Praise for the novels of
EMILIE RICHARDS

“(A) heartfelt paean to love and loyalty.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Parting Glass

“Well-written, intricately plotted novel….”

—Library Journal on Whiskey Island

“A flat-out page turner…reminiscent of the early Sidney Sheldon.”

—Cleveland Plain Dealer on Whiskey Island

“[Emilie Richards] adds to the territory staked out by such authors as Barbara Delinsky and Kristin Hannah with her hardcover debut, an engrossing novel…. Richards’s writing is unpretentious and effective.”

—Publishers Weekly on Prospect Street

“Richards pieces together each woman’s story as artfully as a quilter creates a quilt, with equally satisfying results, and her characterizations are transcendent, endowed with warmth and compassion.”

—Booklist on Wedding Ring

“(A) heartwarming, richly layered story.”

—Library Journal on Endless Chain

“Richards stitches together the mystery of a family’s past with the difficulties and moral dilemmas of the present for a story as intriguing as the quilt itself.”

—Publishers Weekly on Lover’s Knot

Emilie Richards
the Parting Glass

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to fellow writers Karen Young, Diane Chamberlain and Patricia McLinn for their affectionate support and feedback during the creation of The Parting Glass, and to Damaris Rowland for her insights and suggestions. I’m grateful, too, for Madelyn Campbell’s considerable medical expertise and her willingness to share it.

A very special thank-you to all the readers who asked me to continue the Donaghue story, and particularly those at Cleveland’s Irish Cultural Festival who related their personal stories of Whiskey Island and prodded me to look into Cleveland’s bootlegging past and mysterious tunnels.

Special thanks to Michael McGee, who accompanied me on two research trips to County Mayo during particularly rainy weather and almost never complained. And as always, thanks to my talented editor, Leslie Wainger, who never fails to inspire and encourage.

THE PARTING GLASS

Of all the money ere I had,

I spent it in good company,

And all the harm I’ve ever done,

Alas was done to none but me

And all I’ve done for want of wit,

To memory now I can’t recall

So fill to me the parting glass,

Good night and joy be with you all.

Of all the comrades ere I had,

They’re sorry for my going away,

And all the sweethearts ere I had,

They wish me one more day to stay,

But since it falls unto my lot

That I should go and you should not,

I’ll gently rise and softly call,

Good night and joy be with you all.

(This is a traditional Irish ballad for singing at the end of an evening, a gathering or an event. One of Ireland’s most popular, it is documented as far back as the 1770s.)

Contents

prologue

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

chapter 7

chapter 8

chapter 9

chapter 10

chapter 11

chapter 12

chapter 13

chapter 14

chapter 15

chapter 16

chapter 17

chapter 18

chapter 19

chapter 20

chapter 21

chapter 22

chapter 23

chapter 24

chapter 25

chapter 26

chapter 27

chapter 28

chapter 29

chapter 30

chapter 31

chapter 32

chapter 33

chapter 34

chapter 35

chapter 36

chapter 37

chapter 38

chapter 39

chapter 40

epilogue

prologue

1923

Castlebar, County Mayo

My dearest Patrick,

So many years and so many miles separating us, dear brother. For centuries we McSweeneys knew nothing of loneliness but everything of each other. And what else was there to know? What else is there in the end but family, land and church? The rest is like butter on bread, mere pleasure with little nourishment.

Now our family has been dumped like ship’s ballast on distant shores. You in Ohio, our dear sisters in Australia, Nova Scotia and the grave. We are old, all who remain, and separated by much more than miles. We know so little of each other now. I have the new photograph that St. Brigid’s made for you, and I thank you for sending it, but what happened to the young man I knew, so straight and tall? What happened to the priest with fire in his gaze and vitality in his step? Has he gone the path I’ve trod myself? The path that leads to only one destination?

I cannot imagine you as an old man, dear Patrick. You only celebrate Mass on Holy Days, hear confession but infrequently, read for hours each day and contemplate? What exactly do you consider now that your time is your own, my brother? The years you have already lived? The green island of your birth? Our dear, dear land that McSweeneys will never work again?

Perhaps, had I married, I might find more to do with my own time. I would have grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and I would dandle them proudly on my knee. Instead, with no family to succeed me, I think only of the family from which I came, of you and Ciara and Selma, of dear Una who was with us such a short time. Not a one of us with offspring of our own, and a long proud line in ashes at out feet.

I remember all, even at this final juncture of my life. I remember songs and laughter, the fragrance of bread baking on a stone hearth, the bleating of sheep in our paddock. I remember a small lad tugging at my skirts, saying his prayers with a childish lisp, cowering behind closed doors for fear of the boogeyman on nights when Mayo’s bog land was cold and misty.

How fortunate I am to have these memories to comfort me. How fortunate are all who have had family to cherish. This can never be taken from us, dear Patrick. No matter the years that separate us, you and all our loved ones are always with me.

Your sister,

Maura McSweeney

chapter 1

Peggy Donaghue avoided the parking lot of the Whiskey Island Saloon whenever she could, which wasn’t easy since she lived directly above it. On days when there was no parking on the street, she reluctantly took the reserved spot closest to the back door and sprinted for the kitchen. She wasn’t superstitious. She just didn’t believe in tempting fate.

Not unless the circumstances were exceptional.

The young man standing just behind her cleared his throat. “It’s real windy, Ms. D. You don’t have to stay out here. Nothing’s going to happen, I promise.”

Peggy pulled her long chestnut hair into a temporary ponytail so it would stop whipping into her eyes. Over one shoulder she could see that Josh, tall, lanky and clearly uncomfortable, wasn’t looking at her. That was understandable. Josh had just stolen his very first car. He was praying, just as Peggy was, that the owner wouldn’t realize his brand-new Honda Civic was missing.

“I trust you, Josh. And I even trust them.” Peggy nodded to the group of four adolescent boys who were poring over the car like melted butter on the saloon’s Friday night pierogi special. “But I’ll just stay here in case they need me.”

“Nick was locked away in his study. When he gets like that, he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s not going to know.” Josh’s tone was less certain than his words.

“He’s probably got stuff to do before he leaves town.” Peggy saw a familiar figure coming up between the rows of cars. The willowy strawberry blonde was unmistakable—and related. “Uh oh, we’ve been nailed,” she said in her best Jimmy Cagney imitation. “It’s the calaboose for us now, Scarface.”

Josh’s pale cheeks grew red. “I gotta go. Winston’s gonna make sure it gets done right and stuff. I gotta go home in case Nick notices—”

Peggy waved him away. “You go on. I’ll face the music alone.”

Josh looked properly grateful and took off, skirting Peggy’s older sister by ducking behind the back row of cars. Plastic bags and newspaper from somebody’s blown-over garbage can skittered across the lot in his wake.

Casey Donaghue Kovats came up beside Peggy and stood for a moment watching the group of adolescents tape strings of firecrackers to the back bumper of Niccolo Andreani’s car. The silver Civic was parked close to the back door of the saloon so that it would be out of sight from the road.

“You’re letting those kids tape fireworks to the bumper? You worked in an emergency room. You know how dangerous those things are.”

“No ‘Hi, how are you, isn’t this a windy day’?”

“Peggy, have you lost your mind?”

“Fireworks are dangerous. These are firecrackers, and they’re only slightly higher-tech than tin cans and old shoes.”

“Megan’s going to have a fit.”

“I certainly hope so. We’ve gone to a lot of trouble.” Peggy motioned to one youth, a handsome young African-American with meticulously divided cornrows and a roll of duct tape adorning one arm. “Winston, will you please reassure Casey that Nick’s car won’t blow up?”

Winston abandoned his supervisory post to join the two sisters. “Yo, Ms. K. Nothing gonna happen here but a little noise.”

Casey still didn’t look convinced. “I have great faith in your abilities, Winston, really I do, but what if—and I know this is a remote possibility—you’re wrong?”

“Can’t be wrong. We tried it out yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Peggy was intrigued. This was new information.

“Yeah, at some wedding. Somebody got married down at the Baptist church.”

“Somebody you know?”

Winston shrugged. “Learned a lot. Like don’t put balloons and firecrackers on the same bumper, unless you want a real mess.”

Peggy tried not to smile. “See? I told you we were in the hands of a master.”

Winston escaped back to his job as Casey rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe Nick had the bad judgment to leave his car at the saloon in the first place,” Casey said.

“He didn’t. Josh delivered it half an hour ago. Nick doesn’t know it’s gone.”

“Then how’s he getting to the church?”

“I thought he could walk. He’s only a few blocks away.”

A gust of wind pushed Peggy against Casey’s hip and made nonsense of that plan. The sky was growing steadily darker, and the wind was accelerating. That morning the official forecast for the spring day had been breezy, with the slight possibility of a shower. But this was Cleveland. Weather was the only guarantee. The particulars were in the hands of God.

“I’d give him my car, but I don’t have a car anymore,” Peggy said.

“You need to remind me you’re moving halfway around the world tomorrow? Like it’s not on my mind?”

Peggy ignored her. “Jon can drive Nick to the church. Will you call him and ask?”

Jon was Casey’s husband of just a year and nearly always willing to lend a hand. “I guess he won’t mind. At least he won’t get blown off the road in this wind. Jon can take care of himself.” Casey smiled. Peggy had noticed that Casey did a lot of that these days. Grinned when she had reason to, smiled mysteriously when she didn’t. Marriage agreed with her.

More than two years had passed since Peggy and Casey had come home to Cleveland, lost souls looking for a place to hide. Now Peggy was the mother of a son, Casey was married to her best friend, and Megan, who ran the family saloon, was about to celebrate her own wedding.

Of course, what sounded like a trio of happily-ever-afters wasn’t. Not quite. Each sister still faced considerable hurdles, but Peggy didn’t want to think about her own. Not for the moment. Today was Megan’s day.

“Remember the last time we stood around the parking lot like this?” Casey said, as if she knew what was going through Peggy’s mind. Both Peggy’s sisters had consistently read her thoughts since the day she was old enough to have any.

“We were at gunpoint,” Peggy said. “And Niccolo walked by and saved us. Now he’s about to marry our sister. Odd how things happen, isn’t it?”

“I peeked inside. I can’t believe what they’ve done, can you?”

“They” was the Donaghue family—and everyone in Cleveland who was related to them or wanted to be. A veritable horde of friends and family had descended that morning to scrub and decorate the saloon where Megan and Niccolo’s reception would be held after the ceremony at St. Brigid’s.

Peggy checked her watch. “I still have a million things to do before Kieran wakes up.” The atomic clock had nothing on Peggy’s toddler son for keeping life precisely on schedule.

“You’re still planning to leave him upstairs with a baby-sitter?”

“He’ll be happier. Everybody will be happier.”

“The old place looks great. The way it did when we were kids and Mom was in charge of family wedding receptions. Megan’s going to love it.”

Peggy knew better. Someday Megan, their oldest sister, would look back at this day with appreciation, even nostalgia. But today she wouldn’t notice a thing. If all the signs were correct, Megan was going to walk through her own wedding ceremony and reception like a newly sentenced prisoner on her way to serving a lifetime behind bars.

Casey grinned. “Okay, maybe she’s going to be a little jittery, and maybe she won’t notice every little detail….”

“Come on, we’ll be lucky if she’s only comatose. I don’t understand why she and Nick didn’t elope.”

“She didn’t want to set that kind of example.”

“For who?” Peggy realized “who” the moment she asked the question. “For me? Megan was afraid if she eloped, I’d copy her someday?”

“I think that’s part of it.”

“Unbelievable.”

“And I think Nick wanted a real wedding,” Casey added, before Peggy could expound. “He wanted his kids to witness it. They take a lot of interest in this kind of thing, even though they’ll never admit it.”

The kids Casey referred to were a large group of teens and pre-teens, including those who were so relentlessly decorating Niccolo’s car. Altogether there were more than a dozen verging-on-delinquent and occasionally endearing adolescents who were part of an organization called One Brick at a Time. Niccolo Andreani was the director, founder and jack-of-all-trades who ran it.

“So Megan’s doing this wedding for everybody else?” Peggy said.

“She won’t talk about it, so I’m just guessing. But you know she’s been a wreck ever since she agreed to marry Nick. She adores him, so it can’t be regret. I just think she hates being the center of attention. She’s happiest when she’s running everybody else’s lives from the sidelines.”

“Well, it’s about time she had her day, whether she wants it or not.” Peggy glanced at her watch. It was ten, and the wedding was at one. “What’s on your list for the rest of the morning?”

“About a million things before I help Megan dress, including a hair appointment.”

“Well, I have about a dozen more on mine. Then I have to get dressed, get Kieran set up—”

“And pack.”

“I have everything ready to go. Aunt Dee came and got our suitcases early this morning, so I can clean up tonight after the reception and they won’t be in the way. Megan’s already advertising the apartment.” Peggy tried to stave off further discussion of her impending departure. There had been dozens of such conversations, all of them fruitless, since she had announced she was moving to Ireland for a year. “Right now I’d better get busy. Because Kieran really is due to wake up—”

A gust of wind nearly lifted her off her feet, and this time it sent her smashing into Casey. Peggy’s shriek was eclipsed by an earsplitting crack. For a moment she was so disoriented that the sound didn’t register. Then in horror she turned her head toward the car and saw disaster swaying just above it.

“Get away from the car! Everybody! Now!” She extricated herself from her sister, and almost as one body they hurled themselves forward. “The tree—”

Winston and his crew were tough guys, but they were also survivors. Instinctively they scattered like the leaves that were raining from the big maple tree positioned just over Niccolo’s new Civic. A horrifying screech, like ten giant fingernails on a heavenly blackboard, rent the air. Then, as Peggy watched in horror, the tree wobbled uncertainly and split in two.

With a thunderous roar, followed by the scream and crunch of metal, the half closer to the saloon fell on Niccolo’s car, flattening the roof and hood. The other half of the tree remained awkwardly, tentatively erect. Nick’s car looked like a week-old sandwich fished out of a teenager’s bookbag.

Peggy did a frantic head count and assessment. The tree had fallen just slowly enough to give the kids time to get away. They looked shaken, but unharmed.

“Everybody’s okay,” Peggy said. She repeated it as a question and got satisfactory answers from all the kids. Winston herded them to the other end of the lot, where they shouted and pointed excitedly.

“It missed the saloon,” Casey said, her voice shaky. “But, lord, Peggy, that door into the kitchen isn’t going to open again until we get a crew out here. It opens out, and the tree’s smack against it.”

Peggy raised her voice over the intensifying wind. “Who cares about the door? What about Nick’s car? How are we going to tell him, and what are he and Megan going to use on their honeymoon?”

“They—they can take mine on the trip. Jon and I can make do with one car until they get back.”

“We still have to tell Nick.”

“Yeah? Exactly when?”

Peggy was still trying to process this disaster. She was the most analytical of the sisters, but analysis was beyond her at the moment. “How would you like to know something like that right before you head off for your wedding?”

“Wouldn’t.”

“Can we keep the kids quiet?”

Casey glanced over her shoulder, and the wind whipped her hair over her eyes. “Winston can. Besides, it was probably his idea to have Josh bring the car over. He’ll want to take as much time as he can owning up.”

Family and friends began pouring out the front doors of the saloon.

“St. Patrick and all the saints! Better call a tree service,” somebody shouted.

Another voice chimed in. “Get a wrecker.”

Casey documented the obvious. “Any sane person would cancel the reception.”

Peggy was trembling now, a delayed reaction that grew more ferocious as she realized just how lucky everyone had been. “You said it yourself. We have a blocked exit. Legally we have to lock our doors.”

Casey put her arm around Peggy’s shoulders. “That’s the good thing about the Donaghues. Not a soul who’s invited to the reception will report us.”

“Casey, do you think maybe we could deed this parking lot to the city and get it out of the family once and for all?”

Two hours later Megan Donaghue stared into the full-length mirror on Casey’s bedroom closet door. A disgruntled woman in unadorned ivory silk gazed back at her. “I really don’t know how I got talked into this. I look like a lampshade.”

Casey spoke from the floor below. “You look gorgeous, and there’s not one inch of frou-frou on that dress. If it were any simpler we’d call it a slip.”

“I should have worn a suit. Only suits make me look like a penguin. How come you got the legs, and Peggy got all that gorgeous straight hair, and I got—” She paused. “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”

“Apparently Nick thinks you have some redeeming feature, and if you don’t stand completely still, I’m going to stick this needle someplace it wasn’t meant to go.”

Megan knew her sister and stopped wriggling. Besides, Casey had seemed unusually edgy since Megan had arrived at the house. She didn’t want to take any chances. “Maybe it’s just momentum. You know? Maybe we just fell into this and kept falling, and eventually he just couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. Maybe he’s been trying to tell me he doesn’t want to marry me and I haven’t been listening.”

“Megan, Niccolo’s been trying to get you to marry him for two years. That’s what you weren’t listening to. Then you finally stopped making excuses, and here you are.” Casey stabbed her needle into the portion of the hem that had come unsewn.

Megan stared at her image in the mirror. She had hoped that on her wedding day, at least, a voluptuous redhead with a come-hither expression and tits would stare back at her. Real tits that filled out a bodice, tantalizing and promising. Instead she saw a short, compact body and the rectangular face that went with it. Granted, there was nothing seriously wrong with the face. The features matched well enough; the amber eyes were large, the expression forthright, and the bright red curls had been tamed into a semblance of order by Casey’s own stylist.

“What does he see in me, Casey? I mean, Nick’s a good-looking guy. I’m not blind. Some might even say he’s gorgeous. I’m wearing a Wonderbra and mascara, and nobody’s going to faint from passion when I walk down the aisle.”

“Megan, don’t ask him what he sees in you on the honeymoon, okay? Because he’s supposed to be dizzy with desire, not laughing his head off.”

“Why am I doing this?” Megan pushed one wayward curl into place. She had been dragged kicking and screaming to the wedding boutique and chosen the simplest dress in the place, but she had refused unequivocally to wear a veil. Instead a spray of silk orange blossoms adorned her short hair, threatening to take off for parts unknown if she continued to bob her head.

“Let’s see.” Casey clipped the thread and sat back staring up at her sister. “Why are you doing this? Maybe because, despite being hopelessly unworthy of love yourself, you love him?”

“Funny, Case.”

“Then if it isn’t love, maybe it’s just good sex? Or could be you need somebody to fix the toilet when it runs—”

“I know how to fix the toilet.”

“Back to sex, then.”

“You don’t have to be married for that.”

“Then you tell me.”

“I’m going through with this because Nick wasn’t happy living together. He believes in love, marriage.” Megan scowled at the curl and pushed it into place once last time.

“He’s a romantic?”

“He was a priest.” Megan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s still deeply religious. Living together never sat well with him. He needs vows. He needs the Church’s sanction.”

“So you’re doing all this for him.” Casey got to her feet and started toward the closet to get her own dress. “Congratulations. That makes you a martyr. The church reserves a special place in heaven for people like you.”

Megan waited silently as her sister shed her shorts and T-shirt and slid into a slip and panty hose. Then Casey slid her matron-of-honor dress over her head and presented her back. “Zip this, will you?”

Megan did. The fiery copper-colored silk almost matched Casey’s hair, normally a long mass of curls but today tamed in an intricate French braid woven with silk baby’s breath.

The three Donaghue sisters shared red in their hair, but there was little else that physically tied them together. Peggy, with her oval face and dark amber eyes, was beautiful by anybody’s standards. She had softer features than her sisters and a womanly body that had ripened even further during her pregnancy.

Casey was more interesting than pretty, but she made full use of her irregular features, bright hair and angular model’s body by choosing dramatic, quirky clothing and makeup. Casey always made a splash.

Then there was Megan. Sensible, cut-the-fuss Megan who felt perfectly at home in khakis and an emerald-green polo shirt running the family saloon. Today she felt like a little girl playing dress-up. A particularly awkward little girl.

“Here’s the problem,” Megan said. “I’m not doing this just for Nick. I believe in marriage, too. At least theoretically.”

“When we were growing up you didn’t see too many happy marriages up close. You were too busy raising us to pay much attention.”

“Mom and Rooney were happy at times.”

“Well, sure, when he wasn’t hallucinating. Then Mom died, and Rooney flipped his wig altogether and took off for parts unknown. And you were left to carry on.”

“There are plenty of happy marriages in the family. Look at Aunt Deirdre and Uncle Frank.”

Casey went to the dresser mirror to check her makeup. “You were too busy protecting your turf to pay much attention, Megan.”

Megan supposed Casey was right. Their father, Rooney, had abandoned the family when Megan was only fourteen. She had spent the next years trying to do everything a teenager could to keep the family saloon in operation and her sisters together. And she had been scarred by her father’s desertion. At first Niccolo had paid the price.

“I know I was affected by those early years,” Megan said. “But I’m over the worst of that. Now I’m a big girl. I understand why Rooney left. I’m just glad to have him back—more or less back, anyway. I know he did the best he could.”

Casey faced her. “If everybody without mental illness tried as hard as Rooney does, the world would be a pretty spectacular place.”

“It’s not seeing enough good marriages that scares me. It’s seeing one. Yours,” Megan said bluntly. “Lately, that’s what worries me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Jon. I don’t know how you do it. The two of you are happier together than you ever were apart. You make it look effortless.”

