The Emerald Isle

by Angela Elwell Hunt

  Of course, if Mr. and Mrs. O’ Neil didn’t approve, I suppose they could always banish us.

  The computer beeped, and I frowned, looking around at the little house— my space by day and Patrick’s by night. Maybe they already had.

  An uneasy peace ruled at dinner that night. Maddie and her mother bobbed together at the end of the table over sketches of her bouquet and the church flowers. Staring straight ahead, Taylor ate with the enthusiasm of a robot, while at the end of the table Mr. O’ Neil stirred his soup and didn’t say much.

  At my right hand, Patrick was equally silent. We ate quietly, pretending a polite interest in Maddie’s babbling conversation, though none of us, with the possible exception of her mother, cared a thing about orchids and white roses and baby’s breath.

  During a break in Maddie’s conversation, Mrs. O’ Neil looked up and threw her husband a pointed look. “Taylor,” she said, her gaze still fastened to her husband’s face, “James and I were wondering if you and Maddie might give a thought to staying in Ireland for a bit after the wedding. You could live here, of course, and we could give you a helping hand while you manage to set a bit of money by for the future.”

  Surprise siphoned the blood from Taylor’s face. “Live here?” he repeated dumbly, his gaze flying to meet mine. “But—”

  “It’d be wonderful, Taylor,” Maddie interrupted, squeezing his hand. A rush of pink stained her cheek as she leaned toward him. “You could go the university in Dublin or even take correspondence courses. You could still finish your doctorate, but you’d do it here, where we could live rent free.” She lowered her eyes. “And I could be with my dad.”

  I looked down at my plate, aware that she had just struck the deathblow to Taylor’s plans. He didn’t want to stay in Ireland, but what could he say to a woman whose father was dying? He’d seem like an inconsiderate brute if he insisted they return to New York.

  “Who knows?” Mr. O’ Neil’s deep voice croaked through the thick silence. “You might come to like farming, after all. We might make an Irishman of you yet!”

  Taylor looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, but as Maddie kissed his cheek and Mr. O’ Neil thumped his back, no one else seemed to notice his panic.

  But Patrick, who had said nothing during the exchange, abruptly stood and slammed his way out of the kitchen.

  Patrick wasn’t hard to find. I knew the cows had already been milked and turned out to pasture, so I headed toward the barn where the calves were penned. An overhead light was burning when I opened the door, and in the dim light I could see Patrick’s long and lanky form hunched over the railing of the bullpen at the back of the barn.

  “He won’t stay,” I called, startling the calves as I passed their pen. “Taylor’s not a farmer. He’d be lost here.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Patrick pulled a piece of hay from a bale beside him and stuck it into his mouth, chewing the end like a nervous accountant worrying his pencil. “Dad’s made his point. He’d rather give the place to a Yank who knows next to nothing than leave it to his only son.” Raw hurt glittered in his eyes as he looked at me. “The point was well made, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know what your father is thinking.” I came closer and stood beside him at the fence, then crossed my arms over the top rail and studied the old bull. Graham Red stood as still as a statue, his white head bowed low, and I was shocked to see that a milky white film covered both eyes. The famous O’Neil bull had gone blind with age.

  “Tell me what first came between you.” I stepped closer until my shoulder nudged Patrick’s. “You told me about the girl you wouldn’t marry, but you also said you and your father had been having trouble for a long time. So what is the root of the problem between you?”

  “If I knew—” His voice trembled, as did the hand he lifted to his forehead. “If I understood him, I’d be happy to explain. But the old devil gets things into his head, and I’m not understanding a bit of it. He doesn’t like the new ways. He doesn’t want to part with his old bull; he wanted me to marry a girl I felt nothing for. We never got on too well when I was a lad, but we started having regular arguments when I went away to university. Dad went all weird when I came home with new ideas. He fell into a desperate bad humor whenever I tried to suggest changing things ’round the place. And when I told him and Mr. Kelly that I wouldn’t be marrying his daughter, that was the end of it. We had a terrible row, and he went into a dither, screaming about this and that. Then I said he could keep his farm and his name, too, for I’d be no son of his.”

