by Dorien Kelly
A choked sound escaped her, the sort that Liam recognized as a warning.
“I hate it here,” she said, her voice tight to breaking. “I’ve tried to be good. I’ve tried so hard for you.”
She crossed her arms on the table, rested her forehead on them, and then the tears began in earnest. It was the sort of weeping that seemed to come from the very bottom of her soul, then work its way out, wrenching and awful.
“We’ll make this work, Meggie,” he said, using the nickname he’d given her as a baby, and then put away as his life grew distant from her. “We will.”
“How?” Her voice was muffled, but Liam could still catch it. “You don’t want me, either.”
God, now there was a blow to bring a man to his knees. He was ready to cry with her. “Not want you? I’ve always wanted you, from the moment I knew you were growing inside your mother.”
This in so many ways was his fault. He’d not thought long enough about all the departures from his daughter’s life, beginning with his, four years earlier. Beth had told him that he’d hardly be missed, and he’d chosen to believe her because it had salved his conscience. Fat, hideous mistake that had been.
He stood and rounded to Meghan’s side of the table, then awkwardly settled a palm between her heaving shoulders. He’d wanted communication, and he’d bloody well gotten it.
“It will be all right,” he said, leaning closer and smoothing his other hand through her hair.
She no longer smelled like a little girl, all baby shampoo and filched cookies, his Meggie. No, now she smelled of too liberally applied perfume and pockets full of mint candies. He’d missed the transformation from child to this awkward in-between adolescent state, and knew there was no reclaiming the lost time. But he had made her a promise. He would make it all right. It was the very least he could do.
“Let’s say we call your mother,” he said.
Meghan’s head shook from side to side. “Can’t. She’s working now.”
“We can and will. Go wash those tears, and I’ll scare her up.”
Meghan sat up, another bit of progress. “She said I wasn’t supposed to call during work hours unless it was an emergency.”
He smiled. “It’s safe to say that your day qualifies.”
She sniffled and then wiped her hand beneath her eyes. “I ’spose.”
“Meet me in the dining room,” he said, then went to his briefcase to find the emergency cell number that Beth had given him.
It took a few minutes to get the international dialing code straight, but by the time the phone was ringing, he could also hear the water running upstairs where Meghan was pulling herself together.
“Hello?” his ex-wife said over a great deal of background noise.
“Beth?” Liam asked, just to be certain.
“Liam, is that you?”
“It’s me, and Meghan’s needing a word with you.”
“What?”
“I said that Meghan’s—”
“Sorry. I can’t hear too well. I’m in the field.”
It sounded to Liam more as though she were inside a giant diesel engine.
“Look,” she shouted, “can I call you back when I’m home in a few hours?”
Just then, Meghan came pounding down the stairs, face washed and an expectant light in her eyes. He walked to the kitchen, leaving his daughter in his wake.
“Can’t you move away from whatever you’re near and do this now? It’s important, Beth.”
“An hour, then.”
“Fine. An hour.” He hung up and rejoined Meghan in the front room.
“Where’s Mom?” she asked, gesturing at the phone Liam held slackly.
“The reception was terrible, love. She’ll be someplace better in an hour.”
“And she’s going to call back?”
He didn’t like the doubt that made her voice waver. “She will.”
“Okay,” she said.
Meghan picked up a remote, settled on the sofa and switched on the flat panel television that hung above the mantel in lieu of artwork. Liam sat next to her and voiced not a complaint as she switched through channels too quickly for him to grasp even the images on the screen.
“How long has it been?” she asked three minutes later.
“Too soon to be asking.”
“Right.” She flipped through the channels again, then settled on an older American movie about angry teenagers serving detention in their school library. As it was apropos of her situation, Liam decided to gut out the film. Besides, the redheaded heroine put him vaguely in mind of Vi at that age. Of course, any female with red hair set him to thinking of Vi.
