Celtic Sister

by Pentermann, Meira

  The third bottle, Amy thought, wondering where she had left it. Surely, Sam hadn’t been rummaging through her purse. Otherwise, he’d be brandishing two bottles.

  She stared at him for a long time. His expression did not change. Eventually, he spoke.

  “You don’t remember anything about last night, do you?”

  Amy swallowed, her throat dry. Glancing away, she searched for a memory that would not materialize. She shook her head no, unable to look Sam in the eye.

  He advanced to the bed and threw down the bottle. It barely missed her leg. Then he pulled his hands through his hair a few times and began pacing.

  “I’m sorry,” Amy whispered.

  “You’re sorry? That’s nice,” he spat, his words dripping with anger.

  “Really, I got carried away.”

  “A shot at the restaurant… a half bottle of wine, and a fifth of whiskey. What the hell, Amy?”

  “I—”

  “Where did you get this?” He pointed at the bottle. “And don’t tell me you found it here. I discovered it lying in the shower this morning. I think I would have noticed that yesterday when I took a shower.”

  Shit. She vaguely remembered leaving it there.

  “I bought it when I went to the market.”

  “Is that why you were so keen to get out of here? So you could stock up?”

  If you only knew. Amy said a silent prayer of gratitude he didn’t know about the other two bottles she had consumed over the course of the day. Her peace was quickly interrupted by the notion that there was one remaining empty bottle in her purse. She’d have to find a way to dispose of it without getting caught.

  Sam stopped pacing. He stared at her, his expression a mix of disdain and heartache. “I am a nice-looking, charming guy. I don’t need to get a girl shit-faced in order to have sex with her.”

  “Oh, Sam—”

  He started pacing again and refused to look at her. “It’s been difficult to find someone interesting since I came out of the fog and started believing in life again. The type of women who used to turn me on seem like wisps of tissue paper to me now.”

  The sheet slipped, and Amy pulled it up.

  “So finally,” he continued, “I meet someone who challenges me, who makes me laugh. Someone I can really connect with.” He turned sharply and glared at her. “Crap, someone who can sit in the passenger seat yelling left and it doesn’t even piss me off.” He sat down in the chair. “I thought we had an insanely intense chemistry, you know?” He looked at the door and grimaced. “And now I find out she feels it necessary to load up on liquor so she can tolerate being with me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Alcohol on the plane, which I’m now sure you didn’t sneak past security, the supposed half bottle from home. You bought a full bottle at the airport. Let’s see, that was supposed to be for your inability to sleep. So I can only imagine your desire to have whiskey on hand last night. You couldn’t bear the thought of being with me, but for some godforsaken reason you thought you were obligated to sleep with me.”

  “No.”

  “No? Do you have an alcohol problem then?”

  Yes, an inner voice said. “No.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s—”

  “Why are you even here, Amy?”

  She withdrew, offended. “Because you asked me.”

  “You didn’t have to kiss me. You didn’t have to have pity sex with the loony guy looking for his sister.”

  “Come on.”

  He looked at the ceiling and groaned. “If I had known… If I had known you were that drunk, I would have never…”

  The silence lingered like a shamefaced dog cowering between them.

  “It’s humiliating, Amy. Humiliating.” The last word came out as a half whisper.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I truly am.”

  He popped up unexpectedly and grabbed his wallet and keys off the dresser. “I’m going to go look for Emma.”

  “Wait.”

  “Alone,” he emphasized.

  “No, Sam. Please. Wait. Don’t punish me.”

  He laughed, a stilted mocking sound.

  “No, really,” Amy pleaded. “Please. I want to help you.”

  “Why don’t you sleep off your hangover? I’ll drive you to the airport tonight.”

  “No,” Amy shouted. Then she became desperate, hyperventilating. “Please don’t make me leave. I want to help you. I want to find Emma.” She gasped. “I want to be part of this.”

  He stared at her as if she were some alien creature speaking gibberish. Then he turned and walked out the door.

  Amy leaned over and started pounding her fists into the mattress over and over again, screaming.

  Sam appeared suddenly, and she pulled the sheet up to cover herself.

  “I’ve already seen it,” he grumbled.

  She wrestled with the idea of dropping the sheet and coming on to him. Some more intelligent part of her brain convinced her that such a juvenile gesture would be a seriously bad idea at the moment.

  “Listen,” Sam said. He turned away to give her some privacy. “Get dressed. You’re coming with me.”

  “Thank you.” Amy leapt from the bed and searched for her clothing.

  “But only because I need you.”

  “Of course you need me. I’m good at this missing-persons stuff.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that I’ll look much less like a stalker ex-boyfriend if you’re tagging along.”

  “Oh.” Amy ran her fingers through her hair. She didn’t dare search for an elastic band in her purse. He might notice the other bottle. She touched him on the shoulder when she was ready and he turned around. “I guess tagging along will have to be good enough.”

  “You won’t drink tonight?” Sam asked hopefully.

  Amy was caught off guard by the question. One minute he’s shunning her and pretending like she’s a necessary annoyance, and the next he’s trying to extract promises.

