The Irish Born Trilogy Page 2

  “I’ve a bit put by.”

  “No, not again.” On this she was firm. “I love you for it, but this I’ll do on my own.”

  He took immediate umbrage and scowled at his pipe. “What’s a father for, I’d like to know, if not to give to his children? You’ll not have fancy clothes or pretty baubles, so if it’s firebrick you want, then that’s what you’ll have.”

  “So I will,” she shot back. “But I’ll buy it myself. I’ve a need to do this myself. It’s not the money I want. It’s the faith.”

  “You’ve paid me back tenfold already.” He sat back, drawing the window down a crack so that the wind whistled through as he lit his pipe. “I’m a rich man, Maggie. I have two lovely daughters, each of them a jewel. And though a man could ask for no more than that, I’ve a good solid house and friends to count on.”

  Maggie noticed he didn’t include her mother in his treasures. “And always the pot at the end of the rainbow.”

  “Always that.” He fell silent again, brooding. They passed old stone cabins, roofless and deserted on the verge of gray-green fields that stretched on, endless and impossibly beautiful in the gloomy light. And here a church, standing against the wind that was unbroken now, was blocked only by a few twisted and leafless trees.

  It should have been a sad and lonely sight, but Tom found it beautiful. He didn’t share Maggie’s love of solitude, but when he looked out on a sight like this, with lowered sky and empty land meeting with barely a sight of man between, he understood it.

  Through the whistling crack of the window, he could smell the sea. Once he’d dreamed of crossing it.

  Once he’d dreamed of many things.

  He had always searched for that pot of gold, and knew the failure to find it was his. He’d been a farmer by birth, but never by inclination. Now he’d lost all but a few acres of land, enough only for the flowers and vegetables his daughter Brianna grew so skillfully. Enough only to remind him that he had failed.

  Too many schemes, he thought now as another sigh fetched up in his chest. His wife, Maeve, was right about that. He’d always been full of schemes, but never had the sense or the luck to make them work.

  They chugged past another huddle of houses and a building whose owner boasted it was the last pub until New York. Tom’s spirits lifted at the sight, as they always did.

  “Shall we sail over to New York, Maggie, and have a pint?” he said, as he always did.

  “I’ll buy the first round.”

  He chuckled. A feeling of urgency came over him as she pulled the lorry to the end of the road, where it gave way to grass and rock, and at last to the windswept sea that spanned to America.

  They stepped into a roar of sound that was wind and water lashing furiously against the teeth and fists of black rock. With their arms linked, they staggered like drunks, then laughing, began to walk.

  “It’s madness to come here on such a day.”

  “Aye, a fine madness. Feel the air, Maggie! Feel it. It wants to blow us from here to Dublin Town. Do you remember when we went to Dublin?”

  “We saw a juggler tossing colored balls. I loved it so much you learned how yourself.”

  His laugh boomed out like the sea itself. “Oh, the apples I bruised.”

  “We had pies and cobblers for weeks.”

  “And I thought I could make a pound or two with my new skill and took me up to Galway to the fair.”

  “And spent every penny you made on presents for me and Brianna.”

  His color was back, she noted, and his eyes were shining. She went willingly with him across the uneven grass into the gnashing teeth of the wind. There they stood on the edge of the powerful Atlantic with its warrior waves striking at the merciless rock. Water crashed, then whipped away again, leaving dozens of waterfalls tumbling through crevices. Overhead, gulls cried and wheeled, cried and wheeled, the sound echoing on and on against the thunder of the waves.

  The spray plumed high, white as snow at the base, clear as crystal in the beads that scattered in the icy air. No boat bobbed on the rugged surface of the sea today. The fierce whitecaps rode the sea alone.

  She wondered if her father came here so often because the merging of sea and stone symbolized marriage as much as war to his eyes. And his marriage had been forever a battle, the constant bitterness and anger of his wife’s lashing forever at his heart, and gradually, oh so gradually, wearing it away.

  “Why do you stay with her, Da?”

  “What?” He pulled his attention back from the sea and the sky.

