The Parting Glass (28 page)

Liam did as he was told. He wasn’t sure what to do next. Even if he
had
saved Glen Donaghue’s life, he was still going to jail or back to Ireland in chains unless McNulty paid for a very good lawyer. He thought of Brenna and Irene and what could happen to them.

Donaghue took a step forward, and his toe caught on a root. The moment he stumbled, Liam took advantage of the situation and leaped forward, using his clasped hands like a club on the back of Donaghue’s neck. In a moment the agent was on the ground, head to head with the unconscious bootlegger.

Of the two men, Donaghue was the one Liam would have preferred to save, but Liam knew Donaghue would be all right without him. In a moment someone else would come around the building, find him and call for assistance.

With a curse, he turned Jerry onto his back, and, grabbing the big man under his arms, he heaved him into the lot and down into a ravine to safety.

chapter 18

P
eggy spent every evening making notes on Kieran’s progress that day, or lack of it, and drawing up lesson plans for the next. There were so many goals to balance that she couldn’t be casual about any of them. Her son needed time to play and be a child, to work on social skills, behavior management, language and general knowledge, and that was just for starters.

On Friday nights she wrote a report to the therapist who was working long distance with her. If Mrs. Blackpool saw anything extraordinary on which to comment or make suggestions, she telephoned Peggy as soon as the report arrived. Otherwise, she made notes and mailed them back. The system wasn’t perfect, but the guidance and feedback were helpful, and the mail between Ireland and the United States was surprisingly fast.

On this Friday night Peggy worked on the report while Kieran played by himself in the corner. She had made large blocks out of cardboard boxes and covered them with colorful paper. He liked stacking them, as well as crawling into one that she hadn’t sealed and lying there, the box squeezing against him. She wondered if her son had been particularly sorry to leave the womb.

“He seems remarkably happy in there.”

Peggy looked up from her notebook to see Irene in the doorway. “He’s like a little turtle withdrawing into his shell.”

“A box turtle,” Irene said, with a smile. “He’s had a good day?”

Peggy wasn’t sure how to answer that. In the past week there had been no more extravagant tantrums, and that was welcome progress. But his verbal skills had taken a giant leap backward. “He’s had a happy day,” Peggy said. “No tears.” No words, either, and little interest in any of the activities she had planned. “He
is
using the spoon again. Only he’s using it to beat on his little toy drum.”

“When he’s angry?”

Peggy considered that. “Maybe. I hadn’t really made the connection, but could be.”

“That’s an improvement, I’d say. Finding some way to make himself heard.”

Peggy stood and stretched. “He prefers the noise the drum makes to my singing. And who could blame him?”

“I’ve had a thought about tonight, dear.”

Peggy hadn’t had a one. Her days and nights were a seamless continuum of working with her son, thinking about her son, and talking to her sisters and Mrs. Blackpool and anyone else who would listen about her son. Her last conversation of depth had been two weeks before, when Finn told her about the loss of his family. He had hardly spoken to her since, peeking in to see Irene every morning and most afternoons, but sparing Peggy any need to figure out how to treat him now that he had bared his soul to her.

“We could watch a video. I could make popcorn.” Peggy had learned that Irene had an insatiable appetite for both. She enjoyed good old-fashioned love stories or mysteries, just one more way that she and Peggy were alike. She also enjoyed salt and half a cup of butter on her popcorn, but she let imagination suffice, and Peggy had learned to, as well.

“I have company on the way,” Irene said.

“Oh.” Peggy was glad to hear it. Irene had frequent visitors but rarely any at night. “I can make myself scarce, if you’d like.”

“I would, as a matter of fact.”

“I’ll just hole up in the bedroom with a good book. I—”

“Scarcer than that. I’m thinking a trip into town for you. A night at the pubs is just what you need.”

Peggy was immediately suspicious. “Who’s on the way?”

“Shannon, the dear girl. She has a houseful of relatives from Sligo and no place to go to get away from them. And she has papers to fill out for university, so I offered her a quiet place to do both, and sole use of my computer.”

Irene looked angelic, with her soft white hair forming a near halo around her aged face, but Peggy knew that under the halo dwelt a woman quite determined to get her own way. “In other words, you asked her to baby-sit.”

