by Lisa Alber
She hadn’t found that reason yet.
Liam watched her with forehead crinkled in concern. He opened his mouth to say something, but, thankfully, Dermot chose that moment to push his agenda.
“My mom, where is she?” he said.
Halfway through the ledger they came upon a page marked 1991, and thereafter a list of names for that year, plus descriptions and various annotations in the margins. Liam pushed the sheaf toward Merrit. “You do the honors. Your eyes will be faster.”
“Her name was Siobhan.” Dermot’s voice strained against some emotion he barely held in check. “Siobhan McNamara.”
He spelled out the name for Merrit. Pronounced Shiv-awn, she’d never have recognized the word in written form. She felt the weight of their gazes following her finger down the list of names, past the descriptions and simple codes that Liam used to track each person. His writing had changed over the years, and she tried not to succumb to sadness at the sight of the firm and flowing hand that was so at odds with his current crabbed script.
Siobhan McNamara appeared at the bottom of the third page. “Here,” she said.
Glancing up, Merrit caught Gemma’s headshake and fluttering hands. Before they had a chance to read Siobhan’s ledger entry, Gemma had retreated to the fireplace, where she tucked herself into a ball on one of the armchairs and fiddled with one end of her hair scarf.
“She’s bloody petrified now that we might learn something,” Dermot said. “Give me a second.”
Dermot retreated toward Gemma.
Liam angled the ledger page toward himself, read the entry, and sighed with a long whoosh that ended with a cough. “Thank Christ.”
Merrit shifted closer. “You okay?”
“I should be asking you that question, but never mind that for the moment.” He tapped the page. “I wasn’t sure, you see. Still, maybe I could have prevented her death.”
“Don’t say that—”
He waved her into silence and turned his attention toward the fireplace, where Dermot stooped next to Gemma. He whispered in her ear while she twisted her fingers together and shook her head. The troubled tableau stung Merrit into asking if anyone wanted tea. No one answered.
Dermot jumped to with renewed determination shiny as the sweat gleam across his forehead. He stood over Liam’s shoulder and read aloud a portion of Liam’s comments about his mother.
“Widowed and still in love with deceased husband. Hopeful will find love again. Vulnerable with the need. Her truth: it’s too early. She needs more time, but she seems determined.
“That doesn’t make sense,” he continued. “And this ledger is dusty too. You haven’t looked at this thing in years.”
“What are you talking about?” Merrit said. “Face facts. You were wrong. Liam had nothing to do with what happened to your mom.”
Liam tapped the null sign beside Siobhan’s name. “This means that I never saw her again. Sometimes people change their minds or, for other reasons, leave Lisfenora without word to me. You can see that I didn’t plan on matching her anyhow. She wasn’t ready.”
“No, that can’t be.” Color flared on Dermot’s cheeks. “Not after all this. The answer lies with you. It has to. How can it be otherwise?”
“I’m sorry,” Liam said, “but at the same time I’m relieved. That’s a burden I don’t need.”
“You’re sorry. That’s it?”
“Sometimes,” Liam said, “people match themselves and they let me know. Your mother didn’t.”
“Maybe you don’t remember. If you could try harder to remember—”
“No,” Liam said. “The null sign says it all. She left. I use an ‘x’ when people leave but contact me about their decision. Most do let me know, and I note down their reason. They might leave a message at the Information Booth or with one of the pub owners. Your mother didn’t. I never saw her again—”
“Didn’t you think to follow up? My God, man, you state right here that she was vulnerable.”
Liam hesitated. “I’m sure I wondered. I’m good at filtering out the people who are only testing the idea of using me. If they leave then I don’t think anything of it. But your mother—”
“So you did think it odd.”
Merrit stepped between the two men. “Out. Now. Liam didn’t match your mom to your stepdad.”
“What about John McIlvoy?” Dermot said.
Dermot almost tore a ledger page as he hauled the stack toward himself. Merrit tried to push him away, but Dermot responded by elbowing her right back.
“Let him look,” Liam said. “No harm done.”
