Hot Whispers of an Irishman (32 page)

Dusk slipped into nighttime, and Michael popped downstairs to say that all was well and they expected it wouldn’t be too much longer. Her brother was a disheveled mess. Vi couldn’t begin to imagine how Kylie looked. Feeling none too collected, herself, she moved on to the kitchen for a glass of water. Liam came along, and they sat opposite each other at the kitchen table, hands meeting and clasping midway across its surface. They talked of nothing of consequence, but for Vi, Liam’s presence made the room an island of calm.

“Vi! Where are you? She’s here! The baby’s here!” came a cry from the front room some time later.

Vi pushed to her feet. “She’s here. Thank God she’s here.” She rushed to join her family, Liam on her heels.

She wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting to see—a babe in pink, cooing, perhaps. What she had was Mam hissing at Da to turn off the television, Pat and Danny looking bashful, and a midwife, tired but content.

“Mam and baby are well,” the midwife said. “And the new da will be bringing baby down to meet you as soon as the doctor’s finished looking her over.” Just then a shrill squall drifted down to them. “As you can hear, her lungs are working just fine.”

It was another thirty minutes before Michael joined them, a bundle in his arms.

“This is Margaret Mary Kilbride, named for Kylie’s late mam.” He gazed down at the babe, and Vi wondered if she’d ever before seen such love. “I think we’ll be calling her Maggie.”

“Named for Kylie’s mother, you say?” Mam asked, sounding quite slighted.

“Well, Mam,” Pat said, “at least you know what you’ll have to do if you want the next one in your name.”

Emotions too close to the surface and bubbling higher, Vi laughed, then quickly covered her mouth with her hand as Mam glared at her. Liam looped an arm about her waist, and she was thankful for his steady presence.

“Patrick Anthony,” Mam said, “you’d best be watching your mouth or the next one will be named after
you.
”

Michael came to stand on the other side of Vi. Her heart swelled near to breaking as she looked at this new little life.

“You and Kylie did fine work,” she said.

“Aye, we did, didn’t we?” He smiled at Vi. “Would you like to hold her?”

Her palms grew immediately damp and her stomach knotted. “I—I…”

“Don’t be worried,” Michael said. “She’s like her mother…not nearly as fragile as she looks.”

Vi had held friends’ babies countless times, but she couldn’t seem to lift her arms, nod her head, or even make an excuse.

“Saints above, Violet,” Mam said, moving in front of Michael. “One would think you’d never seen a baby. Let me hold the child.”

Michael handed his daughter over to his mother, and it seemed to Vi that the room stilled. Mam fussed with Maggie’s blanket a bit, then said, “Fine work, indeed. Pity, though, she wasn’t twins. Now, Violet, hold out your arms like a good auntie.”

“I’m…I’m needing some air,” Vi said and bolted from the house, not even first looking for her cape.

The night air bit into her skin as up the hill she went, away from the warm light of the house, nearly stumbling in the darkness. When she reached Michael’s workshop, she felt for the door and stepped inside, not even bothering to switch on the light. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, hoping to hold at least some of the damn selfishness inside.

“If this was a test, Nan, I’ve failed,” she said.

Nan gave no answer, though Vi soon heard human footsteps approaching.

“Vi, are you in there?” Liam called.

There was no dignity to be gained in hiding. “I am.”

He came inside and turned on the lights. Vi focused on the toes of her shoes, telling herself that she was doing so only to let her eyes adjust and not out of a sense of shame.

Liam drew her into his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I was just needing a moment to collect myself.” She hurt down to her bones with the worry she’d had for Kylie and with the knowledge that she was so much less than the woman she aspired to be.

“Understandable,” Liam said. “It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?”

“Overwhelming,” she replied.

Vi inhaled deeply, both to calm her nerves and to catch the scent of the workshop. Tangy cedar overlaid other less distinct wood scents, making a perfume that she loved.

She and Liam stood silent for a while, and she began to believe that she might yet survive this night.

“I remember the day Meghan was born as if it were yesterday,” Liam said, putting out that small flicker of hope she’d just admitted to.

He slid his arms lower on Vi’s waist, but didn’t let her go. “Hard to believe it was over twelve years ago.”

“I’m sure,” she said, wishing she could cry
“Any bloody topic but this!”

“I haven’t been the best of fathers.”

“Nor the worst, either. Meghan knows she’s loved,” Vi said, easing from his embrace and eyeing the door. She’d best get home and feed Roger, and then—

“And I know what I’ve missed, too.” He shook his head. “I never thought I’d be saying this, but seeing your brother’s child and missing mine so…”

He was going to have her heart to dine on, wasn’t he? It took none of Nan’s vision to know what was coming next. Vi steeled herself for the blow.