  “Why do you stay with her?” Maggie repeated. “Brie and I are grown now. Why do you stay where you’re not happy?”

  “She’s my wife,” he said simply.

  “Why should that be an answer?” she demanded. “Why should it be an end? There’s no love between you, no liking, if it comes to that. She’s made your life hell as long as I can remember.”

  “You’re too hard on her.” This, too, was on his head, he thought. For loving the child so much that he’d been helpless not to accept her unconditional love for him. A love, he knew, that had left no room for understanding the disappointments of the woman who had borne her. “What’s between your mother and me is as much my doing as hers. A marriage is a delicate thing, Maggie, a balance of two hearts and two hopes. Sometimes the weight’s just too heavy on the one side, and the other can’t lift to it. You’ll understand when you’ve a marriage of your own.”

  “I’ll never marry.” She said in fiercely, like a vow before God. “I’ll never give anyone the right to make me so unhappy.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t.” He squeezed her hard, worried. “There’s nothing more precious than marriage and family. Nothing in the world.”

  “If that’s so, how can it be such a prison?”

  “It isn’t meant to be.” The weakness came over him again, and all at once he felt the cold deep in his bones. “We haven’t given you a good example, your mother and I, and I’m sorry for it. More than I can tell you. But I know this, Maggie, my girl. When you love with all you are, it isn’t unhappiness alone you risk. It’s heaven, too.”

  She pressed her face into his coat, drew comfort from the scent of him. She couldn’t tell him that she knew, had known for years, that it hadn’t been heaven for him. And that he would never have bolted the door to that marital prison behind him if it hadn’t been for her.

  “Did you love her, ever?”

  “I did. And it was as hot as one of your furnaces. You came from that, Maggie Mae. Born in fire you were, like one of your finest and boldest statues. However much that fire cooled, it burned once. Maybe if it hadn’t flared so bright, so hard, we could have made it last.”

  Something in his tone made her look up again, study his face. “There was someone else.”

  Like a honeyed blade, the memory was painful and sweet. Tom looked to sea again, as if he could gaze across it and find the woman he’d let go. “Aye, there was once. But it wasn’t to be. Had no right to be. I’ll tell you this, when love comes, when the arrow strikes the heart, there’s no stopping it. And even bleeding is a pleasure. So don’t say never to me, Maggie. I want for you what I couldn’t have.”

  She didn’t say it to him, but she thought it. “I’m twenty-three, Da, and Brie’s but a year behind me. I know what the church says, but I’m damned if I believe there’s a God in heaven who finds joy in punishing a man for the whole of his life for a mistake.”

  “Mistake.” His brows lowered, Tom stuck his pipe in his teeth. “My marriage has not been a mistake, Margaret Mary, and you’ll not say so now, nor ever again. You and Brie came from it. A mistake—no, a miracle. I was past forty when you were born, without a thought in my head to starting a family. I think of what my life would have been like without the two of you. Where would I be now? A man near seventy, alone. Alone.” He cupped her face in his hands and his eyes were fierce on hers. “I thank God every day I found your mother, and that between us we made something I can leave behind. Of all the things I’ve done, and not done, you and Brianna are my first and truest joys. Now there’ll be no more talk of mistakes or unhappiness, do you hear?”

  “I love you, Da.”

  His face softened. “I know it. Too much, I think, but I can’t regret it.” The sense of urgency came on him again, like a wind whispering to hurry. “There’s something I’d ask of you, Maggie.”

  “What is it?”

  He studied her face, his fingers molding it as if he suddenly had a need to memorize every feature—the sharp stubborn chin, the soft curve of cheek, the eyes as green and restless as the sea that clashed beneath them.

  “You’re a strong one, Maggie. Tough and strong, with a true heart beneath the steel. God knows you’re smart. I can’t begin to understand the things you know, or how you know them. You’re my bright star, Maggie, the way Brie’s my cool rose. I want you, the both of you, to follow where your dreams lead you. I want that more than I can say. And when you chase them down, you’ll chase them as much for me as for yourself.”