“Jon and I were friends in high school.” Casey tugged one shoulder of Megan’s dress lower, then slapped her sister’s hand when she tried to pull it back up. “But what does that have to do with you? You love Nick. You like Nick. What’s the problem? You have what you need, don’t you?”

“You make it look easy, and it’s not. I don’t know how to just fall into marriage the way you and Jon did. Nothing’s ever easy for me, Case. I don’t know about easy. I don’t think Nick does, either.”

“Everybody has to work at being married. Maybe Jon and I make it look easy, but I can tell you there’ve been a few great fights.” Casey’s eyes shone. “And some great make-up sex.”

“What if I give it my all and it turns out I’m not good enough?” Megan turned. “You do marriage counseling sometimes, right?”

Casey, who was the brand-new director of a charitable organization that delivered social services to West Side residents, shrugged. “It’s not my field of expertise.”

“Is this anxiety natural?” Megan bit her lip, then remembered she was wearing lipstick. “For two cents I’d bolt for the door and just keep going.”

“And what if you did? What’s waiting out there that’s so tempting?”

“I don’t want to fail.”

“What would happen if you did?”

Megan considered, but not for long. “I’d die. I can’t screw this up. If I get married, I want it to last. And what if I can’t figure out how to make that happen?”

Casey crossed the room and rested her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “Megan, you don’t have to carry the weight alone. Remember? There are two of you, and I’ve never known two more capable people. You’ll be a roaring success. Someday you’ll be kicking yourself for telling me all this.”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and the door burst open.

“Oh, Megan, you look gorgeous!” Peggy flung herself through the doorway. “Spectacular. Oh, I’m going to cry.”

“You’d better not. Don’t you dare.”

“I’ve got to get dressed.” Peggy headed for the closet. “I had to give the baby-sitter instructions, so I’m late. I didn’t have time to get my hair done, and in this wind it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. But if I pull the top part back and fasten the fancy combs I bought in it, I’ll pass. Besides, everybody’s going to be looking at Megan.”

“Oh, God, I’m getting married.” Megan’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Look, one of you do it instead, okay?”

Peggy pulled her dress from Casey’s closet. It was the same simple design as Casey’s, but in forest green. “I’ll gladly marry Nick. Think he’ll notice the difference?” She slipped off her T-shirt and let the dress slither over her arms and bodice. “I’ll just tell him you changed your mind. He won’t care.”

“Or I could do it,” Casey said. “Then he and Jon can duel for nights in my bed.”

Megan thought if she took one more deep breath she would hyperventilate. “I’ll live through this, right?”

“If you don’t, the Plain Dealer will have one whopping story.” Peggy presented herself to Casey to be zipped. “Any word from Rooney?” she asked Megan.

Understanding and accepting her father’s illness had taken Megan a long time. At some point in the two years since he had returned to his family, she had thrown away the need for an easy diagnosis and settled for the fact that Rooney was not like other men. He had battled hard for sanity, but the years and a dependence on alcohol had taken a permanent toll.

Still, Rooney was no longer homeless, as he had been since Megan’s adolescence. Every night he returned to eat dinner and sleep at Niccolo’s house in Ohio City, a West Side Cleveland neighborhood. He no longer drank, and he took medication that helped him think more clearly. He was sometimes confused, but rarely confused about who his daughters were. He had missed a large chunk of their lives, but he was learning to know them again on his own terms.

“I reminded him about the wedding this morning,” Megan said. “He was up early.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing that made much sense, but he didn’t seem surprised, like maybe he’d remembered already. Will he get there, do you think?”

“He knows where St. Brigid’s is,” Peggy said. “He can find his way anywhere.”

“Megan, let it be enough that he remembered, okay?” Casey said. “He remembers you. This morning he remembered you were getting married. He wants to be there, even if he doesn’t quite make it. A year ago, when I married Jon, he had trouble remembering my name.”

Megan knew that if they searched for and found their father, corralled him and herded him into a car, he would panic. She considered, instead, the one thing she could control. “There’s still time for me to head for Botswana or the Canary Islands. I don’t care which.”

Peggy joined her, leaning down to kiss her sister on the cheek. She stepped back and wiped away a faint smudge of lipstick. “How about the church, instead? You don’t have a passport.”

“Yes, I do. I made sure of it.”

“You don’t have a ticket.”

“There must be planes to Botswana every hour on the hour.”

“From Hopkins? You’d be lucky to hop a jet to Newark.”

“That would do.” Megan straightened her spine. “You think I’m kidding.”

“I think you’re terrified,” Casey said, joining them. “I never thought I’d live to see the day you owned up to it. Now, are we going to church, or do I let everybody know you’re a pitiful coward?”

“That’s a stupid question.” Megan whirled and took one final look at herself in the mirror. Actually, the view wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. She looked like…a bride. “Let’s go.”

Casey shrugged. “You’re so darned predictable.”

chapter 2

Niccolo was glad Megan hadn’t chosen a formal wedding gown, because then he would have to wear a tux, and he was already afraid his seldom worn suit was going to be wringing wet by the ceremony’s end. St. Brigid’s wasn’t particularly hot. But he was particularly nervous.

“Josh, come here a minute.” He motioned to the gangly young usher who was trying to herd a string of shoving adolescents toward a pew at the front.

Josh obliged, turning over his end of the line to Tarek, another youth, who was dressed in neatly pressed slacks, a sportscoat and shining loafers. Tarek had told Niccolo that this was his first time in a Christian church, and he had made a carefully annotated list of what he should wear, right down to the conservative tie.

“Where’s Winston?” Niccolo asked when Josh joined him in the narthex. “He’ll help keep them in line.”

Josh didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Oh, he’s not here yet. He had stuff to do this morning.”

Winston, Josh, Tarek and all the other kids in the pew, were part of Brick. One Brick at a Time had started out as a bunch of neighborhood pre-adolescents watching Niccolo renovate an old house in Ohio City, and now it was a chartered nonprofit organization that taught basic carpentry and plumbing skills, and remodeled old houses. Home repair and remodeling were secondary to the real skills the participants learned, though: self-control, self-worth, the importance of follow-through, and community service. Brick hobbled along on a knotted shoestring, but Brick hobbled forward.

Niccolo’s collar was in danger of cutting off his air supply. He pulled it away from his throat. “Can you keep them in line long enough to get them to the reception?”

“Sure, they’ll do what I say,” Josh promised. Niccolo didn’t doubt he meant it.

Josh was Niccolo’s biggest success story. Although most of the Brick kids came from safe enough homes, Josh hadn’t been so lucky. He had moved in with Niccolo two years ago to avoid his father’s alcoholic rages, and had blossomed immediately. For the first time in his life his grades were excellent, and his self-esteem was growing. He talked confidently about college now, and Niccolo had no doubts he would do well.

“Do you see the big guy at the end of the second pew?” Niccolo pointed through the doorway toward the front. “With black hair and the pretty woman in blue beside him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s my brother Marco.”

“He looks like you. How come he never comes to visit?”

Niccolo tried to think of a kind way to phrase the unkind truth. “My family wasn’t happy when I left the priesthood. Marco’s been running interference—” He saw that Josh didn’t understand. “He’s been trying to help the others understand that making a change was the right thing for me. Particularly my parents and the grandparents who are still alive.”

“I get it. He doesn’t want to alienate them by coming here while he’s working on their heads.”

Niccolo liked the way “alienate” had just slipped from Josh’s lips. And of course Josh had understood the subtleties of his explanation. Josh was a natural psychologist.

“You’ve got it. But he’s here today, and I’d like him to have a carnation for his lapel.” Niccolo motioned to the one in Josh’s. “Like yours. Will you take it up to him?”

“Sure. Cool.” Josh took a boutonniere from the white florist’s box beside Niccolo. “Anybody else coming? From your family, I mean?”

When Niccolo shook his head, Josh looked perplexed. “They don’t like Megan?” Clearly Josh couldn’t imagine such a thing, since he practically worshiped at Megan’s feet.

“They wouldn’t like anybody I chose. Don’t worry about it. Marco’s here. That’s a start.”

“So even good families can act crazy, huh?” Josh seemed to like that thought. He was smiling a little when he started back into the nave and up the aisle.

“What are you doing out here?”

Niccolo turned to see his best man coming through the door. Jon Kovats, Casey’s husband, was dressed in a dark suit, too, only on Jon it looked perfectly natural. He was a prosecutor, with quiet, clean-cut good looks that gave crime victims faith and an unwavering gaze that gave defendants shivers down their spines.

“Aren’t you supposed to be hiding somewhere with Father Brady until right before the ceremony?” Jon asked.

Niccolo hated to admit the truth, that after Jon had dropped him off at the side door, Niccolo had sneaked into the narthex for a look at the guests. He had hoped his parents would relent and attend, although he hadn’t said as much to Josh.

“I was just getting some air,” he said, “and checking to see if anything had to be done out here.”

“Nick, you can let go of everything for a while. Let the rest of us take care of the details. That’s why we signed on.”

“Have you heard anything from Casey?”

“Anything?”

Niccolo tugged his collar away from his throat again. He had gone from a priest’s dog collar to a working man’s flannels. Ties felt unnatural. “Lately, I mean. In the last half hour?”

“Not a word. Why? She’s helping Megan dress. I’m sure there hasn’t been much free time.” Jon frowned. “You’re afraid Megan’s not going to show up, aren’t you?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“Megan lives up to her commitments. To the point of mania, as a matter of fact. It’s something the two of you have in common.”

Jon knew them both too well. Niccolo couldn’t stop a smile, but he sobered quickly. “She’s afraid everything will change, that I’ll wake up one morning and realize I made a mistake, only I’m too good a Catholic to admit it.”

“Megan? She has a superhero ego. I can’t believe that.”

“Strong ego, yes, but she’s just not sure how to go about being married. And Megan hates being unsure about anything.”

“Just Megan? Or you, too?”

Niccolo thought the question was insightful, but he wasn’t surprised. He and Jon had become close friends in the two years they’d known each other, and Jon was a master at uncovering secrets.

“I’ve never been married, but I plan to work hard at it,” Niccolo said.

“Whoa there. Not too hard, or you won’t have any fun. It’s not a job, it’s a relationship.”

“She deserves the best. A hundred percent. Two hundred.”

“She deserves a man who’s enjoying himself.”

There was a commotion at the door, and Niccolo turned. A distinguished-looking man with silver hair was helping a plump, attractive woman through the doorway. For a moment Niccolo stood absolutely still; then he turned back to Jon. He cleared his throat. “Jon, come with me, will you? I’d like you to meet my parents.” He glanced at the doorway again. “And my grandfather.”

Jon was a good enough friend to understand the significance of those words. He clapped his hand on Niccolo’s shoulder. “Do you believe in omens?”

“I’m too Catholic not to.”

Megan had refused a limousine. Didn’t understand the point, didn’t want the fuss, and refused to spend the money. Neither she nor Niccolo was ever going to be rich. There were better uses for their dollars.

She had refused rides with family, turned down Jon’s offer to ferry her in a friend’s fire-engine-red convertible, refused everything, in fact, except the simplest solution. She, Peggy and Casey would ride to the church together in Casey’s car.

She just hadn’t reckoned with a flat tire.

Now the sisters stood outside Casey’s house and stared forlornly at the evidence.

“There’s debris all over the roads from the wind. I guess I drove over something on the way back from the saloon,” Casey said.

“Yeah, like a railroad spike. That tire’s a pancake.”

“And I sold my car,” Peggy said. “I hitched a ride over here from Uncle Den.”

“Charming.” Megan kicked what was left of the tire, most likely doing permanent damage to her ivory pumps. “I don’t suppose either of you wants to change this?”

“In this dress?” Casey looked down and shook her head. “Not a chance.”

“We’ll call a taxi,” Peggy said.

“This isn’t Manhattan. Nick will be married to somebody else by the time one gets here.” Megan kicked the tire again, shoes be damned. “Maybe somebody’s still left at the saloon. Casey, can you find out?”

Casey dug in her purse for her cell phone and made the call. They all stood perfectly still, waiting until she flipped it closed and shook her head. “It’s a miracle. They’re all on time for the wedding. Everybody but us. Jon’s already there with Nick, and I’ll bet his phone is off.” For good measure she punched in more numbers, with no success.

“Do you know your neighbors?” Megan looked around. “You must know somebody by now.”

Casey inclined her head to the left. “They’re out of town.” She inclined to the right. “I’m taking in their mail and papers.” She nodded to the house across the street. “They’re on the wrong side of one of Jon’s cases and about to move to a secure location. And the house next to theirs is empty.”

Megan peered around her, mind whirling. Casey and Jon had purchased one of Niccolo’s Ohio City renovations. The house, a brick Colonial Revival with classical detailing, suited the busy couple perfectly, and best of all, it was only four blocks from Niccolo’s house on Hunter Street.

“Okay, let’s hike it, then. We’ll get Charity.”

Her sisters groaned. Charity, Megan’s dilapidated Chevy, was renowned for its bad temper. Charity only began at “home.” The joke was rarely funny.

“Got a better idea?” Megan demanded.

“Well, we’ll see if Charity feels at home at Nick’s. If she doesn’t, maybe your neighbors will be more helpful than Casey’s,” Peggy said. “Let’s march.”

Megan started down the sidewalk at a fast clip. She heard her sisters behind her, but she was on a mission now. She had said she would marry Niccolo, and it was too late to call off the wedding gracefully.

They tramped in silence, three women in ballerina length silk dresses and hair whipping in the accelerating wind.

“It’s going to rain,” Casey said, a block from Niccolo’s house. “God, I hope we get to the car before it does.”

“It better not rain!” Megan marched on.

They turned down Hunter, and Megan could just see Charity at the end of the block in front of Niccolo’s—her—house. “Lord, let her start.”

“This really is a red-letter day. That was a prayer,” Casey said. “Megan’s praying.”

“I’ll have you know I’m in tight with the Lord. I had to be to get married in the church.”

“At least temporarily. Did Father Brady faint when you joined him in the confessional?”

“Father Brady is nicer and apparently more optimistic about my soul than you are.” Megan was afraid to look at her watch. They were cutting this close, and it was going to take some real time to repair all the wind damage.

The raindrops started just as they got to the car, but Charity started with the first turn of the key.

“Do you believe in omens?” she asked Peggy, who climbed in beside her.

“I’m too Irish not to.”

Megan double-parked Charity at the curb, but she didn’t turn off the engine. The small parking lot looked full and altogether too far away from the entrance she planned to use. St. Brigid’s had a side door just past the sanctuary that led to a stairwell. One flight up there was a room where the brides usually dressed—and now she fervently wished she’d decided to use it. Once upstairs and ready, she could make her entrance through another stairwell into the narthex and eventually up the aisle to meet Niccolo and Father Brady.

Too bad she hadn’t packed her hiking gear.

“We can do this.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll leave the key in the ignition. The neighborhood’s tough enough that maybe somebody will steal her. Once they see what they’re into, they’ll park her somewhere nice and safe until I can find her again.”

“We’re still fifty yards from a door,” Casey said from the back seat.

“It’s only sprinkling.”

Peggy wiped the foggy windshield with her fingertips. “You know what? You’ve lived here too long. By anybody else’s standards, that’s a downpour. And you hate getting wet.”

“Megan,” Casey said, “nobody will steal Charity, and you’re going to get towed if you stay here.”

Charity chose that moment to sputter and die.

“Looks like I don’t have a choice, and I’d rather bail her out of the impound lot than be late for my own wedding.”

“At least your ambivalence disappeared,” Casey said.

Megan didn’t bother to correct her. “Can you two get yourselves inside?”

Peggy had been scrounging under the seat for an umbrella. She held one out to Megan, a poor cousin of the species but still useful. “You go ahead. The weather’s only going to get worse. I’ll see if I can start this monster.”

“I’m not walking down the aisle without you. You have to hold me up.” After a lot of speculation on who should accompany her on the trip down the aisle, Megan had asked Casey and Peggy to walk just a step ahead of her, more escorts than attendants. She had a dozen male relatives who would have been happy to do the honors, but she had chosen her sisters instead. The man who should have walked with her wasn’t up to the task.

Megan gauged the distance and the raindrops. “Which should I ruin? My pumps or my panty hose?”

“I brought extra panty hose.” Casey was leaning over the seat now.

Megan removed her shoes and opened the door. “See you inside.” She flipped open the umbrella, and in stocking feet she sprinted across the grass to her favored entrance. At the door to the stairwell, she shook like a spaniel, closing her eyes and the umbrella and letting the raindrops fly. When she opened them, her future husband was staring back at her.

“Nick!” She put a hand over her heart. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking to see if you’d deserted me at the altar.”

She stared at him. The dark suit set off his wide shoulders, black hair and neatly trimmed beard. With his olive skin and Roman centurion features, he was the perfect finale to any walk down the aisle.

“You weren’t supposed to see me like this.”

He was smiling now. “I remember the first time we spent an evening together. Do you?”

At the moment she wasn’t sure she remembered her own name. She stared at him, this gorgeous, masculine human being who wanted to share her life.

“You invited me home after a day at work,” he said, “and you were exhausted. So you took a shower while I waited, and when you came into the kitchen your hair was wet. Sort of like it is now. And I was flattened by desire.”

“Flattened?”

“Metaphorically. More or less the opposite of my real state, I guess.”

She smiled. “I’d forgotten.”

“So I have a thing about seeing you wet. And dry, for that matter. Just seeing you.”

“Oh, Nick.” She wanted to fall into his arms. Instead she spread her skirt, holding it out with both hands like a little girl in petticoats. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? I’m not much of a bargain.”

“We never get guarantees, but I think you’re a pretty safe bet.”

“I’m a mess. I’m dripping, my car’s probably going to be towed, and I’ve ripped my stockings into shreds.” A hand leaped to her hair. “And I lost my damned orange blossoms.”

“Good. You look perfect the way you are.” He paused. “Although my mother and father will be more impressed if you put the shoes on your feet.”

“They came?”

He nodded.

This time she did fall into his arms. Casey and Peggy arrived just as they finally stepped apart. “Peggy got Charity parked. We—” Casey stopped when she saw Niccolo. “Get out of here,” Casey told him in mock horror. “Go wait where you’re supposed to. This is bad luck.”

He grinned with no contrition.

“Scoot!” Casey gave him a mock shove. “Go tell the organist to do another round of ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring.’ Give us ten minutes.”

“Five.”

“Seven. Go!”

“Bye…” Megan watched him leave. Nick turned in the doorway and blew her a kiss.

“Megan!” Casey grabbed her shoulders and turned her toward the stairs.

They were ready in ten minutes, panty hose changed, hair dry enough. Megan entered the foyer flanked by her sisters. Through the door into the church she could see that Nick, Jon and Father Brady had already entered from the front. The orange blossoms had been restored—Casey had rescued and pocketed them early in their walk—and even Megan’s shoes had been wiped clean. She was ready.

“Do you think Rooney made it to the church? Do you think he’s here somewhere?” Megan positioned herself at the doorway. Heads were beginning to turn.

“He wanted to be,” Peggy said.

The strains of Beethoven’s “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee” sounded from the front of the church. Megan had begged the organist to step up the tempo a little so the trip to the front wouldn’t take so long. Now the familiar melody sounded like the most strenuous selection in a Richard Simmons exercise video. Sweating to the Sacred. Clearly, after the delay, the poor woman was ready to call this gig quits.

“Okay, we’re going in together. Don’t walk too fast and leave me behind.” Megan took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

“I love you,” Casey said, and Peggy echoed it.

Megan’s eyes filled with tears. “Just go, okay?”

They started down the aisle. She took a step over the threshold and into the back of the church. Like one body the assembled guests rose. From the corner of her eye she saw a lone male figure step into the aisle. Then, as naturally as if he had rehearsed the scene for hours, Rooney Donaghue, shirt buttoned properly, clean shaven and smiling, came toward her and held out his arm.

chapter 3

None of the Donaghue sisters were sentimental, but despite that reputation, Peggy choked back tears during the ceremony. Megan was radiant as she joined her life with Nick’s, and even though Peggy hadn’t spent much of her adult life in church, the familiar rhythms of the wedding Mass touched her. But nothing touched her more than seeing her father take his rightful place at his oldest daughter’s side.

That glorious glimpse into the sacred exploded the moment she opened the door into the Whiskey Island Saloon.

“Ice machine gave up the ghost.” Barry, their bartender, pushed past her on his way outside. “Going for ice.”

“I—”

“And the band says they need more room to set up than you gave them,” he shouted over his shoulder. “So I moved tables out of their way, only now there aren’t so many tables—”

“I—”

“And there’s trees down all over Cleveland, so there’s no hope of getting a crew in tonight to cut it up. We roped off the area around the kitchen so nobody’ll park near the piece that’s still standing. But we can’t even get the car towed until…” His voice trailed off as he disappeared into his car and slammed the door.

Peggy wondered exactly what she was going to tell Niccolo and Megan when it came time for them to make their getaway and Casey’s car—if her tire was fixed by then—was waiting for them at the curb instead of the Honda.

