Made With Love: I Love You Forever

by M. K. Shaddix

  ‘You could easily expand, you know.’

  ‘We’ve just as much as we can handle,’ Dermot says. ‘It’d be a stretch without the co-op, you’re right, but together we’re well able to meet market demands and keep our operations down scaled. It was Josephine that really got behind the idea. All the old lads were pushing for warehouse farming. That was in the seventies.’ He hooks his thumbs into his belt loops and puffs his chest out a smidge. ‘By God, I wish she could see us now! Inishmore produces the best milk in the world. The best, and it’s because people like your granny stood up against the all mighty dollar. Sure, if it was quantity we were on about and not quality, we’d be just like the rest of them.’

  I feel like a complete fool. Yeah, Dermot! You know what you should do? Bulldoze the field and throw up another shed and squeeze twice as many Marilyns a day! Jesus. This isn’t New York, Julie. There’s more to consider than the bottom line.

  ‘I think it’s great, what you’ve got here.’

  ‘We like it,’ Dermot beams.

  A squelching honk bleets its way through the slats in the barn door.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Cormac!’ Dermot wheels around.

  I follow him back into the milking parlor. Cormac’s perched on a stool in the corner, honking away on his sax.

  ‘I told you not to play that thing in here! You’ll worry the cows!’ Dermot gripes.

  Cormac pouts up at him. ‘I can’t play in the house or the shed! Gaaah!’

  ‘Try the cliffs. Plenty of no one around there,’ Dermot says.

  There’s a rumbling on the road behind us--a flatbed truck. The jowly man behind the wheel pulls up to the shed and hops down.

  ‘That’d be Fionn,’ Dermot says.

  Cormac bolts out to meet him. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but it looks like Cormac’s hitting him up with his usual twenty questions. Fionn smiles away at him.

  ‘They must be close,’ I say.

  ‘Ah, sure. Fionn’s top drawer. He has a niece who comes over every summer from the States.’

  Ava.

  Dermot sighs and digs his hands into his pockets. ‘Won’t be getting much work out of Cormac come next week. He’s a pure dote for that girl.’

  Dermot slaps at my forearm. ‘Watch this. Hey, Fionn?’ he hollers. ‘When’s Ava coming in?’

  Even from this far I can see Cormac’s face flush hot.

  ‘Daaaad!’ he whines.

  ‘She’ll be here Sunday,’ Fionn says to Cormac, and his cheeks burn even redder.

  ‘Careful now, Cormac,’ Dermot chuckles.

  Cormac tries to put on a pout, but is too keyed-up. He flits around Fionn like a hummingbird.

  ‘I should head off if I’m going to get any work in today,’ I say to Dermot.

  ‘Is it into town you’re going? Cormac! He can show you in.’

  ‘No no, I’ll be fine. It’s only up the road,’ I wink.

  ‘Right you are.’

  I fetch my laptop and my purse from the cottage and trudge out to the main road, flicking at my smartphone on the off chance that moon and stars are aligned and there’ll be signal. Two whole bars!

  I veer off in search of a shortcut to the village. I’ll just pull up the satellite here. Bingo. I turn southwest and cut a more or less straight path across a boggy field. If I stick to this little boreen here, I should come out at the top of the hill. I kick down through the heather and onto a commonage laneway. Down to one bar now.

  There’s a dip in the road and, at the bottom, a thicket of briars has grown into and over the fences. The road is blocked by six mulling cows. Maybe I should go up and around? Or back the way I came? My feet are already pricking at the heels. I’ll keep going. They’re cows. They’ll move. Right?

  I take a few tentative steps toward the cows. ‘Go on, now. Git.’

  They blink at me, and the biggest among them rips off a wet, sour smelling belch. I wave my hands at them. Two of them stutter backward, but the rest keep right on chawing. I think I can get around them now, if I just stick to the ditch here. I clamber up the side, twisting to dodge a long tendril of thorns, and then pitching back on my heels to keep well away from the back hooves of a nervy red bullock.

