Her face turned even pinker. “I’m just being practical. We’re going to go one of these days, Daddy, you’d better get used to the idea.”
“You’ve talked Joe into it?”
“I didn’t have to talk him into it,” she shot back. “There’s nothing for us here.”
“What about Dublin?” He’d temporarily forgotten his search for the keys. “I thought that was something you were considering.”
“Dublin.” She made a face. “I don’t want to go to Dublin. It’s the States for us. California.”
This wasn’t the time to talk about it, he decided. He resumed his search for the keys, pulling out cabinet drawers, even checking the fridge just in case. Nothing. He headed for the door, but Tara stood in the entrance blocking his way.
“Daddy.” Her eyes were intent on his face. “Will you just let me say one thing?”
“Not if it’s about—”
“Do you know the term synchronicity?”
“Is it something you eat with chips?”
“Daddy.”
“No, I don’t know the term.”
“It means things happen for a reason.”
“Tara.”
“Listen to me, Daddy. Joe and I have been talking about going to America for a long time now, but nothing really fell into place. We just decided that the time wasn’t right. But then—” her eyes widened with the importance of what she was about to say “—this woman, Eileen, this big successful woman, comes home for a visit—”
“Do you know the term coincidence?”
“There is no such thing as coincidence, Daddy,” she said in the same patient tone she’d tell a small child there was no dragon under the bed. “Everything happens for a reason. It’s all part of a plan. You don’t know it, maybe Eileen herself doesn’t know it, but she’s coming here now, at this time, because we’re meant to go to America.”
As Kieran opened his mouth to speak, Deirdre appeared in the doorway behind Tara, a pile of folded sheets in her arms, her face thunderous.
“I’ve never heard such a load of cod in my entire life,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think some sort of virus had infected the lot of you, making you all light in the head. I’ve a good mind to take a holiday myself, get away until this whole visit is over. And Kieran,” she dangled the keys in front of him, “you left them on the car bonnet, nice and handy should someone want to make off with it.”
With all that, he arrived at the airport twenty minutes before the flight was due. Inside the terminal building, he stood before a flickering monitor while people with dazed and vacant looks milled about him.
He hadn’t been nervous about meeting up with Eileen again, or at least he hadn’t thought so, and it wasn’t that he was nervous now. A bit rattled was more like it, if for no other reason than the prospect of Tara and the baby leaving. And that look in Tara’s eyes when she’d been going on about whatever it was she’d called it—that had shaken him a bit, too. His inclination had been, still was, to scoff at that sort of thing. New-age psycho-babble was what he thought of it, but lately—maybe it was age, he didn’t know—he’d found himself having thoughts along the same lines. The way you could plot and plan your life and then, out of the blue, something happens to change everything. Like Libby dying, or thinking that they had all the time in the world to have more children. You just never knew and that was the truth of it.
And what if there was something to all that? What if it wasn’t just chance that Eileen was coming home at this time? What if someone up there had it all worked out and Eileen herself was, at this very moment, some sort of instrument of change flying into all of their lives?
He shook the thought away. A load of cod as Deirdre would say. He glanced at his watch, saw he still had fifteen minutes before her flight arrived, and walked over to a café and ordered a coffee. He’d have loved a pint, but meeting Eileen with beer on his breath didn’t seem like a good idea. While he drank the coffee, he found himself wondering about Eileen and her gentleman friend. As he helped her into the car that had definitely seen better days, would she be comparing him to this American joker? Thinking to herself she’d made the right choice twenty-five years ago?
Eileen, when he knew her, had been small and pretty. Agile, as quick on her feet as she’d been with a quip. She’d had the most beautiful forehead—seemed like a funny thing to single out, but it was true. Smooth and pale, her hair springing back from it as though it had a life of its own, and long sweeping brows that never seemed penciled or plucked the hell away the way most girls wore them.
He spooned sugar into his coffee, noticing as he did, that the right cuff of his shirt was frayed. Ah well.
EILEEN STOOD in the Arrivals concourse where it had been arranged she would meet up with Kieran. The details had been communicated by her mother who, Eileen realized now, had neglected to say exactly where in Arrivals she was to wait.
With her stack of brand-new luggage at her feet, her purse looped over her shoulder, she searched the faces of the milling crowd. Would she even recognize him? She yanked at the seat of her jeans. Despite what they’d cost her, they rode up just as uncomfortably as the kind she usually wore. More than anything, she wanted to undo the top button, but she couldn’t because the jacket didn’t come down far enough. Her feet had swollen, her eyes were itching, her hair had gone frizzy and she wanted to find a restroom but she was scared she might miss Kieran, although that might actually be better than letting him see her like this.
She felt dazed and unreal. I’m back in Ireland, she kept telling herself.
She listened to the accents of a couple of girls standing nearby. “Mind you,” one of them was saying, “it could have been worse.” The other agreed, “It could indeed.” I used to sound like that, she thought. A tall guy with blond hair was walking toward her. She licked her lips, pushed back her hair. As he got closer, she saw that he was probably in his twenties. The same age Kieran had been when she last saw him.