“In a manner of speaking. But don’t make it sound so harsh. It suits us both admirably. And you, as well.”

Peggy started to protest, but as usual, Irene had seen her needs clearly. Peggy was restless and in need of more than a video to help her unwind. She needed music or conversation or both, which were standards at Irish pubs. She felt a stab of nostalgia for the Whiskey Island Saloon.

“Then it’s all settled?” Irene said. “After supper you’ll let us put Kieran to bed and go along your way?”

Peggy knew that Shannon would manage just fine without her. “It’s a very welcome gift.”

Tully’s Tavern was one of four pubs in Shanmullin, a small enough number to make some residents grumble. Peggy had stopped by two of the other three but found little to interest her. The crowd at one was mostly old men, and the billows of cigarette smoke had sent her on her way. Another had been unacceptably dingy and nearly empty of patrons, a sure sign of a local feud or the final stage of a terminal illness.

Tully’s had none of those problems. She could hardly get in the door, and before she even tried, she heard music from inside—and not U2 from a Galway radio station. The pub was paneled in dark wood, with a stone floor oddly paired with wooden planks in the niches that sat away from the bar and beyond them in the lounge. Shelves lined every wall, filled with odds and ends of pottery, ceramic horses, small outdated appliances and framed photographs. The mirror hanging over the vast mahogany bar looked to be older than the ancient building itself.

A young man smiled at her, and she measured the smile she sent back, just wide enough to be polite but not a watt warmer. She was looking for conversation and fun, not someone to take back to Irene’s for the night.

Before he could wend his way through the crowd, Peggy felt someone grab her arm and looked up to see Tippy.

“Well, hi.” They pumped hands like old friends. “Shannon’s baby-sitting for me,” she shouted through the din.

“Would you like a pint?”

Peggy nodded, and Tippy disappeared into the crowd. Only then did Peggy see an opening in the throng blocking the doorway into the next room, where the music was coming from. She peered around the people still in her path and saw six musicians. Finn was in the front with his tin whistle. Their eyes locked and held.

The music halted and the crowd applauded raucously. Clearly this was going to be a good night at Tully’s.

“‘Peggy Bawn,’” Finn said, and the musicians began a cheerful ditty that wasn’t familiar to her. Finn began to sing, and as before, she was more than impressed with his voice.

“Oh Peggy Bawn, thou art my own, thy heart lies in my breast…”

She couldn’t hear the rest of the words, but Finn’s eyes never left hers. She was mesmerized.

“He doesn’t usually sing in here, and I’ve never heard him sing that one,” Tippy said, coming up to hand Peggy a mug of Guinness. She refused Peggy’s Euros with a shake of her head. “It’s older than the leprechauns.”

“Finn could make ‘Beowulf’ sound like a love song,” Peggy said.

“Not so’s you’d notice, Pretty Peggy-o. At least not most of the time.”

Peggy realized that indeed Finn had chosen another “Peggy” song and was singing it right to her.

“Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove, and the name she was called was pretty Peggy-o,” Finn sang.

“Are there an endless supply of Peggy songs, do you suppose?” Tippy asked, when that song had nearly finished. “If so, he’ll know them all.”

“I’m sure it’s inadvertent,” Peggy said, not at all sure. Finn was still singing directly to her, and her heart seemed to be forging connections with every note.

“When first I saw sweet Peggy, t’was on a market day…” he began, as if to answer the question.

“I haven’t seen him like this in such a long time.” Tippy took her arm companionably as they listened. “I was half in love with him as a girl, but then, so was most of the town,” she said as the song ended. “He was a rogue, our Finn, and he left a trail of broken hearts when he married Sheila. We didn’t expect him to come back after his training. That was too much to hope for. Everyone knew he’d be wanted for better things, but he came back anyway. And we loved him more for it.”

“And that’s why he’s been forgiven for all the rough spots in the past years.” It wasn’t a question. Peggy had noted the way people all through the village talked about Finn, the affection and concern, with only a hint of dismay.

“He’s had more than his share of troubles. Perhaps that time is ending?”

