“You go ahead. Meet with the realtor and the appraiser. When you are finished, I will look through the house. By myself,” I suggested.
“What is it with this house?” Harvey groaned. “Eoin acted exactly the same way.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. And Harvey sighed and ran his hands through his white mane and looked around the sparsely populated dining room at the Great Southern Hotel.
“I feel like I’m on the bloody Titanic,” he grumbled.
I smiled wanly, surprising myself and them.
“You and Eoin had an incredible bond,” Harvey murmured. “He loved you so much. He was so proud of you. When he told me about his cancer, I knew you would be devastated. But you are scaring me, Anne. You aren’t just devastated. You’re . . . you’re . . .” He searched for the right word.
“You’re lost,” Barbara supplied.
“No, not lost,” Harvey argued. “You’re missing.”
Our eyes met, and he reached for my hand.
“Where are you, Anne?” he pressed. “Your spirit is gone. You seem so empty.”
I wasn’t just grieving for my grandfather. I was grieving for the little boy he’d been. For the mother I’d been to him. For my husband. For my life. I wasn’t empty, I was drowning. I was still in the lough.
“She just needs time, Harvey. Give her time,” Barbara protested.
“Yes,” I agreed, nodding. “I just need time.” I needed time to take me back, to whisk me away. Time was the one thing I wanted and the one thing no one could give me.
“Are you related to the O’Tooles, by any chance?” I asked the young caretaker when Harvey and his entourage drove away. The caretaker couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and there was something in the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders that made me think he belonged in the family tree. He’d introduced himself as Kevin Sheridan, but the name didn’t fit him.
“Yes, ma’am. My great-grandfather was Robert O’Toole. He was the caretaker here for years. My mother—his granddaughter—and my father took care of the place when he died. Now it’s my turn . . . for as long as you need me, that is.” A cloud passed over his features, and I knew the sudden interest in the property was concerning to him.
“Robbie?” I asked.
“Yes. Everyone called him Robbie. My mother says I look like him. I’m not sure that’s a compliment. He wasn’t much to look at—only had one eye—but his family loved him.” He was trying to be self-deprecating, to make me laugh at his unimpressive lineage, but I could only gape at him, stricken. He did look like Robbie. But Robbie was gone now. They all were.
Kevin must have seen how close I was to crumbling, and he left me alone to wander around, promising he would be on the grounds if I needed him and mentioning in a cheerful, tour-guide tone that Michael Collins himself had stayed at Garvagh Glebe many times.
I wandered for close to an hour, moving silently through the rooms, looking for my family, for my life, and finding only pieces and parts, whispers and wisps of a time that existed only in my memory. Each room had an emptiness and an expectancy that pulled at me. New king-sized beds heaped with pillows and comforters that coordinated with the updated window coverings were the centerpiece in every room. One or two pieces of the original furniture remained to give each chamber a touch of nostalgia—Thomas’s writing table and his chest of drawers, Eoin’s rocking horse and a high shelf of his “antique” toys, and Brigid’s vanity and her Victorian chair, which was reupholstered in a similar floral fabric. My gramophone and the huge wardrobe still stood in my old room. I opened the doors and stared at the empty interior, remembering the day Thomas had come home from Lyons with all the things he thought I needed. That was the night I knew I was in trouble, in danger of losing my heart.
The oak floors and cabinets in the kitchen were the same but had been resurfaced and were gleaming. The stately staircase and the oak balustrade remained, warm and reliable with years and use. The baseboards and the moldings had all been maintained, the walls painted, and the countertops and appliances upgraded to reflect the times. It smelled like lemons and furniture polish. I breathed deeply, trying to find Thomas, to coax him from the walls and the wood, but I couldn’t smell him. Couldn’t feel him. I moved on trembling legs toward his library, to the shelves filled with books that he wouldn’t read anymore, and halted at the door. A painting, framed in an ornate oval, hung on the wall where a pendulum clock used to toll away the hours.
“Miss Gallagher?” Robbie called from the foyer. Not Robbie. Kevin. It was Kevin. I tried to answer him, to tell him where I was, but my voice shook and broke. I wiped desperately at my eyes, trying to find my composure, but I was unsuccessful. When Kevin found me in the library, I pointed up at the picture, overcome.
“Uh . . . well, that’s a picture of the Lady of the Lough,” he explained, trying not to look at me and call attention to my tears. “She’s famous around here. As famous as an eighty-year-old ghost can be, I suppose. The story goes that she only lived at Garvagh Glebe for a little while. She drowned in Lough Gill. Her husband was devastated and spent years painting pictures of her. This is the one he kept. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? She was a lovely woman.” He hadn’t noticed the resemblance, proof that people weren’t very observant. Or maybe I wasn’t especially lovely now.
“She never returned?” I whimpered, my voice a childlike cry. Jim Donnelly had said the same thing.