Dermot traced down the list of names for 1991. And then again. “He has to be here,” he muttered.
“Time to go,” Merrit said. “They met on their own. You’ll have to find your answers elsewhere.”
Without word, Dermot grabbed up his cloak and left. Outside, his car engine revved, and he honked the horn.
Gemma roused herself and pulled a notebook and pen out of her rucksack. When she’d finished writing, she tore the sheet out, rose, and placed the note on the chair seat. Staring at the ground, she hurried out without looking back.
Liam stared after her. “She needs help.”
Merrit touched her throat where her mom’s necklace had hung. “I know, and I’m going to help her whether or not anyone likes me in this bloody village. Slag be damned.”
“I think you’re confusing your issues with hers.” He tidied the pile of ledger pages. “But no matter. Time to hit tonight’s pub. I have some lucky souls to match up. What does her note say?”
Unsettled by his remark about her confused issues, Merrit picked up Gemma’s note. “It says, Please excuse Dermot. He hasn’t been himself since we got here.”
“Ah,” Liam said. “Not an imbecile, that girl. Why would he care how dusty my old ledgers are, anyhow?”
FIFTEEN
DANNY EASED THE FRONT door closed and paused to clear the workday out of his head as best as he could. Lost Boy was still lost, and so far canvassing hadn’t turned up anything more about his activities in Lisfenora.
But never mind that for now. Danny’s children awaited him for their daily wind-down: teeth brushing and stories and lights out. Ellen never interrupted his visits. She preferred to retreat to the bedroom until he left. Whatever their difficulties, she understood that the children missed their father and that he’d always been better at putting them down, anyhow.
He hesitated to call out, not wanting to disturb the peacefulness in the house. Perhaps Ellen had gotten them into bed herself. It could be. He hoped this was the case. He peered out a rear window to check Ellen’s parking space.
No car in sight. She must have larked off with the children then. To visit her estranged father up in Ballyvaughan? He shook his head at such an unlikely fantasy. The day Ellen Tully Ahern brought her kids to see Marcus was the day Danny believed in the Grey Man shite bantering its way back and forth across the village.
Danny swung open the kitchen door, expecting the usual mess of dishes in the sink and discarded outdoor gear next to the back door. He flipped on the overheads.
The kitchen sparkled, and he caught a whiff of cleaning fluids with lemony fresh scents. Danny picked up a coffeepot that no longer contained years’ worth of brownish film. “Could it be?”
Perhaps his wife had returned to the woman he’d married, a woman who wasn’t weighed down by depression and bitterness. Ready to take on household management with her previous zeal. And maybe she was off on an adventure with the children. It was a Friday night, after all. He remembered with the suddenness of a bee sting how, when the children couldn’t or wouldn’t fall asleep, they’d drive until they spied a place—a ruin, a craggy beach, a churchyard—that they could explore by torch. The little ones had loved playing at detective like their pappy.
It could be that Ellen had remembered these jaunts also, that they were out this minute scrambling across a limestone-strewn headland.
Danny checked
a window again. His hope waned. The fog was still too thick. Ellen wouldn’t endanger the children driving along the twisting coastal road carved into the cliffside. She could still be out with the children, true, but nevertheless an immaculate overnight change in her behavior didn’t feel right. Worry replaced his initial hope.
Returning to the living room, he plucked the top off a wicker basket to find toys that were usually strewn about the room. In the children’s bedroom, someone had made the beds, but toys still covered most of the floor. Relieved at this sign of normalcy, Danny moved on to the one uninhabited room in the house. Little Beth’s.
The quietude felt loaded, whispery and primed. Danny hesitated at Beth’s door with prickles mounting the back of his neck. He couldn’t help thinking about Petey’s fear of Grey Man—that dark faerie that stole people into its mists.
On the count of three he pushed open the door and turned on the light. The boxes he’d set out to sort Beth’s belongings still stood against the wall, and they still contained headless dolls and early drawings. A year’s worth of dust coated them. He hadn’t had a chance to finish clearing out her room before moving out, and Ellen wasn’t prepared to delve into the sadness on her own.