  The roar of the sea dimmed in his ears, as did the light in his eyes. For a moment Maggie’s face blurred and faded.

  “What is it?” Alarmed, she clutched at him. He’d gone gray as the sky, and suddenly looked horribly old. “Are you ill, Da? Let me get you back into the lorry.”

  “No.” It was vital, for reasons he didn’t know, that he stand here, just here at the farthest tip of his country, and finish what he’d begun. “I’m fine. Just a twinge is all.”

  “You’re freezing.” Indeed, his wiry body felt like little more than a bag of icy bones in her hands.

  “Listen to me.” His voice was sharp. “Don’t let anything stop you from going where you need to go, from doing what you need to do. Make your mar
k on the world, and make it deep so it lasts. But don’t—”

  “Da!” Panic bubbled inside her as he staggered, fell to his knees. “Oh God, Da, what is it? Your heart?”

  No, not his heart, he thought through a haze of bleary pain. For he could hear that beating hard and fast in his own ears. But he felt something inside him breaking, bursting and slipping away. “Don’t harden yourself, Maggie. Promise me. You’ll never lose what’s inside you. You’ll take care of your sister. And your mother. You’ll promise me that.”

  “You’ve got to get up.” She dragged at him, fighting off fear. The thrash of the sea sounded now like a storm breaking, a nightmare storm that would sweep them both off the cliff and onto the spearing rocks. “Do you hear me, Da? You’ve got to get up now.”

  “Promise me.”

  “Aye, I promise. I swear it before God, I’ll see to both of them, always.” Her teeth were chattering; stinging tears already ran down her cheeks.

  “I need a priest,” he gasped out.

  “No, no, you need only to get out of this cold.” But she knew it was a lie as she said it. He was slipping away from her; no more how tightly she held his body, what was inside him was slipping away. “Don’t leave me like this. Not like this.” Desperate, she scanned the fields, the beaten paths where people walked year after year to stand as they had stood. But there was nothing, no one, so she bit back a scream for help. “Try, Da, come and try now to get up. We’ll get you to a doctor.”

  He rested his head on her shoulder and sighed. There was no pain now, only numbness. “Maggie,” he said. Then he whispered another name, a stranger’s name, and that was all.

  “No.” As if to protect him from the wind he no longer felt, she wrapped her arms tight around him, rocking, rocking, rocking as she sobbed.

  And the wind trumpeted down to the sea and brought with it the first needles of icy rain.

  Chapter Two

  THOMAS Concannon’s wake would be talked about for years. There was fine food and fine music, as he’d planned for his daughter’s celebration party. The house where he’d lived out his last years was crowded with people.

  Tom hadn’t been a rich man, some would say, but he was a man who’d been wealthy in friends.

  They came from the village, and the village beyond that. From the farms and shops and cottages. They brought food, as neighbors do for such occasions, and the kitchen was quickly stocked with breads and meats and cakes. They drank to his life and serenaded his passing.

  The fires burned warm to stave off the gale that rattled the windows and the chill of mourning.

  But Maggie was sure she’d never be warm again. She sat near the fire in the tidy parlor while the company filled the house around her. In the flames she saw the cliffs, the boiling sea—and herself, alone, holding her dying father.

  “Maggie.”

  Startled, she turned and saw Murphy crouched in front of her. He pressed a steaming mug into her hands.

  “What is it?”

  “Mostly whiskey, with a bit of tea to warm it up.” His eyes were kind and grieving. “Drink it down now. There’s a girl. Won’t you eat a little? It would do you good.”

  “I can’t,” she said, but did as he asked and drank. She’d have sworn she felt each fiery drop slide down her throat. “I shouldn’t have taken him out there, Murphy. I should have seen he was sick.”

  “That’s nonsense, and you know it. He looked fine and fit when he left the pub. Why, he’d been dancing, hadn’t he?”

  Dancing, she thought. She’d danced with her father on the day he died. Would she, someday, find comfort in that? “But if we hadn’t been so far away. So alone…”

  “The doctor told you plain, Maggie. It would have made no difference. The aneurysm killed him, and it was mercifully quick.”