She started looking at the faces of older men. Would he be bald? Gray? A paunchy man in a brown wind-breaker glanced her way. She met his eye just long enough to know it wasn’t Kieran. The crowd began to thin.
On the plane she’d had this image of Kieran with roses in his arms, waiting to greet her as she set foot on Irish soil once again. It kept reappearing, an annoying pop-up ad on the computer screen of her mind. She would have had time, after all, to fix herself up. Maybe he’d had an accident. Maybe he’d forgotten altogether. If he didn’t show in five minutes, she’d call her mother. She pulled a piece of gum out of her jean jacket, started to peel off the paper.
“Eileen?”
Oh, my God.
She shoved the unwrapped gum back in her pocket, turned around and there he was smiling widely at her. Kieran. Looking a little uncertain, like maybe he wasn’t sure whether to hug her or shake her hand.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he finally drawled in a terrible parody of a Texas accent. “Name’s Kieran O’Malley, but mah friends all call me Blue. On account of the eyes.”
She laughed, pulling him close in a big bear hug. Smiling into his shoulder, her chin buried in the tweed of his jacket. Kieran. She pulled away to drink in the details of his face. A few lines around the eyes, the usual stuff, a little more weight about him, but it was Kieran, no doubt about that. All the strangeness she’d feared vanished in an instant.
“God, it’s good to see you,” she said impulsively. “I’ve been eyeing all these men because I’d no idea what you would look like after all this time.”
“Have you?” He was still smiling. “D’you see anything that struck your fancy?”
She shrugged. Not until you walked up, she thought.
“Sorry I wasn’t there when you got off the plane,” he said. “I’d allowed plenty of time, enough to have a coffee, but then I got lost in thoughts…”
His voice trailed off and as people circled around them, they stood there motionless, cataloguing the changes. He looked�
��like Kieran. An older version than the one she remembered the day she flung her engagement ring across the room at him. His hair still thick but threaded with gray now. A tweed jacket, open-necked shirt.
I rejected this. She shook away the thought.
“This is so incredibly strange,” she heard herself babbling. “I get onto a plane in L.A., fly for God knows how long, get off in Ireland and here you are.”
“It’s called modern travel, I believe,” he said.
She smacked his arm. “Wise guy.”
They were both grinning like idiots still, relief it seemed that the first hurdle had been passed. Take away the changes the years had wrought and they were the same old Kieran and Eileen.
“You sound like a Yank,” he said.
“I guess I am.”
“You guess? I’d think after twenty-five years there wouldn’t be much doubt.”
“You’d think so,” she agreed. “But…I don’t know. Even after I became a citizen, I still had this feeling of not quite belonging. In the States I’ll always be Irish, here I’m a Yank. It’s weird.”
“You look…very different,” he said. “If I hadn’t seen the pictures over the years, I’m not sure I’d have recognized you.”
Vanity reared its head. Different in what way, she wanted to ask. Older? Better? Instead she glanced down at the luggage at her feet. “Well…shall we? Are you parked nearby, or should I take off these boots that are absolutely killing me?”
He laughed, grabbed two of the heaviest suitcases and headed toward the exit. “It’s a bit of a walk…the closest spot I could find though. You can wait, if you’d like and I’ll bring the car around.”
“That’s okay,” she said, “I’ll walk.”
“You might want to take off the boots,” he said with a glance at her feet. “They look like weapons of medieval torture. Smart though, I’ll say that. My daughter will be wanting to borrow them.”
“Your daughter,” she said. “Wow, that sounds so strange. She’s how old now?”
“Twenty-six.” He glanced at her. “Older than you were when you left and now she’s a mind to do the same thing.”
“Go to the States?”
“Right. She has a husband in the gardai and a four-month-old baby and she thinks they could all do a lot better in America than they can here.” Another glance at her. “California, they’re thinking.”
She shook her head. Something in his voice told her he wasn’t very happy about it. “That would be tough on you, I should think.”
He laughed, a short bitter bark. “You could say that, but there’ll be time enough to discuss it. If I don’t bring the matter up, Tara will. She’s convinced it’s the reason you’re here.”
“Huh?”
“Ach, it’s a load of mystical nonsense. Pay no attention to me, I shouldn’t have mentioned it before we’re even out of the airport.”
But you did, she thought. Which says a whole lot about how important it must be. They walked along in silence for a few minutes, out of the terminal and into a cool misty morning. I’m home, she told herself. Back in Ireland again.
CHAPTER FOUR
“HAD THE CENTER of the city—William to Quay Street—been pedestrianized when you left?” Kieran asked Eileen as he maneuvered the car into the throng of traffic around Galway.
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, now if I want to go into, Salthill, say, I have to plan my route before I even start driving. Traffic’s heavier than it’s ever been and it can only get worse.”
Eileen, looking through the window, was shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it all. Everything looks so different…and what’s that, that big building over there? I don’t remember that…and that.” Turned in her seat, she was pointing through the window. “Where’s that little shop, what was the name of it?” Now she was turning again, back to face him once more. “This is so strange, Kieran. I mean I know things don’t stay the same but…”
He laughed. It had been like that the entire way, Eileen exclaiming about this or that, shaking her head, wowing to beat the band. And he’d enjoyed every minute of it. If Tara, and—okay he might as well admit it, himself too—had worried about what he and Eileen would find to talk about, they could’ve both spared themselves.