“Have you thought of having children, Vi?”

She forced a smile into place. “What, and upset Roger? He’s been an only child for far too long.”

“I’m serious.” He took her hands, and she wondered how he could miss the way she was trembling.

“Vi? Are you in there?” called Danny from just outside the half-closed workshop door.

Vi slipped her hands free. “Aye, Danny. Me and Liam, both.”

Her gaze locked with Liam’s and shame was hers again. She’d done a poor job of hiding her relief at the interruption, and hurt a man she loved.

“Breege and Edna need running back to the village,” Danny announced, oblivious to the charged emotions around him. “Both don’t like to drive after sundown, they say. And they won’t have me or Pat take them, as they’ve seen the way we drive.” He made a scoffing sound. “Heathens, Edna called us.”

“I’ll run them back,” Liam said. “Would you like to come now, Vi?”

She forced her voice into cheerful tones, though she knew there was no fooling Liam, nor any need to fool Danny, who was more forthright than sensitive. “I’ll stay on a bit, if you don’t mind. Pat or Danny can run me home.”

“I’ll come back,” Liam said.

“You really don’t need to.”

“I’m thinking I really do. And at least come back to the house for your cape. It’s freezing out here.”

So it was.

Vi escorted Liam and Danny to the house, took Liam’s kiss on her cheek before he left, then went to the kitchen, switched off the light and sat at the kitchen table. This time, should someone come in, she’d run for those beehive huts as she should have yesterday. She’d never felt so utterly desolate. Or devastated.

She curved her arms into a semicircle on the cool wood of the table, then rested her head, too. The front room’s television was set to some sporting event or another, and she supposed that her parents and the twins were in front of it. The ecstatic portion of the family Kilbride was no doubt bonding upstairs. She closed her eyes and tried to put herself someplace more personally peaceful, but remained anchored to Michael’s kitchen.

She didn’t doze, but still had lost track of time when she was roused by the sound of her mother’s voice in the dining room.

“Where do you suppose Violet’s got herself off to?” Mam asked.

“She must be with Liam,” her da replied.

“She could have at least said goodbye, don’t you think?”

“I think the night’s been a wild one. A lapse in manners can be forgiven.”

Chairs scraped the floor, and china rattled a bit. She imagined her parents were taking seats.

“We’re grandparents, now,” she heard her da say to her mam, wonderment in his voice. “It’s a fine thing, isn’t it, Maeve?”

“I’ve always loved babies,” her mother said. “They’re so perfect…so unspoilt.”

Vi had never thought she’d agree with her mother on anything, but she, too, had been stricken—aye, that was the word—
stricken
with the beauty of that little girl, messy, red and ready to squall as she was.

“It’s only when they grow older, eh, love?” her father said. “That’s when the road grows rocky.”

“That’s when I have to admit I failed.”

“Failed?”

“Yes, failed,” her mother said flatly.

“You and your affair with perfection! Have you looked at our children? All are either doing something they love or are on their way to it. We made our mistakes, and they thrived anyway.”

“You’re too easy on the lot of us. Others have doctors and accountants for children, and we’ve turned out former convicts and starving underachievers.”

“We have content children,” Da said, apparently unwilling to take a full dose of Mam’s bitterness. God knew Vi was reeling from what she’d already heard.

“Our children might not be what you want, but they’re not starving or criminals…no, not even Michael,” Da said. “They are as they wish. Is that so damn bad? And have you listened deeper to those tea ladies with their children grown to be doctors and accountants? Christ knows I’ve had to, lately. It’s not so bloody feck-all perfect with them, either.”

“Michael, language!”

Vi half-smiled into the circle of her arms, imagining her mother’s appalled expression.

“I’m right though, aren’t I?”

“I suppose,” her mother conceded. “But don’t expect the tea ladies to be admitting it.”

Da chuckled, and then the room fell into silence.

“You know,” Da said after a bit, “Maggie coming into the world tonight has made me sure of one thing. We’ve got to seize our happiness now…and seek our forgiveness. We’re getting no younger.”

“And what is your happiness, Michael? Is it leaving me in Kilkenny?”

“No, it’s being needed. It’s having a purpose again, not wandering about our house, dreaming maybe I’ll get the old job back, and wondering how many more days I can go on if I don’t.”

“I see. So I’m not a part of this at all.”