A quarter hour later, Meghan voiced her earlier question, then again on the half-hour. When they were three-quarters through the hour Beth had allotted, Meghan grew restless.
“Yeah, like you wouldn’t fall through,” she said to the boy on television, who was crawling across the top of a drop-ceiling. To Liam, she added, “It shouldn’t be much longer, right?”
“Not at all,” he assured her.
The appointed time passed, but the phone remained silent.
“I hope she’s okay,” Meghan said. “They’ve got terrorists and stuff in Saudi Arabia.”
“It’s a relatively safe place,” Liam said.
“Then why didn’t she let me come along?”
Sharp question from an all too perceptive child. “It would have been too disruptive,” he said. And never safe enough. “Now, let’s give your mother fifteen minutes, then call her.”
When the time arrived, Liam called Beth and found only her voice mail.
“She’s likely in a meeting,” he said to Meghan, who had given up any pretense of watching the movie and instead was nibbling at her thumbnail. He knew better than to stop her. Fifteen more minutes had passed when Liam succumbed to impatience.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, taking the phone and heading to the privacy of the kitchen. Once there, he tapped redial and this time had Beth in moments. Her “hello” was distracted, but at least she was audible over the noise of her surroundings.
“You said you were going to call back,” he said. “Meghan’s grown worried.”
Beth’s sigh sounded to be more of impatience than regret. “I told you the timing’s bad. My supervisor’s here, and I can hardly tell him to go away. Really, tonight would be better.”
It was a small thing his daughter needed, and he refused to fail at something this basic. Liam made his way to Meghan while saying in an undertone to his ex-wife, “Thirty seconds, Beth. She’s had a bloody feck-all of a day, and I promised her this.”
Meghan still sat on the sofa, feet tucked under her. “Is it Mom?” She held out her hand. “Let me talk to her.”
Liam handed her the phone, hoping that Beth hadn’t hung up.
“Mom?” she asked. Her face crumpled with relief when she heard her mother’s voice.
“Should I go?” Liam mouthed while hitching a thumb toward the stairway, thinking she might want her privacy.
“It’s okay if you stay, Dad,” she said, then launched into conversation with her mother.
Dad. For the first time since they’d been together in Duncarraig, Meghan had accorded him the honor of that title.
It was a simple word, but apparently one he’d been longing to hear, for Liam felt ridiculously pleased. He walked to the front window, where he could look out and grin like a fool. Three letters—one American-sounding syllable—and his day had turned around.
Vi stood outside Rafferty’s Pub, waiting for her da to join her while she took Roger for a late evening walk. Cullen had been kind enough to watch the wee hound while she and Liam had gone to Castle Duneen and pushed themselves to the brink of…
Vi frowned, sufficiently self-aware that that she could sense matters slipping from beneath her, but imperfect in her knowledge of what waited beyond.
“C’mon, Da,” she murmured as Rog danced impatiently at the end of his lead. She knew it
would be a few minutes yet, as Da had found more words in his couple of days spent in Duncarraig than she’d heard him use in the last decade. At a place such as Rafferty’s there was always one more soul to talk with.
Not for Vi, though. Astrid had worn her thin with questions and chat about matters such as fashion, which were of no import to her. Seeking a belated peace, Vi looked at the night sky, which was startling in its lack of clouds. The November full moon shone pale crimson, hovering over Duncarriag nearly as bright as a warning beacon. A dour thought, there, she chided herself. Best to embrace change and move on.
And move on she would, before the chill that had come across her soul last night could fully take hold. To accomplish that, today had been filled with necessary acts, all in one way or another related to a Rafferty. She’d signed a contract with a real estate agent recommended by Nora. Hired a local man lauded by James to pack the last of Nan’s belongings and remove them to Ballymuir. Retained Cullen to keep an eye on Nan’s property, as fools with shovels and metal detectors seemed to be flocking there this afternoon.
