The Parting Glass (42 page)

She began to sob.

He could not get to her. His arms felt like lead weights, the way they had the afternoon he had tried so desperately to haul his older son to shore. He had tried and failed to save Mark, and he knew he was failing Bridie the same way now. But he was paralyzed.

“Bridie…” The name sounded as if it had been torn from him. “No. No. You’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong! I know what happened. I know it wouldn’t have happened if I had been there, but I wasn’t!”

He found the strength to reach for her, and he hauled her into his arms, forcing her to his lap. He began to rock her, but for whose comfort he wasn’t certain.

“You’re wrong, so wrong.” He kissed her hair and held her tighter. “I thank God every day, every single day, that you weren’t with us. Because what would I do without you, Bridie? And make no mistake about it, you would have died, too. You couldn’t have helped the others. As good a swimmer as you are, the waves were too high, the water too rough and cold. You would have perished just the way they did. Don’t you know that
you
saved
me,
dearest? You saved my life because I knew I had to get home to you. I would have given up if you hadn’t been waiting. So you did save a life just by staying home that day. You saved mine.”

She turned her face into his shoulder. She was sobbing so hard she could hardly speak. “But…but you…hate me!”

He held her harder. “How can you say that?”

“You act…like you do!”

“Bridie…Bridie.” He smoothed her hair and kissed it, and he wondered when he had last held her this way. After the accident he had been too ill. After his recovery, he had felt too guilty.

“I can’t explain this very well,” he said. “I blame myself, Bridie. The way you do. I…I couldn’t save them. And every time I look at you, I remember that
I’m
the reason they’re gone and you have them with you no longer.”

She put her arms around his neck. “But I still have you.”

He kissed her cheek. “Oh yes, of course you do.” He repeated it fiercely. “Of course you do!”

“And it wasn’t your fault. Everyone says it wasn’t. That you’re the only one in the world who thinks so. Even Gram says so. She says she can’t live with your pain and hers, as well. That’s why she and Granda moved to Belmullet.”

He could not believe that Sheila’s mother had said such a thing to a child. Yet was this worse in its way than not saying anything? To allow Bridie to believe for so long that he held her responsible for the deaths?

By not talking honestly and openly about his own pain and guilt, hadn’t he foisted it on her?

“None of us have shared our suffering as we should have.” Finn continued to rock her. “We’ve let it eat at us separately. I’m sorry, so sorry, that you ever believed, for even one moment, that I didn’t love you. I love you so much it hurts me sometimes, Bridie. But it also gives me the greatest joy.”

“Why couldn’t you eat my dinner, then?”

She was still a child, and this was the question of the day. He tried to think of an excuse, but there had been far too many of them. He settled for the truth.

“I was reminded of other times. It pressed in on me, and for a moment I felt ill, and I couldn’t breathe or swallow. Can you understand that?”

“In the night, sometimes, I feel like someone is sitting on my chest. Is that how it feels?”

He smoothed back her hair and kissed her forehead. “Oh, yes.”

“Will it always be this way?”

He shook his head, but not in denial. He really didn’t know. “Bridie, in the night? When that happens to you? Come in and wake me up. I’ll get up, too, and we’ll make cocoa. I’ll tell you stories of Fionn Mac Cumhail to make it go away.”

She leaned against him, and he held her there for a very long time. Dinner was cold by the time they returned to the house, but neither they nor those inside, who had waited for their return, seemed to care.

chapter 27

“I
feel on top of the world this evening,” Irene said. “And Nora and I have mittens to knit for the annual parish bazaar. She’ll be keeping me company and listening out for Kieran.”

Megan glanced at her sister to see if Irene’s argument was having any effect. It was her second day in Ireland, and she had already learned just how stubborn the deceptively sweet old woman could be. Irene wanted the sisters to have an evening of pub hopping in the village, but Peggy was concerned about leaving for the night.

“When will she be coming?” Peggy asked. “She didn’t say anything to me this morning.”

“Any moment. And we firmed up our plans this afternoon by telephone.”

“Peggy, you’ve been bested,” Megan said. “And Irene would probably like a quiet evening without us. Last night was excitement enough.”