“Peggy O’Neil is a girl who must steal any heart anywhere anytime…” Finn smiled this time, and Peggy smiled back.

Tippy saw the smile, too. “If you don’t want to stay in Ireland, if you don’t want a man in your life, Peggy, you might want to walk away now, before someone is hurt.”

Peggy had been so caught up in Finn’s singing that at first she didn’t hear Tippy. She broke eye contact with Finn and turned to her new friend. “What?”

“He doesn’t need more trouble.” Tippy wasn’t smiling. “I don’t mean to preach, truly I don’t, but if he’s moving out of the shadows now, he doesn’t need anything that might push him back.”

“If she walks like a sly little rogue, if she talks with a cute little brogue…Sweet personality, full of rascality, that’s Peggy O’Neil,” Finn finished the song.

Peggy knew flirtation and all its guises. This seemed remarkably innocent to her.

She glanced back at Finn. He nodded, lifted a brow and began one more song. “O Peggy Gordon, you are my darling. Come sit you down upon my knee and tell to me the very reason why I am slighted so by thee?”

She couldn’t see the future, but if she’d had that ability, she would not have accepted an outcome that included Finn O’Malley. Still, at the moment, she was powerless to walk away from him.

She was mesmerized by a man who was still down for the count. She had never been one to adopt wounded birds unless she wanted to practice her medical skills. She had her hands full with a child who would need everything she could give him, possibly for the remainder of her life. And still she could not walk away.

Finn didn’t know what had possessed him. Had someone questioned him about the number of “Peggy” songs he knew, he would merely have shrugged. He had even ended the evening with the instrumental reel “Over the Moor to Peggy.” He supposed the tunes had been going around in his head for weeks now. He certainly thought enough about Peggy Donaghue.

“Well, ye have taste, lad,” Johnny Kerrigan told him as Johnny put away his concertina. “Yer not the only man here tonight who fancied her, ye know, but yer the only one she paid any mind to.”

Finn didn’t pretend confusion. “She’s been kind to my daughter.”

“Ye made a holy show of yerself for something as simple as gratitude?” Johnny winked.

Finn had already lost track of their conversation. He searched the room beyond for Peggy, who seemed to have disappeared. The pub was clearing for the night, and he supposed she had already started back to Irene’s. He stooped to get his whistle and push his chair back against the wall, and when he turned to leave, she was standing there.

“You forgot ‘Peg O’ My Heart,’” she said.

He was surprised by how glad he was that she hadn’t gone. “An early product of your Tin Pan Alley.”

“Maybe so, but my father sang it to me when I was a little girl. It’s one of the only memories I had of him when I was growing up. I’m partial to it.”

He smiled at her. “Next time.”

“Thank you. You made my night.”

“Make mine.”

She didn’t look surprised. She raised a brow in question.

“There’s a view I want to show you. Before the village closes down completely for the night.”

“I don’t know, Finn. It’s a ride back to Irene’s, and it’s late.”

“I’ll take you home again.”

“That’s a Kathleen song, not a Peggy.” She hummed a few bars. Badly.

He winced. “Will it do for the moment?”

“I’d like to see the view.”

She stayed at his side as he said his cursory goodbyes and introduced her to the people she hadn’t yet met. He saw looks exchanged among locals who had known him since his christening. He knew what kind of rumors would be flying by morning.

“Everyone’s so nice,” she said as they went to retrieve her bike for the walk to his car. “And such fans of yours, Finn. They all made sure to tell me.”

He could only imagine those conversations. What little privacy the village had given him after the accident would disappear now. Mourning had officially ended, and the village had its duties.

“What a gorgeous night.” She stopped and lifted her hands. “I’ve never seen so many stars, not even in astronomy class.”

The moon was a waning crescent, and he was reminded of a fuller moon and their last conversation. Peggy liked simple things, not something he’d expected from an American woman who had grown up amid so many more attractions.

They found her bike, and Peggy walked it to the street where his car was parked. “What’s Bridie doing tonight? Would she like to come with us?”

He wondered how many other women would think to invite his daughter. “Another weekend away. She’s gone camping just east of here.”

“What fun. I was a Girl Scout. My aunt insisted, and I’m glad she did. I can roast a mean marshmallow.”