All was under control, with the notable exception of matters pertaining to Liam. It wasn’t like her to flee. At least, that was what she’d believed of herself. And this, she knew, was flight—precipitous, rushed, and unguarded. It was a necessary act, too.
The pub door squeaked, heralding her da.
“Ready, now?” Vi asked once he’d joined her.
“Friendly-like place, isn’t it?” Da asked, hitching his thumb back to the pub as they strolled down the walk and toward the main shopping district.
“Quite,” Vi replied, then broached a tender subject. “You might consider bringing Mam for a visit one day soon, don’t you think?”
When he kept silent, Vi glanced over him. He’d always been a handsome man and relatively youthful in appearance for his age. But whether it was a trick of the moon or of the harsh streetlights, his face looked drawn long and lined with worry.
Da walked slower, and Vi heeled Rog to the new pace.
“It’s good you asked me to join you,” Da said. “I’ve something I need to be telling you.”
“And that would be?”
“Before you hear it from your mam or someone here in town, you should know that I’ve decided to stay above the pub in young Jamie’s spare room for a while.”
“You’ve left Mam?”
“Not left her, exactly…. I’m just giving her sometime to sort out her wishes. She might wish to appreciate me a little more, or she might not.”
This was not the night to be discussing such matters. Once the moon had begun to wane and its pull on emotions had diminished, it would be far simpler. But then, she would be gone. Vi gathered her thoughts the best she could. “Da, shouldn’t you be trying some counseling? I’m sure there’s someone at your church who—”
“I’m sure all will be well, Violet.”
Ah, Violet. The word remained a warning even now. When she’d been a child, she and Da had had a contract of sorts. If she was near to the edge of behavior he disapproved of, he’d call her by her full name. Gently, mind you, for that was Da’s way. And she would call retreat, for she had pushed too far.
Duly cautioned, Vi moved on to her own news.
“If Nan were here, she’d be simmering me a pot of carrageen soup,” she said.
Her da was silent for a moment, and she wondered if he was going to catch her message. Her grandmother had always made carrageen soup prior to a special visitor’s leaving. According to Nan, the seaweed would protect the traveler while journeying.
Vi was a believer in the theory for two reasons. First, her nan’s ways made as good sense to her as those of praying to a designated saint, who must be spread quite thin, what with all the comings and goings in the world. Second, it had been a damn fine soup.
“You’re leaving?” Da finally asked.
“It’s time.”
“Now you’re sure this is what you want to be doing? You’ve been here just days.”
Just days? The thought set Vi on her heels, as in some ways it seemed so much longer. She counted back and realized that it had indeed been only ten days since she’d first seen Liam again.
“I’ve finished my work,” she said. “The truck will be here on Monday to pick up the things I’m keeping, and I’d best be in Ballymuir waiting for it.”
“But…” Da hesitated and worked his jaw as though chewing something unpalatable. “I hate to be prying since you’re a woman grown, but what about Liam? I had thought…We all had thought…”
Vi chose her words with care. “Liam is a fine man, but I can’t set aside the rest of my life as though it doesn’t exist.”
“And have you told Liam your plans?”
“Matters are…involved.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes, then Da stopped altogether.
“Is it time to turn back?” Vi asked.
“I’ve kept my mouth shut through a lot, you know,” her da said. “Mostly, it was easier that way, and sometimes I hadn’t any idea what to say to the lot of you. This I do know. If you love him, it would be a sin to turn away now, after all you’ve been through with this man.”
Vi’s heart stumbled, then began to beat all too quickly. “Been through?”
Da sighed. “I’m not as thick as you’d think. I knew you fell in love fifteen years ago, and I knew you fell ill, too. Your nan might have kept the boy’s name from me, but she wouldn’t have kept it all. Your mother, though…” He shook his head. “I expect she’s been holding it like a knife at your back all these years.”
Vi held limply to Roger’s lead, feeling somehow that the mundane task of walking him was her sole anchor to reality. “You knew. I can’t believe you knew.”