“Peggy?” A strong hand ushered her all the way in. She looked up to see Charlie Ford, one of their loyal patrons. “The bakery just called. The cake’s all set up, but they forgot the petty cash, or something like that.”

“Petit fours. I thought maybe they had just put them in the kitchen.” She was beginning to panic. This was a crowd that would expect sweets before the cake was cut.

“Said they’d be by with them shortly. Not to worry.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Charlie’s eyes sparkled. His only son lived in New York, and the staff and patrons of the Whiskey Island Saloon were his Cleveland family. “And Greta says she’s going to quit if she has to stuff one more piece of cabbage.”

Greta was Megan’s treasured kitchen assistant and a fabulous cook in her own right, as well as a dedicated employee. “She always says that. Anything else?”

“Kieran went down for a nap about an hour ago, and the sitter left. The baby monitor’s in the kitchen with Greta.”

Peggy had expected that. The sitter had other obligations, and they had agreed to this compromise, knowing how regular Kieran’s nap time was. The older woman was one of the few outsiders who was willing to look after Kieran at all. How blessed it was to let someone else assume her son’s care for a few hours, and how impossible that would be beginning tomorrow.

But that was the way she had wanted it.

Charlie clapped Peggy on the shoulder. “Say, have you heard the one about the Irish priest who got stopped for speeding on Euclid Avenue? See, the cop smells alcohol on the good father’s breath and notices an empty wine bottle on the floor, so he knows he has to ask him about it. ‘Father, have you been drinking?’ he says. And the priest says, ‘Just water, my son.’ So the trooper picks up the bottle and holds it out in front of him. ‘Then what’s this, Father,’ he says. The priest throws up his hands. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he’s done it again!’”

She groaned. “Charlie, you’re the worst.”

He grinned as he disappeared into the growing crowd.

Peggy went straight to the kitchen. Greta was supervising a crew of cousins and customers who were setting food on platters and taking it out to the bar for the reception. Behind her, Peggy could hear the front door opening and closing regularly, and she knew that soon enough the saloon would look the way it did on St. Patrick’s Day.

“Everything going okay in here?”

Greta looked up, her moon face glowing with perspiration. “Did you know Nick’s family was bringing food?”

Until she’d seen them at the church, Peggy hadn’t even known Nick’s family were bringing themselves.

Greta waved one hand behind her toward the steel counter on the far wall. “Piles of it. They dropped it off before the wedding. His mother gave me instructions, like I don’t know how to heat up covered dishes? Why didn’t somebody tell me? I’ve been cooking for a week.”

“Nobody knew they were coming, Greta. I’m sorry. But I can guarantee everything you cooked will get eaten. Every single bit of it, and they’ll lick their plates.”

“Manicotti like you never seen. Sausages and peppers. Meatballs!” Greta grimaced. “All of it pretty good, too.”

Peggy put her arms around her for a quick hug. “Soldier on, okay? The Donaghues will eat their weight in corned beef. You can count on it.”

“They better!”

“No sounds from upstairs?”

“Not a peep, and I’ve got the monitor turned up all the way.”

“Just let me know.” Peggy heard the unmistakable pop of a champagne cork and sprinted back into the saloon and behind the bar. “Sam, who told you to start opening that?”

Sam Trumbull, another loyal customer, gave her a cock-eyed grin. He was a little man, with a chronic thirst and a line that could convince any stranger to buy him a drink in ten seconds flat. “Somebody put me in charge. I can’t remember who.”

There was just enough champagne for one good round of toasts right before the cake was cut. Before that the guests would have to settle for the excellent wines Niccolo had chosen, Barry’s mixed drinks, or the best Guinness in Cleveland.

“Not another bottle,” she warned. “Not until I tell you to. It’s going to go flat.”

“I just thought I’d check and see if the temperature was right.” He held out the bottle. “Want to see?”

“One glass, Sam. That’s it. Then pour the rest of it for—” She turned and pointed. “The man and woman over there. That’s my aunt Deirdre and uncle Frank.”

He looked disappointed, but he nodded.

The wind was rising outside, and Peggy checked the saloon clock. “I hope everybody gets here before this storm really breaks. It rains, then it stops, then it rains….”

“Cleveland spring.” Sam lifted his slight shoulders.

“Well, once they’re all here, it won’t matter.” She looked up as the door opened and Jon and Casey came in, followed by a large contingent of distant Donaghues.

Casey found her and pointed behind her, mouthing, “They’re coming,” enough times that Peggy understood. “The wedding party will be here pretty soon,” she told Sam. “Remember, don’t pop those corks until I signal. Promise?”

Casey managed to thread her way over to the bar as Peggy exited. “Where’s Kieran?”

“Upstairs sleeping. The baby monitor’s in the kitchen.”

“You’ve got a lot of people here that want to help you.”

“Kieran doesn’t need a lot of people, Casey. He needs a quiet environment and my full attention.”

“If this sojourn in Ireland doesn’t work out, you know you can always come back, right? Nobody will say ‘I told you so.’”

The door opened again, and this time Megan and Niccolo came through it, just behind Rooney. Behind them were the olive-skinned, regal members of Niccolo’s family. Peggy knew they were Andreanis because they were the only people in the saloon she didn’t know by name.

“Are they behaving themselves?” she asked Casey. “Nick’s family?”

“Actually, they’re charming. His mom’s a little reserved, like she’s here against her better judgment, but the rest of them are great. And can they tell stories. The trip from Pittsburgh’s worth a book. Maybe the Italians and the Irish are cousins under the skin? They’re going to get along with everybody.”

“And how’s Rooney doing?”

“He’s here, isn’t he? And it looks like Aunt Deirdre’s corralled him. She’ll make sure he’s fed and happy and not given anything to drink.”

Megan made her way toward her sisters. She was stopped, hugged and kissed by everybody between them.

“Other people have nice, quiet receptions,” she said. “Sit down dinners. Chamber music.”

As if on cue, the Celtic band—the lead singer was a second cousin on their mother’s side—began to play. The noise level doubled.

“Other people don’t have this much fun!” Peggy hugged her. “You doing okay?”

“We had to park down the street. Uncle Den claimed there wasn’t any room in the lot, not even for the bride and groom.”

Silently Peggy blessed her mother’s only brother and refused to meet Casey’s gaze for fear she would give away the truth. She just wondered how long it would take before someone mentioned the tree to Megan or Nick.

“Who invited all these people?” Megan shouted.

“You did!”

“Niccolo’s family will think he’s married into an insane asylum!”

Peggy looked past Megan to the Andreani gathering in the corner. Only they weren’t in the corner anymore. They were mingling and chatting, and they looked as if they were having fun. Even Mrs. Andreani, who was holding a small black-haired girl, looked as if she were loosening up. She caught Peggy’s eye and gave a slight smile.

There was a brief lull in the music, and Peggy heard Greta calling her. “Uh-oh, I’d better follow that sound. Kieran’s probably up.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Megan said.

“I’m going to bring him down for a while and see how he does. If he minds the noise and confusion too much, I’ll take him back up. There are plenty of people who will take turns watching him.” Peggy started off through the crowd, but she was stopped by her aunt Deirdre before she could get to her son.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow,” Deirdre said.

Peggy loved her aunt. Deirdre Grogan was Rooney’s sister, and she and Frank, her husband, had raised Peggy after Peggy’s mother died and Rooney left. At the same time Deirdre, who had undoubtedly wanted full custody, had been sensitive to Megan’s need to have a say in her baby sister’s life. So Deirdre had walked a difficult line. She was kind, patient and completely opposed to Peggy’s decision to take Kieran to Ireland.

“I love that color,” Peggy said, hoping to change the thrust of the conversation. Deirdre always dressed with quiet, expensive good taste. Today she wore a sage-green linen suit that set off hair that had once been the color of Casey’s but had less fire in it now.

“Are you sure you won’t reconsider, darling? After all, what do you know about this woman? What do any of us know? And how can we help Kieran if you’re off in the middle of nowhere?”

Peggy knew that her aunt was distraught, because Deirdre never interfered. Two years ago, when Peggy informed her that she was pregnant and didn’t intend to marry the father, Deirdre had asked only what she could do to assist.

“I know enough about Irene Tierney to risk the trip,” Peggy said. “She’s been warm and welcoming, and she’s anxious to meet even a small piece of her American family. Until a couple of months ago, she didn’t know we existed.”

“But doesn’t it all seem odd to you? She’s in her eighties? And she found you on the Internet?”

“Her physician gave her a computer to amuse her and got her connected. It’s something she can do from home that gives her broader interests. She’s mostly housebound. And I think it’s wonderful that she was so adaptable and eager, and that she found us.”

“I still don’t understand what she wanted.”

Peggy looked toward the kitchen and saw Greta standing in the doorway, pointing toward the stairs. Peggy waved at her to let her know she’d gotten the message. She was growing frantic, the response of any mother of any species separated from her bawling youngster. “I’ve got to get Kieran. We can talk later.”

Deirdre looked contrite. “Can I help? Would you like me to—”

“No, but thanks. Stay. Enjoy yourself. I’ll be down with him in a bit.”

Peggy didn’t add that she planned to take her time. There were a dozen relatives who would try to corner her before the night ended and quiz her about the remarkable decision to fly thousands of miles to live in rural Ireland with a woman she’d never met. She wasn’t anxious to face any of them.

Upstairs, the tiny apartment, often stuffy in late spring, had benefitted from the afternoon’s wind and dark skies. Peggy knew, without opening the bedroom door, that Kieran would be staring at the sheer curtain beside his crib. Even though the window was only open an inch, the curtain would wave with each gust, and Kieran’s gaze would be locked on that movement. He might even imitate it, waving his hand back and forth. When there was no curtain blowing, no clock pendulum swinging, no ceiling fan revolving overhead, she had seen him follow the slow back and forth of his own hand for as long as an hour, mesmerized and calmed by the fruitless repetition as she sat distressed beside him.

If only she could unlock the mystery that was Kieran Rowan Donaghue.

She opened the door and saw that she had been right. Kieran was awake, but he wasn’t sitting up. He was lying silently, waving his hand back and forth in time to the movements of the curtain. If Kieran was capable of happiness, then he was happiest at moments like this. Happiest when he was alone, with no one asking more of him, no one expecting recognition or, worse, love. No one to distract him from the isolation he craved.

“Kieran?”

He didn’t turn, but she hadn’t expected him to. He heard her, though. She knew he did from the way his plump little body stiffened and his hand no longer kept rhythm. His mouth tightened, and he made a sound of distress, an animal sound. Cornered prey.

“Sweetheart, it’s Mommy. How’s my Kieran boy?” She moved slowly toward him. She knew better than to ask him to quickly give up his solitary world. Not so long ago the family had teased about Kieran’s “sensitivity.” He would be an artist, a poet, a musician, their Kieran. He was a visionary, this youngest Donaghue. He saw the world differently, experienced it at a level more visceral, more elemental, than most children.

In those happy days, before the diagnosis of autism arrived with the crocuses and early daffodils and turned a Cleveland spring into Peggy’s personal nightmare.

“Kieran,” she crooned. “Kie—ran.”

He turned to her at last. His angelic little face registered dismay. He had a rose-petal complexion and soft auburn curls. His pale blue eyes were as bright as stars, but whatever dwelled behind them was Kieran’s own secret.

“Mommy’s here,” she crooned. “Mommy loves you, and she’s here. Mommy’s not going anywhere, sweetheart. Kieran. Love.”

He didn’t lift his arms. He didn’t smile. His body, which had been soft with sleep, stiffened into steel. Then he turned away, turned toward the open window and the waving curtain, and began to hum.

chapter 4

So far, Megan had survived. Rooney’s appearance at her side had been a gift. She had never expected to walk down the aisle on her father’s arm, and that small miracle had gotten her to the front, where the man she loved waited to hold her up. Niccolo’s smile and Father Brady’s patient prompting got her through the service.

Now, hopefully, champagne and Guinness would get her through the rest of the reception.

“My car’s missing,” Niccolo shouted in her ear.

For a moment she didn’t understand. The Civic was nearly new. If the engine was missing, that was a bad omen.

“I think somebody took it to decorate it,” he elaborated.

She felt herself turning shades of mottled pink, the curse of a redhead. After the reception, she and Niccolo were leaving for a relative’s cottage on Michigan’s Drummond Island. She had envisioned anonymity and absolute peace on the drive.

“We’re stopping at the first car wash,” she warned.

He grinned. She couldn’t recall ever seeing Niccolo look happier. She wondered what she had done to deserve him, this man who had stood by her through all her doubts, fears and general neuroses.

“I’d like to outrun this storm,” Niccolo said, “but I think we’ll be driving right into it.”

“It’s raining again? Maybe we won’t need a car wash.”

“Pouring. I’m used to odd weather, but this takes the cake.”

Casey pushed through the crowd with a full plate of food and handed it to Megan. “You haven’t eaten a bite. This is fabulous. Both the Andreanis and the Donaghues outdid themselves.”

Megan realized she was starving. “Nick?” But she needn’t have worried. She saw that Jon was hauling him to the bar to fill his own plate. Niccolo’s brother Marco was helping.

“Having fun?” Casey said.

Megan dug into the best manicotti she’d ever tasted. She wondered if Mrs. Andreani would share the recipe. It was probably too soon in their relationship to ask, considering that until just hours ago Niccolo’s mother hadn’t wanted to acknowledge her existence.

“Is this supposed to be fun?” Megan said.

“You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

A cousin with a full tray of Guinness stopped, and Megan took a pint, suffering a hug while she was at it. “How do I eat and hold this?”

“I’ll hold it.” Casey took the Guinness.

“I’m doing okay,” Megan admitted.

“Everyone’s so happy you married Nick.”

Megan had never realized the Donaghue clan had such remarkable taste. “Nick tells me his car is missing?” She watched her sister’s face. “Casey? I don’t think I like your expression.”

“What did Nick say, exactly?”

“That somebody had probably taken it away to decorate it.”

“That’s the kind of thing people do for weddings, right?”

“You know more than you’re saying.”

“There are good times and bad times to discuss surprises.”

“And there are good and bad surprises.” The band started a chorus of “Cockles and Mussels,” and over her head, drifts of white tulle swayed frantically when someone opened the front door. “This had better not be one of the bad ones,” she continued in a louder voice. “Just tell me that whatever damage you did to the car, soap on the windows, shoes on the bumper, whatever, can be quickly dispensed with once we’re out of sight.”

Peggy arrived with Kieran in her arms. “What’s out of sight?”

Megan’s heart squeezed painfully as it always did when she saw her nephew. “Hey, kiddo.”

She tried to keep her voice low, although that made it inaudible. Kieran responded badly to noise and confusion of any sort, and now, in the center of the raucous crowd, he was eyeing her as if she were a stranger, although Megan had fed and rocked and changed him as often as anyone else in the world.

Kieran had seemed perfectly normal at birth. When he was still an infant, Peggy had started medical school, and Kieran had been lovingly passed among family members who were thrilled by the chance to care for the little boy while Peggy attended classes and studied. But no matter how much time they spent with him, Kieran had never seemed to remember them.

Peggy brushed his auburn curls with her fingertips. “Try saying hi,” she told Megan.

“Hi,” Megan said warmly.

Kieran stared at her, his cherubic face expressionless, then he focused his gaze just behind her. Megan turned to see what had interested him and saw a reflection of the swaying tulle in the bar mirror.

“Hi,” Megan repeated.

Kieran didn’t look at her. He seemed hypnotized by the movement. Just as she started to change the subject, he gave a lopsided smile, then reached toward the mirror. “Hi. Hi. Hi.”

Peggy looked disappointed. “Better than nothing.”

“He’s not quite two,” Casey pointed out. “Boys don’t talk as early as girls.”

“But most boys know the difference between reflections dancing in a mirror and their favorite aunts.” Peggy sounded matter-of-fact. “Well, that’s going to change. When you see him again, you’re going to be surprised at the improvement.”

Megan wanted to argue. She wanted to shake some sense into her sister. When Peggy had learned Kieran’s diagnosis, she’d quit medical school, perhaps forever, divorcing herself from a lifelong dream in order to devote herself to her son. Now she was taking Kieran all the way to Ireland to live with a distant cousin the family hadn’t even known about until two months ago. All so that she could somehow turn him into a “normal” child.

Unfortunately, Peggy was the only Donaghue who believed this was the right course to follow.

“He seems pretty perky, considering all the chaos in here,” Casey said.

Megan knew Casey was trying to divert the conversation and supposed it was just as well. Peggy’s mind was made up, and all the discussion in the world wasn’t going to change it.

“I think I’ll see if I can get him to eat something, then I’m going to take him upstairs for some quiet time. We’ll be back for cake.”

Megan and Casey watched Peggy wind her way to the bar.

“I still can’t believe she’s moving to Ireland,” Megan said.

“Finish your food, Megan. The band’s gearing up for some set dancing, and you’ll be expected to give it a try.”

Megan groaned. “You couldn’t head them off?”

“They’re playing for free. Remember?”

“Hand me the Guinness, would you?”

Upstairs, Peggy settled Kieran on the living room rug with a quilt and a menagerie of stuffed toys. The apartment was plain but serviceable. Best of all, the modest rent came out of her share of the saloon’s profits. The Whiskey Island Saloon had been in the Donaghue family since its construction more than a century before. The three sisters were equal partners, and although nowadays Megan kept the food hot and the liquor flowing, both Peggy and Casey had pulled their share of Guinness along the way.

“Tomorrow we’re going on a plane,” she told her son.

He didn’t look up at her words. For months, before the battery of tests that had pinpointed Kieran’s problem, she had worried that his hearing was impaired. She hadn’t expected autism, so she hadn’t been prepared.

The day she got the diagnosis would be etched forever in her mind.

“Autistic disorder,” the specialist had said matter-of-factly, as if he were diagnosing a head cold. “Moderate, we think, although that’s not as easy to pinpoint as it might seem. It’s really a spectrum, Miss Donaghue. Generally those who suffer with it have problems understanding the emotions of others. They have difficulties with language and conversation, and they often fixate on one subject or activity. The prognosis depends on many things. Early intervention is key, but I’ll warn you, the cost, both in time and money, can be enormous.”

Now Peggy dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged beside Kieran. “We’ll go high in the air, right up into the clouds. And I’ll be with you the whole time. Just Mommy and Kieran.”

He picked at the felt eyes of a teddy bear. He never held or cuddled his toy animals. He found something to pick apart, and he could work at it for long stretches of time, only pausing to rock himself when he tired.

“Then we’ll be in Ireland,” she said. “And Mommy will set up a classroom for you at Cousin Irene’s. We’ll have toys and games, and you’ll learn so much, Kieran. I know you will. And when we come back to Cleveland, you’ll be able to speak and make eye contact and…”

He looked up. The living room curtain rustled and caught his attention. “Hi. Hi.”

She gathered him close, although he whimpered at her touch. “You’re going to have every chance I can give you,” she said fiercely. “If I have to fly to Mars and back to make sure of it.”

Four of the Brick kids found an untouched tray of Guinness and took it into the storeroom for their own private party. Casey spotted them before Niccolo could and confiscated their hard-won treasure.

Marco, his wife Paula and their two young daughters staged a slide show on one of the saloon walls of photos of Niccolo as a little boy. Not to be outdone, Uncle Den enthralled a group of admirers with story after story of the three sisters as children.

“Please, God, let the toasts begin,” Megan said. “I won’t survive much more of this.”

“Hold your head up,” Peggy said. “You’re only getting married once.”

“Can’t you get Kieran and Aunt Dee and bring them down? All of you have to be here when we cut the cake.” Peggy had settled Kieran upstairs in the apartment an hour before. Now Deirdre was sitting with him and saying her goodbyes.

“Do you really think it’s time?”

Niccolo joined them. “You know, if we’d ever put all these Andreanis and Donaghues in the same room, we probably would have been too scared to merge our genes. Can you believe our children will have both sets?” He shook his head.

Megan couldn’t imagine a child of theirs at all. She knew Niccolo wanted children right away. She’d tentatively agreed to have them someday, but not on his timetable. Marriage itself was going to take enough trial and error.

“Will you start herding everybody to the back of the room?” she pleaded. “I don’t think I’ll live through much more of this.”

“You’re having a ball.” He leaned down and kissed her, and people began to clap.

“I would like to get away sometime before dark,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Don’t look now, but it’s been dark all afternoon.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’ll herd. But don’t expect this to end any time soon.”

“They can party until the wee hours, but you and I are leaving once the cake’s been served.”

“Promises, promises.” He winked at Peggy before he left to begin edging people toward the wedding cake.

Megan watched as Niccolo made remarkable progress. At her suggestion, the cake had been set up in the back of the saloon. She had tried to get into the kitchen to make sure everything was ready for cutting and serving it, but she’d been outmaneuvered. There had been a conspiracy all day to keep her as far away from the kitchen as possible.

As if she would try to take over her own reception.

Casey joined them. “That time already? Will you be able to bring Kieran down now?” she asked Peggy.

“Maybe now that he’s had some quiet time. I can’t guarantee he’ll be tantrum free.”

“All two-year-olds have tantrums,” Megan said. “You certainly had your share.”

