“In America it isn’t unusual to be my age and unmarried, not anymore.”
“You’re very pretty,” the child observed. “Didn’t anybody ever want to marry you?”
Mollie laughed, a lovely clear sound that brought smiles to the lips of both little girls. “No one that I wanted to marry.”
“Why not?” This time Caili asked the question.
Mollie bit her lip. How much truth was too much? “Marriage is very important,” she said carefully. “Before people decide to spend the rest of their lives together, they should be very sure they won’t change their minds.”
The answer appeared to satisfy the girls. Luke changed fists and began to chew in earnest. A small growling sound came from the back of his throat.
“We’re nearly there, Miss,” the Harris boy announced, breaking his silence.
“Thank you,” replied Mollie. “Would you like to come in for something before you drive home?”
He pulled back on the reins, jumped down, and, one at a time, swung the girls to the ground before helping Mollie. “No, thank you, Miss Tierney. Mam will have my tea ready. I don’t want to be late.”
In the kitchen Mollie found Luke’s bottle and placed it in the microwave on a low setting. Emma, delighted with the unexpected company, changed his diaper while Caili set the table and Marni sliced bread.
There was something fulfilling about completing homey tasks in the cozy kitchen light with the two little girls. Kerry O’Malley had done a wonderful job with her daughters. The girls were bright, enthusiastic, and unspoiled. There was a great deal to be said for a mother with that kind of influence.
Settling into a corner of the couch to give Luke his bottle, Emma waved Mollie away. “You go ahead and eat with the girls,” she said. “I’ll manage here.”
Marni had poured the tea, set out bread and butter and sliced tomatoes. A delicious smell came from the crockpot Mollie had filled that morning. She ladled three servings into bowls and carried them to the table. Just as she was about to take her seat, a loud knock sounded at the kitchen door.
“Start eating, girls,” she said, moving quickly to the door. Before the knock sounded again, she opened it. Sean O’Malley stood on the steps. A lock of dark hair fell across his forehead. His eyes were very blue in the porch light, and on his face was an expression Mollie couldn’t read.
“I understand you have my children with you,” he said in formal tones.
His children? Mollie nodded. “We were just about to eat. Will you join us?”
“It’s late. I don’t want to put you out.”
Mollie reached for his hand and pulled him inside. “For heaven’s sake, Sean, come inside. Luke is nearly asleep, and the girls have helped with dinner. We were just about to eat. It isn’t any trouble to set another place. I’m happy to have the company.”
She watched the tension leave his chest first, then his jaw, and finally his eyes. The first glimmering of a smile appeared on his lips. “All right then, since you’ve put it that way, it wouldn’t be polite to refuse, would it?”
Her own smile appeared. “No, it wouldn’t.”
He hung his coat up, sat down, and rested a hand first on Caili’s head and then on Marni’s. “How are my girls?”
“Are you eating with us, Uncle Sean?” Marni asked.
Sean’s eyes met Mollie’s across the table. “I’ve been invited. Accepting seemed the proper thing to do.”
Marni smiled and applied herself to her stew. Caili stared down at her plate, frowning.
Sean lifted her chin. “Why the glum face, lass?”
“I don’t want to go home. Aunt Mollie said there were rooms enough for us to stay.”
Mollie set a bowl of stew down in front of Sean. “That was only if your uncle had to work late.”
“I still want to stay.”
“Your aunt has a busy day tomorrow,” Sean explained. “She can’t be caring for you and preparing for school at the same time.”
“She won’t have to care for me,” Caili argued. “I’ll be sleeping.”
“Then it won’t matter where you are,” Sean replied reasonably. “Eat your supper, Caili. I’m sure your Aunt Mollie has given you schoolwork to do.”
“We finished it,” Marni said.
Sean was clearly exasperated.
Mollie stepped in. “We’ve all had a busy day. I’d love to have you spend the night the next time your Uncle Sean has to work late. We’ll tell Mrs. Harris, and you can come directly home with me, all of you. How will that be?”