“And it hurt me to think you didn’t want me to.”
Tears started, and she’d been sure she’d cried her last before joining Liam in the cold bed they’d shared in Castle Duneen. “I didn’t want to disappoint you. I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
“You’re my child…then, now, and forever. I’d have been disappointed, aye, but I’d have held you and forgiven you all the same. But why I’m telling you this now is because you must love the man still, to be having him back in your life.”
The need to confess was late in coming, but as Father Cready back in Ballymuir would say, it was better now than never. “Liam doesn’t know about the pregnancy, and I don’t know that I’ll ever find the right words to tell him. And until then…”
Da shook his head and then looked to the skies as though seeking the patience to deal with her. “And so you’re leaving instead? That makes my heart ache for you. Truly. I’m thinking that a sin against love is perhaps the saddest of all.” He patted her cheek. “I’ll be heading back to my new bachelor’s quarters. You take your dog home, and while you’re walking think long and hard whether this is what you want.”
With that, her da turned away.
Past the shops and to the houses, Vi walked, Roger stopping to sniff at the base of nearly every lamppost. Last night she’d thought long and painfully about Liam. It had been an ugly moment, realizing that she had somehow come to blame him for her infertility. When he was nothing more than a memory, he’d been a convenient dropping point for those emotions. But now he was real, and she was finding herself near to in love with him all over again.
Love couldn’t flourish in resentment. Vi feared having anger mar her words when she told him what had happened to her all those years ago. He deserved better from her, and she could not yet find the resources in herself to give it.
Vi walked past the front of Liam’s house, where lights still shone. Utterly unprepared to say goodbye, she hurried into the carriage house. There, Rog was content to lounge on the sofa, an affair squat to the ground, much as he. Vi briefly smiled at his paws-aloft sleep position and gave thought to the escape of doing the same, herself. It was early yet—not even ten—but she’d fit two days worth of activities into one, and
she planned to leave at first light.
“Coward,” she muttered to herself. Tonight Nan would be seasoning her carrageen soup with a bit of thyme, to build some spine back into Vi. Even if she yet found her anger unconquerable and her personal peace a distant goal, she owed Liam a decent parting this time.
Fifteen years ago it had been disastrous. On a sweet summer night with the moon high in the sky, she had thought he was going to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him. Instead, he’d told her that in a week, he’d be off to America to attend a small college that had offered him a full scholarship. He promised he’d be back for her in four years and asked if she’d wait for him. Stricken and betrayed to the bone, she had stormed off, proving his claim: that he’d kept silent all summer because he’d known she’d take the news like a child instead of a woman.
Late that night, she’d seen him move into the shadows of a party being held at the riverside with an American tourist girl. Despite her grandmother’s advice that she see with her heart, a far more perfect organ than her eyes, Vi had pushed Liam from her life. Her last words to him: that she would hate him forever.
How wrong she had been.
Before her courage could again flee, Vi crossed the courtyard. The moon had risen enough that it no longer seemed ominous to her. Indeed, it was more the guardian of contemplation that Nan had always called it.
Lights were still on within the house. She rapped at the back door. When no one arrived, she took the liberty of entering.
“Liam?” she called softly, then closed the door behind her.
She could hear the sounds of the television in the front room and walked toward it, hoping to find him alone there.
What she found made her already bruised heart ache even more. Liam and Meghan were both asleep on the sofa, with Liam sitting upright and his daughter curled up next to him. The low table in front of them bore evidence of a night’s indulgence. Savaged bags of potato crisps competed for space with shredded packets of biscuits. Half empty bottles of Club Orange soda crowned the feast’s remnants.
God in heaven, how she wanted this. She wanted her own child, not just Roger, love him though she did. To yearn this much and know what could have been was a pain she wished on no one. She could wake Liam, she knew, but she could taste that wholly unacceptable yet wholly human bitterness on her tongue. Vi would keep her words tonight, and share them only with the moon.