“Of course you are! But I need you to bend far enough to see that our life’s not going to be what it’s been for all these years. I won’t stay in that house, Maeve, and be useless. And if that means we move, I want it to be us, and not just me.”

“But I don’t want to have to.”

“And I’d like my hair to stop thinning, but that doesn’t change matters. We’ve had our good days…and plenty of them, too. We need to build new ones, and we need them with all our children.

“I know you feel the children’s struggles reflect on you. But they’re grown now, and what they do is their choice. They can call you or not, and see you or not. Can you try, Maeve, to let go of some of the anger? We won’t be seeing much of them if you don’t.”

Mam’s answer was slow in coming.

“I can try, not that they’ll even notice.” The words were laden with skepticism, but still more positive than what Vi had prepared herself to hear.

“And can we try to be kinder to each other, too?” Da asked. “Can we find those good days again?”

Silence stretched so long that Vi began to wonder if she’d dreamt what she’d heard thus far.

“I suppose we should,” her mam said. “It’s only right with a grandbaby to be thinking about.”

“God love and protect Maggie, but I’m thinking of us right now. Do you want to try again for
me?
”

Her mother’s answer was muffled. Vi lifted her head and listened more acutely.

“What did you say while sipping that tea?” her da asked.

A teacup rattled. “I said I do, Michael Kilbride, as you damn well knew.”

Her da laughed. “Language, now, Maeve.” There was the scrape of a chair against the wood floor, then a moment’s silence. “And I do, too,” said Da after what Vi wagered was a kiss, startling as the thought was.

Mam’s laughter was a sound rarely heard, but it rang out now. “Look at us, practically marrying again in a dining room. It’s mad.”

“Aye,” Da said. “But we’ve made our promises, and once we head home the real work begins.”

Vi resettled her head against her arms and moved back into her world of one. She should be happier at this moment, for at least her parents were going to try again. Instead she felt nothing except exhaustion and emptiness.

After more china rattling and the sound of shoes against the floor, Vi heard the door between the dining room and the kitchen open. She didn’t lift her head, and if the soul who peeked in—be it Mam or Da—saw her, they didn’t say a word.

She was becoming more of a ghost than Nan Kilbride.

Better a good run than a bad stand.

—I
RISH
P
ROVERB

L
iam could sense Vi spooling out the rope by which he was to hang. Last night, when she’d dropped him at Muir House and then told him that she needed some time to herself, he’d not argued. Neither had he shown the foresight to negotiate detailed terms. “Some time” had already eaten into the waking hours he had left in Ballymuir.

After breakfast and a raft of business calls he’d had to make, Liam rang both Vi’s house and her studio, but didn’t raise her. Jenna assured him that phone-unplugging was standard Kilbride behavior. Just past noon, he set himself on Vi’s trail. The studio was empty, and despite his insistent pounding, her house’s door was going unanswered. He knew by the car out front and the dog peering through the window at him that she was there.

Frustrated, he pounded again. “Dammit, Vi, come let me in!”

“I’m thinking she doesn’t want to see you,” called a voice from across the street. Liam looked over to see an elderly man, eyeglasses perched low on his nose, standing on the opposite stoop.

“She just requires some persuading,” Liam answered, then knocked up the door again and shouted even more loudly. All he got in response was Roger’s gruff bark.

“Five euros says you can’t convince her to let you in,” the neighbor called, pulling a billfold from his back pocket.

“You’re on,” Liam yelled back, then rubbed his cold hands together for at least a little warmth.

Despite what he’d said to Vi’s neighbor, Liam knew that she wasn’t the sort to succumb to persuasion once her mind was set. And he damn well couldn’t reason his way to her though a locked door. His best hope was to raise her ire.

He knocked again, and inside Roger’s barking grew more agitated. Liam smiled, for the dog’s irritation was his inspiration.

Drawing a deep breath, he tipped back his head and let loose a long, loud, mournful howl. It was convincing enough that on the other side of the window Roger joined in, and across the way, Vi’s neighbor gave a hoot of laughter. Liam stretched the sound as far as he could. Wind exhausted, he paused, then started again.

Vi’s front door flew open, and he stopped mid-howl.

“Are you mad?” She looked up and down the street at the tightly-set houses. “You’ve got everyone to their windows. What am I to do with you?”

“You could always let me inside,” Liam suggested.

“I’m working.”

He took in her clothing—a too-large men’s shirt and a faded and tattered pair of paint-smeared denims—and then her face, the side of which was also smudged with green paint.

“So I see, but I’m afraid the isolated, suffering artist bit is going to have to wait. We need to talk, Vi.”

