reminder e-mails to the tourist boards about the market,” Bernie said that afternoon. “Why don’t you drop by Sullivan’s and ask to borrow the computer?”
“I don’t think he’s back yet.” He’d promised he’d call as soon as he got in, yet there’d been no word.
“Niall saw the van parked in the drive.”
“Oh.” Kate tried to hide her surprise.
“So you’ll go then?”
Kate hesitated, wondering how long he’d been back, when he planned to contact her. “Shouldn’t I call first?”
“Heavens, you don’t have to have a formal arrangement to visit your neighbors here, not like in the States,” Bernie said. “You just pop over. Do you want to take the Mini?”
“No, the bicycle is fine….” She paused. “But what if he doesn’t want to see me?” At least Kate had a reason for visiting him, an excuse to offer if he seemed startled to find her on his doorstep, when really, she only wanted to see him, touch him, tell him about the incident with Moira and everything else. Perhaps he would finally confide in her, truly let her in.
“Of course he’ll want to see you. A bad dream never kept a man from the woman he cares for.”
The van was in the drive. A curl of smoke rose from the chimney, smelling of peat. Niall was right. Sullivan was home. Kate paused by the gate. Why was her heart beating so h
ard? She didn’t have anything to be afraid of. She put a hand on the crumbled stone, steadying herself, feet on the pedals. She could change her mind. She could be on her way again, but she needed to see him and she had that one legitimate errand to complete, and…She hopped off the bicycle, headed for the door before she lost her nerve. His door. His house. Their separate worlds, joining with the thread of her presence, that knock on the door, the wood hard against her knuckles, no answer at first, so she rapped harder, harder still, wondering where he was, if he couldn’t hear her, because he was in his studio—or because he didn’t want to.
She saw movement behind the curtains, knocked again. She couldn’t believe he might be trying to avoid her.
“All right, all right,” he said, finally opening the door, his shirt dirty, eyes shadowed. He didn’t greet her, didn’t ask her in.
Already, she wished she hadn’t come. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—Is someone there?”
“No.”
“Are you ill?”
“It isn’t a good time, that’s all.”
“I just thought—”
“Thought what?”
“That you, that we might…I haven’t seen you since…”
He rubbed his forehead, smudging charcoal on his skin. He’d been drawing, furiously, judging by the nub of a pencil in his hand. “You can’t come by unannounced and expect me to drop everything—”
“I’m not,” she insisted. “Bernie asked me to see about the computer, is all. She wants to send out some additional releases, and I thought you might be going to Kinnabegs again—”
“Not today. You can have the laptop if you want to take it into town yourself and dial up.”
“We need to talk—”
“Look, I’m really tired, and I have some things on my mind. Let’s not do this now.”
“Do what now?”
“This.”
“Sullivan, please. I know you want—”
“How do you know what I want? You hardly know me.”
She’d never seen his eyes look so cold. “I know…” Her voice shook. She was on the verge of tears.
“Know what?”
She couldn’t say, didn’t want him to think she’d been talking about him behind his back, even if it was with the best of intentions.
“You just walk into my life one day, and you could just as easily walk right out of it,” he said.
“If that’s what you think, then it’s you who doesn’t know me at all.” As she hurried up the path, she heard the door close behind her, and the tears came at last.
She pedaled hard down the lane. She wanted Sullivan to come after her, part of her yearning for the scene, the embrace, the reunion. She still couldn’t believe how cold he’d been. She was stunned and saddened and—oh, she didn’t know what she was, what she thought.
She heard a car, glanced behind her, couldn’t see the driver. The vehicle was too far away, but at the rate it was hurtling down the road, it would be upon her in seconds. The roar filled her ears. Would Sullivan roll down the window? Would he call her name, beg her to stop? Kate, please, wait. Kate, let me explain—
But it wasn’t Sullivan. It was Father Byrne, careening toward her in his Mini, its metal frame rattling like a saber. The exhaust pipe belched puffs of smoke. Kate hugged the wall, waved a hand in front of her face, choking. The car brushed her skirt as he passed, nearly pinning her against the stones. A short distance away, it lurched to a stop, as if the priest were hesitating. Or perhaps the shift was stuck—or he battled the urge to reverse and commit a darker deed. She wouldn’t put it past him. In the end, he roared away, leaving her shaken and splattered with muck.
“I thought you were supposed to pray for people, not run them off the road!” If he’d cut any closer, she could have lost a limb—or her life. “You could have crushed me!”
Even over the rumble of the engine, he would have heard her, for she screamed the words at him, screamed at the top of her lungs. He glanced over his shoulder. She could have sworn he gave her a small, icy smile, as if that was exactly what he intended.