Caili’s eyes brightened. “Truly, Aunt Mollie?”
A rush of love for this small green-eyed girl, so powerful it nearly lifted her from the chair, swept through Mollie. “Truly, darling,” she promised. “I won’t forget.”
Sean sent her a grateful look. Later, after saying good night to Emma, bundling Luke against the cold, and buttoning up his nieces’ jackets, he thanked Mollie once again. “It was kind of you to take them like this. I hope it wasn’t too much of a burden.”
“Hardly,” Mollie answered simply. “I’ve waited all my life to have a family. It’s lonely being an only child.”
He studied her carefully, gauging the sincerity of her response. “I suppose it might be. However, I’m sure you never wished to have a family thrust upon you quite so precipitously.”
Mollie nodded toward the children waiting patiently at the end of the driveway. “It isn’t that they’d rather be with me, you know. They miss their mother.”
Sean glanced at his nieces, and his mouth softened. “I know that. Thank you for helping us through this.”
She felt the connection between them, like an invisible thread, strong and resilient enough to withstand the weight of her probe. She braved the question. “You loved your sister very much, didn’t you?”
“Aye. That I did.”
“Why did you leave the island? Weren’t you happy here?”
At first he looked surprised. Then his eyes narrowed. “Happy? Is that what you think is important, Mollie Tierney?” His mouth twisted into the ghost of a smile. “Who told you that life is supposed to be happy? It’s enough that we’re here. The odds against that alone are nearly insurmountable. Shouldn’t a man accept a bit of unhappiness in the exchange? Is anyone ever happy for more than a minute or two?”
She stared at him, astonished. It was such a simple question, no more than making small talk. Obviously she’d pushed a button.
Without waiting for her reply, he turned, carrying the baby, and walked away through the night.
Mollie released the breath she held. Sean O’Malley was suffering, and for some reason it was particularly painful for her to see it.
CHAPTER 12
Sean finished reading the report he’d photocopied and frowned. For a long time now he’d toyed with the idea of writing a play set on his native island, something along the lines of Robert O’Flaherty’s Man of Aran, more modern, of course, with the same stoicism, a bit of romance, and the inevitable twist of Irish humor. His mouth tightened into a grim line. He hadn’t counted on dredging up the depressing statistics of life on an island where the sole industry outside the summer tourist season was fishing.
Fish counts were lower this year than last and some varieties close to the blackout the island people dreaded. With emigration to England, Canada, and America, fewer and fewer fishing boats were in competition every year. Normally the take would be better. But the tiny curraghs of the solitary fisherman were no match for the commercial vessels from the mainland, from Scotland and England. Thousands of pounds of fish were harvested from the big boats weekly. Eventually they depleted the waters, leaving the smaller boats dry-docked, men unemployed, and island families on the dole without a good portion of their protein for the year.
He’d seen it all before, but somehow childhood buffered the seriousness of possible disaster. The cycle of feast to famine was a common enough one on the Arans, occurring every ten years or so. The cure was simple enough, a
llow a fallow season for certain species of fish, but convincing the fishermen was a losing battle. Until the government stepped in and regulated the fish numbers, greedy boats would bleed the coastal waters until there was nothing left for an island man to feed his family and make a bit of profit on the side.
When a blackout went into effect, all commercial fishing within twenty-five miles of the coastline was prohibited. It was the harbor master’s task to deliver the unwelcome news, and inevitably, no matter how often he warned them, it was he who was blamed for the fishermen’s straitened circumstances. Fortunately, it was seasonal, and all hard feelings were forgotten when the boats went out again. Patrick Tierney had been the harbor master during the years he was married to Emma.
According to Patrick, she’d never understood the love-hate relationship the islanders bore their leaders. She’d resented the hostile mutterings of the island women when they stood behind her in the grocery line. When she left him, Patrick decided the life of harbor master, with its capricious hours and emergency calls, was no way to raise a child, and he turned away from it.