“Tomorrow, then. I’m tired.” She went to close her door, but he wedged his shoulder into the gap.

“No, you don’t. I’ve got five euros on the line.” And one hell of a lot more than that, but he’d made the mistake of trying to bare his heart to her last night, and he’d not do it again. At least not until he was back from the States and had the time to learn what was making her pull away. “Just let me in, Vi.”

“Put away your money, Mr. Hanratty,” Vi said to her neighbor, who now stood on the walk, five-euro note in hand.

“So you’ll not be letting him in?” the man asked, hope in his voice.

“Sorry, but I will.”

“Then it’s his.”

Liam accepted the five-note, for this was a matter of a man’s honor. Vi pinched it from his fingers before he could pocket it, though.

“It’s going to charity, for neither of you deserve it,” she said.

Laughing, Mr. Hanratty crossed to his side of the street, and Liam worked his way into Vi’s house before she changed her mind. The smell of paint was thick in the air, and the place wasn’t much warmer than the outdoors.

Vi walked toward the kitchen, and Liam followed, wondering why the hell he hadn’t spent at least part of the morning deciding how to broach matters. Ah, well, it was improvise now…or die.

“I’ve—” he began to say, but halted, trying to grasp what was taking place in her kitchen. The floor was littered with balled-up pieces of paper, but that was the least of it.

She’d just recently painted the chairs to her table a green that matched her nan’s wild cupboard, which at least explained the paint fumes and the open kitchen window. Among the other items on her table sat a fat jar of strawberry preserves with a knife beside it. Judging by the plate with nibbled crusts nearby, some of the preserves must have made it onto toast. A fair amount more was spread like a lumpy single-hued rainbow across a white sheet of paper, too.

“Do I want to know what that’s about?” he asked, pointing at the paper.

“Just considering the color.”

He decided not to ask for what.

“I’m guessing you wanted to talk about something more than the mess in my kitchen,” she said as she picked up a pencil and a sketchpad from the cluttered table.

“I do.” Uncomfortable, he looked around for a place to sit, but that would be impossible unless he wished to be green-arsed. “I’ve mentioned Alex, my former business partner, haven’t I?”

“You have,” Vi said, her hand flying across the sketchpad.

“Well, it seems he’s gotten the attention of some law enforcement types, and by extension, they’re interested in me.”

“But you’ve done nothing wrong…right?” She glanced away from her pad long enough to give him a guarded look.

“Only if fool complacency is criminal.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, thinking that he was getting nowhere dancing around this. “The problem is, I have to go back to America. In fact, you might say that my presence has been compelled.”

She set down the pad and pencil. “You’ve got a dangerous fondness for springing this sort of thing, don’t you? When are you leaving?”

“Early tomorrow.” He’d said the words quickly, rather like one extracted a sliver.

“Tomorrow,” she repeated with at least a surface calm. “And how long have you known this was to happen?”

Liam hedged. “I know it doesn’t look good, me waiting until now to tell you, but—”

“How long?”

“A while.”

She signaled her dislike of his answer with a frown. “Care to be more specific?”

Actually, he didn’t, but he saw no way out.

“That it would happen eventually…weeks, now. But I didn’t have the details until a few days ago. And I want you to come along,” he said, the last bit of inspiration just coming to him.

“Well then,” she said, “at least I should be honored you’ve asked me…
this
time.”

He’d known that she would allude to their last parting, and he’d also known that it would be a stab to both his heart and pride.

“See?” he said. “This is why I waited to tell you. I damn well knew you’d find some way to bring a summer fifteen years gone into this.”

She might be carrying those memories like chains dragging behind her, but he was, too. He stalked closer, angry enough that he wanted his face in hers.

“You knew I was with no other girl that last night,” he said. “You knew deep inside that it was Brian you’d seen leaving with the tourist, and yet you used it as one more reason to claim you’d been betrayed. If anyone did the betraying, it was you, Vi.”

“I betrayed no one,” she said flatly.

“You betrayed
us.
All I wanted was to get out of Duncarraig and make something of myself. It was no sin against you. Yet you turned your back on me so hard that even Nan couldn’t get you to sway. I told you I’d be back for you when I was through with school, and still you acted like a damn child.”

She took a step backward and gripped the edge of the table. “Of course I did. I was seventeen!”

“You were. But now you’re in your thirties and too old to be feeling wronged over events that were as much your fault as mine. I forgave you. I’d think since you were hurt far less—”

“Hurt
less?
” Her hand wrapped around the jam jar on the table, and before he even knew what she was about, she hurled it at his head. He sidestepped the missile. It bounced off the front of the painted cupboard, making a hard sound, then shattered on the tile floor.

