Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (20 page)

“Still you didn’t come back.” Pamela said, unable to keep a touch of anger from her words. “The boys needed you then, possibly more than they ever had before or would ever again, yet you stayed away.”

“I sent the both of them the money to come to England. Pat refused, and Casey was already in prison by the time I learned of Brian’s death. Pat never cashed the cheque either though I suspect he needed the money. I wrote Casey every week during his time in Parkhurst. All my letters were returned unread. I know he didn’t owe me anything but still it was hard. I went to the prison and tried to visit but he refused even that, when I’m sure he was in sore need of the company.”

“I think he couldn’t afford any vulnerability at that point in his life,” Pamela said, thinking of the few things Casey had actually shared with her about his life in prison. “Seeing a mother he’d not seen in years would have been far too hard for him under the circumstances.”

Deirdre nodded. “Yes, I imagine you’re right.”

Pamela stood and smoothed down the front of her dress. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go see if I can find him now that he’s had a bit of time to cool off.”

Deirdre took her hand, startling Pamela. The woman’s touch was cool but oddly comfortable. “I’m glad he has you,” she said, before turning her attention back to Conor, who had his chubby hands entangled in her necklace now.

“Would it be alright if the baby stayed here for a bit with me?” Deirdre asked, dark eyes still slightly damp. “I swear I’ll not kidnap him—you can tell Sophy. She’ll keep an eye on the two of us.”

“Alright,” Pamela said, though she felt some worry at what Casey might feel about this. Still, the woman was Conor’s grandmother, and this might be their only chance to spend a bit of time together. She gave the baby a kiss on his forehead. He seemed content enough to stay with Deirdre so she took her leave quickly, wanting a bit of time to find Casey.

She closed the door behind her and walked down the hall into the bright bustle of the kitchen.

Sophy, stirring something aromatic in a big black pot, beckoned her over. She tilted her head to the side, indicating an unopened bottle of Jameson’s and two clean glasses.

“Take that with ye. The lad may well need somethin’ to take the edge off.” She nodded toward the west-facing window. “He’ll be sittin’ up atop the wee hill there. It’s where he always went when he was a boy an’ felt troubled. Ye just follow the path up an’ ye’ll have no trouble findin’ him.”

“I left Conor with Deirdre,” Pamela said.

Sophy raised a red brow. “Aye, well, I think he’s safe enough. She’s not likely to run off with him, an’ I’ll keep an eye out as well.”

Pamela bit down on a smile, for Sophy’s words echoed Deirdre’s so exactly that there was no doubt that, despite the years of estrangement between them, they were family.

All the family drama notwithstanding, it was a lovely night with a breeze blowing out of the west, soft and smelling of grass and the crushed thyme that bordered Lucy Murphy’s garden.

The path was narrow, but there was still enough light to make the going easy. Sure enough, when she crested the rise of the hill, there sat her husband, with his knees drawn up and his back against the solid trunk of an oak.

Casey looked up at her approach. “A beautiful woman bearing a bottle of whiskey. Have I died an’ gone to heaven then?”

“I thought you could use a drink about now.”

He smiled wearily. “Aye, I could at that, darlin’. Where’s Conor?”

“Fed and burped and in good hands. Your Aunt Sophy’s keeping an eye on him,” she said, thinking that it was best to omit the fact that it was Deirdre who actually had possession of their son at present.

Casey raised a dark brow at this.

“I quite like her,” Pamela said. “Granted, she’s a bit… unique, but certainly fit to watch over a sleeping babe.”

“That,” Casey said darkly, “remains to be seen.”

“Well, there are about forty other baby-mad women down there, so I’ve no doubt he’ll be well attended to.”

She took the lid off the bottle of Jameson’s and poured them each a stiff two fingers, took another look at Casey’s face and added a third finger to his glass before handing it to him.

“So, how are you doing?”

Casey scrubbed his hands hard through his hair and sighed before answering.

“I feel a little like someone hit me over the head with a hot poker but I’ll be fine.”

“Are you going back to talk to her?”

He shook his head. “No, an’ I think ye can understand it well enough with yer own situation. Would ye look kindly on yer mother were she to show up out of the blue an’ act as though she hadn’t disappeared into the ether twenty-odd years ago?”

“No, I wouldn’t. But mine isn’t going to magically appear. I think maybe, whether you ever see her again or not, you should take this chance to talk to her.”

“Why, Jewel? What can she possibly say to make me feel less bitter toward her?”

“Possibly nothing, but still she’s here. It might be nice for Conor to have one grandparent.”

Casey gave her a slanted look. “Now that’s not playin’ fair at all woman, an’ well ye know it.”

“Maybe not, but what’s fair about being a parent?”

“If I tell ye I cannot talk with her right now, will ye think less of me?”

“Casey,” she said, shocked that he would even think such a thing, “if you never spoke to her for the rest of her life, I would think no less of you. If you’re not ready, you simply aren’t. It was enough of a shock to see her.”

“Aye, it was at that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, putting out a hand tentatively and touching his arm.

He looked at her and raised a dark brow. “Whatever on earth are you sorry for, Jewel?”

She shrugged. “Just that this is so painful for you.”

He sighed and put one of his hands over hers. “I feel that I ought to be able to be civil. I’m a grown man with a family and an entire history that’s naught to do with her in there, an’ yet I swear to ye Pamela that I felt about six years old the minute I saw her lookin’ at us across the room.”

“Oh, Casey.” She held him closely and felt his body relax against her.

“Jewel, I don’t know what I’d do without ye,” he said softly. “Yer my conscience, always savin’ me from the worst of myself.”