  “Aye, it was quick.” Her hand trembled, so she drank again. It was the time afterward that had been slow. The dreadful time when she had driven his body away from the sea, with her breath wheezing in her throat and her hands frozen on the wheel.

  “I’ve never seen a man so proud as he was of you.” Murphy hesitated, looked down at his hands. “He was like a second father to me, Maggie.”

  “I know that.” She reached out, brushed Murphy’s hair off his brow. “So did he.”

  So now he’d lost a father twice, Murphy thought. And for the second time felt the weight of grief and responsibility.

  “I want to tell you, to make sure you know, that if there’s anything, anything a’tall you’re needing, or your family needs, you’ve only to tell me.”

  “It’s good of you to say so, and to mean it.”

  He looked up again; his eyes, that wild Celtic blue, met hers. “I know it was hard when he had to sell the land. And hard that I was the one to buy it.”

  “No.” Maggie set the mug aside and laid her hands over his. “The land wasn’t important to him.”

  “Your mother…”

  “She would have blamed a saint for buying it,” Maggie said briskly. “Even though the money it brought put food in her mouth. I tell you it was easier that it was you. Brie and I don’t begrudge you a blade of grass, that’s the truth, Murphy.” She made herself smile at him, because they both needed it. “You’ve done what he couldn’t, and what he simply didn’t want to do. You’ve made the land grow. Let’s not hear any more talk like that.”

  She looked around then, as if she’d just walked out of an empty room into a full one. Someone was playing the flute, and O’Malley’s daughter, heavy with her first child, was singing a light, dreamy air. There was a trill of laughter from across the room, lively and free. A baby was crying. Men were huddled here and there, talking of Tom, and of the weather, of Jack Marley’s sick roan mare and the Donovans’ leaking cottage roof.

  The women talked of Tom as well, and of the weather, of children and of weddings and wakes.

  She saw an old woman, an elderly and distant cousin, in worn shoes and mended stockings, spinning a story for a group of wide-eyed youngsters while she knitted a sweater.

  “He loved having people around, you know.” The pain was there, throbbing like a wound in her voice. “He would have filled the house with them daily if he could. It was always a wonder to him that I preferred to be on my own.” She drew in a breath and hoped her voice was casual. “Did you ever hear him speak of someone named Amanda?”

  “Amanda?” Murphy frowned and considered. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s nothing. I probably mistook it.” She shrugged it away. Surely her father’s dying words hadn’t been a strange woman’s name. “I should go help Brie in the kitchen. Thanks for the drink, Murphy. And for the rest.” She kissed him and rose.

  There was no easy way to get through the room, of course. She had to stop again and again, to hear words of comfort, or a quick story about her father, or in the case of Tim O’Malley, to offer comfort herself.

  “Jesus, I’ll miss him,” Tim said, unabashedly wiping his eyes. “Never had a friend as dear to me, and never will again. He joked about opening a pub of his own, you know. Giving me a bit of competition.”

  “I know.” She also knew it hadn’t been a joke, but another dream.

  “He wanted to be a poet,” someone else put in while Maggie hugged Tim and patted his back. “Said he’d only lacked the words to be one.”

  “He had the heart of a poet,” Tim said brokenly. “The heart and soul of one, to be sure. A finer man never walked this earth than Tom Concannon.”

  Maggie had words with the priest about funeral services set for the next morning, and finally slipped into the kitchen.

  It was as crowded as the rest of the house, with women busily serving food or making it. The sounds and smells were of life here—kettles singing, soups simmering, a ham baking. Children wandered underfoot, so that women—with that uncanny maternal grace they seemed to be born with—dodged around them or scooped them up as needs demanded.

  The wolfhound puppy that Tom had given Brianna on her last birthday snored contentedly under the kitchen table. Brianna herself was at the stove, her face composed, her hands competent. Maggie could see the subtle signs of grief in the quiet eyes and the soft, unsmiling mouth.