Patrick Tierney had his troubles, but he was a man with a good heart. Sean had witnessed the man’s love for his son and his grandchildren in a thousand small acts of compassion over the years. Kerry hadn’t seen him in quite the same way, and now it appeared that Mollie, too, had her conditions.
Women, Sean reflected, were hard on a man, no matter if they were wife, mother, or daughter. He wondered how his own nieces would look back on this period of their lives. Would they resent his work schedule, the infrequent family meals, the overall confusion of their home that was no longer a home? How long would it take them to understand that he had no choice?
Guilt consumed him. He looked at his watch. His mother and the children were expecting him. Bless Luke. Poor wee lad had a smile on his face no matter who cared for him.
He was nearly out the door when the phone rang. Debating whether or not to answer it, he swore, turned back, and lifted the receiver. “O’Malley here.”
The grim look on his face disappeared. “That would be grand, Mollie. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. I’ll be there.”
He hung up the phone, looked at his watch, and replaced his jacket on the back of his chair. Thank God for Mollie. She had given him another precious hour.
Eileen O’Malley rubbed her aching wrists, lowered herself into the easy chair closest to the fire, and offered up a brief prayer that Luke would sleep until Sean came to fetch him. If this was what seventy-four felt like, she prayed to God to help those who were seventy-five and eighty.
The years weighed heavily on her face, carving deep furrowed lines in the fair skin stretched across her cheeks and her forehead and in the fainter ones spidering away from the corners of her mouth. The dourness of her expression was barely relieved by the sparkle in her eyes and the wry wit she sprinkled frugally throughout her conversations. She rarely complained despite the crippling arthritis that afflicted her hands and stiffened the joints of her hips, shoulders, and knees so that every movement, even the simplest, was wrought with excruciating pain.
Sean would be late tonight. He’d warned her in the morning when he dropped off the children, and she’d assured him they would be fine. She should have known better. The girls she could manage, but Luke was too much for her. By noon she couldn’t lift him anymore. When Marni was home from school she could cope, but the child had already missed enough. Any more absences would affect her learning.
Eileen’s heart ached for her daughter and the man she had married. She hadn’t wanted Danny Tierney for Kerry. He was flighty, and he took to the drink like Patrick. Anyone with eyes could see he wasn’t husband material, not for a woman’s only daughter. But Kerry was fully grown when she’d married and in no mood to listen to a meddling mother.
If only Sean had stayed on the island. He was her youngest, born fifteen minutes after Kerry. From the beginning she’d known he wouldn’t be satisfied living on a bit of rock eight miles long and three miles wide. Chomping at the bit was her Sean, straining toward independence.
Sean had been her dreamer, thoughtful, sensitive, the quiet one, disappearing for hours at a time, coming home rejuvenated by the peace of his own company. Not that he’d been friendless. His striking good looks and infectious smile were magnets for both lads and lasses. Most of his friends were gone now, the ambitious ones, away to jobs in Dublin, London, Chicago, and New York.
Eileen recalled Sean’s wanderlust years, when postcards came from parts of the world she’d never heard of. She’d known, even then, that this one would never come home again. Some were born to the call of the island, but not Sean. She’d known the workings of his complicated, searching mind. Because it mirrored her own, she understood his love for the sea and its various moods, for a way of life older than the Viking forts staring down upon them, for a people hardened by time and circumstance and unending battles with nature. But she knew his destiny didn’t lie along that path. Sean had buried his father, kissed his mother, wished his sister well on her wedding day, and escaped, permanently, until now.
Eileen stared out the window, and a lump rose in her throat. Marni and Caili were playing what looked a bit like jump rope but with elastic tied around their legs. Poor wee lassies. They would need their tea soon, and she hadn’t the strength to turn on the stove. What was to become of them with their mother and father gone, their uncle a bachelor, and both island grandparents unable to keep them for one reason or another? She hated to disagree with Sean, but Emma appeared the most logical choice.