  His head dropped on his folded arms. “And that was the last time I saw Dad, before I came home and found you and Taylor here. I wouldn’t have come even then, but Maddie rang me up and insisted. She said she wouldn’t be marrying without me, and she wanted me to squire the American woman about.”

  The unexpected confession stung enough that I flinched. Suddenly his abrupt appearance made perfect sense. Maddie had felt threatened by my presence, so since she couldn’t exactly ask me to leave, she did the next best thing. She called her handsome brother and insisted that he come home, knowing the brooding Irishman would turn the foolish American woman’s head.

  I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the truth. “So you’ve been spending time with me only because Maddie asked you to?”

  Patrick didn’t answer, but his answering sigh told me all I needed to know.

  “Well,” I pulled away from the fence,“thanks for baby-sitting me. I enjoyed our time together, but I know you probably want to get back to Limerick. Don’t worry about Maddie; I have a feeling she’s quite content. If you leave, though, Taylor won’t have a choice. He’ll have to stay at Ballyshannon and look after the farm.”

  “Kathleen—”

  “No need to say anything else.” I stepped back, my own feelings too raw to discuss or evaluate. “I’m tired, Patrick. I think I’ll go in now.”

  “Wait.” An urgent tone entered his voice, and the sound of it stopped me. Patrick lowered his head and stared at the bull, then leapt the fence in an easy movement.

  “Patrick!” I called, alarmed. “Should you be in there without a tranquilizer gun?”

  Patrick leaned forward, his hands on his knees, then he reached out and touched a dark spot on Graham Red’s face. The bull snorted and shied away from this intrusive touch, and Patrick straightened, a grim look on his face as he studied his hand.

  “Go into the house, will you, and tell Mum to call the vet. The bull is sick—I’d be surprised if he’s not dying.”

  Fear spurred my feet to action.

  I had just reached the kitchen and gasped out my news when Patrick’s shadow loomed over mine. “We’ve got to call Dr. Murray,” he said, moving past me toward the phone. “I think it’s a virus. There’s a discharge running from his eyes, and the hay is stained as well. At his age, he’ll not be able to fight an infection unless we act quickly—”

  “Put the phone down!” James O’Neil’s dry voice cracked through the kitchen, startling even his son. “I still run things here.”

  Patrick halted in mid-step, and a light seemed to dim in his eyes as he turned to face his father. James leaned forward over the table and slowly pushed himself to his feet, his hand trembling as he reached out to his wife. “Fiona, help me out to the barn. Let me look at the creature myself.”

  “Do you not think I know a sick beast when I see one?” Patrick’s soft voice was filled with a quiet resentment, the more frightening for its control. “I tell you, Dad, we must call the vet.”

  “And for what?” The older man’s nostrils flared with fury. “Do you think I want him strung up to some tube and kept alive by drugs and painkillers? Let him go in his own way, in his own stall, in God’s own time. I’ll not prolong his suffering.”

  Mrs. O’Neil lifted her hand. “James, Paddy’s not saying we’d do that to the poor creature. But neither is it right to ignore his pain—”

  Mr. O’Neil’s blue eyes d
arkened like angry thunderclouds. “Graham has lived a full life, and I’ve not been blind to the fact that he’s failing. But I’ll not call the vet for him. He would only prolong the agony or kill the creature outright.”

  “Maybe you’d have me call the knackers, then.” Patrick’s hand gestured toward the phone on the wall. “Let them pick him up and toss him into a truck.”

  “Since when have you been so concerned about the bull?” Even in his weakness, Mr. O’Neil bristled with indignation. “You wanted me to sell him off. You’ve never cared about Graham, the glory of this farm! You’d see us raising a bunch of skittish Angus heifers with nary a bull on the place!”