As soon as they’d set eyes on each other again, it seemed to him—and he thought to Eileen, too—it might have been twenty-five minutes, not years since they’d parted.
“Did you notice?” he asked. “How long it took us to get this far? From Shannon into Galway, I mean?”
Eileen frowned, glanced at her watch. “Not really. Why?”
“Even ten years ago, when there were fewer cars, I’d allow about eighty minutes. Today, it took…” he pushed up his sleeve to check his watch “…two hours and twenty-five minutes.”
“As bad as L.A.,” she said. “Complaining about the traffic is part of life there. Nothing ever happens though except they build even more freeways and houses farther and farther away. People spend three hours every day on the freeway and think nothing of it.”
“Tell that to Tara,” he said before he could stop himself. It was good being with Eileen again, just talking casually and he never intended to bring up the whole matter of his daughter again but Tara was never far from his thoughts. “Sorry,” he said. “She’s just on my mind.”
“If there’s anything I can do…? Set her straight about what it’s really like?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see. She’s eager to meet you.”
Eileen smiled, a bit wistful suddenly.
“What will you do while you’re here, Eilie?”
“I know my mother’s probably got something planned for every day. I’d like to take some long walks, do a lot of thinking.”
“Well…if you find yourself in need of some company…”
She turned to look at him. “I’d like that.”
“After all, you’ll need someone to show you around Clonkill.”
“Clonkill? What’s there to show?”
“Ah well, there’s been big changes. The news agents is now a Tandoori takeaway and remember Cleggans bar? It’s a gentleman’s club now, if you please. Not that I’d have any firsthand experience of it, of course.”
Eileen laughed and then, encouraged, he started laying it on thick, talking about all the changes, some real, some created for her entertainment. The housing developments where fields used to be, the airport and a shopping mall built over the bogs, the bowling alley and the cinema.
“And now for the biggest surprise of all.” He turned into a lane on the edge of the village and pulled up outside a small cottage with a sagging roof and a few listless chickens in the yard. A farmer standing by a donkey with a badly sagging back gave them a passing glance.
“Your mammy’s new house,” Kieran said.
Eileen, her back to him, appeared frozen.
“And there’s your mammy herself,” he said as an old woman dressed in black appeared at the door wiping her hands on an apron.
Eileen whipped around to look at him and he burst out laughing. In a minute, she was laughing too, tears running down her face. Over her shoulder, he could see the old woman watching them. He gave her a little wave.
Five minutes later, they were at Mrs. D’s.
A banner over the door said Welcome Home Eileen.
As he pulled up, the front door was thrown wide open and half the population of Ireland, led by Mrs. D, came spilling out, arms outstretched. He reached over, squeezed Eileen’s shoulder. A moment later, she was out of the car and lost to the mob.
He carried Eileen’s suitcases inside the house and up the stairs to her bedroom, came down again and found her, still in the front garden, being hugged and kissed and looking more than a bit dazed. He tried to imagine her reaction if he hadn’t been able to talk Mrs. D out of hiring a brass band.
“Sure you haven’t changed a bit,” he heard someone lying.
; “Where are your suitcases?” Mrs. D wanted to know. “You brought the dress you wore to the Oscars, I hope.”
“…and here’s your Uncle Fred’s boy, Conor.” Someone had pushed a gangly teenager at her.
“Sure the whole town wanted to come out to meet you,” Mrs. D was saying now. “I didn’t like turning anyone away, but then I thought, no I’d like some time alone with my daughter before everyone else gets their hands on her. Now I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.”
“Have you a house on the beach, Eileen?” someone was asking.
By some sort of miracle, Kieran managed to catch her eye. “Bye,” he mouthed. Then he winked and left her to it.
“DEIRDRE?” Eileen’s mother looked about, her expression absent as though Deirdre were a pair of eyeglasses she’d just set down. “Wasn’t she here earlier? Sure, there was such a crowd, I couldn’t tell. Now Eilie, what can I get you? A glass of sherry?”
“I’m fine, Mammy.” All the presents she’d brought for everyone, expensive and elaborately gift-wrapped, had been distributed—except for Deirdre’s and Kieran’s. When she’d shopped for Kieran’s she’d only been able to guess how things would be with them and she’d bought him a sweater—the neutral sort of thing you could give to a brother, or a best friend. After their ride from Shannon, a certain promise in the way they’d laughed and talked together, she was sorry she hadn’t chosen something more…meaningful, although red boxers with hearts would’ve probably been jumping the gun.
Her gift to Deirdre had been turquoise jewelry—bracelets, earrings and a necklace she’d bought during a weekend trip to San Diego. At the time, she’d realized she knew nothing at all about her sister, not even her dress size, thus the jewelry. And although there had been God knows how many people there to welcome her home, she was fairly certain Deirdre hadn’t been among them.
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