“You’ve got to get used to the idea that he’s not just any two-year-old, Megan,” Peggy said. “It’s the only way we can help him.”

Megan knew Peggy was right. At first Peggy, too, had struggled to accept her son’s disability, but at last she had made the adjustment. Megan was still rooted firmly in denial. “I love him. I love you. I don’t want to lose either of you.”

Peggy kissed her cheek. “You won’t. Now let me get him.”

“And I’ll help Nick,” Casey said. “He’s managed to get everybody moving. Which was the key to getting them into the back of the room faster, do you think? Cake or champagne?”

Megan was only yards away from Niccolo when the building began to shake. For a moment she thought the band had turned up their amplifiers to grab everyone’s attention. But the sound was more freight train than feedback.

The saloon shook again. A woman screamed, and Megan registered alarm on the faces closest to her. Then, as she saw Niccolo struggling through the crowd in her direction, the building shook once more, the roar grew deafening, and the front facade of the saloon collapsed inward.

The building shook again as more screams erupted. Glassware at the bar shattered and fell to the floor, and a hole the size of a child’s wading pool opened to the left of her head. Debris rained down, followed closely by water. Then both the cacophony and the tremors ceased.

“Megan!” Niccolo reached and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her. “Are you okay?”

“What—” She realized she couldn’t breathe. She struggled, but her lungs wouldn’t inflate. Her legs felt like rubber bands, and she clung to him and fought for air. People were pushing past her, heading away from the destruction.

“Take it easy. It’s okay.” He smoothed her hair, but his hand trembled.

She caught a breath at last. “What—”

“Tornado,” he said. “It sucked up part of the roof. Damn, we’re idiots. Nobody was listening for tornado warnings. I—”

“Nick!” Casey reached them. “Where’s Jon?”

Niccolo released Megan. “He was in the very back. I’ve got to see what kind of damage was done. I’ve got to find my family.”

Megan started after him. She knew his real mission was to see if anyone had lagged behind and been caught in the collapse. The sight that greeted her nearly tore the breath from her lungs again. The roof over the front quarter of the building had fallen to seal off the entrance completely. What rubble she could see beneath it was waist-high. “Oh, God!”

Casey grabbed her. “Stay away, Megan. For Pete’s sake, don’t get near—”

Jon reached them. “Get in the back with everybody else. Please. It’s safer.”

“What if somebody—” Megan couldn’t finish that thought.

“Most everybody was in the back milling around the cake. If we’re lucky…Just help us get everybody else back there now. We’ll do head counts. Start, would you?”

Megan knew he was right. Thick dust choked the room, and her vision was obscured. But nothing she could see indicated that anyone had been in the extreme front when the wall collapsed.

Casey was already helping people move farther toward the back. Megan saw one of the Brick kids holding his head, but he was walking unaided. One of Marco’s daughters had a scratch on her cheek, but the bleeding didn’t look serious. Niccolo’s mother had her arm around his grandfather and was helping him walk. Megan turned to see Peggy struggling with the door to the apartment, and she remembered that Kieran was upstairs with their aunt.

As she watched, Peggy wrenched open the door, despite the crush of frantic guests, and disappeared into the stairwell. The back of the building seemed secure, but what if the second story wasn’t? What if the upstairs, which camel backed the saloon, had been blown away? The apartment only ran across the back, but what if…

She stumbled forward, helping a great-uncle who seemed unable to find his way. Once she was sure he was heading in the right direction, she made it to the door and started up the stairs.

“Peggy?” She called her sister’s name as she climbed. The stairs seemed secure. Above her, everything looked the way it always did. “Peggy! Aunt Dee!”

The door at the head of the stairwell was open. She made it to the top without incident and found Peggy and her aunt clasped together in a bear hug, Kieran screaming between them.

“Thank God.” She joined them.

“The bedroom’s wrecked,” Deirdre said calmly. “The window exploded. There’s glass everywhere, but Kieran and I were in here.”

“Let’s get downstairs. We can exit through the kitchen door. The front’s a nightmare.”

“No, we can’t get out that way,” Peggy said. “The back door’s blocked.”

Megan knew she wasn’t thinking clearly, but now she was particularly confused. “How do you know? You came straight up here.”

“A tree fell in front of the back door this morning, Megan. Right on top of Nick’s car. We’d pulled his Civic out behind the kitchen door to decorate it, and that old maple toppled right onto his roof. Nobody wanted to tell you until we had to. We didn’t want to spoil—”

“I guess you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Peggy said.

The loss of a car seemed inconsequential at the moment. “Nick’s won’t be the only car in Cleveland to suffer storm damage. Kieran’s okay?”

“Just scared. We’re all scared.” Peggy kissed Kieran’s hair.

“Aunt Dee?”

Deirdre drew herself up straight. “Let’s get downstairs. Did you see your uncle?”

Megan tried to remember if she had seen Uncle Frank. “I didn’t, I’m sorry. But I didn’t see any serious injuries.” She thought of the roof sitting at the front of the saloon and what might be under it. “Nick and Jon were checking when I came upstairs.”

“I think we need to go down right away.” Deirdre no longer sounded calm, and Megan knew reality was setting in.

They started for the stairs. Megan went first, with Peggy and Kieran right behind her and their aunt bringing up the rear.

Niccolo was waiting at the bottom, and at the sight of them, he looked relieved. “I don’t think anyone was buried in the rubble,” he said in a low voice. “There’s no sign anybody was that close. Some people were hit by flying debris. There’s some blood and some bruises, but none of the injuries are life-threatening. We’re doing a head count now.”

“Nick, there’s no exit.” Megan stepped aside to let Peggy and her aunt by. “There’s a tree blocking the kitchen door.”

“Jon told me.”

“Maybe it’s better if we stay inside until the fire department can get to us. Outside must be as bad as in. Wires must be down, trees are down. If nobody’s seriously hurt here—”

“Megan, a couple of people claim they smell gas.”

She couldn’t breathe again. She was angry at herself for succumbing to fear, but anger was not inflating her lungs.

“Take it easy,” he said, spotting her dilemma. “Let yourself go limp. Don’t think about breathing….”

She obeyed as well as she could. In a moment the light-headedness passed and air was moving again. “What’s wrong with us?” she gasped. “Why didn’t we have the radio on? Why didn’t somebody warn us?”

He ignored her question and began to catalogue their options. “We can’t get out through the front. The roof is precarious. If we start moving debris, more of it could fall, and somebody could be injured or killed.”

“We put a steel door in the kitchen two years ago after that carjacking. There’s no way we’ll be able to break it down, not with a car and a tree in front of it.”

“Are there other exits? Anything I don’t know about?”

She tried to think. There were no windows on the sides of the building. “Kitchen window?”

“Too small for most of us, and blocked besides. The tree did a lot of damage.”

Now she understood why no one had allowed her near the kitchen.

“We might be able to get the smaller children out that way if we have to,” he continued.

Megan had often fantasized about a picture window over the side work counter. She had told herself she would put one in someday, even if the view was mediocre and she had to add bars for security. “The fire department must be on the way,” she said.

“I don’t think we can count on them coming quickly. I’m sure we’re not the only casualty.”

“There’s a hole in the roof.”

“No help.”

“The gas won’t build up, will it? Even if there’s a leak, it’ll dissipate.”

“I’d rather not find out.”

“Are the phones—”

“Dead. And so far nobody’s gotten a cell phone working. The local tower might be down, or the system could be flooded with calls.”

Jon arrived. “Rooney’s missing.”

Megan looked at Niccolo, searching his eyes. “Did you see him recently? Do you remember? The last time I saw him, Aunt Dee had him tucked under her wing, but she was upstairs with Kieran when the tornado hit.”

“He was with your uncle Frank,” Jon said.

“Is Uncle Frank—”

“Fine. But he lost Rooney after the tornado.”

“Were they in the front?”

“No, in the back. He should be safe, but he’s disappeared.”

“Anyone else missing?” Niccolo asked.

“Not that we’ve discovered. Unless somebody was here alone with no one to vouch for them.”

Megan frantically tried to think. “Where could Rooney be?”

“Upstairs?” Jon asked.

“No, we were just up there. Maybe he’s hiding. In the kitchen or behind the bar?”

“We checked.”

“Storeroom?”

“Checked it.”

“The cellar,” Megan said. “Did anybody check the cellar?”

The cellar door was located—inefficiently—inside the kitchen pantry. The cellar itself was tiny, damp and unpleasant, and only used for storing kegs or a temporary overflow of canned goods.

“I can’t imagine he’d go down there,” Jon said. “Will he even remember the cellar’s there? I didn’t.”

“It’s hard to tell what he remembers. But for a long time the saloon was his life. He knows every nook and cranny.”

“I’ll check.” Jon turned away, but Megan stopped him.

“No, let me.”

“I’ll come with you,” Niccolo said.

“Shouldn’t you and Jon stay up here and try to figure out what to do?”

“It will only take a moment.”

They started through the throng of guests toward the kitchen. Megan was impressed with everyone’s calm. She heard weeping, and coughing from the dust, but order had been maintained. She comforted people as best she could and promised they would know what to do shortly. When she reached the kitchen, she saw the old maple tree lying in front of the window, heavy branches like arms lifted imploringly toward the sky. Greta and another kitchen staff member were waiting for them.

“I don’t know why this window’s still in one piece, but it is,” Greta said. “Do you want us to knock out the glass?”

“Not yet,” Megan said. She couldn’t imagine anyone escaping that way. Perhaps a small child would fit, but no one could know what awaited a child outside. For the moment it was better to keep everyone together. “Greta, have you been here the whole time? Since the tornado hit?”

“I ran out into the saloon right afterwards. We all did. To see what happened.”

“You didn’t see Rooney come in here, did you?”

“I wasn’t paying attention.” Greta sounded contrite, as if she should somehow have had her wits completely about her during the crisis.

Megan was fighting panic. “I smell gas,” she said. “Very faint, but noticeable.”

“The stove is off,” Greta said. “And I blew out the pilot light. That was the first thing I checked when I came back in here.”

“We’ll check the furnace when we go downstairs, but it’s fairly new, isn’t it?” Niccolo asked.

“Last winter,” Megan said.

“Then it should have a safety shutoff. That’s probably not the problem.”

“Let’s find Rooney. One thing at a time.” She put a hand on Greta’s shoulder. “Hold the fort, okay?”

“We’ve got clean towels, and we still have water. We’ll help people clean up as best we can.”

Megan headed for the pantry. The cellar was so rarely used that boxes of supplies partially blocked the doorway, taking advantage of every inch of room. The saloon had always needed more storage area. Now it would need so much more than that.

“I guess he could have gotten through without moving anything. If he stepped over these, opened the door a crack and squeezed through,” she said, pointing to the boxes.

“The electricity’s off, so there’s no light down there.”

“We’ve always kept a couple of flashlights on a rack in the stairwell. I never go down without one. I’m afraid I’ll end up in the dark if there’s a power failure.”

“We’ll take a quick look.”

“I was going to increase our property insurance,” she said as he helped her shove boxes aside so the door would open wider. “I just never seemed to find the time for a consultation with our agent.”

“Don’t think about that now.”

“When you vowed for better or worse, I bet you weren’t thinking the big guy upstairs might take you up on that last part so soon.”

“Megan, this is the better part. It’s a miracle no one was killed. If the twister hit us directly, it would have taken the whole building and everyone in it. We probably caught the tip of the tail.”

That wasn’t lost on Megan. Miracle was not too strong a word, particularly if help arrived quickly and cleared an exit.

She edged in front of him. “Better let me go first. I know the layout. I can feel around for a flashlight.”

“I see light down below.” He stepped aside.

Megan felt a rush of gratitude. Light meant Rooney was downstairs. Now she was only afraid they might find him in a state of terror.

She felt along the wall to the rack where the flashlights were kept and found only one, snapping it on to illuminate the path. “Rooney,” she called. “Don’t be afraid. Nick and I are coming to get you.”

She started down, shining her light just in front of her so that Niccolo could find his way, as well. Halfway there she saw her father below them, banging ineffectually on a paneled wall with his palms. He was a slight man and—she noted—paler than usual. She wondered if he really believed that his meager weight was any match for the saloon foundation.

“He must have panicked,” she said so that only Niccolo would hear. She moved faster and hoped that her new husband could still see well enough to keep up. At the bottom she started toward Rooney.

“Hey, Rooney, it’s okay. The fire department will get here soon. And they’ll get us out. But you need to come upstairs with Nick and me. You shouldn’t be alone down here.”

Rooney turned to examine her. He did not look panicked. He looked, in fact, disturbed by the interruption. “Here somewhere.”

She was often puzzled by her father’s attempts to communicate. There had been a time when almost everything he’d said was a mystery. More recently, though, all the other changes in his life had led to clearer, more precise exchanges. They’d had real conversations where both of them were heard and understood. She was afraid this wasn’t going to be one of them.

“Yes, you’re here,” she said. “But it would be better if you were upstairs.”

He gazed at her as if she were a little girl again. “No way out.”

“Maybe not this minute, but the fire department—”

“No way out there.” He shook his head and pointed above him. He looked annoyed, as if Megan just didn’t understand.

“No, but there will be.”

He turned around and began banging his palms on the wall again. Megan imagined that prisoners pounded cell walls the same way. “Rooney, that’s not going to help. Come on upstairs with me, okay?”

“Are you looking for something?” Niccolo asked him.

Megan wished Niccolo would stay out of the exchange. She was afraid Rooney was going to become even more distracted. “Nick, I—”

“Here someplace.” Rooney moved down an arm’s length and continued pounding.

“Megan, he’s not upset. He’s looking for something,” Niccolo told her. “Do you know what it might be?”

“I don’t think—”

“Listen…” Rooney stopped pounding a moment, then started up again.

She was growing more disturbed. She didn’t like being away from the others. Maybe someone had gotten through to the fire department. She wanted to know if help was on the way. She wanted to figure out strategy. She wanted to see to her guests. “Rooney, I don’t hear anything! Please come up.”

“It sounds hollow.” Niccolo took her arm. “Do what he says and listen.”

“So what if it’s hollow? Who can tell why…” But she fell silent, aware that nothing she could say was going to turn the tide.

“What’s behind there, Rooney?” Niccolo asked.

Rooney grinned. “Jail time.”

Megan caught Niccolo’s eye and shook her head. Niccolo was expecting too much.

“Jail time?” Niccolo asked. “Jail for who?”

Rooney was picking at a sheet of paneling now, trying to pry it loose with fingernails that weren’t up to the task.

“For who?” Niccolo repeated.

Rooney stepped back, obviously frustrated. “Tools. Hammer might do.”

“What will we find if we pry the panel loose?” Niccolo asked.

“Nick, please don’t continue this,” Megan pleaded.

“Jail time,” Rooney said. He paused. “For bootleggers.”

Megan faced her father, Niccolo’s part in the conversation forgotten. “Bootleggers?”

Rooney smiled. “I wasn’t born.”

“Megan, do you know what he’s talking about?” Niccolo asked.

She was ashamed. She had been so sure Rooney was just talking crazy. “When I was a little girl the grown-ups talked about tunnels down here. Not when they thought we could hear them, of course. We weren’t really supposed to know. It was a family secret. But I haven’t thought about that for years. I thought the tunnels were probably just a story, a Donaghue fairy tale.”

“Bootleggers?” Niccolo asked.

“I don’t know for sure, but if there are tunnels, maybe they were built to smuggle in bootleg whiskey during Prohibition. There’s another bar on the West Side that claims they have tunnels that lead all the way to the water.”

“The Shoreway would make that impossible here.”

“It wouldn’t have then, because the Shoreway wasn’t there in the twenties. Besides, if there are tunnels under the saloon, maybe they led out to a road on Whiskey Island where liquor was brought in from the water. I do know Cleveland had its share of rum runners. Canada’s right across the lake, and Canada never bought into Prohibition.”

“So if it’s true, the tunnels might still be here?”

“Could be, although in what kind of shape, I don’t know. If they exist, they’ve been walled away my whole life. I guess it depends on how sturdy they were to start with.”

“Sturdy enough, I bet. If they were built for bootleggers, they wouldn’t have taken any chances. Liquor was a profitable business.”

“Yeah, for people like Al Capone. This is Cleveland.”

“Elliot Ness came here after Prohibition to clean up the city,” Niccolo said. “There must have been some business here to draw him.”

Obviously he’d been listening to Jon, for whom Cleveland history was a favorite subject. “Are you thinking we might tear out this wall and see what’s here?” she said.

“Rooney, does the tunnel lead outside?” Niccolo put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Can we get out this way?”

Rooney gave a slight nod.

That was enough affirmation for Niccolo. The possibility existed. “Can you get my kids and get us some tools?” he asked Megan. “And more flashlights, if you have them?”

“The kids?”

“Do you know anybody more talented at destruction?”

She left the two men below and raced up the stairs. In the saloon, she clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Has anybody been able to reach the fire department?”

Nobody had. Sirens had been heard in the distance, and shouting somewhere down the block.

She explained quickly what Rooney had found and what they planned to do. Jon and Casey had organized people into small groups. One was tearing towels into makeshift bandages to supplement the small first aid kit. Another had stationed themselves as close to the front as possible to yell for help. Another was washing and doctoring cuts and bruises. One group was making attempts to comfort and entertain the children.

Barry the bartender kept a crowbar behind the bar for security. He gave it to Winston, who headed straight for the kitchen. The other kids followed with whatever they were handed. Megan pulled a toolkit and more flashlights out of the storeroom, Greta gave Josh a mallet she used for pounding round steak. Peggy, trying to manage a struggling Kieran, volunteered to go upstairs and look in the apartment for more flashlights, but that effort was vetoed as too dangerous.

Megan promised she would come back with news the minute she knew if the tunnels existed and if they led to safety.

“They exist.” Deirdre grabbed her arm as she was heading back into the kitchen. “Your father’s not imagining this.”

“Do you know where they lead?”

Deirdre shook her head. “We weren’t supposed to know. I think my father’s generation was afraid we’d find a way to get inside and someone would get hurt. Do you want me to go down and help?”

“Stay here and help Peggy with Kieran, will you?” Megan could hear her nephew wailing. The crowd, the noise and the confusion were bad enough for a normal child.

She left Casey and Jon in charge, confident they could keep chaos at bay. Downstairs, she saw the boys at work and marveled. The tornado had nothing on the Brick kids for destruction.

Someone had wanted the tunnels sealed for all time. Five minutes into the pounding and prying, that someone was thwarted.

“Step back,” Niccolo commanded, and the kids did so without argument. He kicked away the last remnants of the paneling and shined his flashlight inside.

“What do you see?”

“I’m going to have to go inside to find out.”

She didn’t want him to go. Even if the tunnels had been safe at one time, they had been sealed off for decades. But what choice did they have? The saloon wasn’t safe, either, with a quarter of the roof on the floor and gas seeping from God knew where.

“I’m coming, too,” she said. “Two lights are better than one.”

“Please don’t,” Niccolo said. “Not until I’ve checked it out a little.”

“I’m coming.”

He knew better than to argue, especially in front of the young men, who seemed entranced at the possibility of marital discord so soon after the wedding. “Okay, but step carefully.”

“Really? I thought we could do an Irish jig or two on the way through.” She winked at Josh. Now that the fun part was over, the kids were beginning to look uneasy. “We’ll be right back,” she promised. “One of you run upstairs and see if anybody’s had any luck calling the fire department.”

Nobody moved. “Or not,” she said. She watched Niccolo step through the ersatz doorway into the tunnel. Rooney, who had stayed to watch the demolition, stepped in after him.

“Rooney,” she called. “Please don’t do that.” Her plea was ignored. She followed, stepping into the space and shining her light all around. Niccolo and Rooney were just ahead.

She hadn’t had time to think about what they might find in the little time that had passed since they found Rooney beating on the cellar wall. She’d formed a fuzzy mental image of a narrow dirt passageway filled with debris, bats and cobwebs. She had not expected a tunnel wide enough for three people to walk abreast. She hadn’t expected massive, roughly-hewn ceiling beams or dirty plastered walls. She caught up to her husband and father.

“Look at this.” Niccolo aimed his light to the right.

She followed the beam and saw a storage cellar similar to the one they’d just left. It was piled with boxes, and the shelves lining it held old glass canning jars, some of which were still filled with garden produce.

She whistled softly. “I had no idea. Look at this place.”

“Let’s keep moving.”

“Where do you think it comes out?”

“It goes down from here. There are steps ahead.” Niccolo shined his flashlight.

“When they built the Shoreway, they must have buried the entrance,” Megan said. “We’re going to find a dead end.”

“No,” Rooney said.

She had new respect for Rooney’s grasp of their situation. She followed, trailing her flashlight along the walls.

The steps were steep, ten of them, each so narrow they had to walk single file, and the ceiling grew lower until she was stooping. They halted abruptly at a small flagstone-surfaced platform. Stones layered the wall, too. Her heart sank. Then Rooney stooped and began to jiggle a stone near the top.

She saw light.

“Nick?”

