“I’m just glad I didn’t meet them when they were twelve,” I said. Everyone laughed, and for a while we talked of other things.
When there were thirty seconds left in the match, I excused myself and made for the front door. “You didn’t tell us you smoked,” Leo called after me. He’d rolled one earlier but hadn’t gone out all evening, no doubt because of the company on the sidewalk.
“I don’t,” I replied from the doorway. “I just need some air. I’ll be back in a few.”
There was a little grocery shop across the street, open late. I hadn’t bought a pack of cigarettes in at least a half a dozen years. In my jacket pocket I had a matchbox I’d picked from a bowl at the bar the evening before.
When I left the shop, the men were outside again. The match was over, their team had lost, and the looks on their faces were even more sour than when I’d first seen them.
I stopped a few feet away, lit a cigarette, and waited for someone to speak to me. They ignored me at first, but I knew they weren’t going anywhere. The end of the match never meant the last of the Guinness.
After a few minutes, some of the men heeled out their cigarettes and went back in. Hennessey and his friend remained, silently finishing their smokes and eyeing me warily. They reminded me of wolves who hadn’t had anything to eat all winter long, only in this case, they were hungry for an argument.
“What’s the crack?” the second man said finally.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never got your name.”
“Yeats,” he said as he flicked what was left of his cigarette into a puddle in the road. “Willy B. Yeats.”
“Well,” I replied as I held out the pack of Player’s. “I never thought I’d be offering a cigarette to a dead poet.”
He pulled one out, stuck it in his mouth, and spoke through pursed lips. “Sure, we never stop needin’ a bit o’ comfort on a cold night,” he said in a quavering falsetto, like the voice of an old Irishwoman, and his friend snickered.
“Can we cut the bullshit?” I asked.
Willy arched an eyebrow as he brought his lighter to the end of the cigarette. The spark momentarily threw a red glow over his wolfish features. “Just like a Yank.”
“You don’t like me asking questions about the apparition? Is that it?”
He took a deep drag. “Now, whatever gave you that idea?”
“Sarcasm duly noted,” I replied. “I’m going to assume there’s a legitimate reason for this hostility, and I’d really like to hear what it is.”
“I’ll tell ya what it is,” Hennessey said. “You come back here in your little Nissan Micra, talkin’ all this shite because you think you’ve a claim to the place.”
“A claim to the place,” I echoed. “What’s that supposed to mean? I only came here to go to a funeral.”
“Aye, and look where you’ve been since then,” Willy scoffed. “They say you’ve been all the way up Benbulben to see the fairy queen.”
Smoke streamed out of Hennessey’s mouth as he laughed. “Aye! To rescue her!”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you guys gossip like a bunch of old women?”
I was surprised this comment provoked no reaction. Hennessey finished his cigarette, and again I held out my open pack. “See, this here’s the trouble with you Yanks,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with you. Do ya see?”
“But what does it have to do with you either?” I asked. “Is it just because you were born in Ballymorris that you feel like you own whatever happens here?”
For a minute no one spoke. A scowl, apparently, was all I’d get from Hennessey for an answer.
“You know nothin’ about anythin’,” Willy said finally. “You know feck all.”
“You’re right,” I said. “So why don’t you tell me?” I looked at their crow’s-feet and the silver at their temples. They could’ve been friends with Declan, back in the day. Of course they had been. “Was it real?” I asked.
Willy shook his head. “And I’d know feck all if I thought I’d an answer to that.”
“It was something.” Hennessey stared down through the pavement with his arms crossed, cigarette crimped between his lips, breathing the smoke out and in like an automaton. “It was something—whatever it was.”
“It?” I asked, as the face of the boy on the hill flickered before me.
The man took the cigarette away from his mouth and looked at me as he exhaled. “If you really think it was the Blessed Virgin Mary they saw up there, then you’re every bit as daft as we took you for.”
* * *
My room at the B and B bore a similarity to Brona’s spare room—maybe it was the vague whiff of mold—and though I had a full-size bed, it wasn’t any more comfortable. The little room was crowded with furniture, a floral armchair blocked the door to the wardrobe, and the faded print of Christ and his crown of thorns above the bureau mirror made me cringe. At least my grandmother couldn’t nag me afterward about putting Brona out.
I switched off the light and felt the springs dig into my ribs as I settled onto my side. I thought of listening to Síle’s second interview tape, but I was already so riled up that if I did, I’d probably never get to sleep. What had they implied about the apparition—that it was real, but something only pretending to be the Virgin Mary? How had they come to believe that?
As I was finally nodding off, lulled by the analog alarm clock ticking softly at my ear, I suddenly rose with a start. I could have sworn I heard someone, a woman, sigh.
6
NOVEMBER 10
After the listlessness of the day before, I was even more determined to drive back up to Sligo after breakfast. My hostess at the B and B was on the chatty side, but she didn’t seem to mind when I put on my headphones once she’d brought out my plate of eggs and black pudding. Síle’s second interview tape was dated the third of March—a week after the first tape.