  ‘Good cows. Go on. MOVE.’ Two more steps and I can get round them. The big heifer’s decided to follow me, but when she turns the bullock swings his rear end around and smacks into my side. I try to push him gently back and take a step forward, maybe back down onto the boreen. He moans and turns a white eye at me.

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Hands off. I lift a leg to step over him, and the four of them skitter, heads knocking and tails up. The red one catches my foot and sends me careening backward. I flail my arms and try to catch at the briar branches, but only graze them and land with a sickening thwack in the shallow ditch. Shit! My ankle is bent unnaturally beneath me and, when I try to stand, a white pain shoots up my leg.

  I slump down onto the backside of the embankment. Phone’s completely dead now. Great. They probably won’t find me till the morning! I’ll freeze to death! I close my eyes and take deep, shuddering breaths. What a way to go!

  Suddenly, I hear the bright clopping of someone or something coming up the road. Is it the cows again? I pull myself up onto my elbows and peer over the berm. It’s a horse, one of those shaggy, draught looking horses, and it’s coming at a full gallop.

  ‘HELP!’ I scream until my voice catches in my throat.

  The horse bears down, pushing into the bit, and an agonizingly familiar figure emerges in the distance.

  NO! Is that Michael?!

  He’s riding the mare bareback. Of course he’s riding her bareback. I duck back into the ditch. Maybe he hasn’t seen me. I can hear the clip clopping, very close now, can smell the horse.

  ‘Julie?’

  Shit.

  I lean back and force a smile. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Are you alright there? I heard you hollering.’

  I’m half drenched in a mucky ditch in the middle of nowhere. And my foot’s about to fall off. I’ve never been better!

  ‘I’m fine. Just slipped,’ I grumble.

  ‘Need a hand?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m fine.’ I try to stand and flop over again like a stuck fish.

  ‘Jayzus, don’t try to move!’ He swings a leg over the horse and hops down beside me. I wince when he reaches for my ankle.

  ‘I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to have a look.’

  Oh, you’re a doctor now?!

  He lifts up the hem of my jeans and raises an eyebrow at the already bruising lump. He gently feels along the bone.

  ‘Aahh!’

  ‘That’s a bad sprain, alright. I’ll have to carry you home.’

  Oh no you won’t!

  ‘I’ll be fine. Just let me sit here a minute.’

  He looks long and hard at me--I didn’t remember his eyes being that green--and then stands up and cups an arm around my waist.

  ‘Come on.’

  I try to wriggle free, but it hurts too much. Michael hoists me over his shoulder.

  Okay WHOA.

  He spins me toward the horse, my helpless, mud-smeared ass propped skyward as if I was a sack of dirty laundry. I don’t know whether to be mortified or awestruck.

  ‘I’m taking you home.’

  Christ.

  He’s trying not to, but a thin smile’s making its way up his cheeks as he sets me sideways behind the mare’s shoulders, then hops up behind me. ‘Have you taken up bog snorkeling? Dangerous sport, that.’

  ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s not everyday I get to rescue a beautiful lady.’

  My neck flushes pink. I’ll show you lady.

  I lean as far forward as I can, but it doesn’t make much difference. As soon as he cinches the reins, I’m more or less in his lap.

  Why is this wigging me out? I sit closer to the weirdos on the subway, for God’s sake!

  After the longest trail ride of my life, we tro
t into the cottage drive. Cathal’s black BMW is parked conspicuously by the front door.

  ‘Shit!’ I’d completely forgotten the appointment!

  ‘What?’

  ‘Clare is going to kill me.’

  In a panic, I attempt to swing off of the horse, but Michael holds me fast.

  ‘Now. I’ve carried you this far. Let me get you into the house,’ he grumbles.

  ‘I can manage,’ I say, but I know very well that I can’t. The stupid horse is a good eight feet tall! I can’t believe I’m admitting this (again), but I need Michael’s help. With a pained resignation, I let my legs go limp and fall into his upheld arms.