Adrenaline surged, yet shock kept him in his spot, trying to understand what had just happened.

“Jesus, Violet. And here you’ve been calling yourself a pacifist all these years. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Vi was whiter than he’d ever seen her, which was saying much. Her chest heaved, and she looked as though she might either cry or launch herself at his throat. Liam felt as though he faced a stranger. Perhaps he did.

She spun away from him. “Get out.”

“Do you at least want to tell me why I deserved that?”

“I said, get
out!
”

Liam stood there a moment more, deciding what to do. Vi had wrapped her arms about her midsection, as though hugging herself. Despite his anger, he wanted to hold her. She clearly felt nothing the same about him.

“I’m leaving, if that’s what you want,” he said.

Fool optimist to the end, he waited for her reply, but none came. She didn’t even turn back to look at him.

“I’ll be at Muir House tonight,” he said. “And I’ll be sure to leave my Boston numbers with Jenna. I’m hoping to be gone less than a month. When I return…and don’t be thinking I won’t…we’ll get to the bottom of whatever has you aiming for my head.”

He stepped around the jammy mess on the floor. The sight started his anger simmering all over again.

“And Vi, I love you, but you throw like a girl.”

As Liam walked to the front door, Roger trotted behind him.

“Keep an eye on her, my friend,” Liam said, then left.

All things considered, it was a marginally better parting than the one fifteen years ago. Last time, she’d ripped out his heart. This time, at least he’d managed to keep his head.

Cleaning could be cathartic. At least that was what Vi attempted to persuade herself as she readied to attack her kitchen. Cleaning was also the nearest to wielding a brush as she’d come in the week since Liam had left. And even a scrub brush was a step closer to sanity.

She’d been mad, throwing that jar at him. She wouldn’t eat meat, for it meant the harm of another creature, yet she’d aimed for his head with every intention of knocking him senseless. It had been as though her self-control had been obliterated when he’d claimed she’d been the less hurt of the two of them.

Lucky man he was, indeed, that she threw like a girl. And luckier woman she was that the sound of the jam jar shattering had startled her out of her rage. She’d managed to at least guard her tongue and not rashly blurt out what he needed to be told carefully and quietly.

He’d called in the past week, of course. While she’d quickly apologized for throwing the preserves at him, she’d avoided any discussion of why she’d done so, for that was best done face-to-face. She’d instead told him that she’d already received an offer from a couple to purchase Nan’s property, and how word had it that Duncarriag’s treasure hunters were beginning to find more productive pastimes. He’d said little of his interviews with the authorities, but had mentioned that he’d agreed to sell what was left of his business. They were tiptoeing across the surface of matters, but it was a start.

Vi looked about the kitchen and decided that top down seemed a reasonable approach to cleaning. She wet a rag, wrung it out until it was just damp, and then carried it to Nan’s cupboard.

“You’re one grand dust-gatherer,” she said to the piece.

She wasn’t sure the statement Nan had been trying to make by attaching such an array of found items. No matter what their shapes, all were decorated with varying patterns of concentric rings and shields of knot-work. The end result of all the attachments was a surface so rife with nooks and crannies that even Kylie in nesting mode couldn’t have cleaned it well.

Smiling at a passing thought of baby Maggie, who already ran her parents’ house and had stolen the entire family’s hearts, Vi reached up on tiptoe to wipe the cupboard’s top rim. When she brought the rag back down to refold it to a clean surface, she winced. It carried small dollops of the strawberry preserves she’d flung. To be sure, Vi touched her fingertip to one bit, and it was sticky.

“Soap’s in order,” she said, as was a boost so that she could see what she was doing. Vi rinsed and readied the rag, then dragged her sturdiest chair to the cupboard. One thorough pass over the top of the cupboard’s face wasn’t enough. It seemed the jam had bonded with the paint’s surface.

Vi scrubbed more vigorously. This had been Nan’s, and Vi wanted it perfectly tended. Determined to have this right, she concentrated on the outer perimeter of one of five round pieces on the rail.

“Not there yet,” she said to herself, then started as a small wave of numbness rippled through her hand, up her wrist, and nearly to her elbow. The sensation was the same as when her iron had once shorted out while she was ironing. She’d tossed the evil appliance and quit wearing clothing that had required its services. She could hardly do the same with Nan’s piece.

Vi checked the rag to see if perhaps it was a sliver that had nipped her.