FATHER DOWD
Did the Blessed Mother reveal herself to you in any way?
SÍLE
(puzzled)
How do ya mean, Father?
FATHER DOWD
I’m only attempting to reconcile your account with the others’.
SÍLE
But I don’t know what you mean by “reveal Herself.”
FATHER DOWD
(smugly)
You’d know it, if she had.
SÍLE
But I might. There are things I’m not supposed to talk about yet.
FATHER DOWD
Did she tell you not to speak of them?
SÍLE
She said She’d tell me when the time had come to tell you.
FATHER DOWD
Pardon my cynicism, but that’s rather convenient.
SÍLE
I’m only tellin’ ya what She said to me.
FATHER DOWD
The Blessed Mother didn’t give any sort of secret knowledge to the others. Tess spoke of no such thing.
SÍLE
It isn’t always when we see Her on the hill. Other times, too.
FATHER DOWD
(taken aback)
She doesn’t only come to you at the grotto?
SÍLE
(nodding)
There’s a voice at my ear, tellin’ me things. It might be Our Lady’s voice, but I can’t say for certain.
The priest’s brow furrows in concern. This young girl is even more troubled than he suspected.
FATHER DOWD
What sort of things?
SÍLE
She tells me if someone’s about to call by, or if someone’s going to ring, and they always do. Or I’ll know somebody’s name before they tell it to me.
FATHER DOWD
(scoffing)
And just when d’you ever meet anyone new to you?
SÍLE
Yesterday there was a girl down at the shop with her parents. They were only drivin’ through town on their way to Derry. She smiled at me, and I told her I could guess her name, and I was right. It was Alice.
FATHER DOWD
It must have been embroidered on her jacket.
SÍLE
It wasn’t, Father. I didn’t see it anywhere, I only heard “Alice” in my ear. A whisper, like. She had dark hair; she didn’t even look like an Alice.
FATHER DOWD
Why do you think Our Lady is telling you these things? What purpose does it serve?
SÍLE
She’s askin’ me to trust Her. I told Her I trusted Her from the very beginning, but She says every foundation must start from the ground. If I hear right when it’s only the small things, I know I can trust Her about the big things when the time comes.
FATHER DOWD
(with the tired air of a skeptic)
And what are these “big things”?
SÍLE
I don’t know. But someday I’ll know things that will matter, and when that day comes, I’ll tell you straight away.
FATHER DOWD
You confound me, Síle. Every time we sit down to speak, you confound me. None of the others have heard what you’ve heard. No wonder the bishop is looking on all this as if it were a Gypsy carnival. So much talk, but too few answers and precious little sense.
SÍLE
I know it seems that way, Father. She’s telling Tess something else altogether. We’ve asked Her about it, but the Blessed Mother says not to fret about it, that it’s all part of loving us equal but different.
FATHER DOWD
(sighs)
Let me put it to you this way, Síle. You can’t say whatever you like and expect the world to hang on your every word. There’s no proof in anything you’ve said to me, only imaginings, or at least that’s how the bishop is inclined to see it. If you’ve a message for the world—if Our Lady is truly appearing to you—then I must have consistency among your accounts, or no one will heed your story. Do you understand?
Síle’s response wasn’t audible, whatever it was, and the priest sighed one more time for good measure before he came down on the STOP button.
* * *
After a perfunctory pat down, Martin accompanied me up the stairs to Síle’s room, and this time she met me at the door. “It’s a lovely day,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk on the strand.”
“They really let you out for walks?” I asked.
She cast me a sly look as she shrugged on her jacket. “They let me do more than you think.”
I may have imagined the glance that passed between Síle and Martin as we came out of her room. The orderly followed at a discreet distance as we went down a set of service stairs and out the back door. “Tell me the truth,” I said quietly as we passed into the garden. “What’s it really like, living here? Don’t you want out as soon as possible?”
“I don’t think much about leaving. Not just yet.”
“But you won’t live here forever,” I prompted. It occurred to me then that it was Saturday, and Dr. Kiely probably had weekends off.
“That’s true. But it’s where I live today, and where I’ll live tomorrow, and probably the day after, too. As for the day after that, now, who’s to say?”
We passed through a gate in the high stone wall, onto a narrow concrete path leading through the dunes, and I watched as she pulled off her shoes and socks.
“You sure you want to go barefoot?” I asked as she stowed her sneakers just off the paved walkway. “It’s freezing out.”
“For you, maybe.” She cast a smile over her shoulder as we passed softly onto the sand. “We always talk about me. What have you been up to the last twenty-five years?”
I glanced back and saw Martin standing at the gate watching us. “I’m not nearly as interesting as you are.”
“I don’t believe it,” she said. “Tell me something. Something important. Something you’d never tell anyone else.”
The beach was at least a mile long, and we were the only people on it. The wind whistled in my ears. “I can’t think of anything.”
She rolled her eyes and held out her palm. “Give me your hand.”
“Not this again.”