The ringing phone startled her. Wearily she stood and walked into the kitchen in time for the beginning of the third double ring. “Hello.”
“Hello, Mrs. O’Malley.” The voice was low, pleasant, not of the island. “This is Mollie Tierney. Would you mind if I came by to pick up the children? My mother would like to see them.”
Mollie Tierney. Danny’s sister. Eileen hesitated. The temptation was strong, but would Sean approve? “I’m sure the children would love it, Miss Tierney, but have you spoken with Sean?”
“I have,” Mollie assured her. “He told me you’ve had them all day and to give you a break.”
Eileen was ashamed of the relief that swept through her. “Well, then,” she said heartily, “if your mother would like to see them, that’s where they should go.”
“I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
She hung up the phone, summoned new reserves of energy, reached over to the stove, and turned on the burner, watching the instant flame leap into life. Bless Sean. He’d surprised her with a gas stove last Christmas. There was something luxurious about turning a button and watching the flame catch like magic.
She’d said twenty minutes. The lass would be blue with cold by that time. Eileen opened the pantry and pulled out a round loaf of bread studded with raisins. Carefully, painfully, she pulled a knife from a drawer and began to slice. The bread fell away in neat, meticulous squares.
Marni walked into the kitchen. “We’re hungry, Gran. Is tea ready?”
Eileen stopped and rubbed her knuckles. “Your aunt is coming to take you home with her. You’ll have a bit of something here, but she’s already planned the rest of your tea. You’ll like that, won’t you, lass?”
The child nodded.
She turned back to the bread, sawed through another slice, bit her lip, sighed, and set down the knife. “Would you be a love, Marni, and finish this up for me? My hands won’t cooperate.”
Obediently, Marni took up the knife and quickly cut the remaining bread. Then she climbed up on a stool and opened the cupboard to take out a platter. After arranging the bread, she pulled a cube of butter from the refrigerator, added it to the plate, and carried it to the table. “I can make the tea, too, Gran,” she said.
Eileen smiled at the solemn little girl. “Thank you, love. You’re a wonderful helper.”
Marni nodded. “That’s what Uncle Sean always says.”
> Sinking into the nearest chair, Eileen glanced down at her swollen knuckles and then over at the child expertly scalding the teapot. Marni was a little girl. What happened to children who were made to grow up before they were ready? Worry deepened the creases in her brow. Most likely they turned out like Sean, always wanting something more than they had.
The door opened, and Caili walked in, her cheeks red from the cold, her hands grubby. She smiled and held up the elastic that had served as a rope. “I did it, Marni. I lasted through the whole of Double Dutch.”
“You did not.” Marni continued with her task.
Unperturbed, Caili filched a piece of bread from the platter, tore it in half, and began eating out the middle. “I did too.”
“You always make it through when no one is there to see you.”
“It’s easier when no one is watching me.” Caili grinned engagingly at her grandmother and held up her leftover crust. “You put in lots of raisins this time.”
Eileen laughed and held out her arms. “Come here and kiss me and then wash your hands. Your Aunt Mollie won’t want to take you looking like a chimney sweep.”
Caili’s eyes sparkled. “Is she coming to take us home with her?”
“Aye. But first you’ll have some bread and tea.”
Caili clapped her hands, crushing the crust between them. Leaving the decimated pieces on the floor, she pulled the stool to the sink, climbed onto it, and turned on the faucet. Eileen opened her mouth to remind her of the bread when she saw Marni reach for the broom and dustpan. Without a word, the child swept the crust into the pan and dumped it into the trash.
Good Lord. Eileen watched in amazement as Marni pulled out the silver, filled the teapot, and carried everything to the table. Was Sean completely oblivious to what was happening with his family? “Caili’s old enough to clean up after herself,” Eileen said gently.
Marni shrugged. “It’s faster when I do it.”
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