Kate didn’t know where she was going. It didn’t matter as long as she put distance between herself and that house and the priest and everything else. Her grandmother said bad things happened in threes. Well, this was three doubled, wasn’t it—her mother’s death, her washed-up career, the breakup with Ethan, now the priest, Moira, and Sullivan? She’d had enough. Enough. She rocketed along the lanes, over the greens, a blur of skin and hair and cloth. Stupid, stupid, stupid. For letting herself care about Sullivan, about the women, the lace, the priest’s good opinion, any of it. She didn’t care what she hit or what hit her. All she could hear was the gasp of her breath, the jangle of the chain.
She took a wrong turn, headed down a little-traveled track that led to a rocky bay, which lay like an open wound between the hills. She couldn’t go any farther. The land wouldn’t let her. It stopped there, and so would she. She turned the wheel, intending to return to the fork in the road, but her legs failed her. A moment before, she’d been flying, but now, she couldn’t move. She’d have to rest, regain her strength. She put down the kickstand and sat on a slab of limestone, slubbed with the skeletons of sea creatures. The sense of history was strong there. She breathed it with the salty air. It filled her, disturbed her, but she had to take it in. Boulders lay prone on the heath, low walls all that remained of the cottages, their thatch roofs lost to time and neglect. No one had lived there since the Famine, this place with a name no one dared speak, a village no more.
The sea sighed against the shingled beach. She walked among the ruins, ran her fingers along the rough stones, as if she were reading braille. They would not reveal their secrets, not yet. She wandered down to the shore, threw stones in the water, watched them sink, then waded into the surf; the bay numbed her skin and she couldn’t feel her feet and calves. Quartz, flint, chert, jasper. Pieces of things, once whole, part of this land, now broken, cast into the sea. She felt the stirrings of the old desolation.
No. She wouldn’t let it come. She had mastered it. Or nearly so. The loss. Of Ethan. The clothing line. Maybe Sullivan now too.
Her mother most of all. If only she could hear her voice—
She was shaking now, the breeze tugging at her shirt, insistent. It blew through holes in the rocks, making hollow pipe music, notes a low, melancholy fugue.
And something else.
She couldn’t move. The sound transfixed her, a sound so muted, she had to listen hard to hear it at first, listen, against her will.
A woman, crying.
She fell into a chasm that had opened between the past and the present, stumbled up the pebbled shore and into the remains of the village, her numbed limbs barely able to carry her, skin white, bloodless, as she stumbled into one abandoned croft after the next, searching for the source, finding none. She smelled smoke but there were no fires, heard weeping but there were no people, no one she could see, and yet they were there, all around her. She cut her hand, her knee, felt no pain, not yet—keep going, keep going—the stones unyielding, the wail unceasing, the sound her mother made as she lay dying.
“I’m coming,” she cried. “I’m coming.”
The wind settled then but for a moment, gathering itself for something greater, and in that breath of silence, the voice went quiet too. She spun in a circle. Where are you? Please, tell me—
But there was nothing, nothing except the distant screams of the gulls on the cliffs, the only sobs her own, night falling, the sky closing in like the walls of a dark, dark room.
Chapter 25
Lost and Found
Kate opened her eyes to a blackened sky. She sat up in confusion, finding herself in an exposed field, unsure of how much time had passed. Hours perhaps, the stars having shifted in the sky, as if the world were off kilter. She didn’t know where she was, only she had to find her mother. She couldn’t lose her again. She thought she heard a whimper, crawled toward the source. Th
e crying, the crying. Unmarked graves at every turn. There hadn’t been time for burials.
That crying. Her sobs mixed with the sound, as if they were one being, her skin colder still as she went deeper into that place, nothing to pull her back, and yet maybe this was where she was meant to be, this was her fate. She was so tired. She could just close her eyes and sleep.
A dog barked. She hardly registered the noise. She staggered forward, on her feet again, down a nameless road. The sky was bruised, stars flecks of bone. The wind keened in the grass. She heard the dog panting at her heels, paws scrabbling in the dirt. Another ghost? She didn’t turn to look, had to focus on finding her mother, but the dog wouldn’t leave, bumped its head against her hip, barked again. She pushed it away, but it stayed with her, wouldn’t let her be lost to that place.
A car sputtered along behind them, headlights trained on her back. She stood in the middle of the lane, bewildered. She couldn’t hear the crying anymore. “Where are you?”
A door slammed. Footsteps approached. A shape. A person, faceless in the shadows.
“Have you seen her? I have to find her.” Kate fell to her knees, shivering. Blood on her hands, her legs.
“Find who?” Two hands on her arms, holding her at last. “Calm down, Kate. Tell me what’s wrong. Jaysus, look at you—”
Kate. Yes, she had a name. She was there.
“Don’t you recognize me? It’s, Bernie, and Fergus too. We have to get you warm. You’re chilled to the bone.”
“I heard her,” Kate said.
“Who?”
“My mother. She died last February, but she was there—”
She heard a sharp intake of breath.
“Where?” Bernie asked.
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