“No, not that again.” She held my hand as if it were an artifact, something to be handled very gently. Slowly, deliberately, she pushed back my sleeve, and her fingertip tickled like a feather across the inscription on the inside of my wrist:
MALLORY
∞
We looked at each other. “You must’ve noticed it the last time I was here,” I said.
Síle shook her head. “I think of her,” she said gently. “They brought us up here every summer, but when I walk this strand, I can only remember the day you and Mallory came with us.”
I gave her what I hoped she’d take for a grateful look. “Do you have any tattoos?” I asked.
“I do,” she laughed. “I’ve loads of them.”
I couldn’t help glancing below her neck. She was wearing a rather low-cut T-shirt under her open jacket, but the skin was unmarked. “Where? I don’t see any.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I don’t believe in makin’ ’em too easy to spot.” She went on walking, and a minute later, she pointed to the rolling green line along the northern horizon. “That’s Donegal.” She indicated the high, flat hill directly ahead of us, a few miles distant. “And that’s Benbulben, as you may recall.”
A mocking voice murmured in my ear: They say you’ve been all the way up Benbulben to see the fairy queen! Today it seemed like so much more than a silly insult. She had only to trade her jeans for a moss-green gown to take her rightful place in the folklore.
“It’s a magical spot,” Síle was saying. “Yeats liked to write about it.” Then she aimed her finger at a rocky outcropping maybe a mile beyond the end of the beach. “And you see that castle over there? A German family bought that place not too long ago. How’d you like to live in a castle?”
“Ask me when I’m warmer.”
Síle laughed, and laughed again as the wind jostled us together.
“How well do you remember that day?” she asked.
I thought of Tess, how the color of her hair changed whenever the clouds obscured the sun. The day came back to me as if it were still happening all around us: Síle and my sister racing in their bathing suits to the far reaches of the shoreline, snatches of laughter carried back on the wind. The adults in their beach chairs, John and Gran and Paudie and the Gallaghers, passing around a thermos of tea, and then a flask. Tess and Orla in denim cutoffs, whispering between themselves. Tess looking over her shoulder, smiling, drawing me in.
And it hit me then: the woman I’d met here, when I’d wandered away from the others to dig for sand crabs. She must have been a patient at Ardmeen House.
“They told us it was a car accident,” Síle was saying. “But you weren’t in the car?”
I shook my head. “She was coming home from a basketball tournament.” An elderly driver had blown through a red light and rammed the backseat passenger side. Everyone else in her friend’s mom’s station wagon survived.
“We were fourteen,” Síle said softly.
I felt as if something cold and hard had lodged itself in my throat. I couldn’t tell her that the infinity symbol had been the tattoo artist’s idea, not mine, or of how my mother clung to me and cried when she first saw the name etched on my wrist. Síle saw a lot of things, but she’d never know how false I’d been, getting that tattoo when I didn’t feel everything I should have felt.
“She was different with you,” I said.
“How was she different?”
“She was happy.”
“She wasn’t always?”
I hunched my shoulders as if bad posture could get me any warmer. “I don’t remember her that way.”
“Then it’s a good thing I do.” Síle paused. “When you think of her now,” she said slowly, “is she always fourteen?”
I shook my head and kicked at the sand. “She can be other ages. Grown-up. Sometimes I picture her that way.” Mallory, twenty-three, weeping on my shoulder after yet another hea
rtbreak; Mallory, twenty-seven, a diamond glittering on her ring finger as she lifted a martini glass to her lips; Mallory, thirty-one, laughing at the horrible things we did to one another when we were small; Mallory, thirty-three, nestling a baby in the crook of a freckled elbow. Picturing her in this impossible future allowed me to forget, however temporarily, that there was precious little similarity between the brother I could have been to her, and the brother I actually was. I lay awake at night trying not to think of how good it had felt to pinch her till she bruised.
“I can see her, grown,” Síle said, looking over her shoulder at our footprints in the sand. “She has that wild curly hair—how I wanted her hair!—and she’s let it grow long, sort of bohemian-like. She wears fuzzy jumpers and knee-high boots and that American cologne that smells like real smells—like woodsmoke or honeysuckle.”
That wasn’t how I saw my impossible sister at all, but I wasn’t about to say so.
“She lives someplace where it rains,” Síle went on. “Like Seattle. Only it isn’t the real Seattle—it’s a city for everyone who never got the chance to grow up.” I didn’t say anything, and she asked, “Do you believe in a world beyond this one?”
“I don’t know if I do,” I said. “I know you do.”
“I do,” she replied, “but I don’t often speak of it. If you want them to tell you you’re getting better, you have to admit that everything you believe in is probably wrong. Ordinary people don’t have to do that,” she said, though not bitterly. “They’ve the luxury of believing whatever they like.”
“But people here believe in an afterlife,” I said. “Almost everybody’s Catholic.”
“Sometimes I think people are only trying to convince themselves. Go to Mass, and if you look round, you can tell their hearts aren’t in it. They cling to belief, but they’re not believers,” she said. “Not really.”
I thought of the people at morning Mass, all of them droning through their prayers. Comfort, not belief. “You sound like you’ve lost your religion,” I said.
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