  “I won’t,” she whispered. “I have a headache.”

  “You should.” He laughed. All of a sudden, it was like everything was forgotten and all forgiven.

  He thinks we have an insanely intense chemistry.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The sky was overcast and the air felt wet, but it did not appear to be actually raining.

  Sam had a list of a half dozen churches in Clonmel, all within a thirty-minute radius. As they made their way to the first one, they noticed a church he had not found on his Internet searches. They stopped at each one, but they were both closed.

  “We may have to do this on a Sunday,” Amy said as they pulled out of the parking lot.

  “We leave on Monday. We can’t afford to waste that kind of time.”

  “I’m just saying we should come back to these ones, maybe Saturday night, if we don’t find anything at the other churches.”

  Sam frowned. “Why didn’t I think of that when we were planning this?”

  “Catholic churches are usually open all week. You have many on your list. And remember, you can always take me to the airport and continue on your own.”

  “Great.”

  “That’s what you wanted to do this morning,” she reminded him.

  “Let’s not go there right now, shall we?”

  Amy complied. She didn’t want to go there either. She examined the map and told him where to turn. On the corner, they saw a church.

  “This isn’t the one.” She tapped the map. “This is another church that’s not on your list.”

  “Seriously? This quest might be impossible.” Sam parked near the church and leaned over to examine the map. “Are there crosses on that map? Maybe we can just go from cross to cross.”

  “There are some, but the second one we visited is not marked.”

  “So we just drive around town and pull into church parking lots?”

  “That might be all we can do. We have to have some
faith we didn’t come all this way for nothing.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” Sam said. “One church at a time as we find them.”

  The door to the church opened, and Sam became giddy. He fished out the photo of Emma. They wandered around in silence, looking for someone to help them. Eventually, a middle-aged gentleman emerged from the back. He was wearing an old jumpsuit covered with paint. As they approached him, the wet paint smell wafted over them.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes… uh…” Sam held up the photo of Emma and explained their mission.

  The man examined the photo carefully and shook his head. “Never seen her. I’m sorry.” He handed the photo back. “But I’ve only been here nine years. Louise might remember her.”

  Sam politely asked if he knew how they could contact Louise. The man excused himself and returned with a phone number on a small slip of paper.

  On the way out of the church, Sam tried to call Louise. He left a message on her voice mail.

  By noon, they had stopped at seven churches with similar results. Many of the churches were locked. At other locations, the person they found either hadn’t been around long enough to remember Emma or was a long-time member of the community, convinced that the young lady had never belonged to their church.

  “Before we stop for lunch, let’s visit Saint Mary’s.”

  “Which one?” Amy asked as she examined the map.

  “There’s more than one?”

  “Yup.”

  “Whichever one is closer, I guess.”

  “Okay. Turn left up there.”

  They pulled into the parking lot of Saint Mary’s Parish Church. The tall, narrow church stood near the river in the south of Clonmel. An impressive stone structure, its four columns and three-tiered clock tower made it quite distinctive amidst the businesses that lined the streets on both sides. The nearby stores and restaurants operated out of a continuous row of buildings with only colors and awnings separating one from the next, but the church sat on a huge lot, beckoning tourists and the faithful to pass under the delicately carved eaves.

  Amy examined the angel carvings in the eaves as well as the statues that stood on the roof.

  “Quite majestic,” she noted.

  When they walked inside, Amy had to reevaluate her definition of majestic. She gazed at the vaulted ceiling while Sam spoke quietly with a parishioner. Painted in various shades of ivory, the center of the ceiling included a circle and a concave square inlayed with Victorian swirls. From there, dramatic lines leapt out toward the interior columns.

  Her eyes wandered across the ceiling until they settled on an exquisite stained-glass window. She glanced around, and she saw many stained-glass windows with dramatic colors and detailed scenes of saints framed by even more elaborate Victorian designs.

  Amy protested when Sam tried to escort her from the building.

  “Look at this, Sam.”

  “Thanks for your help back there.”

  “Just look,” she whispered. She pointed at the ceiling and then swept her arms in a circle to indicate the stained-glass windows.

  He did and nodded in approval. “That’s quite impressive.”

  “You don’t sound impressed.”

  As they exited the church, he sighed. “I’m just frustrated, that’s all. I’ll take a moment to appreciate the architecture when we’ve got a decent lead. So far, nobody knows anything. If she actually settled here, I would assume she’d belong to a church, you know? Be a regular member.”

  “We haven’t searched them all.”

  “I guess.”

  They climbed in the car.

  “Next Saint Mary’s then?” Amy asked.

  “Might as well.”

  Old Saint Mary’s looked more like a medieval castle than a church, and Amy was once again reassessing her idea of the word majestic. The property spanned several blocks and included an old graveyard and an extensive green lawn with many trees. After he drove around it several times and almost made a turn into the dreaded right lane, Sam concluded they ought to have walked.

  “Would have been ten minutes tops,” he grumbled.

  “Ten minutes on an empty stomach can seem like an hour.”

  “True enough.”

  They finally found a parking spot and entered the breathtaking historical church.