The room was the same as ever, except for the two shiny sleeping bags laid out as if for a pretend camping trip. Danny thought back to the last time he’d entered this room—this Sunday past. No sleeping bags then.
Lost Boy’s final slow blink flashed through his mind. Danny jerked toward the master bedroom, fearing what he might find on the other side of the closed door. He thought of Petey, he thought of the uneasiness he’d felt since viewing Lost Boy’s body. That sense of proximity, for lack of a better word, as if whatever lurked around Lost Boy also circled his family.
Gathering himself, Danny approached the bedroom and opened the door. The bedside radio whispered to an empty room. Ah, right. Ellen often left it on. He stepped into the room. The cleaning genie hadn’t made it here either. The bed sat under its usual mound of tangled blankets, and the chair in the corner hulked like a hunchback under discarded jumpers and jeans.
Danny wasn’t comfortable with change in this house while he wasn’t living under its roof. He would have preferred to see the usual messy kitchen and no sleeping bags in Beth’s room. The only explanation that made sense was that Ellen had visitors in for the festival that she had forgotten to tell him about. Typical.
Still uneasy but now also annoyed, Danny rooted through Ellen’s bedside hutch. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Anything that might give a clue to Ellen’s state of mind and activities.
He didn’t find anything but random receipts, leftover antidepressants, a romance novel, and a journal with dated pages. She wasn’t much of a scribbler, so he browsed it quickly, telling himself that he was only checking to verify that this hadn’t changed either. He caught sight of a few shopping lists and the odd sad comment about Beth. He was about to set the journal aside, disgusted with himself, when he arrived at the first filled page. He flipped pages, not reading—no, not that—but catching phrases that hinted at Ellen’s inner turmoil. What can I do to get him to notice me again? Near the end, one sentence screamed across a page in large letters: What is wrong with me that I care?
He clapped the journal closed and placed it where he’d found it beneath the romance novel. The book’s cover featured an image of a half-naked man bending a busty damsel backwards over his arm in a pose that looked bloody painful. Danny had never known Ellen to read romances.
Passing the dresser his eye caught on the simple wooden box that Ellen used to store her jewelry. He lifted the lid. The upper tier held delicate gold baubles that Ellen had inherited from her mother. The pieces looked old-fashioned, fussy even, but they suited Ellen. Danny lifted out the top tray and found his wedding band on the lower tier. He pushed the ring onto his finger. Looser than ever now. He’d taken it off years ago when it slipped off at a crime scene and had never gotten around to having it adjusted. Danny wondered if Ellen would notice or care if he reclaimed it.
A small black gift box tucked into the corner of the jewelry box looked new. He picked it up, cradling it in his palm. A mewling sound startled Danny. A second later, two dervishes—his own little dervishes—rushed him from out of the closet, pushing at him until he fell backwards onto the bed. Petey climbed up beside Danny. His hair was still damp from the bath, as was Mandy’s. She vaulted onto his lap and burrowed into his chest.
Danny wrapped his arms around them and kept his tone light. “You scared the living bejaysus out of me. I see you’re fit for bed. Has your mother left you alone to run a quick errand?”
“Don’t be silly,” Mandy said. “We’re too young to be on our own yet.”
Thank Christ for that. “Where’s your mom?”
“It’s like this, Da,” Mandy said, turning serious. Her hair was starting to reveal henna-like reddish highlights similar to Ellen’s. She brushed strands away from her face with an annoyed grunt. “We could hear you very well, you know, and even though we knew it was you, we decided to stay very quiet. It was hard, especially for Petey.” She shrugged with an exaggerated movement. “We were in the closet anyhow, see. We wanted to play a trick on you. But Gemma got scared. She’s our sitter, but she’s shy.”
“Gemma?” He’d heard that name recently. From Alan and then from Merrit, right. Gemma was the odd girl who had stolen her necklace. With the brother who had an accusation against Liam. “Now wait a minute—”
“Da!” Petey piped up. “Look what we got. Come look and see. But shh, we have to be quiet.”