“As you do for me, man,” she said, laying her cheek to the soft coil of his hair. They sat so for several long moments until Casey finally sighed and stood, brushing leaves and needles from his pants.

“Come on, woman,” he held a hand out, and pulled her up. “Let’s go down an’ face the lions.”

Night sat soft about the house as they descended the hill
, the lights glowing in hazy parhelia and the sound of talk ribboning out on the breeze. There were fewer cars than when Pamela had ascended the hill, for some of the guests were taking their leave.

There was a chill thread in the wind, blown back by an autumn that lay only a few weeks ahead. Casey wrapped his suit jacket around his wife’s shoulders and added his own arm for good measure. Pamela snuggled gratefully into his side. Despite sitting on the hillside for a good two hours, the man was still warm as toast.

“It’ll be alright. We can go now, if you’d like. No one would blame you.”

Casey smiled down at her in the waning light.

“’Tis alright, darlin’. I need to say goodbye to everyone. I think I can manage that well enough.”

Inside the house, it was much quieter. Even the Murphy tongues seemingly had a limit. There was a fire in the hearth though the windows were still open to the night. Pamela collected Conor from Sophy, and sat down with him in a squashy wingback chair near the fire. Beside her on a mattress lay a crumpled posey of tiny Murphys, three buttercup heads with one small clove pink resting royally in the midst. The aunts and cousins were strewn about the room and Pamela instinctively looked about to place Deirdre, but if she was still present in the house, she was not visible.

Devlin was strumming his guitar softly, random riffs of plaintive chords that reminded them all of why they were gathered here under this roof.

He eyed Casey as he crossed the room. “Sing with me, boy,” he said. “Yer Nan did always love the sound of yer voice.”

Casey nodded and wove his way over to where his uncle sat. “What would she have us sing then, Uncle?”

“She was fond of
My Lagan Love
. She told me even I couldn’t sing it the way you could, boy.”

Casey sat on a stool, his shirt open and cuffs rolled up. He’d abandoned both tie and cufflinks some time ago, and looked relaxed as he sat silent. He was always quiet for a moment before beginning a song. She knew he was bringing his focus down to a fine point, preparing to do honor to his grandmother’s memory.

His voice started soft, needing no accompaniment. She had heard him sing any number of times. He often sang while he worked about the house, unaware that he was even doing so, for it was that natural a part of his life. Still, his voice could surprise her for the sheer raw pure power of it. She could see the effect of it on the faces around him already.

Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair

The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair

At the end of the first verse, Casey paused for a second and said. “Join me, Uncle.” Devlin nodded and followed Casey into the second verse. The two men sang well together, Devlin’s voice weaving a gossamer net under the falling stars of Casey’s pure Irish tones.

And like a love-sick lennan-shee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe nor liberty
For love is lord of all.

From the corner of her eye she saw Deirdre come to stand in the doorway, still in the shadows, and knew that Casey would sense her there as well.

Her father sails a running-barge
‘Twixt Leamh-beag and The Druim;
And on the lonely river-marge
She clears his hearth for him.
When she was only fairy-high
Her gentle mother died;
But dew-Love keeps her memory
Green on the Lagan side.

For a moment, the barest fragment of time, his eyes met those of his mother and Pamela lost her breath, for she saw there no hostility, no guard, but only the boy who had missed this woman every day of his life. Deirdre stepped back from the look, for it must have felt like a knife in her chest just to witness it, and the guard came back down over Casey’s eyes. He turned his face away and continued the song, voice growing in strength like a flock of birds winging in ever closer across a winter sky.

And often when the beetle’s horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep
I steal unto her shieling lorn
And thru the dooring peep.
There on the cricket’s singing stone,
She stirs the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad sweet undertone
The songs of heart’s desire

The next verse he sang to his wife, dark eyes making certain contact with her own. His voice was soft and aching, pulling her by dint of his words alone, leaving her aching with the longing to take him to her bed, to soothe all the hurts of his past and shield him from the world.

Her welcome, like her love for me,
Is from her heart within:
Her warm kiss is felicity
That knows no taint of sin.
And when I stir my foot to go,
‘Tis leaving Love and light
To feel the wind of longing blow
From out the dark of night.

His throat trembled through the sweat-sheened skin of his neck, the chords standing out in sharp relief. Pamela spared a glance toward Deirdre, who stood as though she’d been shot, frozen in place, eyes riveted to her eldest son’s face and tears falling unchecked down her cheeks. She looked exactly as one might expect a woman to look whose heart had broken with a sudden and irrevocable snap. There was a space around her where none of the family came near, as though they did not want to feel her pain.

Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a love-sick lennan-shee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe nor liberty
For love is lord of all.

He had closed his eyes during the last verse and they remained so for a moment, as he breathed in deeply, bringing himself back to the present world. And then he spoke, so softly, Pamela could barely make out the words. “
Slan leat,
Grandmother.” Goodbye.

He opened his eyes and stood, looking directly at Pamela. He gave her a weary smile, and she saw written clearly there what the day had cost him. He moved across the room slowly, his aunts and cousins reaching out with lingering hands to touch him in passing.

Deirdre stood, still crying, a terrible thing of silence and loss, her face ravaged by the last few minutes.

Casey paused just for a second and laid his hand on his mother’s shoulder, and then with neither word nor glance backward, he moved on through the strung silence toward his wife and son.

Pamela didn’t dare look round, for a hush filled the place that spoke of emotion stirred to the point of physical pain, and tears still streamed down her own face.

Casey leaned down, kissed her wet cheek and gently lifted their sleeping son from her arms, tucking the soft, boneless warmth of Conor tight into the curve of his own shoulder. Then he reached out a hand and took hers.