  Defiance poured hotly from Patrick’s sparkling blue eyes. “I’d see us in the twentieth century, never mind that the rest of the world is moving into the twenty-first. You’re living in a forgotten age, Dad, and people are laughing at you when your back is turned. ‘Ah, look at James O’Neil,’ they’re saying, ‘still in love with his blind old bull. The man’s a wee bit touched in the head, for he’s more faithful to that creature than he is to his own son.’”

  Warm as it was in the toasty kitchen, I felt a sliver of ice slide down my spine. This argument wasn’t about a bull—it was about a man and his son. And I was standing right in the center of it.

  “Let me pass.” Mr. O’Neil spoke the words slowly and deliberately. Patrick shifted before his father’s hot gaze, giving him access to the door. James stalked forward, rocking on his hips in the way of very old men, then passed silently out into the night.

  Mrs. O’Neil stared at her son, then looked at me. “This will be the death of him,” she whispered, then she whirled and left through the door that led to her bedroom. I clenched my hands as a sudden shiver chilled me. I didn’t know if she was referring to the man or the animal.

  Without another word, Patrick stalked through the kitchen and blasted his way through the swinging door that led to the foyer. My heart filled with a horrible feeling as I watched him go—almost as if I was watching someone drown without doing anything to help. Trouble was, I had no idea how to help. We had become good friends in a short time, but the scene I’d just witnessed had touched him in deep places I couldn’t fathom.

  I stood for a moment in the empty silence, then turned and walked through the foyer. Patrick was not in the sitting room, and as I moved into the dining room and looked out the window, I saw that the light had come on in the little house. He had retreated to his cave. If he had wanted to talk to me, if he had wanted any comfort at all, he might have remained in the sitting room where I could find him without feeling like an intruder. But he hadn’t.

  Moving with glacial slowness, I climbed the stairs and walked down the hall to my room. After undressing and tumbling into bed, I lay in the darkness and contemplated the shifting shadows on the plaster ceiling, my vision still gloomily colored with the memory of Patrick’s defeated countenance and his father’s bitter anger.

  What was it with those two? Why couldn’t they reach out to each other with understanding instead of mistrust? James should have been enjoying his son’s compassion and care in the twilight of his life; Patrick should be growing through the experience of knowing that his father valued him as a man and a friend. But neither one of them was very good at reaching out. James had hobbled out to the barn alone, forsaking his wife’s help, and Patrick had stalked back to the little house, physically reinforcing the impression that he couldn’t stand to be under the same roof with his family…or me.

  I heard the kitchen door open with a complaining screech, and knew that Maddie and Taylor had just come back from the pub or wherever they’d gone after dinner. Poor Taylor. Maddie had probably spent the entire night trying to convince him that living in Ireland would be great, convenient, and economical. If she knew what had happened in the kitchen while they were out, she’d have worked even harder to convince him. Apparently James would rather leave the farm to the taxman than to his own son, a son who would rather curl up and savor his anguish than share it with a caring friend.

  I turned onto my side, hardening my heart to its own pain, then felt a small sprouting of hope when someone rapped on my door. “Yes?” I clutched the quilt to my chest as I sat up in the darkness. “Patrick?”

  “It’s me.” The door opened, and Maddie’s cloud of curls gleamed in the hall light. “Mum wanted me to see if you had enough clean towels for the morning. She didn’t get the laundry done today.”

  I stared at her, perplexed by the odd question. Maddie hadn’t knocked on my door once in the two weeks I’d been staying here. “I’m fine. The towels are fine.”

  “Good.” She hesitated, then opened the door a little further. “Do you mind if I turn on the lamp?”

  “Go ahead.” I closed my eyes and waited for the bright light to slam against my retinas. I also dropped the covers; no need for modesty with Maddie. She was the last person on earth who’d care about seeing me in my silk pajamas. After she flicked the switch, I squinted up at her through a fluorescent haze. “Something on your mind?”

  “You might say that.” She came into the room and perched on the edge of my bed, her eyes dark and troubled. “Taylor and I had a long talk, and it looks like we’re going to stay in Ireland for a while after the wedding.”