  The interior consisted of multiple arches rising and sinking amidst the pews. Just behind the altar, another arch – this one housing a beautiful stained-glass masterpiece. Five panels, each with a different figure, dominated the window, but the top of the arch was filled with larger pieces of faintly-colored glass to allow more light. The room smelled vaguely of incense.

  An older woman sat near the base of an arch in the middle of the church, kneeling in prayer.

  Sam approached her tentatively. She looked up and smiled.

  “May I speak with you a minute?” he whispered, so softly Amy barely caught the words. But the seventy-something woman heard him perfectly well, and she gestured toward the entrance of the church where the three of them huddled while Sam explained their quest.

  The woman shook her head. “I would remember a young, American girl who appeared to be on the run… especially one who was pregnant.”

  “Of course,” Amy said, her heartbeat accelerating. Why didn’t I think of it before?

  Sam caught on immediately, their thoughts coinciding. “Are there any houses for unwed mothers?” he asked, barely able to contain the excitement in his voice.

  “Not in Clonmel.” She thought for a moment. “But I know a woman who volunteered for many years at a protection and adoption organization in Dublin. If your girl went anywhere, she’d have gone there, especially if she met Mary during her journey.”

  “Mary?”

  “My friend. The one who used to volunteer. She’s retired and living in Cahir now.”

  “Perfect,” Sam said, smiling. “Do you know how we can get in contact with her?”

  ***

  A few minutes later, they were on the road to Cahir. Fiona, the kind woman they met, had called Mary and obtained an invitation for Sam and Amy.

  “I’m famished now,” Amy complained. “We said one more church before lunch.”

  “We’re not going to a church,” Sam reminded her.

  “Stop it, stinker.”

  “And her name is Mary. If she helped young girls in distress, she may well be like a saint. In which case, we’re merely going to visit one more Saint Mary.”

  “Really?”

  “Okay. I’m hungry too.”

  He stopped in the town square of Cahir. Trees and parking in the center with shops and restaurants lining the streets, this area had more breathing room than the narrow downtowns they’d visited so far. They purchased a couple of sandwiches from a café and grabbed a table in the outdoor seating area.

  After a few minutes, Sam seemed anxious to move on. “You almost done with that?”

  Amy waited until she finished chewing a bite of sandwich before responding. “Are you still mad at me about…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.

  His face softened. “No. I mean, yeah. Not furious.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “I know.” He tried to smile, but the gesture landed on his face like a grimace with a touch of constipation. “Let’s put last night behind us. We all do stupid shit.”

  Amy suppressed the urge to say sorry again.

  “Means we can have another first time,” he said.

  Amy shuddered. “It was probably dreadful.”

  “Oh, you were quite wild in the beginning.” He grinned. “I don’t know of a guy who would complain about that.”

  “Please don’t tell me what I said.”

  He shook his head. “At some point I realized you weren’t really present. And then it was too late.” His face clouded over.

  Desperation overcame Amy in an instant. Anxiety and the desire for yet another drink filled her mind. “Just please forgive me. I won’t drink
again for the rest of the trip.” She wanted to mean it, but she wasn’t sure she could keep such a promise. Too late. The words had passed her lips.

  Sam held up a hand. “Forgiven and forgotten. Let’s move on. I’m really itching to talk with this Mary.”

  “Naturally.”

  Sam popped out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box before Amy had a chance to stand up. She wrapped an untouched half sandwich in a napkin and slipped it into her purse discreetly. Then she noticed the remaining empty whiskey bottle. Her breath caught in her throat.

  As Amy followed Sam, she searched in vain for a garbage can. At the last moment, nanoseconds before Sam turned around to see what was taking her so long, Amy slipped the bottle into a flowerbed.

  She felt mildly guilty as she buckled her seatbelt, followed by sheer embarrassment when she caught sight of a couple of twenty-something guys smirking at her. She turned away, focused on the map, and hoped they weren’t going to hold up the bottle and taunt her.

  “Looks like Mary’s neighborhood is just past the river,” Amy said dispassionately, and then she sat up in excitement. “Oh my gosh, there’s a castle.” She poked the map several times. “A castle,” she squealed.

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  They pulled out of the town square and headed west. The castle was literally right in front of them. Sam checked his rearview mirror, as if anything behind him could be more interesting than what was ahead.

  “Come on, Sam. It’s right there.”

  “This country is filled with castles.”

  “But it’s right there.”

  “Amy, I can’t right now.”

  “On the way home then?” she ventured.

  “No promises. If we get a good lead on Emma, we’re going to follow it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They drove by the towering stone walls in silence and over the rushing river. It began to rain, a light drizzle, and Sam flipped on the windshield wipers.

  They found Mary’s house in a quaint neighborhood that was built in the fifties.

  A plump, gracious woman in her early seventies greeted them and led them inside. Cozy and inviting, the home smelled like cut flowers and sweet baked goods. Mary had already laid out tea and shortbread cookies on a coffee table near her couch. Amy and Sam settled on the couch while Mary sat in a cushy chair to their left. She poured three cups of very strong tea, and for a few minutes the three of them sipped tea, nibbled on cookies, and discussed the weather.