But Niccolo was already helping his father-in-law move the stone. With every inch, more light streamed into the tunnel. “Get the kids,” he told her. “Then go upstairs. If the fire department isn’t on its way, bring everyone down here. Tell them to be careful. But this is our way out, Megan, and we’d be fools not to take it.”

chapter 5

The tunnel opened onto the hillside overlooking the Shoreway. Niccolo supposed at one time it had extended farther, but the Shoreway construction had destroyed the rest of it. Most of the entrance was walled in by dirt and even a grove of small willow trees. But there was a hole hidden by the trees that was just large enough to escape through.

“Lived here,” Rooney told him after Megan disappeared back through the tunnel. “In the bad years.”

At first Niccolo didn’t understand; then everything fell into place, and he realized what the old man was saying. Rooney had disappeared from his daughters’ lives for more than a decade. At some point in time he had probably lived in this tunnel close to the people he loved but hidden from their view. It was probably due to Rooney that the entrance had been uncovered, then sealed with stone. They could thank Rooney for this escape route.

“I saw you the night of the carjacking. Do you remember that? And you disappeared down the hill. I thought you crossed the Shoreway. Were you living in the tunnel then, too?” Niccolo asked.

He didn’t really expect an answer, and he didn’t get one. Rooney’s grasp of time was uneven. There were still days when he believed his wife was alive, days when he seemed surprised to find that his daughters were fully grown. Two years ago Niccolo had tracked the old man to a makeshift “den” on Whiskey Island, but now he knew where Rooney had stayed on the coldest days of that winter. He supposed that at the height of Rooney’s illness it was possible he had found places to live all over the city, places where he could escape and feel secure. Niccolo just hoped those days were over.

He and Rooney worked at moving the rock out of the way until they were joined by Josh, Winston and Tarek. Megan had asked the other kids to help her bring people downstairs and through the tunnel. The boys were on an adrenaline high. This was a day they would talk about for the rest of their lives.

With the help of more strong arms, the rock rolled away easily. They worked at another, widening the space until Niccolo could squeeze through. Outside, a fine rain fell, and the skies were still dark. But the wind had died down, and the air felt fresh and clean. There was no traffic on the Shoreway, which was only yards down the hill. He motioned for Winston to join him. Winston squeezed out the hole and gazed around.

“Well this part of C-town’s not looking so bad,” he said.

“Can you find your way along the hillside and back up to the street? See if you can find a working telephone and report what happened at the saloon?”

“Then I gotta call my mom.”

Winston wasn’t such a tough guy after all. “Make that your first call, okay?” Niccolo said.

“I’ll find somebody’ll know what to do.”

“Watch carefully for wires on the ground. Treat them like deadly snakes. Be very, very careful.”

“I’ll come back and let you know.”

“No, don’t. Go home.” Niccolo paused. “If you can get there.”

Winston nodded. “You think that twister did lots of damage?”

From the hillside, Niccolo couldn’t tell. Nothing looked out of place, except for the fact that no traffic was moving on the Shoreway. “Tornadoes are funny. They’ll take one house and leave everything else around it unharmed. It may have touched down on Lookout Avenue and no place else.”

“Hey, man, I’m ghost.” Winston raised his hand in goodbye and started across the hill.

“Good luck,” Niccolo called.

“Got my finger on the trigger.”

Niccolo, ignoring that imagery, turned and gazed up the hill. From the rear, what he could see of the saloon appeared undamaged. He was too far below the street to see anything that had happened there. He headed back into the tunnel just as Josh and Tarek led the first group of guests to the opening.

Niccolo explained how they would be exiting. “Is everybody okay to climb down to the road?” The climb wasn’t steep, but some of the older guests would need to take their time, since the path would be slick from the rain, and no one had worn hiking boots to the wedding.

“Apparently they’ve blocked it off, because there’s no traffic,” he continued. “We’ll gather down there as a group and walk along the road to the first exit. I’d rather do that than risk going up to the street. I don’t know what the rest of Lookout looks like.”

Everyone seemed in agreement. He ushered them outside, comforting and questioning each one about injuries.

For the next twenty minutes he consoled and assisted his wedding guests. Peggy came through clutching Kieran. He counted Andreanis until the last one came through. The rain had nearly halted by the time the last group arrived. Megan brought up the rear, with Casey and Jon just ahead of her. Megan didn’t mince words. “Nick, the gas smell is stronger.”

“Everybody’s out?”

She hesitated long enough that he wasn’t reassured.

“You don’t know?” he said.

“Did Josh come through? Aunt Dee thought she saw him opening the door to the apartment. One of the flashlights died, and earlier he’d said he was going to look for another.”

Niccolo had seen Josh come through at least twice, but he wasn’t sure if the young man had gone back inside to escort more guests or gone down to the Shoreway. He tried to remember, but the afternoon had become a blur of faces and situations.

“I went to the bottom of the stairs and yelled for him before I left, just in case,” Megan said. “I think he would have heard me if he was in the apartment. I’m sure he would have. He probably came through and you just don’t remember.”

Probably wasn’t good enough. Even though Josh was fully capable of finding his way outside now, he might not understand the urgency. They had played down the gas smell, so as not to unduly scare anyone. Panic was an even worse threat.

Niccolo decided to agree, at least outwardly. “I’m sure you’re right. Help the rest of the people down to the Shoreway, okay?”

“You’re not going back inside, are you?”

If Megan thought he was going back in, she would insist on coming with him. Niccolo asked forgiveness for lying to her on their wedding day. “No, I’m going to see what’s going on up above. I sent Winston to find a phone and call the fire department.”

Megan hesitated.

“Please, go on,” he assured her. “I can take care of myself.”

“Shouldn’t I come with you?”

“I think you should stay with our guests. Jon, will you and Casey help Megan make sure everybody gets to safety?”

Jon knew Niccolo was lying. Niccolo could see it in his eyes, but he nodded. “We’ll take care of it.”

“I’ll join you the moment I can.”

“Okay.”

Niccolo watched them go. Rooney had already made the climb, and no one was left at the mouth of the tunnel. He waited until Megan’s view was obscured; then he started back inside and climbed the steps up into the tunnel. “Josh?”

He tried again to remember if Josh had gone back inside. He started down the tunnel shining his flashlight on the floor just ahead of him, listening carefully. “Josh?”

He was almost at the entrance into the cellar when he heard an explosion. A split second afterward the world went black.

He awoke sometime later. Time had stopped for him, and when he opened his eyes he didn’t know where he was, or even who. He was lying on his back, staring up at a poorly plastered wall. The room was dark, but a beam of light shone at the wall’s bottom. He wasn’t in any real pain, although he was afraid if he moved too quickly that might change. He lay still, trying to put his thoughts together.

He’d heard a noise. He thought he remembered flying through the air, but how could that be? Unless he was dead. He’d heard afterlife tales of tunnels, of moving rapidly toward a bright, healing light. But if this was the afterlife, it was highly overrated. The floor beneath his fingertips was clammy. The air he breathed was smoke filled. Despite years in the priesthood, he’d never been a big fan of the biblical version of Hell, and he discounted that possibility immediately.

“Nick?”

He heard a woman’s voice in the distance. At the sound of his name, memory rushed in to fill the void. He had gone back inside the tunnel to find Josh. There had been an explosion…. He tried to sit up, but immediately his head began to throb. He decided against moving for the moment.

“Nick?” This time the voice calling him was a man’s.

“Here,” he croaked. “I’m here. I’m okay, I think.”

He heard footsteps, quick ones, and loud enough to make his head throb harder. He realized the light that illuminated the bottom of the wall was a flashlight. His flashlight. He had dropped it. He felt for it until he had it in his grasp. Then he shined it on the wall, hoping to guide his rescuers.

“Here,” he croaked again.

He waited. His vision was blurry, but as he stared at the wall, his eyes began to focus. Above him was an image. He struggled to focus more closely. A woman gazed down at him, an image as familiar as his own.

The footsteps drew closer, but now he paid little attention. He drew the beam along the edge of the image. Up, down, across. It was pronounced, certainly not the result of his injury. He was not looking at something that wasn’t there.

The Virgin Mary was looking down at him, and she was weeping.

“Nick, my God, are you all right?”

He heard a man’s voice. Jon. He was glad to put a name to it. Then he heard a woman’s, and he knew the worst moment of his day wasn’t over.

“Megan,” he croaked. He turned his head to see a vision in white running in his direction. She fell to the ground beside him.

“Are you okay? Don’t move. What happened?”

“Explosion. Gas leak. Maybe in the cellar. Fumes ignited by the—maybe the water heater. I should have thought to blow out the pilot light.” He coughed.

Jon joined them. “Were you in the cellar when it blew?”

Niccolo tried to remember. “Almost. Where am I?”

“About ten yards down the tunnel.”

Niccolo realized he must have been knocked off his feet by the explosion and catapulted to this place. “I should be…”

“Dead,” Jon supplied. “For sure. I don’t know why you aren’t. It’s nothing short of a miracle. Can you move your arms and legs?”

Niccolo tried. He felt bruised all over, but nothing seemed to be broken. “Josh?”

“Down below. You should have waited to find out.”

“Time wasn’t a friend.”

“You said you were going up to the road,” Megan said. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t want you to worry….”

“You two settle that later. Right now, I think we need to get you out of here,” Jon said. “The fire department’s on its way. They’ll address the leak, wherever it is, but we don’t want another explosion while we’re in here.”

“Fire…” Inevitably, it followed explosions.

“There’s not much to ignite down here. We can assume the furnace room will be a total loss.”

Niccolo struggled to sit up. At the second try, and with Jon and Megan’s help, he managed. The world spun, but when he opened his eyes again, the Virgin still stared down at him.

“Tell me I’m not imagining her,” he said.

“Nick, you’re not imagining me,” Megan said.

“You’re real. I know. Her.” Niccolo shined his light on the wall again.

Jon and Megan turned to see what he was talking about. Niccolo watched Megan’s face. He watched his bride’s eyes widen. She stared at the wall, then at him. And then Megan, whose relationship with the Church was suspect at best, made the sign of the cross.

chapter 6

Cleveland’s Hopkins airport was open for business, and planes were still flying. That seemed incongruous to Peggy, who only the day before had wondered if she or Cleveland would survive the tornado’s devastation. Now, she stared at the ceiling in Niccolo and Megan’s guest bedroom and wondered how she would feel tomorrow, when she woke up in another strange bed. This time in Ireland.

A faint rapping launched her to her feet. She opened the door a crack to see her sister’s serious face.

“Phil tracked you down,” Megan said softly, so not to wake Kieran. “Nice of him.”

Peggy wasn’t surprised at her sister’s tone. Megan did not like Kieran’s father, nor, for that matter, did Casey. “At least he’s calling, Megan. I should have called him myself last night. There was just so much going on.”

“I suppose even Phil finds it hard to ignore the fact that the saloon was struck by a tornado. We’re the toast of the town. We made statewide news.”

“You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon.” Peggy looked around for something to pull over her T-shirt so that she could take Phil’s call.

“We’ll go after I get the estimates for renovations. I’ll have plenty of time to relax. I won’t be working for months.” Megan shook her head as if she was still adjusting to that thought. “Let me get you a robe. There’s nobody in the kitchen. You can talk to Phil there.”

Peggy checked Kieran, who was sleeping soundly, his tiny body curled in a ball. She wanted him to sleep, since their flight to Ireland was going to be trial enough. When Megan returned, she wrapped the flannel bathrobe around her and secured it; then, with a nod to her sister, she went down to the kitchen and picked up the receiver.

“Phil?”

“I was beginning to think you weren’t going to speak to me.”

She found a chair and tried to make herself comfortable. “Things are in chaos here, but we’re all right. I’m sorry you had to hear about it from somebody else.”

“The Columbus Dispatch had a front page article. Kieran’s okay?”

“Fine. We’re all lucky. Just cuts and bruises and one mild concussion. It was one of those freaky things. Lookout Avenue caught the tail of a twister. There were trees down all over the West Side, but it could have been so much worse.”

“The paper says the saloon sustained the worst damage on the street?”

“Let’s just say we won’t be serving Guinness for a while. Luckily it’s not a total loss. And since she has to close and renovate anyway, Megan’s swearing she’ll improve the place while she’s at it.”

“Megan said you’re still planning to leave today.”

“I am.” Peggy considered her next words but decided to go ahead. “I wish you could have come to say goodbye this week, Phil. Kieran will be a whole year older by the time we get back.”

“Tanya’s been sick. I was afraid to leave her.”

Tanya was Phil’s wife. They had married six months ago, and Tanya had wasted no time getting pregnant. Peggy wondered if Kieran was the reason for her haste—and continuing morning sickness. Tanya was young and insecure. Peggy had tried to find ways to assure her that Kieran was no threat to her marriage, but the message had never been received.

“I’m sending an extra check to Ireland,” Phil said, when Peggy didn’t respond. “A good-size one. I know you’ll need some help getting settled.”

Phil was as generous as he could be with child support, and that was one area where Peggy couldn’t fault him. He had little interest in Kieran, but he did take his financial responsibilities seriously. He was a fledgling architect with years of school loans to pay off, but he shared what he could.

“I appreciate it,” she said. “I’m going to buy supplies for Kieran’s classroom once I get there. Whatever you send will go toward that.”

“How is he?”

Uncharitable responses rose to her tongue, but she overcame them. “He’s the same, Phil.”

“Is he talking yet?”

“He can say hi. But he’ll be talking up a storm by the time I bring him home.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t…you know.”

She didn’t know. Couldn’t visit? Couldn’t love his beautiful, distant son? Couldn’t promise that he ever would?

“I hope you’ll write him,” she said. “I’ll read him your letters, and I’ll put your photograph in his room.”

“Sure. That’s a good idea. Please do that.”

“Goodbye, Phil. Give Tanya my best wishes and tell her I hope she feels better soon.” She hung up, suspecting that Tanya would feel better the moment Peggy and Kieran’s plane took off for Shannon Airport.

“I’m making coffee.” Megan stumbled into the room. “One cup or two?”

“I’ll take a pot.” Peggy watched her sister wander the room trying to find her wits and the coffee filters at the same time. Megan was usually a morning person, but she’d used up a year’s worth of energy yesterday, and it showed.

“Nick’s still doing okay?” Peggy asked.

“His skull must be made of titanium. I woke him up all through the night like the E. R. doc told me to, until he said if I woke him up one more time he’d start divorce proceedings.”

“A little edgy, huh?”

“He claims he doesn’t even have a headache.”

“It’s really something of a miracle, huh?”

“Peggy…” Megan filled the glass pot with water. She turned off the tap and faced her sister. “I’ve got to tell you something. But only if you promise not to laugh.”

“Any chance I can keep that promise?”

“Maybe.” Megan seemed to realize she was clutching the pot of water to her chest. She turned and poured it in the coffeemaker and installed the coffee filter. “When we found Nick yesterday?”

Peggy felt her skin growing cold. She hadn’t slept well, despite true exhaustion. Every time she’d closed her eyes she’d felt the house rocking the way the saloon had rocked when the twister touched down. Or she’d heard the explosion and felt the same stab of terror she’d felt when she realized Niccolo might have been caught inside.

“I was sure he was dead,” Peggy said.

“I know. He should have been. He was blown ten yards or more.”

“You were going to tell me something funny. I could use it.”

Megan measured the coffee into the pot and flipped the switch. “It’s only funny coming from me. When we found him, Peggy, I couldn’t believe he was alive. Talking, too, like nothing much had happened. We told him we had to get him outside, and he sat up. Then he shined his flashlight on the wall right under where he’d landed.”

Peggy was waiting for the punch line. “And?”

“There was an image there.”

Peggy waited. She had no idea what her sister meant.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Megan went on. “An impression of some kind, I guess. A stain? But it looks like the Virgin.”

For a moment Peggy didn’t understand. “Virgin?”

“Holy statues of our lady. She’s facing the other wall, robed, and her arms are out like this.” Megan demonstrated, as if she were welcoming guests. “And, well, here’s the thing. The face has no features, not really, but where her eyes should be…” Megan looked away. “Tears. It looks like she’s crying. Nick woke up, and that’s what he saw.”

Peggy didn’t know what to say. “Well…” She frowned. “Megan, you don’t think this is some sort of a miracle, do you? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I think it’s a coincidence, and for that matter, so does Nick. It was just, well, spooky.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not right. It wasn’t spooky. It was lovely. Comforting, as if…” She shrugged. “For just a second there I felt like I used to when I was a little girl and we’d go to St. Brigid’s as a family. Sometimes, when everything was very quiet and the candlelight flickered on the wall and you knew the organ music was about to start. In that moment, you know, that’s how it felt.”

Megan rarely talked about religion and never in a positive way. She’d been born a Catholic and would die one. Like all of them, she loved Father Brady, and she understood her new husband’s devotion to the Church, but without Niccolo in her life she would have remained only nominally involved. She was a Holy Days Catholic, and her sisters were the same.

“You had a spiritual experience,” Peggy said. “I think that’s wonderful. Treasure it.”

Megan seemed to shake off the moment. She opened a cupboard and got down coffee mugs. “Yes? Well, I’m not looking for another one. Not if Nick gets blown down a tunnel first. That’s the real miracle. He’s alive.”

Peggy took her mug and held it up high. “I’ll drink to that.”

“What will you drink to?” Niccolo came into the room, looking sleepy-eyed but completely well.

“Your health.” Peggy held out her mug, and Megan filled it.

“Then I’m going to drink to a safe trip today for you and Kieran.” Niccolo crossed the room and gave Megan a bear hug before he got a mug for himself.

Peggy felt right at home. The room was lovely. Simple bird’s-eye maple cabinets, white tile countertops and backsplash, capped off with rich dark red wallpaper Megan had put up last month. Niccolo’s oil paintings of Tuscan villages harmonized with Megan’s quirky farm animal canisters. Her sister had upholstered the kitchen table chairs with remnants of old quilts. Niccolo had crafted the table from a black walnut tree that had been cut down to make room for a neighbor’s addition.

“You’re sure you want to go today?” Megan asked her. “I mean, the airline will let you change your ticket, won’t they?”

“Do you need me here?” Peggy said. “Be honest.”

Megan looked torn, but in the end she shook her head. “There’s nothing you can do. We’ve got inspectors coming, insurance adjusters, and later there’ll be contractors. It’s going to be a zoo, but at least it will give me something to do so I don’t have to think about what happened.”

“It’s another piece of luck that Aunt Dee already had our suitcases,” Peggy said. “And I guess there won’t be any hurry on cleaning out what’s left in the apartment….”

“We won’t be renting it out for a while, that’s for sure.”

“A delay would be hard to explain to Irene. She’s made special arrangements to have me picked up at Shannon.”

“I wish we knew this woman. I wish somebody in the family had met her.”

“She is family,” Peggy said. She had expected this last-ditch effort on Megan’s part to get her to reconsider, and she settled in for it.

“But what do we know about her? Her grandfather was the brother of our great-great grandfather. That’s not much of a tie. And until she found us on the Internet, we didn’t even know there were relatives on that side of the family. We were supposed to be the last of the line.”

“Well, we will be soon enough.” There was little that Peggy knew about Irene Tierney, but she did know that the old woman wasn’t well. She was eighty-one, had never been married and had no family in the small village of Shanmullin or in all of Ireland. She lived in the thatched cottage that had once been the home of Terence Tierney, the sisters’ great-great grandfather, and sadly, her life was drawing to a close, most of it lived without knowledge of their existence.

“And I don’t really understand what she wanted with us in the first place,” Megan said. “Information about her father, who we never even knew existed? I don’t know what we can tell her.”

Peggy thought Irene’s story was intriguing. In her first contact Irene had written that her mother and father had brought her to Cleveland as a small child. There had been no future for the family in Ireland, and there had been some hope there might be relatives remaining in Cleveland. They’d found none, as it turned out, and after Irene’s father died just a few years later, her mother had taken her young daughter back to Ireland to eke out a living on the Tierney land. Not until four months ago, when Irene, surfing the Internet, had come across mention of Terence Tierney in a newspaper article about the Whiskey Island Saloon, did she realize the Tierney family had indeed lived on in Ohio.

“She wants to find out how her father died here,” Peggy said. “That’s natural. You of all people should be able to understand that. When Rooney was missing all those years, we wanted to know what had happened to him.”

“I just don’t understand why her own mother didn’t tell her. Or how she thinks we’re going to find out anything.”

Peggy didn’t know herself. She had done a little research at City Hall for Irene but hadn’t found anything. She hoped her sisters would continue while she was in Ireland.

“It just seems like so much to take on,” Megan said. “Kieran, caring for an old woman you don’t know…”

Peggy didn’t repeat what she’d told Megan so many times before, but it hung unspoken between them. She was determined to help her son, and that meant hours of work with Kieran every day. Irene needed a companion, but not constant care. Going to Ireland was the only way Peggy could afford not to work at a full-time job. Irene was giving her free room and board, and with Phil’s monthly check, Peggy could manage their other expenses if she lived simply. And what other way was there in rural Ireland? The arrangement was ideal, a surprising and wonderful gift.

“She’s excited about having Kieran there.” Peggy got to her feet. “She’s never had a child in the house. She needs help, she needs family. It’s an opportunity I can’t afford to ignore. I’ve talked to her enough to know we’ll get along. Trust me a little, okay?”