  I hugged my knees and looked up at her. “I figured as much.”

  Maddie pressed her lips together and tilted her head. “Trouble is, Taylor’s not exactly thrilled with the idea. I have a feeling he might try to talk to you about it, and it’d be a great help to me if you’d tell him that things will be okay if he stays at Ballyshannon.” She looked at me with wise little eyes, bright and calculating. “He values your opinion, and right now I could use every bit of influence I can get. If you will tell him to stay here—well, I think he’d be a lot happier.”

  Watching her, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering what would happen if I advised Taylor against staying in Ireland. Would he come to believe that his engagement was a terrible mistake? Would he agree that I’d been right all along, that he and Maddie really were unsuited for one another?

  Trouble was, I’d come to see just the opposite. They were opposites, but in areas where each could use a bit of balancing. In matters that counted they were remarkably similar. They were both committed to the ideals of home and family…and to each other.

  I exhaled in a long sigh, then gave Maddie a tired smile. “I want to help, not because I believe Taylor would be happy in Ireland, but because I think he’ll be happy with you, no matter where you live. But if you want to know my honest opinion, I think Taylor really needs to return to New York. It’s his home. He’ll be an outsider here, and he won’t be happy.”

  “But we can’t go back and—” she began, but I held up my hand and cut her off.

  “It’s Patrick that needs to stay here,” I told her, realizing the truth as I spoke. “He’s the one who loves this place. Can’t you see it? He’s happy when he’s working in the barn; he’s perfectly at home in the fields. He’d be miserable in a place like New York, and I expect he’s not truly happy in Limerick.”

  “But Patrick and Dad don’t get on well enough. Patrick would never come back here, and Dad wouldn’t have him. He’s only tolerating Paddy now because of me.”

  “I know.” I gave her a conspiratorial smile, for I wasn’t above a bit of bargaining myself. “Okay, if absolutely necessary I’ll encourage Taylor to stay at Ballyshannon, but I think it’d be better if you’d help me influence Patrick.”

  Her face froze in an expression of absolute disbelief. “Whatever are you talking about?”

  “I think you know. And I’m not asking for much either—just a promise you won’t oppose me. I’m trying to help Patrick sort through some things, and I know he values your opinion. Just promise me this: If you see what I’m trying to do, consider adding a supportive word. That’s all.”

  She lifted one eyebrow, suggesting in feminine shorthand that she was considering my proposal, then she
nodded and slid off my bed. “Deal.” She walked around the room for a moment, staring at the walls and dresser and wardrobe as if she had never seen them before, then she turned and gripped the footboard of my bed. She laughed softly. “Men! What would they do without us arranging their lives?”

  “Live a lot more peacefully, I expect.” I lay down, pulled the covers up to my shoulders, and closed my eyes. “Would you hit the light when you go out?”

  She didn’t answer, but the overhead light clicked off, then I heard her light footsteps retreating down the stairs.

  Suspecting that Patrick might want to spend some time alone in his little apartment, the next day I gathered up my notes and laptop and moved to the picnic table out beneath the copper beech on the lawn. Though the morning was clear, crisp, and beautiful, it had rained during the night, and occasionally a raindrop plopped onto my notepad.

  I was trying to work a bug out of my word processing program when Taylor came outside and sat down beside me at the picnic table.

  “Hey,” he said, rapping lightly on the weathered wood. “Got a minute for a bewildered friend?”

  “That all depends,” I answered lightly, tapping the command to scan the computer’s hard drive. If only problems in real life could be analyzed and corrected this easily.

  I left the computer to do its thing while I turned and gave Taylor a smile—he looked like he needed one. “Speak.”

  “I’ve been instructed to come out and talk to you.” He nodded toward the house, where I knew Maddie was probably watching from a window. “She wants to stay in Ireland, but Ballyshannon isn’t exactly where I wanted to be next year.”

  “She’s worried about her father.” I propped my elbow on the table and rested my head on my hand, letting my hair fall forward to block my face from anyone watching in the house. “Patrick is too.”