“Last night was a turning point,” Irene said. “And I’m glad I lived to see it. For two years now I’ve watched Bridie and Finn moving like shadows in each other’s company, and I had begun to worry they would never find their way back to each other.” She hesitated. “But it nearly stopped my poor old heart. So yes, a quiet night is just the thing.”

“What do you think?” Megan asked her sister. “Want to show me the sights?”

“I’d love it. I only wish Finn was playing at Tully’s tonight so you could hear him. But he and Bridie went north to see her grandparents for the weekend.”

“And not a moment too soon.” Irene hobbled toward her room to ready herself for company.

“She’ll be all right without Finn on call?” Megan asked once Irene was out of earshot.

“I’ll monitor her and call him in Belmullet if need be. There’s another doctor I can call in a real emergency.”

They settled on a time to leave. Megan put Kieran to bed, tucking him into the crib with his new stuffed bear and his favorite blanket. He seemed oblivious to her presence, but as she left the room he said “hi,” not once but twice. She was thrilled; then she realized how low her expectations had become. Peggy had left for Ireland certain she could work a miracle with her son. But in the months she had been away, Megan was afraid very little had been accomplished.

Megan tried to put that out of her mind as she drove her sister to Shanmullin. They wandered the village, feeding the swans in the brook on the green and chatting with the strangers who stopped to put in a good word. Everyone seemed to know Peggy. Megan wasn’t surprised her sister had already made an impression. Her warmth was bone deep, and Peggy was a born healer. Two minutes into a conversation she had solicited life stories, without even seeming to try. She knew what to say and what not to when silence was required. People felt better just for having spoken to her.

Or at least that was the way her proud sister viewed the matter.

“You like it here, don’t you?” Megan squatted to pet a cat preening on the sidewalk in the last rays of a setting sun. A window opened above their heads, and someone called for Blackie. The cat looked around, as if to be sure no other feline had noticed, then rose majestically and started through an open shop door.

“I do, and I wasn’t sure if I would. I thought of myself as a city girl, but I like the slower pace and the chance to concentrate on limited numbers of people.”

Megan got to her feet. “Would you like to practice in a small town, do you think? Somewhere outside of Cleveland instead of the heart of the city?”

“So much depends on Kieran. I don’t know if I’ll ever really be able to leave him long enough to finish med school.”

They walked slowly, and Megan knew it was time to tell her sister the truth. “I’ve been looking for signs of improvement.”

“And haven’t found many. I know.” Peggy shook her head. “Sometimes I think I’m getting through to him. When he was teething, he took a sharp turn for the better. I don’t know why. But it’s weeks later, and little else has improved now that he’s feeling better. Even his therapist doesn’t seem to have any long-distance answers.”

“Maybe you should come home where you can get him into a good program. You know everyone will help out with the bills.”

“No, I have to give this more of a try. It’s too soon to accept defeat.”

Megan debated her next remark. All day she had pondered ways to introduce Peggy’s relationship with Finn O’Malley into their conversation. Megan had hoped for someone very different for Peggy, a romance hero with shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of the world, a knight who would sweep her off her feet to an easier life. As much as Megan loved Kieran, she was not blind to the lifetime of problems ahead for both the son and his mother. Peggy would need a great deal of support in the years to come.

And what could Finn offer?

Megan decided the opportunity had arrived. “And you don’t want to leave Irene. Or Bridie.” She paused. “Or
Finn.
”

“Here’s Tully’s.” Peggy stopped at a bright yellow door. “It’s my favorite.” She listened. “No music tonight. Maybe it will start later. It might be ten o’clock, but it’s only just turned dark.”

Megan knew better than to push the subject of Finn here and now when her opening gambit had been so soundly rejected. “The Guinness is on me.”

“Did you hit the lottery, Megan?”

“You only live once.”

“Not according to the New Agers. Who knows, we might have been in this very spot a hundred times before.”

They debated that possibility as they found seats at the bar. Tonight was not as crowded as Peggy had expected, but as he readied himself to leave, the man beside her explained. There was a wake at the church, and the departed was known to all. They were invited to come and pay their respects, but Peggy graciously declined.