Megan set her coffee mug on the counter and embraced Peggy. “I love you. You know that’s what this is about, right?”

Peggy hugged her back. She saw Niccolo watching them. She was glad her older sister was in such capable hands. Megan didn’t realize how much she needed someone to lean on occasionally. “You’ll take care of her?” she asked him.

“If she’ll let me.”

Peggy squeezed Megan hard, then stepped away. “Make sure you do,” she counseled her sister. “And stop worrying about me. I’m going to be just fine. Kieran and I are going to be just fine.”

They weren’t fine, nor had Peggy really expected them to be. Kieran did not take well to changes. He didn’t take well to strangers, to noise, to being shuffled from one place to another, to being tearfully hugged by family or to seeing his mother choke back tears as she said goodbye.

As it turned out—and as Peggy had feared—he didn’t take well to airplanes, either. By the time their first flight landed in Boston, a hundred pairs of eyes were trained disapprovingly on her. What kind of mother was Peggy that she couldn’t comfort her own child? And why didn’t that beautiful baby quiet down when she took him in her arms? Why did he fight to get away from her?

She understood the censure she read on the faces of her fellow passengers. She understood the mixture of concern for that angelic-faced little boy as well as the irritation that the devil inside him was ruining their flight. She’d been prepared, but of course, she hadn’t really been. Nobody could be.

They had a long wait in Boston, another strike against the trip in Kieran’s baby mind. She finally got him to sleep in his stroller, and she paced the length of the airport, over and over, until she was worn out, but anything was better than hearing her son scream. When she finally had to wheel him to security and he awoke to find himself somewhere new, the screaming began again.

He would not be consoled, and she carried him on board that way, listening to the murmured reassurances of the flight attendants and their well-meaning suggestions, and knowing that none of the suggestions would help. She managed to give him the antihistamine and decongestant her pediatrician had prescribed for the journey, both to help with pressure in his ears and to help him relax, but Kieran was oblivious. The flight was full, and there was no elbow room.

She explained Kieran’s problems as best she could to the friendliest of the flight attendants, and miraculously the young woman was able to find passengers willing to trade seats in order to give Peggy and Kieran a little more space. They moved to the back, where they had a row of three seats to themselves and where Kieran’s screams were less audible. The extra seat comforted him a little, and two hours into the flight he stopped sobbing and took his favorite blanket. He picked at the fibers, unraveling it bit by bit, but since he was quiet, Peggy didn’t care.

She fed him, she talked to him, she sang softly to him—something she usually tried not to do in public, since she couldn’t carry a tune. When he slept fitfully, she slept, too. But by the time the plane landed at Shannon Airport, she felt as if she’d traveled to the ends of the earth. Kieran’s little cheeks were splotchy and his eyes red from exhaustion and panic. An overseas flight was hard for any young child, but what was this like for her tiny son, who perceived the world as a frightening place and the actions of those who loved him as a morass of signals his brain couldn’t process?

They waited for the others to disembark, a ritual that went faster than usual. In her distress, she wondered if the haste was due to Kieran and the frantic need of those on board to get away from him. She understood only too well, since, in her exhaustion, part of her wished for the same. When it was their turn, she gathered her carry-on and started toward the front.

Shannon Airport was well laid out and reasonably quiet. After they cleared customs, she looked around for Finn O’Malley, Irene’s physician, who had promised he would drive Peggy and Kieran to the village of Shanmullin in County Mayo. Having a doctor take a full day out of his busy schedule had seemed odd enough, but Irene’s warning had been odder.

“You won’t get much out of Finn,” she’d said in their last telephone conversation. “He’s a quiet man, and he runs deep. But don’t let him frighten you, Peggy. A man who’s easy to know is a man with little enough inside him.”

At the moment she would gladly have settled for easy. She couldn’t imagine stumbling through a conversation with anyone right now, much less a difficult man. She wondered if Dr. O’Malley had been Irene’s physician for many years, if he was semi-retired and able to make this trip without considering his patient load. Irene had given her very few details. Dark hair, tweed jacket, punctual.

She looked around, hoping to spot somebody who matched that description. Kieran chose that moment to fall apart. The airport was one more new environment. He was exhausted, confused and inconsolable. He wiggled to get down, and when Peggy set him on his feet, he threw himself to the uncarpeted floor and began to wail, kick and pound his fists.

Kieran in full tantrum mode was frightening to behold. The disintegration of any two-year-old affected the people around him. But Kieran’s tantrums were so uncontrolled, so horrifyingly wrenching, Peggy had learned that onlookers could seldom walk away. They hovered nearby, watching and waiting to be certain that something would be done.

Unfortunately, Peggy had learned there was nothing to do except remain calm and in control. She stayed near him, making certain he didn’t hurt himself, but other than that, there was little more. Holding him made things worse. He couldn’t hear her or sense her in any way when he was this upset. What tentative ties Kieran felt to her or the world dissolved in a tidal wave of emotion.

“You’re going to simply let him bash his brains out?”

Peggy glanced at the stranger who had joined her, then back at her son. The man was older than she was, but still young. His hair was coal black, and in one quick look she registered austere features and censuring eyes. “I’m sorry he’s disturbing you. This will end.” She didn’t add “soon.” That was too much to hope for.

The stranger didn’t depart. She could hardly blame him. Well-meaning people always gave advice, as if doing so would absolve them of guilt if the child harmed himself.

“This is Kieran Donaghue, isn’t it? And you’re Peggy Donaghue?”

She glanced at him again. “Dr. O’Malley?”

“Finn. Just Finn. And you’ve brought this screaming child to live with Irene?”

Tears sprang to Peggy’s eyes. She had been in a high state of anxiety for forty-eight hours, and despite outward confidence, she’d had doubts all along that she was doing what was best for her son. Now this man, with his frigid black eyes, stiff spine and disapproving expression, reached deep inside all her fears.

“He’s been in a plane for hours. He’s exhausted, frustrated, distraught. He’s not like this all the time.”

“But often enough, I’d guess.”

She stood a little straighter, although she didn’t know where the energy came from. “I’ve explained Kieran’s problems to Irene. She knows them all. She still wanted us.”

“She’s a gullible old woman, lonely, though she’ll never admit it, and dying. Not the best combination to make decisions, is it?”

Kieran was still flailing, and a crowd was gathering, but the strength of his tantrum was waning. Kieran, too, was exhausted from the trip and didn’t have the energy to sustain a fit of this magnitude.

Peggy faced Finn. He was tall, nearly six feet, she supposed, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. She’d expected new tweed and found old herringbone, buttoned over faded jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt.

“She’ll be glad to have me,” she said, “and glad to have Kieran. I’m not a nurse, but I’ve had medical training, and I like her. I know that already. And I know she’s lonely. Now she won’t be anymore.”

“Sometimes loneliness is better than the alternative.”

“And sometimes staying out of matters that don’t concern you is better than poking your nose where it doesn’t belong!”

Something sparked in his eyes. “I can assure you that’s not a problem of mine.”

Anger died. “I know she’s a good friend. She’s told me. And you’re worried. But you don’t need to be. If this doesn’t work, I’ll leave. You can count on it. I just think it’s worth a try. Can you be so sure it’s not?”

His gaze flicked to Kieran, still kicking, still miserable. “Irene says he’s autistic?”

Peggy hated the word. It reduced her son to a label, to a condition, a disorder. He was Kieran, her only child, Phil’s son, Megan and Casey’s nephew. He was Irish on her side and Slovak on Phil’s. His father was a talented young architect, and someday his mother was going to be a doctor. He was intelligent, although she knew unlocking that part of him would be difficult. He was a beautiful little boy and would undoubtedly be a handsome man.

He was Kieran.

“He is who he is,” she said. “And when this year is over, we’ll know him better and all his potential.”

He appeared unconvinced. “These are your bags?”

“Yes, but I have to wait for him to calm down. This is the only way I can make sure he does. I can’t interfere.”

“I’ll take them out to my car. I can do it alone. I’ll wait for you outside.” Without another word he hooked the larger suitcases together, leaving her with the carry-on, and walked away.

The trip to Shanmullin was going to take hours. Peggy hoped they would all survive.

Finn O’Malley had resented making the trip to Shannon Airport. He had tried repeatedly to talk Irene out of this daft scheme to bring a stranger from the United States to care for her, but Irene was as stubborn as any Irishwoman. In her youth she’d had red hair, too, lighter than Peggy Donaghue’s, but thick and straight like the young woman’s. He wasn’t given to stereotypes, but the myth of the stubborn redhead had some appeal. In her long lifetime Irene had resolutely refused to marry, refused to move into town as she aged, refused to hire a companion, refused to go to hospital when poor health necessitated it.

And she had refused, although her very life had depended on it, to accept the fact that Finn had given up practicing medicine. She had refused a new physician until Finn had been obliged to treat her or watch her die unaided.

Stubborn.

Now this young cousin of hers seemed to prove that Irene’s contrary nature was going to be carried on in the distant family bloodlines.

“You’re certain you’re related to her?” he asked, as they finally neared the village.

Beside him Peggy opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were unfocused and heavy-lidded from lack of sleep, but even so, he had been surprised to find such a beautiful woman waiting at the gate. “I’m sorry?”

He hadn’t talked to her on the trip thus far. Thankfully the child had quieted almost from the moment they pulled out of the car park. Banging one’s head against the floor would do that, Finn supposed. The boy had worn himself out, and the mother had fallen asleep nearly as quickly and slept for more than three hours.

“I said, you’re certain Irene is really your cousin? It all seems tenuous to me.”

“Something tells me that anything short of DNA analysis will leave you wondering.” She said it with a faint smile to soften her words. She yawned and stretched, and the seat belt tightened across her breasts at the movement. Unfortunately, he was not oblivious.

“Protecting her seems to be my job, whether I choose it or not,” he said, looking straight at the road ahead.

“Why is that? What’s your relationship to her, other than physician?”

“She was my grandmother’s best friend.”

“And you’re carrying on the tradition. I like that.”

“She gives me no choice.”

“I can see she wouldn’t. Once we began discussing this arrangement, she gave me little choice, either. She’s a tyrant, isn’t she?”

He couldn’t fault the way she said it. With admiration and affection. And besides, it was altogether true.

“Has Irene explained how we’re related?” she said.

“She’s been circumspect.”

“Here’s a history lesson. Back in the nineteenth century there were four Tierney brothers living in the house Irene occupies now. Two of them died. A third, Terence, emigrated to Cleveland, where another brother had gone and died before him. Terence is my ancestor. The fourth, Lorcan, traveled to England and disappeared. Everyone thought he died there.”

Finn wasn’t sure why he had asked. The details were too complicated and intimate, but now that she’d begun, he couldn’t tell her so. “But if he had died there, I suppose you wouldn’t be on your way to Shanmullin now. Irene wouldn’t be alive.”

“That’s right. Lorcan was her ancestor. Lorcan was jailed in Liverpool. I don’t know for what. By the time he made it back to Shanmullin, his family was gone. All of his brothers were dead by then, and his parents had gone to Cleveland years before to live their few remaining years with Terence’s widow, who had remarried a man named Rowan Donaghue. Lorcan was poor and illiterate and didn’t know how to get in touch with them or even if they were still alive. The village priest was dead, as well, and by then a good portion of Shanmullin had emigrated, too.”

“Your name is Donaghue, not Tierney.”

“Lena, Terence Tierney’s wife, had a son by Terence, born after his death. When she married Rowan Donaghue, Rowan adopted little Terry, and they changed his name to Donaghue. They went on to have many more children, but Terry’s my ancestor. So technically, my sisters and I are Donaghues by adoption, not that it matters. We all have the same great-great grandmother.”

“And Irene’s grandfather stayed on in Ireland and worked the land?”

“Irene says that Lorcan was in his forties by the time he came back to Ireland, tired and bitter. He married a local woman, had one son, Liam, and died years after.”

“Liam is Irene’s father.”

“That’s right.”

Finn knew the rest. In the early 1920s Liam and his wife Brenna had abandoned Ireland for the United States, hoping to start a new life. Irene had been only a small child at the time and remembered little about those years. “I suppose all this somehow explains why Irene’s family didn’t find any Tierneys in Cleveland.”

“Exactly. Lena married a Donaghue and changed her son’s name. That was many years before Liam arrived in Cleveland, and apparently he never talked to the few people who might have remembered, including Lena herself, who was an old woman by then. Irene just happened to find out about us on the Internet. The Cleveland Plain Dealer did an article about the history of the saloon my family owns, and Terence Tierney’s name was mentioned because Lena was the founder and he was her first husband.”

“Odd that Irene would still be looking for relatives, don’t you think?”

She combed her hair back with her fingers, a lovely, feminine gesture he hadn’t been privy to in a long time. “Not really. She never married, and she has no children. We all want to feel connected, don’t we? She’s not well. I think the idea of wanting some part of you going on into the years is natural.”

He froze, fingers gripping the steering wheel. At one time he’d understood that need himself.

Peggy looked over her shoulder at her sleeping son. “Kieran’s my bid for immortality, I guess. Do you have children, Finn?”

He could not bring himself to answer casually, and that angered him. The question was simple enough. The answer was impossible.

“You’ll meet my daughter Bridie,” he said at last. “She visits Irene when she can.” He had expected more questions, but she was surprisingly perceptive and didn’t ask them.

Just in case, he changed the subject. “We’re nearing the village. Sneeze and we’ll have passed it before you open your eyes again.”

“It’s all so beautiful.” Peggy’s gaze was riveted outside the window.

“Yes, you Americans always seem to think so.”

“And you don’t?”

“There’s been hardship here, the likes of which you probably can’t imagine. It’s only now coming back to life. Not always with the old families. With new people and holiday cottages, and people working from their homes. You see leprechauns and fairy hills, and I see people who work too hard and earn too little.”

“Yet you stay? There must be a draw.”

They passed through the main street of the village, lined with colorfully painted buildings nestled shoulder to shoulder. Mountains hung like stage props behind them, and the ocean sparkled in the distance. A brook ran through the center of a tiny town square. As villages went, it was picturesque and tidy. He imagined she was enthralled.

They were out in the country again before he answered. “I stay because I stay,” he said.

The last kilometers were silent. He pulled into the gravel lane lined with a spotty hedgerow that ran to Irene’s cottage. He risked one glance at Peggy Donaghue. She was leaning forward, and even though her son stirred behind her, she didn’t turn. “Oh, look at this. This is where my sisters and I came from, Finn. And it’s so glorious. How could Terence Tierney ever have left?”

“I’d suppose he was starving.” He pulled up near the house and turned off the motor. “Irene will be out to greet you, count on it.”

Peggy opened her door and took a step toward the thatch-roofed cottage. He was almost sorry it was so charming, with its whitewashed stones and paned windows. Finn watched as Irene opened the traditional half door, a door she’d painted brilliant blue and let no one dissuade her. He stayed in the car as the two women eyed each other. Then he shook his head as Peggy covered the distance between them at a sprint and fell into Irene’s withered arms.

chapter 7

The Tierney Cottage had been remodeled in Irene’s lifetime. Her mother, Brenna, had remarried several years after their return to Ireland, and Irene’s stepfather had been a man of some wealth. He had purchased the land that the Tierneys had worked for centuries as tenant farmers, and more beyond it. Together he and Brenna added bedrooms and a kitchen with an inviting fireplace. And when the cottage became Irene’s after their death, she added electricity, gas heat, fresh plaster and imagination.

Peggy lay in bed a week after her arrival and stared up at the beamed ceiling in the room she shared with Kieran. Not a cobweb hung there; not an inch of the ceiling was stained or peeling. The cottage was pristine. Irene might have refused a live-in companion until Peggy’s arrival, but she hadn’t refused household help. The day she’d realized she could no longer keep the house spotless, she hired a neighbor to come and clean each morning and lay the turf fire. In good weather Nora Parker bicycled over bumpy roads, cheerful and ready, after the exercise, to put the place to rights. She made breakfast, too, and even though it was only just seven, Peggy could already hear her bustling around the tiny kitchen.

Nora’s existence was a welcome surprise. Peggy had expected to clean and cook, but Irene had explained that she could never sack dear Nora or worry her by letting Peggy take on any of her jobs. Nora brought news from the village, fresh groceries and a blithe presence that disguised the analytical soul of a military commander. No one except Nora had the same stiff standards as the mistress of the house, and the two women gleefully plotted each morning to rid Tierney Cottage of every hint of dust.

The evening had been almost warm, and Peggy had slept with the windows open. This morning a cool breeze stirred the lace curtains, but sun beamed outside the windows. The house smelled pleasantly of centuries of peat fires, an organic, earthy fragrance imbedded deeply in wood and stone. The breeze smelled of the ocean, a quarter of a mile in the distance.

Peggy wondered, as she did every morning, what her ancestors had thought upon rising each day. Had they been so worn with hunger and care that they cursed the rocky windswept promontory on which some more romantic forefather had built their home and grazed their sheep? Had they cursed the invader who had taxed them heavily and sent their food to market when they needed it to feed their children? Had they stopped, for even a moment, and felt a surge of gratitude for the beauty of their surroundings?

Finn had said she would see leprechauns and fairy hills, but the good doctor was wrong. Peggy saw reality. That didn’t make her love it any less.

Kieran stirred, then came fully awake. He laughed, a sound that always thrilled her to the marrow. She didn’t know at what, and she didn’t care. His laughter, as rare as it was, still meant Kieran might someday find real humor in his life. A laughing child was not afraid or confused or oblivious to his surroundings.

“Kieran,” she called softly. “Kieran…”

She sat up and looked over at his crib. Kieran lay on his side, looking at her. “Kieran,” she said with a big smile. “How’s my little guy?”

He smiled and laughed again. Her smile widened. Then she saw that his gaze was fixed on the wall just behind her. She turned and saw sunlight reflected through the east window. It glistened and moved as the lace curtain blew.

“You like that, don’t you?” she said, only a bit disappointed. “It’s like liquid gold, isn’t it?” She held up her hand, index and middle fingers like bunny ears. “Hip hop goes the bunny rabbit.” Her little shadow bunny hopped across the wall.

Kieran screeched in excitement, and Peggy felt a surge of the same. She made the bunny hop backward. Forward, backward, a quick dip out of sight and then back up. An ear quirked, then straightened. “Here comes Peter Cottontail,” she sang off key. “Hopping down the bunny trail.” She couldn’t think of the rest of the words. She hummed instead and made her bunny hop in rhythm.

Kieran stood and shook the bars of his crib. “Hi. Hi.”

“Bunny,” Peggy said. “Bun-ny.”

“Hi, hi!”

She was so glad to see him happy that nothing else mattered. This was a little thing for most mothers, but with Kieran, unbridled happiness was rare enough to be treasured. She would never take any child’s joy for granted again.

She rose when she tired of the bunny hopping and went to the crib. He looked up at her, then over at the wall, his bottom lip quivering.

“Yes, Mommy made the bunny hop,” she said. “Kieran can make him hop, too.” She lifted him from the crib and took him to her bed, propping herself on the pillows as she had before. Then she took his resistant little hand and held it up in the beam of sunlight.

“See, Kieran can make shadows, too.”

He had stiffened the moment she touched him. He was still stiff, but interested. She could see his little eyes narrow in concentration.

“Kieran can make shadows, too.” She took his arm by the elbow and gently moved it back and forth, back and forth. His fist was balled, as if he was about to strike out. He watched the shadow change and cocked his head to examine it better.

“Kieran can make shadows.” She pointed to the shadow of his fist. “Shadow.” Then she moved his arm again. “Back and forth, back and forth.”

She watched his expression. He forgot to resist, to tense, to be afraid. He was caught up in the movement. She guided his hand, but he did the work.

He tired at last, scrambling to get down, but she held on to him. “Sorry, partner, but let’s do a quick change before you go scurrying off.” He protested, but she was firm. In a few minutes his diaper was changed and clean overalls had replaced his pajamas. Then Peggy slipped into jeans and a fleece sweatshirt before she opened the door into the living room.

The living room was the loveliest in the house, with plastered white walls, stone floors and high ceilings. A fireplace for burning blocks of turf snuggled into one wall; mismatched windows with spectacular views of rock-strewn fields and sheep snuggled into two of the others.

“Good morning,” she called to Nora. “What a beautiful day.”

“It is that,” Nora said. “And herself’s having a bit of a lie-in this morning.”

Peggy came to attention. Irene was usually bathed, dressed and waiting for Nora before she arrived. “She’s not feeling worse, is she?”

“No worse than usual, if that’s what you mean. Only tired. Hip’s bothering her a bit, and she didn’t sleep as well as she might have.”

Peggy had made sure Irene took all her medicine before retiring, so she knew that couldn’t be the problem. Irene had gladly agreed to let her take control of all health matters, and Peggy had drawn a chart to make sure every pill was taken on time.

“She may need more anti-inflammatories,” Peggy said. “I’ll talk to Dr. O’Malley.”

“She takes a barrel of pills as it is.” Nora was somewhere in her fifties, silver-haired and thin as the rushes in Irene’s meadows. She was widowed—claiming that widowhood was an improvement over what had come before—but she had three adored sons who lived in the county and six grandchildren, so she never lacked for family.