Following his children’s lead, Danny dropped to all fours and crawled toward the closet, where two kittens blinked against the light.
“We need to keep the door shut for now.” Mandy poked her head into the closet, and Danny followed suit, looking at the woman crammed in at the other end. So this was Gemma, necklace stealer. The woman’s knees were drawn up under her chin, and she stared at a pair of Ellen’s summer sandals.
“They’re still getting their strength back,” Mandy said. “They need quiet, right, Gemma?”
Getting no response, Mandy shooed them backwards again and eased the closet door closed. “We just fed them. They need to go to bed now.”
“They’re our new kittens,” Petey said. “One for me, one for Mandy. Mam said it was okay.”
“So,” Danny said, “Mam invited Gemma and someone else—her brother?—to sleep over?”
The children grinned like it was the world’s best slumber party.
“For how long?”
“Hopefully forever!” Petey said.
Ellen must have lost her mind. Kittens Danny could handle. But not a couple of siblings with murky agendas.
“Kidlings,” he said, striving for a light tone, “fetch Gemma out, please. Tell her that as your da I need to be officially introduced to her and to her brother. Where is he?”
“He went to the pub,” Mandy said. “Gemma said he’s upset about something, so it’s better for him to be alone.”
“She didn’t really say anything,” Petey said. “She writes everything.”
Bloody brilliant. An odd girl who refused to talk, and a brother who drank his problems away. “And where’s your mom?”
“Don’t know. Just out for a while.”
Just out. There was no just about it.
“Go on then, coax Gemma out,” Danny said. “Tell her I don’t bite.”
Mandy swatted his arm. “You’re funny. Of course you don’t bite.”
They shut the closet door against him and began their quiet entreaties to Gemma.
Danny still held the jewelry gift box, but now with the full force of his aching fingers. Sweat matted the black velvet. He raised the lid. A pair of earrings blinked up at him with an iridescent blue sheen. He was no expert, but he guessed opals—and nice ones too. No way would Ellen buy these for herself, so the question was, who gave them to her? And where was Ellen now, leaving their children in
the care of a woman who refused to talk? Now he wished he’d read his wife’s journal while he had the chance.
Danny replaced the box in its compartment, then slipped off his wedding band and replaced it also.
SIXTEEN
ALAN HANDED OFF A whiskey and soda and continued on down the bar, picking up empty glasses. He moved fast, trying to keep up with the festival crowd. He was essentially a servant, his presence forgotten until his customers needed a drink, so forgotten that they didn’t bother lowering their voices when he was in the vicinity.
“—and you are too eager to please.” Seamus sat with Brendan at the end of the bar where it curved toward the wall, away from the rest of the regulars. “I swear to Christ you need to—”
Every night it was like this, catching bits of conversation that were none of Alan’s business. He set the dirties in a bin for later washing and turned on the taps to rinse his hands. The noise drowned out Brendan’s response to Seamus. They looked alike, those two, with their beaky noses and fair skin. Brendan didn’t have his father’s outgoing temperament, so whereas Seamus took the measure of you in a direct manner, his son engaged in glances. They had the kind of relationship that Alan used to hope he could foster with his father back in France. But that was before his father turned out to be a right prick.
Alan dried his hands as he scanned his customers. Off in a corner, Malcolm sat at a cozy two-top table with a woman Alan didn’t recognize. Malcolm leaned forward on his elbows, listening to her. He nodded and responded, apparently asking her a question, because she smiled and continued her end of the conversation.
Unlike Alan, Malcolm never seemed to have trouble attracting women. Gentlemanly manners and charm worked wonders, apparently—even for a man as unusual-looking as Malcolm. Alan could use some charm lessons.
A raised glass beckoned Alan back to his duties. Dermot, the poor sod. His erect posture but bowed head, the way he clenched his glass yet let his lower lip hang, told Alan that the man was on his last edge. It was as if his body wanted to simultaneously erupt and melt.