The bartender arrived and introduced himself as Jimmy. He was a large man, with a bulbous red nose and a wreath of peach-colored hair. Megan would have hired him for the Whiskey Island Saloon on nothing more than his smile. A few minutes later he came back with two brimming pints.

Peggy excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, and Jimmy came back to talk to Megan when he saw that Peggy was gone.

“So what brings you to Ireland?”

She saw her chance to get information. She knew from personal experience how vast were the resources of a bartender.

“Well, I’m in Ireland to visit my sister and meet her friends. She lives with Irene Tierney and spends quite a bit of time with Finn O’Malley and his daughter. I met them both yesterday.”

“Ah yes, the American woman who was just here with you.”

“That’s the one.”

“Yes, she seems to have caught old Finn’s eye.” Jimmy winked.

“He’s a stranger, and that worries me.”

“Worried about Finn? He’s had a bad time of it, but there’s no reason to worry now.”

“Then you like him?”

“Best doctor we ever had in the village. Everyone liked him, from the babies to the dying.”

Megan was less concerned with Finn’s skills as a physician than with his emotional health. “It’s just that she’s still young, and I feel responsible for her.” She hoped that would prompt him to say more, and that if Peggy ever heard about this conversation, she would forgive her.

“So you’re staying at Tierney Cottage?” he asked instead.

“Uh-huh.”

“Now, you want to know secrets about Shanmullin, that would be the place to start. Ask old Irene about her father. You could learn an earful.”

Megan had been poised on the brink of asking more about Finn, but she paused. “Earful?”

“Aye, there’s quite a story there. Old Liam Tierney was either the devil himself or a Republican hero, depending on who tells the tale.”

“I don’t know much about Liam’s years in Ireland.” Megan realized she had just become the champion of understatement. “I’ve hoped to learn more. Irene doesn’t seem to know a lot.”

He frowned, as if to say that was impossible. “Well, it’s no secret, that’s for certain. He left here when he was a lad, and the cottage sat empty for years, just a place for mice and bats, you know.”

“It looks like he might have moved to Cleveland at some point during that time and died there. That’s where I’m from.”

Someone hailed Jimmy to take another order. Megan sipped her Guinness and waited for Peggy to return. Clearly the only story she would get out of Jimmy tonight was about Liam, not Finn.

“I’m back.” Peggy slid onto the seat beside her.

“Listen, Jimmy was just telling me about Liam. Sounds like there might be a real story there. And it sounds like Irene might know more of it than she’s told us.”

Peggy looked surprised. “I don’t see how, Megan. She says she knows very little.”

Jimmy returned. “Can I get you ladies another pint?”

Megan declined, since her glass wasn’t empty. “We’d like to hear about Liam, though, if you know anything more.”

“Oh, there’s lots more. After his mother left the village without so much as a word to anyone, he was sent away by the village priest to an orphanage in the south. He came back here some years later as a married man with a baby and set about trying to fix up Tierney Cottage for Brenna, his wife, and baby Irene. But he couldn’t escape his destiny.”

When Jimmy paused to savor what he knew and they didn’t, Peggy asked the obvious. “What destiny?”

“He was an IRA man, don’t you know, and not afraid to do anything for the cause of a free Ireland. That’s the way I’ve heard it told. In ’23 he killed a man during an ambush and left Mayo and all of Ireland one step in front of the law.”

Megan was trying to remember her Irish history, never a central point of American education. “But didn’t Ireland become independent in 1921 or ’22, when the treaty with Britain was signed?”

“Not so’s you’d know it. We were still forced to have ties with England. Some thought things were fine that way, that we’d move a bit slower but reach a state of total independence in the long run—which we did in ’49, except for the north, of course. But some, like Irene’s da, were convinced things had to happen all at once. And they tried to make sure they did. We had our very own Civil War, you remember.”

“So he killed somebody who didn’t agree with him?”

“A policeman, not just somebody. The Republicans smuggled Liam and his family out of the country and into America.”