“She takes quite a few,” Peggy agreed, “but not too many. Dr. O’Malley’s a careful man.”

“He was the best doctor in Mayo, and that’s a fact. My family went to him, from granny on down. And we were all better for it.”

Peggy tilted her head in question. “Was?”

“Surely you know he doesn’t practice anymore?”

Peggy had a forlorn vision of a medical license suspended and wondered if Irene was in such good hands after all. “I didn’t know. Why in the world?”

“I’d tell you if I had time for a cup of tea and a chat, but there’s none this morning. He’s on his way, and I promised Irene I’d bring her a tray in bed.”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I’ll ask Irene….” She looked up from fastening a snap on Kieran’s shirt. “Is it okay to ask her?”

“Oh, she’ll be happy to tell you, I’m sure.”

“I’ll make Kieran’s breakfast.”

“All done, and yours as well.”

Peggy thanked her, and Nora gave her a warm smile. “You’re not what I expected, you know.”

“I’m not?”

“We only see the telly. What do we know?”

Peggy hated to think her countrymen were represented worldwide by “Survivor” and “The Simpsons.” “I’m afraid if you were expecting glamour or excitement, you picked the wrong girl.”

“I hoped for good manners and a warm heart and got them both.”

Peggy was touched. “You and Irene are wonderful. I couldn’t be luckier.”

“Enough of this, I’ve got work to do.” Nora headed for the kitchen.

Peggy joined her there as soon as she could drag Kieran away from a window overlooking the road. The window was low enough that he could see over the ledge, and the view of endless stone walls lined with wind-tortured evergreens, blackthorn and fuschia always seemed to fascinate him. She’d found him there many times in the past week and wondered exactly what he saw.

“There’s porridge and bacon, and I made coffee the way you like it,” Nora said, passing back and forth between the stove and the tiny refrigerator.

“I love the way you take care of me, but I worry we’re too much work.”

“Not at all. I’d have cooked the same, only less.”

Peggy installed Kieran at the table. Before their arrival Irene had borrowed baby furniture from families in the parish, never having needed any herself. The high chair nestled perfectly against an old pine table, scrubbed in its time by generations of Tierney women.

She fixed oatmeal for her son with honey and lots of fresh, sweet milk straight from a neighbor’s dairy. She was particularly careful about Kieran’s diet, foregoing all sweets and processed foods, since some people felt they were a particular problem for autistic children. She cut him a thick slice of the brown soda bread Nora had brought with her that morning from the village grocery, and thought of Megan and the bread she made for lunches at the Whiskey Island Saloon, lunches her sister wouldn’t be serving again until the renovation was completed.

Nora dried her hands on a tea towel. “I hear the doctor’s car. I’ll just go and let him in.”

Peggy finished fixing breakfast for Kieran, who was beginning to whine and pound the table. “I’m almost done, kiddo,” she said. “Good food for a good boy.” She set the plate with bread in front of him, the same plastic plate he had used at home. He ate the bread with his fingers and ignored the spoon she set beside the bowl of oatmeal.

Peggy made a note to herself to introduce holding the spoon during Kieran’s “school time” that morning. In the meantime, she spooned oatmeal into his mouth whenever he would let her.

A piece of bread hit the floor, and she stooped to pick it up and carry it to the trash container under the sink. When she straightened, Finn was standing in the doorway.

“He loses more than he eats,” Finn said.

“Does he look malnourished to you, Doctor?”

“Finn. Nora tells me you have advice for me?”

Peggy realized he was talking about the anti-inflammatories. “Not advice. I’m not that presumptuous. I did have a question, though. Irene’s hip has been giving her fits.”

“She refused surgery when it was an option. It’s not an option now.”

Peggy knew that much. She also knew Finn wanted to cut the conversation short. He was always curt with her, but by the same token, he was always warm and reassuring with Irene, a completely different man. She forgave him a lot because of that.

“Is there anything else we can do for the pain? Increase her anti-inflammatories? She won’t tell you she’s hurting.”

His expression softened. “But I know.”

“And there’s nothing you can do?”

“Her medication is a careful balance. She’s reached that unenviable stage when one need overshadows another, and hard choices have to be made.”

Peggy felt just a glimmer of the excitement that had highlighted each moment of her brief med school career. This was what she had studied so hard for. The choices. The careful balancing of priorities. The ability to alleviate pain and change lives for the better. “I know it’s difficult,” she said. “Quantity vs. quality of life.”

“It’s rarely that simple.”

“I thought you’d want to know,” she said. “I’m not trying to step on your toes.”

“I do, you’re right. Thank you.”

She studied him. During her week in Ireland she had come to the conclusion that Finn was one of the handsomest men she’d ever meet. He was tall and lithe, but not too thin. His black hair was curly and just a little too long. She liked it that way. It gave him a brooding, Byronesque appearance that wasn’t belied by the man himself. He had strong bones and dark brows sheltering eyes that took in everything but gave little in return.

The few men who had briefly shared her life—including Phil—had been stark opposites. Open, friendly faces, stores of small talk so that she didn’t have to work when she was with them. She didn’t like to guess thoughts or feelings. She’d never had the inclination or the leisure to try.

This man was different. Perhaps it was the relative peace of life here, the additional time for contemplation, but at odd moments she found herself wondering about Finn. He was a mystery, and for once in her life she had the time to look for solutions.

“How has the boy taken to life here?” Finn asked.

The question surprised her. Except for grilling her about her tenuous relationship to Irene, he had asked very few questions since picking her up at Shannon. “He’s adjusting,” Peggy said. “Finn, would you like some coffee?”

He shook his head. “You have plans to work with him yourself?”

“I’ve already begun. We’ve made a little classroom in the third bedroom. I’m starting today.”

“You’re qualified?”

“Who could be more qualified? Who loves him more and cares more about what happens to him?”

“Love gets in the way more often than not.” He said this as if he were Moses recapping the Ten Commandments for the Israelites.

“It can.” Peggy put more bread on the table in front of Kieran before she went to the slate counter to pour herself some of the coffee Finn had refused. “I know I have to be objective. But I have great materials, contacts on the Internet and a therapist I’ll consult with by telephone when I need to.” She waited until her cup was full before she turned. “And frankly, I’m cheap enough that I can afford myself.”

He actually smiled. She had the same feeling she’d had that morning when Kieran smiled. For a moment the sun came out and life seemed filled with potential.

“You don’t strike me as cheap, Miss Donaghue.”

“If you’re Finn, I’m Peggy. Otherwise I’ll have to reconsider.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. The smile was gone now, the face carefully blank. When he spoke at last, the words seemed to come from some place where he hadn’t lived for a while. “I have some children’s toys. Irene says you brought very few and need more. I can bring them for Kieran, if you’d like.”

The last things she had expected from Finn were assistance or the depth of emotion that seemed to echo in the simple offer. For a moment she didn’t know what to say. Then she nodded. “We’ll be very careful with them, but, Finn, I can’t guarantee—”

He lifted a hand, as if to ward off the rest of her words. “No need. I won’t want them back. Give them away if there’s anything left when he’s finished.” He turned without another word and disappeared into the living room.

She was left wondering exactly what price the man had just paid. And for what.

Irene Tierney was too thin, and it took her too long to get from one place to the other on legs that no longer seemed to do what they were told. Her hair was as white as the waves cresting at the shoreline, and her gray eyes behind thick glasses were filmed with early stage cataracts. She was bent, gnarled and blissfully young in spirit.

“It’s a blessing of growing old,” she told Peggy that afternoon after lunch. “You see yourself the way you were once upon a time. Not the way others see you. I’m twenty-seven. Just a bit older than you, dear.”

“Do you have pictures? So I can see you that way, too?”

“I have an album as thick as your forearm, but later, when you aren’t so worn out.”

Peggy was tired. The morning hadn’t gone well. She knew it would take time for Kieran to get used to the classroom and the “lessons” they were working on together. She had chosen the simplest things to start with. Holding a spoon. Stacking two blocks. Pointing to herself when she said “Where’s Mommy? Here’s Mommy.” She had worked in the smallest increments, planning to reward him with cheese or crackers, two of his favorite foods, if any progress was made.

No progress had been made.

“It didn’t go well, did it?” Irene asked. “Today, with the bábai.”

“As well as I expected.” Peggy watched Kieran’s eyes droop. He looked as tired as she felt, although he hadn’t yet abandoned his favorite window. “Everything takes time.”

“He has gifts. I’m sure of it. I feel them in his soul when I look at him. What does he see, do you suppose, when he stares out that window?”

“I wish I knew. I wish I could step into his world and see. It would help so much.”

“You know, don’t you, that you can’t manage this on your own?”

Peggy started to protest, but Irene shushed her. “You’re patient and hardworking, but even the best teacher needs help. And it will be good for the boy to have other people interact with him.”

“He’s always had lots of people interacting with him. Too many. My family took charge of him, carried him everywhere, fussed over him. That’s one of the reasons—” Peggy abruptly fell silent.

“I’m guessing now, but could it be you feel a tiny bit guilty about that? That so many others took care of him while you went to school and worked?”

Irene wasn’t psychic. Peggy had led her to that conclusion, she supposed, with other things she’d said. From the beginning Irene had wanted to know everything about her life and that of her sisters. Irene was hungry for family and couldn’t be filled up quickly enough. They had talked nonstop for a week.

“I do feel guilty,” Peggy admitted. “I keep thinking that if I’d just been there all the time, he would have bonded to me. That he would need me in a way he doesn’t seem to now.”

“Isn’t that part of his condition? Not to bond with the people who love him, at least not in the way we want him to?”

Peggy had been surprised and touched to discover all that Irene had taught herself about autism. She had done a concerted search on her beloved Internet and knew just about everything it had to teach about the disorder. “It is part of it, but I worry that I caused it.”

“You and every mother of such a child.”

“He needs lots of time with me now.”

“That he’ll get, no matter what you decide. But won’t he improve quicker if you have a little help and more teaching time? A girl from the village, perhaps? Maybe one who wants to be a teacher herself someday. We could ask Nora for advice.”

“I’ll think about it.” Peggy rose to get her son before he fell asleep on his feet. “I did have a piece of good news this morning.”

“Did you?”

“Finn says he has toys for Kieran. I’m not sure what, exactly, but he says he doesn’t need them anymore.” She lifted Kieran, who immediately began to fuss. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’m not planning a holiday anytime soon.”

Peggy returned after Kieran was in his crib. She’d left him thumping his hand across the bars. He would continue until he fell asleep mid-thump.

“Toys?” Irene said. “That’s remarkable, you know.”

“How and why?” Peggy paused. “And Nora told me this morning that Finn isn’t a doctor anymore. The man’s a real mystery to me.”

“The stories are connected,” Irene said. “Sit a moment.”

Peggy did, although she was aching to get outside for a walk. She and Kieran had taken one earlier, but they hadn’t gotten far. Kieran was afraid of wind, of which there was a great deal on the coast, and she’d had to bring him inside after only a few minutes.

Irene went straight to the heart of the story. “Finn lost his wife and two sons just two years ago. They drowned in a storm. Finn’s sorry that he didn’t. He’s never forgiven himself.”

Peggy was stunned. “That’s too sad to comprehend.”

“Immeasurably so, yes. Luckily his daughter wasn’t with him. Bridie was older than the boys and spending the day with a friend. They found Finn near shore, nearly drowned himself. Afterward he simply gave up.” Irene shrugged. “Lost interest in practicing medicine. In living, as well…”

Peggy was torn between sympathy and concern for Irene. Finn was still Irene’s physician. “But he still sees at least some patients?”

“Oh, he’s kept his office in town, but he claims that’s only because there’s not much commerce in real estate here and no one to sell it to. No, he sees only me, and only because I refuse to see anyone else. I told Finn I’d die in my bed rather than see Dr. Joseph Beck and nearly proved it. He treats me because I was his granny’s best friend, and he doesn’t want to answer to her in the next world. Eveleen could pinch the back of a neck just so.” Irene demonstrated in the air. “It’s nothing to look forward to.”

Peggy was still caught up in Finn’s tragedy. “That explains so much about him. He’s so…” She couldn’t think of a kind word.

“Difficult,” Irene supplied. “Yes, he is that, our Finn. He wasn’t always. He’s never been easy, but in the old days he was a pleasure to know. The pleasure has gone out of it now. Lucky for him the people of Shanmullin remember the old Finn and pray he’ll be back. No one understands pain better than the Irish, although there are many others who are our rivals in that curse.”

“The toys must have belonged to his sons.”

“I suspect so. And it won’t be getting rid of them that will be the problem. No, the problem will come when he has to touch them, put them in new boxes to bring to us, remember…”

“Does having Bridie help, do you think? He must be so grateful she was spared.”

“A difficult man, and a difficult father these days, I’m afraid. He was one of the best until the drownings. But he’s kept his pain locked inside and never shared it with her. She’s a sweet little thing, one of my favorite people in the wide world. You’ll meet her soon, I expect. She visits often.”

“How old is she?”

Irene did the math. “Eleven. And if she doesn’t find her father again soon, she’ll be looking for him in other men soon enough, mark my words.” Irene patted Peggy’s hand. “Nora’s planning to stay until four. It’s windows today, and scrubbing the floors. Why don’t you take a ride into the village? Do you some good. If Kieran wakes up, we’ll be sure he’s happy.”

Peggy doubted her son would wake. Predictability was the way he dealt with his confusing life. The thought of biking into Shanmullin, which so far she’d only seen in passing, was tempting. Irene had told her there were bicycles in a nearby shed. Peggy was sure they were old, and just as sure they were well kept up.

“You’re certain?” she said.

“Oh yes.”

Peggy could feel energy returning. Fresh air and exercise were more likely to restore her than a nap. She hugged Irene. “What can I get for you in the village?”

“Now, I was hoping you’d ask. There’s a list in the kitchen. You run on and have a good time. Turn right on the main road and you’ll be in the village before too long. Just be sure to mark the end of the boreen in your mind so you don’t get lost coming home.”

Freedom. With a smile and a grateful wave, Peggy went to find the list and say goodbye to Nora.

chapter 8

Peggy calculated that she had almost two hours before Kieran woke up. She had another teaching session planned for the afternoon. More holding a spoon, more “Mommy,” and a fierce coloring session with a red crayon. If there was time or patience left, she would begin teaching him to turn the pages in a cardboard picture book. So far he’d shown no interest in the stories that were read to him, but she was hoping that would change.

She found an assortment of bicycles in the shed. One, shiny green with a deep basket, looked newer than the others, and a trial run proved it was in good working order. She started up the lane, turning when she was halfway to wave at the women in the cottage, who were undoubtedly spurring her on.

After a week of gloom the day was breathtakingly lovely, just cool enough to keep her from growing overheated as she struggled up the incline that led to the main road. Wild primroses grew in the ditch, and iris made ready to burst into bloom. Hovering in the distance, she could see the Atlantic, with mist-shrouded Clare Island, and farther beyond, Croagh Patrick, the conical mountain named after the saint who was said to have fasted there. Fuschia in the hedgerow were just beginning to bloom, the scarlet flowers bobbing in the gentle wind, and a magpie roosted on the lichen-encrusted stone walls, watching her with a startling lack of concern.

On the narrow main road the few cars that passed gave her wide berth, which was lucky, because it had been some time since she’d ridden a bicycle. Megan and Casey had taught her, of course, running along beside her at breakneck speed to catch her if she fell. They had always been there to catch her, mothers well before their time, and she missed them already.

She passed Technicolor sheep grazing in fields clumped with rushes. The sheep were splotched with dye to establish ownership and gave the landscape a surprisingly whimsical touch. Farmhouses and vacation cottages dotted the undulating hills, and “famine cottages,” nothing more than roofless, abandoned dry stone houses, were more plentiful than she’d expected. Some farmhouses were old, none thatched like Irene’s, and she gave thanks for the stroke of good fortune that had landed her in such a picturesque setting. By all rights, Tierney Cottage should have fallen to the ground years before—and would have, if Brenna and her second husband hadn’t restored it.

She was perspiring by the time she arrived at the outskirts of Shanmullin. Her legs ached, and her behind protested the narrow plastic seat. She still felt exhilarated. Playtime was a concept to introduce to Kieran, not something she indulged in herself. She reveled in it now.

The town of Shanmullin could have been a National Geographic cover. The main street curved in a gentle arc leading farther uphill. Buildings lined it, some white with bright trim like Tierney Cottage, more in varying shades of green, gold or blue. The signs looking over the sidewalk were half divided between “Irish,” the country’s original Gaelic language, and English. Some fair number of the signs advertised pubs, and the Guinness signs were a nostalgic reminder of home.

On one side of the street a dog ambled in and out between parked cars, stopping long enough to sit and scratch in a sliver of sunshine; on the other side a woman stood talking to three men in Wellingtons and woolen flat caps outside one of the pubs.

Peggy parked her bike against one of the buildings and started up the sidewalk, window shopping as she went to discover what Shanmullin had to offer. She found the church, a restaurant, even Finn’s “surgery” tucked away on a side street with an air of abandonment. An hour later she came out of the grocery store, Irene’s shopping list completed. She’d bought hairpins, knitting needles—because Irene was determined to make Kieran a sweater—and the latest issue of The Irish Times. She’d experienced good “craic,” or “crack,” as a bonus, not the illegal variety but the Irish version: lively conversation. The proprietor at the news agent had asked for her life story and given his own, his more colorful than hers. She thought she’d made a friend.

At the end of the sidewalk she saw the same dog she’d noticed earlier. He was floppy-eared, varying shades of red-brown, and vaguely bloodhound in appearance, a change from the multitude of Border Collies that had observed her trip to town. His long body stretched from one end of the slate walkway to the other; his head was pillowed on his paws. If a dog could look forlorn, this one did.

She approached him tentatively. She had great respect for man’s best friend, and she stopped a few feet away, debating just walking around him instead of approaching.

“Hey, fellow.”

He thumped his tail lethargically. He was too thin, and droopy-eyed to boot. As she stared at him, a girl in a school uniform of plaid skirt and navy sweater came out of the shop to her left and joined Peggy in the investigation. She had a cloud of white-blond hair that would undoubtedly darken someday, and delicate features distorted by a frown.

“He’s been out here a week,” she said, her voice rising and falling like a sad Irish ballad. “His owner died.”

Peggy shook her head. “Well, that’s a shame. Does he have a name?”

“Banjax. Mr. McNamara said he wasn’t good for anything, but he’s good for mourning Mr. McNamara, isn’t he?”

“I’d say so.” Peggy stared at the poor tragic beast. “Nobody’s claimed him? Family doesn’t want him?”

“People feed him, I guess, from the pubs at night. Crisps and things. But my father says somebody will carry him out to the country before too long, and he won’t be coming back.”

Peggy didn’t like the sound of that. “I guess there’s no organization in town to take care of homeless pets.”

“Just people who take them in if they can.” The girl looked up at Peggy. “You’re not from Shanmullin.”

“Ohio, in the United States.”

“I’m Bridie O’Malley.”

Finn’s daughter. Peggy hadn’t suspected, not only because the odds were against meeting this way, but because Bridie didn’t resemble her father in the least. She was as blond as he was dark. Peggy thought she had a good idea what Finn’s wife had looked like.

Peggy introduced herself. “Irene Tierney tells me you’re a good friend.”

“Oh, you’re the American who’s living at Tierney Cottage. I’ve heard about you.”

“Your father was kind enough to give me a ride up from Shannon Airport.”

“He was off work that day. I wanted to come, but I was in school.”

Peggy glanced at her watch. It was only one-thirty. “You’re off early today?”

“The teachers are talking to the parents this afternoon.” She made another face.

Peggy smiled at her. “Are you worried? I was always worried about conferences, even if I was doing okay.”

“Oh, my father won’t be there. He’s working in Louisburgh all day.”

Peggy hadn’t realized that Finn worked at anything besides his medical practice. She should have figured that out; after all, he and his daughter had to eat, even if he refused to see patients now. She stored this question away to ask Irene.

“I want to take Banjax home,” Bridie said. “I’d like to own a dog.”

Peggy heard an unspoken “but” in that sentence. She supposed it had to do with Finn. He seemed like a man who wouldn’t want any extra warm bodies to feed or care for. “You’re worried about him. Let’s think, is there anybody who might take him? Anybody you could ask?”

Bridie screwed up her face again. While the father rarely allowed thought or feeling to show in his expression, the daughter repressed nothing. “Granny ’rene!” She looked up. “You can take him home with you, Mrs. Donaghue.”

Peggy was the one to grimace now. “Bridie, I don’t think—”

“But Granny ’rene’s dog died last year. Pickles. A little yappy dog who nipped at my ankles every time I visited. Irene didn’t like him, either, but she said an old friend, even a nasty old friend, had to be protected. Well, Banjax was an old friend of Mr. McNamara’s, and now he has to be protected, too. And Granny ’rene’s the one who will do it.”