  Okay, that was hot.

  He whisks me up the path and opens the door without bothering to knock.

  What is this, an Austen novel?!

  Clare and Cathal sit side by side on the sofa, mugs of tea halfway to their mouths. I have an excruciating awareness of what this looks like. My subconscious couldn’t care less. Short of the shining armour, this is Disney worthy random.

  ‘What is going on?’ Clare demands. ‘Where have you been?’

  Michael sets me down very carefully on the wingback chair. I realize I’d stopped breathing the moment he’d taken me into his arms.

  ‘Julie had a bit of an accident. I had to bring her home,’ he answers.

  ‘He’s exaggerating,’ I say brightly. ‘I’m fine.’

  Clare eyes my knotted ankle. ‘Good Lord!’ she barks. ‘That’ll teach you to wear those ridiculous shoes!’

  Says the woman wearing rubber clogs.

  Clare backs into the kitchen, tut-tutting all the way. ‘Mr. Heaney has been waiting for half an hour!’ she hollers from inside the icebox.

  Cathal glares at Michael. ‘And you just happened by.’ He leans toward the window and spots the horse grazing in the yard. ‘On your horse.’

  Michael ignores him and pours me a cup of tea. ‘Get that into ya,’ he says.

  Clare reappears with an icepack and applies it gingerly to my ankle.

  ‘It’s not broken is it?’ she asks Michael.

  How would he know?

  ‘No. Just keep the ice on it for an hour or so, and keep off of it for at least an hour!’ he’s says to me.

  ‘Okay.’ Dr. Mike.

  ‘I’ve got to head off. You’re sure you’re alright?’ he asks.

  He really seems worried. Hmmm.

  ‘Yes,’ I smile, a real one this time. ‘It’s fine, really.’

  ‘I’ll check in on you this evening,’ he says. ‘Clare, Cathal, very sorry for the intrusion,’ he nods to them and turns to the door. Clare swoops over to open it for him. He steps outside, but then hesitates and looks back over his shoulder at me as if he might say something. Cathal’s eyes yo-yo back and forth between us. His bottom lip quivers just noticeably. I should say something. Like ‘thank you’. But I don’t. Michael steps onto the path and disappears.

  ‘Good to see you’re already making friends,’ Cathal snipes at me once the door clicks shut.

  ‘I wouldn’t call us friends.’

  ‘What would you call it?’ Cathal yelps, his voice two octaves too high.

  ‘Let’s get on with this!’ Clare gripes.

  ‘Absolutely, Mrs. O’Mahony.’ He produces the contract and hands Clare and I each a copy. ‘Review that now, and any questions you may have--’

  Clare’s already signed, and now she’s pushing a pen into my hand.

  I scan through the document. Everything checks out. But why is Clare so eager all of a sudden?

  ‘What will happen to the factory once the sale goes through?’ I ask her.

  She pushes back into her chair and folds her arms. ‘If you want to manage St. Enda’s, by all means.’

  Point taken. I bow my head and sign. Clare pushes a check across the coffee table to me. Ten thousand big ones. I fold it neatly into my purse. ‘So that’s it? I can go home?’

  Cathal scratches at the back of his head. ‘This is only the contract stipulating the pre-sale. We still need to transfer the title, and we’ll need the notary to do that.’

  I was forgetting about the flipping notary!

  ‘He’s back tomorrow, you said?’ Clare says.

  ‘Well, he’s not actually. Apparently he’s had a bit of an accident.’

  ‘What?!’ Clare and I gasp.

  ‘It’s only his leg that’s broken this time.’

  ‘You said he was scuba diving!’ Clare yowls. ‘How in the hell did he break his leg scuba diving?’

  ‘He fell out of the boat. Onto another boat.’

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph.’

  ‘He’ll be out of the hospital Tuesday. Wednesday the latest. I called the hospital in St. Lucia. They won’t let him fly until the bone’s set.’