“No, ma’am. She, uh, she drowned. So she never returned,” he stammered, handing me a handkerchief. I grabbed it, desperate to stem my tears.
“Ma’am, are you all right?”
“It’s just sad,” I whispered. I turned my back on the picture. She never returned. I never returned. God help me.
“Yes. But it was a long time ago, miss.”
I couldn’t tell him it was only a week and a handful of days.
“Mr. Cohen told me you lost someone recently. I’m sorry, ma’am,” he added softly. Kindly.
I nodded, and he hovered nearby until I regained control.
“I know what Mr. Cohen said, Robbie. But I’m not selling Garvagh Glebe. I’m going to be staying here. Living here. I still want you to remain on as caretaker. I will raise your salary for any inconvenience that causes, but we won’t be renting out the rooms. Not for a while . . . all right?”
He nodded enthusiastically.
“I’m a writer. The quiet will be good for me, but I can’t take care of this place by myself. I am also expecting . . . a child . . . and will need someone to come in and clean and occasionally cook. I tend to get lost in my work.”
“I already have someone who cooks and cleans when we have guests. I’m sure she would be glad to have regular employment.”
I nodded and turned away.
“Miss? You called me Robbie. It’s . . . Kevin, ma’am,” he said gently.
“Kevin,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, Kevin. I won’t forget again. And please, call me Anne. Anne Smith is my married name.”
I forgot again. I kept calling Kevin Robbie. He always quietly corrected me, but it never seemed to bother him too much. I was a guest that slowly became a ghost, flitting through the halls, not disturbing anyone or anything. Kevin was patient with me and stayed out of my way for the most part. The barn behind the house had been converted into living quarters, and when he wasn’t working, he was there, letting me haunt the big house alone. He checked on me every day and made sure the girl from town—Jemma—kept the house clean and the fridge stocked. When my things arrived from the States, he unloaded boxes and assisted me in setting up a new office in my old room. He marveled at the books I’d written, the languages they’d been translated into, the framed bestseller lists, and the random awards, and I was thankful for him, even though I know he thought I was a little crazy.
I waded out into the lough at least once a day, reciting Yeats and pleading with the fates to send me back. I sent Kevin to buy a boat from Jim Donnelly—I didn’t dare approach him—and rowed it out into the middle of the lake. I stayed all day, trying to recreate the moment I’d fallen through time. I willed the mist to roll in, but the August sun did not cooperate. The beautiful days played dumb, and the wind and the water were silent, pretending innocence, and no matter how much I recited and raged, the lough denied me. I started plotting ways to get my hands on human ashes, but even clouded by desperate grief, I recognized that if the ashes had played a role, it was most likely because they were Eoin’s.
About six weeks after I’d moved into Garvagh Glebe, a car rolled through the gates that were erected sometime in the last eighty years and proceeded up the lane, shuddering to a stop in front of the house. I sat in my office, pretending to work but staring out the window, and I watched as two women climbed from the car, one young and one old, and approached the front door.
“Robbie!” I yelled, and then caught myself. His name was Kevin. And he was mowing the acres of grass behind the house. Jemma had already come and gone. The door chimed. I considered ignoring the visitors. I didn’t need to answer the door.
But I knew them.
It was Maeve O’Toole, old again, and Deirdre Fallon from the library in Dromahair. For whatever reason, they’d come to call, and they’d made time for me once, when I’d needed help. I should return the favor. I smoothed my hair and thanked heaven that I had found the will to shower and dress that morning, something I didn’t always do.
Then I answered the door.
16 July 1922
Anne was right. The Free State Army fired on the Four Courts building in the early morning hours of 28 June, placing field guns at strategic locations and shooting high-explosive shells into the buildings where the anti-Treaty republicans were hunkered down. An ultimatum had been sent to the Four Courts and was ignored, and Mick had no choice but to attack. The British government was threatening to send troops to handle it if he didn’t, and no one wanted Free State troops and British troops fighting alongside each other against the republicans. The buildings occupied by republicans on O’Connell Street and elsewhere in the city were also blockaded to prevent anti-Treaty forces from running to assist the besieged Four Courts. The hope was that when the republicans saw that actual artillery was being used, they would give in and give up.
The siege lasted three days and ended with an explosion in the Four Courts that destroyed precious documents and brought the whole debacle to an end. Good men died, just like Anne predicted. Cathal Brugha wouldn’t surrender. Mick wept when he told me. He and Brugha didn’t see eye to eye much of the time, but Cathal was a patriot, and there is little Mick respects more than that.
I stood in front of the burned-out shell of the Four Courts today. The stolen munitions kept exploding, making it impossible for the firemen to put out the blaze. They had to let it burn itself out. I wonder if all of Ireland will have to burn itself out as well. The copper dome is gone, the building destroyed, and what the hell for?