  WHAT?!

  ‘That’s not going to work. At all!’ I snap. I can’t stay here another week! ‘I’ve got serious business to attend to back home. I can’t just wait around indefinitely for this guy to show!’

  ‘And this isn’t serious business?’ Clare harps.

  Oh Lord.

  ‘What I mean is, I have to be home or I won’t have a business.’

  ‘I see.’ She almost smiles.

  That’s right. You’ve got me over a barrel. A rickety, cheese-filled barrel.

  ‘Right. I’ll be off so,’ Cathal stands up, wringing his hands.

  Clare sees him out.

  What am I going to do?! Kate is counting on me to be home by Monday! I have to get through to her ASAP. I make it halfway to Mum’s room, shuffle hopping on my good foot, when Clare stops me cold.

  ‘What are you at, Julie, for Christ’s sakes? Did you not hear what Michael was saying? Sit down!’ She leads me by the elbow back to the couch and pushes a footstool under my ankle. ‘Now,’ she says, terribly pleased with herself. ‘Magazine?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Hmmph.’ She crosses a leg over her knee, licks a thumb, and pages through a fat gardening quarterly.

  House arrest. Brilliant.

  I pull a magazine off the pile with a huff. Country Living. ‘What to plant where.’

  I can think of one thing.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘You know what, Clare? I’d love one.’

  As soon as she’s through the kitchen door, I’m up and hobbling into Cormac’s old wellies. I slip out the front and kick up the road to St. Enda’s, wincing every fifth step or so. There’s no way I could have made it all the way down to the pub! When the hulk of the warehouse peaks into view, I swear I hear a choir singing hallelujah.

  ‘Julie!’ Bridie has the door opened for me before I can knock. ‘How you keeping?’

  ‘Been better,’ I pant.

  ‘Oh, I hear that,’ she smiles and clenches at her chest. ‘Come in, and I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘They’d drown ya with tea if they were let,’ I hear Dad say.

  ‘That’d be lovely. Do you mind if I make a quick call?’

  ‘All yours,’ Bridie says and ushers me into the office. Assumpta and Emer glance up at me from their stations and then at one another. I can only imagine what they think of me. There she is. The big Yank. Coming in here like she owns the place.

  I ring Kate on Skype.

  ‘You’re never going to believe this.’

  ‘Lay it on me,’ she says.

  ‘The notary is still MIA.’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘The lawyer says he’ll be back next week. Wednesday, but I don’t know. I’ll expect him when I see him.’

  ‘Gilligan’s fricking Island over there.’

  ‘I’m saying.’

  Kate pouts into the camera. ‘And I so wanted you to be home to celebrate.’

  ‘Celebrate?’

  She scoots closer to the screen. ‘We got the office!’

  ‘No way!’ I yelp.

  ‘I sign the contract this afternoon!’

  ‘Kate, that’s ah-mazing!’

  ‘Just one thing.
You think you could wire me your half of the deposit and the first month’s rent by Monday? Kind of stretched here.’

  ‘I’ll have it to you first thing. I promise!’

  ‘You’re a star!’ She reaches out and gives me a long distance hug. ‘Gotta go, Jules. Chat soon!’

  Bridie is smiling from the doorway when I hang up, two mugs of tea at the ready.

  ‘Sorry, come in!’ I shoot out of the chair and gesture for her to sit.

  ‘Not at all,’ she says and hands me a mug. She leans awkwardly on the desk, one leg wobbling slightly. ‘I think I will sit, actually.’ She sinks down with a sigh. ‘Was that your friend back home? She sounds lovely.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘You’ll be ready to go home.’

  ‘I can’t wait! We’ve just got our own office!’

  ‘Now! You’re granny would be proud.’

  I smile up at the portrait. ‘You know, it’s funny. I never met her, but being here, in this place she was such a part of, hearing all these stories about her, sometimes I feel like I did know her.’