Against her will, Peggy felt herself sinking deeper into the conspiracy. Irene wasn’t well, and she was already dealing with two strangers in her house. A dog, a dog in urgent need of Prozac, at that, seemed like the ultimate imposition. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll ask her, and if she says yes—”

“But that won’t work,” Bridie insisted. “He could disappear tonight. What if he does? How will we feel? How will poor Granny ’rene feel if she’s decided she wants him?” She saw Peggy begin a protest, and she added quickly, “I saw some men pointing at him and shaking their heads before I went into the store. I really did. Please?”

Peggy supposed there was little harm in bringing the dog home with her. She could buy dog food to carry in the basket on the front of her bike. And with a little encouragement and a few dog treats, Banjax would probably lope along beside her. If Irene objected, as she surely would, Peggy could just bring him back the next time she came to town and hope someone else adopted him. Or she could send him back with Finn in the morning, if getting rid of him was important enough.

Bridie seemed to realize the odds were leaning Banjax’s way. “I can help you get him home. I’ll leave my father a note and tell him I bicycled out to Granny ’rene’s. He won’t mind. Really. And between us, we can get him there. I know we can.”

“How old are you, Bridie?”

“Eleven.”

“Once you’re fifteen, we’ll have a talk about the dangers of using those pretty green eyes to get everything you want.”

Bridie smiled up at her, and Peggy thought her new young friend had already figured out everything she needed to know about green eyes and a charming smile.

“A dog? And a big, ugly odorous dog at that?” Irene stood on the stoop and stared down at Banjax, Peggy and Bridie. “Well, I declare, Peggy Donaghue. What were you thinking?”

“I’ve been bamboozled,” Peggy said. “Tricked. My brain was turned inside out by a pair of lovely eyes, and not Banjax’s.”

Irene was trying to hide a smile. “Bridie, this was your idea, was it now?”

“He needs a place to hide, Granny ’rene. They were going to carry him out to the country!”

“So you did it before they could?” Irene couldn’t hold back the smile any longer. “Well, he can’t come inside, not ever. I put my foot down about that.”

“I’ll give him a bath,” Bridie promised. She had bought a bar of flea soap with her own pocket money when Peggy bought dog food. “Tomorrow after school. I promise. But he needs you. He really does.”

Irene looked at Peggy, and Peggy shrugged. “He’ll make a good watchdog,” Peggy said.

“And what will he watch for out here?”

“Crows? Butterflies?” Peggy couldn’t even add snakes to the list. St. Patrick had taken care of that.

“We’ll give him a try, poor old thing,” Irene said. “He can sleep in my shed if he likes.”

“I’ll make him a bed,” Bridie said.

Peggy heard a familiar wail from the direction of her bedroom. “Well, looks like my timing was good.”

Nora came to the door and stared down at Banjax. “I know that dog. As useless as a chocolate teapot, he is. He’ll eat and sleep and nothing more.”

That seemed to strike a chord with Irene, whose days consisted of much the same. “He can stay. We’ll see.”

Peggy and Bridie followed her inside. Bridie peeked in the direction of Peggy’s room. Peggy had told her about Kieran on the ride home. “May I play with him?”

Peggy tried to think of the best way of answering. Kieran didn’t play, not the way Bridie surely expected.

“I’m good with children,” Bridie said. “He’ll like me.”

She said it with such confidence that Peggy had to relent. “I bet you are. It’s just that Kieran’s not good with people he doesn’t know.” And even the people he did weren’t sure how to approach him.

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll just watch at first.”

“Let me get him up. I’ll be right out. Why don’t you put some food out for Banjax?”

By the time she returned with a freshly changed Kieran, Nora had set a pot of tea on the table and a plate of freshly baked currant scones, and Bridie was digging in. She cooed over Kieran but was careful not to rush him. She continued to sit and watch him from the corner of her eye as she ate.

Kieran looked around the room with sleepy, suspicious eyes. As always, Peggy wondered what convoluted mixture of signals his tiny brain was sending. When he struggled to get down she set him on the floor, standing close by in case he wanted to be protected from yet another unfamiliar face. But Kieran was gazing at Bridie the way he gazed at light flickering on the wall. He toddled closer, peering at her, stopping, peering at her again. Peggy held her breath. Beside her, she knew Irene was doing the same.

“Hi, hi,” he said at last. He moved closer. “Hi!”

Bridie took it in stride. “Well, hi to you, too, boyo.” She went back to her scones, unaware of the small miracle that had just taken place right in front of her.

“Kieran was fascinated by Bridie,” Peggy said that evening, as she and Irene sat studying a smoldering fire. “I think it’s her hair. It’s so bright, and light fascinates him.”

“She’s a beautiful girl.” Irene leaned back in her comfortable armchair and rested her feet on a small padded stool. “Sheila was lovely, as well. Bridie resembles her, but her bones are finer. Sheila’s beauty wouldn’t have lasted past forty, but Bridie’s will.”

“She must miss her mother so much. A girl that age needs one.” Peggy had lost her own mother at a much earlier age, but she’d had sisters and her aunt Deirdre to make up for it. Still, there was a yearning for Kathleen Donaghue that never quite went away.

“I suspect she’ll be finding her way out to Tierney Cottage more often now that you’re here. She’s taken to you.”

“And to Banjax,” Peggy said. The dog had settled into the shed as if he’d lived there forever. Irene had made her way outside to supervise the placement of his bedding, even deigning to pat his bony head.

“A girl needs her father, too,” Irene said.

“Bridie says Finn was working in Louisburgh today?”

“Construction. He wants nothing to do with medicine. He won’t even work in a laboratory. He works so hard building houses, he sees little of his own daughter.”

Bridie’s plight was too familiar. Peggy had grown up without a father, too.

Irene pulled a knitted afghan over her lap, as if settling in for a very long time. “I needed my father and missed him every day I was growing up.”

Since Peggy’s arrival, they had hardly talked about Liam Tierney or his death in Cleveland. That had been the purpose of Irene’s first contact with the Donaghue sisters, and Peggy had offered so little information.

“I wish I’d had time to dig deeper into city records,” Peggy said. “Sometimes the amount of information that’s out there is a curse in itself.”

“I grew up wishing I knew more about him. The urge doesn’t seem to go away. And I worry I’ll die without that mystery being solved. It nags at me, although why it should, I don’t know.”

“Tell me what you do know,” Peggy said. “Megan and Casey have promised to continue to search. You and I have the whole evening, if you’re not too tired. Start from the beginning, and tell me everything. Maybe you’ll remember something that will make their job simpler.”

“I was very young.”

“Then tell me what your mother told you.”

Irene sighed contentedly. “A cup of tea would be nice, don’t you think? If I’m going to tell the story.”

Peggy rose. “I’ll make it. You gather your thoughts.”

“I’ll do that.” Irene closed her eyes. “It’s a happy story, at least at first. The telling of it won’t be so hard.”

1923

Castlebar, County Mayo

My dearest Patrick,

As always, I think of you, my only brother, so far removed from Ireland, and I mourn your leaving for Ohio as if it only happened yesterday instead of nearly a lifetime ago. Cleveland is more your home now than Ireland ever was, and St. Brigid’s still the center of your heart, even though you have now retired and serve as its priest only occasionally. But how sharp your mind has remained, and how astute your observations. We are lucky, you and I, that we still have our wits left, and that only an ocean separates us and not yet death.

How different our views on the plight of our people. Yours garnered at one end of our national tragedy and mine at the other. Yours when the immigrant steps off the ship or train and into a world of belching factories and hastily constructed shanty houses. Mine when the emigrant leaves his poor barren farm, prayers in his heart and hope glimmering in his eyes.

They say we live in a new Ireland. So far I’ve yet to see it. Last year assassins killed the Big Fellow at Beal na mBlath, a terrible loss to all men and women who believe our best fate lies in compromise. We Irish still fight among ourselves, as surely and naturally as we fought the British invaders. Men who survived the horror of Gallipoli fall in Dublin’s streets, and sabotage, execution and other atrocities have become as symbolic of our ancient and honorable culture as rainbows and church spires.

You tell stories in your letters of new Irish blood for Cleveland, of men with surnames such as Durkan and Doyle, Heneghan and Lavelle, names as familiar to me as my own. I mourn for these men, although I never knew them, for their need to depart the country of their birth, and for unwelcome surprises on arrival. I remember too well your letters about the place called Whiskey Island, dear Patrick, and the horrors of life there for men who had only known Ireland’s green splendors. Perhaps things are better now, but Cleveland will never be Ireland, will it?

There are still few enough opportunities here, particularly for those who allied themselves with the Republicans. Some wounds never heal. Perhaps it is better they leave for America’s far-off shores, but perhaps it is not. For what will our beloved Ireland do without its strong, courageous sons?

Your grieving sister,

Maura McSweeney

chapter 9

At his father’s knee, Liam Tierney had learned not to expect anything from life. At his mother’s, he had learned he was not deserving of love. Fortunately for Liam, he met Brenna Duffy when he was still young enough to be skeptical.

Lorcan Tierney, Liam’s father, was a hard man, and having a son late in life hadn’t softened him. He provided the bare essentials without a smile and demanded nothing more of himself.

Walton Gaol, Liverpool’s prison, had made Lorcan the man he was. As nothing more than a feckless boy, he had left the family home in Shanmullin to seek his fortune in England, but only a month later, overriding hunger, a slab of hastily stolen beef and an unlucky eyewitness to his robbery cured him of hope. Deeply ashamed, he told no one what he had done or where he was.

Upon his release years later, he returned to Ireland to find his family gone, likely all dead, and nothing left for him except the rocky soil and tumbling cottage he had abandoned with such expectations in his youth.

Liam’s mother had been a spinster, sickly and morose, who accepted Lorcan’s curt offer of marriage when a brother made it clear that she would have no place to live if she said no. She gave birth to Liam, her only child, with a maximum of pain and a minimum of joy. Had Lorcan not intervened, she would have left their infant son on the doorstep of the rectory that night.

Twelve years later, upon Lorcan’s death, she made good on her threat and abandoned the adolescent Liam at the rectory doorstep, disappearing that same night, never to be seen or heard from again. Castlebar’s conscientious parish priest sent Liam south to finish growing up under the strict tutelage of the Christian Brothers. Very little of what he learned in the orphanage served him well.

Lonely, angry boys find others like themselves as friends. Lonely, angry boys seek solace in action, in violence, in causes that fill the empty places inside them. Upon leaving the orphanage at sixteen, Liam Tierney found just such friends and just such a cause in the political upheaval of his time. Only the miraculous appearance of Brenna, an auburn-haired, blue-eyed angel and orphan from another institution, had saved him.

Now Liam and Brenna had come to Cleveland for a new life, a new start, a new home for their darling baby girl. Brenna had named their red-haired daughter Irene. It wasn’t an Irish name, because at Irene’s birth Brenna had hoped so desperately that someday the Tierneys would not be Irish anymore.

“Irishtown Bend?” Brenna looked at the tiny, lopsided house that perched on a hillside looking over the place the local people called Whiskey Island. “We’ve come all this way, Liam, gladly left everything behind, to live in a place called Irishtown Bend?”

It was so rare for Brenna to be critical that Liam felt her words in the pit of his stomach. “I’m aware of the irony,” he said. “But we needn’t live here forever. It’s a place to start, and not such a bad place at that. Isn’t it better to be with people we understand? People like us? So many of them came from Mayo. I might well run into people I knew there.”

“Exactly what I hoped you wouldn’t do.”

Liam wanted the world for Brenna and Irene. He was going to give them the world, but unfortunately, not quite yet. And, of course, she wasn’t asking for that. She only wanted freedom from worry, from a past that haunted her nights. His past.

“I think the house has charm.” Liam cocked his head and stared up at it. The house was narrow as a young man’s hips and tall as a young man’s dreams. A rickety front porch ran across the front. His inspection had turned up boards so rotten that Irene’s meager weight would crumble them to dust.

Brenna hiked their daughter higher on one hip. Most of the time Irene would not allow herself to be carried. She was a lively child, only content when she was moving. But the voyage, the nights in Boston, then the nights in a West Side hotel that housed as many rats as immigrants, had nipped at her good humor. She rubbed her eyes and angrily brushed red-gold locks of hair away from her face.

His daughter. His reason for coming here.

“Perhaps it has charm,” Brenna said, “but I suspect it has mice and bugs, as well, and in winter, it will have icicles inside.”

“By winter we’ll live somewhere else, farther up the hill into the Angle, perhaps someday away from the Irish entirely.” He hesitated. “Unless we find family.”

Brenna looked as exhausted as their daughter, and that prospect didn’t seem to please her. “There’s little chance of it, Liam. You shouldn’t raise your hopes so high.”

Liam didn’t need the warning. His hopes weren’t high; in fact, he wasn’t sure what to hope for. Once, in a rare moment of conversation, his father had told him of uncles who had come here during the last century, Lorcan’s own brothers, Darrin and Terence, both of whom had died young and poor.

All the Tierney family had already died or abandoned Shanmullin when Lorcan arrived home from Liverpool, as had most of the villagers he had known as a boy. Even Shanmullin’s priest had moved to America, but one neighbor recalled that Terence had married, and his wife might still be alive. The wife might even have given birth to Terence’s child. In a place called Cleveland, where she and Terence had gone to live.

Liam knew so little of his family’s past, and he cared only a little more. Family had failed him so miserably. What reason was there to think that anything might change? He had made his own family when he married Brenna Duffy and sired Irene. If Tierneys were here, he would observe them carefully before he told them who he was.

Now he tried to make the best of their bad situation, hoping to cheer his wife. “Be careful on the stairs,” Liam said. “Best give me Irene. I know what to avoid.”

He took the little girl, who was fussing, and jiggled her as he climbed. He skirted the worst of the holes and pushed open the door. The house was dismal inside but surprisingly clean. The former occupants had been too poor for repairs but too proud for dirt. Only the faintest dust filmed the rickety table in one corner and the ladder-back chair beside it. The windows were few but gleaming.

“Good people lived here.” That was the most he could say, since the house had nothing else to recommend it. It was cramped and dark, and the moldering boards on the porch had close cousins here. He hadn’t been inside before this. The house was all he could afford, and the state of its interior had hardly been at issue. It had a roof and a floor of sorts, a place to cook and sleep. Until he found work, there was little else he could ask for.

He didn’t look at Brenna. He didn’t want to see the horror on her face. He had brought her here, far from everything she knew. True, like him, she had no family in Ireland. The orphanage where she had been taken at birth was a cruel place, and her memories of Ireland were sad ones. But she had married him to improve her life. And this was no improvement.

“Oh, Liam, look at the way the sun shines in this window.” She stepped carefully around the room and peered outside, down the gentle slope that led to the river and the smoke of Whiskey Island.

The sunlight wavered through the old glass, making patterns on the wall. He was pleased she’d chosen to notice them.

“And it’s all ours,” she said, turning to face him.

“It’s not much—”

“All my life I lived in a room with twenty girls, sometimes more. I yearned for space like this, for a place where I could move without stumbling over someone.”

He knew what she was doing, knew the effort this forced spate of optimism was costing her. He loved her more for it. “You’ll need to be careful where you move here, as well. Or you’ll end up on the ground below.”

“But it will be our ground, won’t it? Not charity. No one reminding us that we didn’t earn it and we’re lucky to have it. No sisters to beat us if we aren’t thankful enough. Yes, it’s meager, Liam. But I’m sorry about what I said before. If there are mice, they’ll be our mice, won’t they? And if the icicles form inside, then we’ll know exactly where to patch, and we’ll thank them for the insight.”

“I’ll get a job. I know there’s work here, lots of it. I’ve been told so by every man I’ve encountered. We won’t be in the house long. And I’ll patch the floors. There’s driftwood on the lakeshore. I’ve been told that, as well. I’ll patch, and we’ll make it a home until we can find better.”

“I never expected to have this much. I have you, and our darling Irene, and I have this new land of ours, away from all our sad memories. We’ll start again here. The three of us.”

He set Irene down, and she ran to the window where her mother stood. Brenna lifted her daughter in her arms.

“Smoke,” Irene said, pointing down the hillside.

“A sign of progress,” Brenna said. “A sign of good things to come.”

Liam followed his daughter. Brenna held out an arm, and he let her enfold him. The only moments of pleasure he’d ever experienced had been due to this woman. He felt the warmth of her breast pressing against his side, smelled the wind-tossed scent of her hair. He put his arms around the only two people in the world whom he had ever loved, and Liam Tierney counted his blessings.

chapter 10

Megan pulled into the parking lot of the Whiskey Island Saloon in Casey’s red Mazda and turned the key in the ignition. She didn’t move to open the door. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, and her foot continued to rest on the brake. She closed her eyes and reminded herself to breathe.

When she opened them again, nothing had changed. No fairy godmother had waved a wand in the intervening seconds to restore the rubble into a functioning Irish-American pub. The Whiskey Island Saloon would be a work in progress for weeks, maybe months, and Megan was going to have to accept the fact that life as she had known it was never going to be the same.

The driver’s door opened. Startled, she looked up and saw her sister staring down at her. “You like my car so much you don’t want to return it?”

“How did you know I’d be back today?” Megan stared up at Casey. “Is this sisterly ESP?”

“Nick called Jon and told him what happened. I brought Charity for you and came to get the Mazda.”

Niccolo’s phone call to Jon didn’t surprise Megan. He was already acting like a husband, even though they’d only been married two weeks. He’d fallen into the role like Olivier into Hamlet.

“It’s a long drive by yourself.” Casey extended a hand. “He was sorry you had to make it alone. Not the way to end a honeymoon, huh?”

Megan hefted herself out of Casey’s car. “Nobody’s fault.”

“Jon says Nick’s mother had a heart attack? She’s in Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh?”

“Chest pains. They put her in yesterday morning for tests. I haven’t heard any results yet, but Nick thought he ought to be there. He flew out last night. It was too late to make the drive home, so I stayed there alone until this morning.”

“You had what, four nights together? Not much of a honeymoon.”

At least they had been blissful nights. The lake lapping at the shore, Niccolo’s lovingly chosen wines, gourmet meals prepared together, moonlight walks, the glowing eyes of nocturnal animals in the forest beyond their cabin. The big, soft king-size bed.

“It’s a bad break, but it couldn’t be helped,” Megan said. “Marco told him not to make the trip home, but you know Nick. If he can’t help, he doesn’t exist. And she is his mother.”

“You deserved longer. Between the tornado, the bids and estimates, the insurance adjustor, now this…”

“Hey, we were lucky to have any time at all. Between renovations here and Nick’s work at Brick, it might be years before we can get away again.”

“Don’t even say that. You have to make time for each other.”

Megan started toward the kitchen door. The old maple tree was gone now, and so was Niccolo’s Honda Civic. The first brand-new car he had ever owned was a shiny silver cube in a Cleveland junkyard. Even the shifty-eyed insurance adjustor, who had clearly wanted to issue a modest check for repairs, had gasped when he saw it and declared it a total loss.

“I don’t suppose the contractor’s spent much time here,” Megan said. She had come to terms on the renovations with a man from Westlake before she left. Casey had volunteered to supervise whatever visits the contractor wanted to make before Megan came back. “With all the rain you’ve had and everything else, I bet he’s hardly been here.”

They entered through the kitchen. It, like the rest of the saloon, had been picked clean. Before the brief Michigan honeymoon, Megan had hired a moving company to take everything that wasn’t nailed down to a storage facility while the repairs commenced. The front facade of the building was shored up just enough for them to begin clearing the rubble, but security would be an issue until the walls were restored and doors could be installed again and locked.

“Megan, about the contractor.” Casey followed her sister into the saloon proper, although there was nothing very proper about it now. “That’s part of why I came looking for you.”

Megan waved a hand as if she were wafting away the scent of boiling cabbage. “Look, I know he’s no peach to deal with. He’s got the manners of a bulldog, but his references are good. And his was the only estimate that even came close to the amount the insurance company is willing to reimburse us for. We’re still going to have to come up with thousands of dollars ourselves. Expanding and improving went out the window fast.”

“He never gave you the estimate in writing, did he?”

Megan frowned, turning to search Casey’s face. “He said he’d send it to Nick’s—our house. It’s probably there. Why?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Casey, what are you trying to say?”

“He called me the day before yesterday. He reworked his figures before he put it all in writing. He was way off, Megan. Now he says he can’t do it for what he promised. His new estimate’s in line with the others. It’s a lot more.”

“He can’t do that!” Megan felt a surge of anger starting at her toes. “He already gave me a figure!”

“Not one you can hold him to. He had the square footage wrong, and the price of lumber’s gone up in the last week. He says the only way he could do it at what he originally thought was to do a really shoddy job of it. And you don’t want that.”

Megan felt as if she’d been punched. She should have known the estimate was too good to be true. “We should have had more insurance. I knew it. I just didn’t get around to doing anything about it.”

“Jon and I will help, Megan. You know we will. And the others are going to pitch in—”

“What others?”

“The family. The offers are pouring in. Everybody’s going to help get the saloon up and running again. Maybe it’s ours on paper, but it belongs to all the Donaghues. All the memories and the connections to the past.”

Megan rarely cried. Now her throat felt tight. She didn’t want to accept help. Sure, the Whiskey Island Saloon was a family icon, and the Donaghue clan were her family. But none of them profited from it. For years she had run it, and they had enjoyed it. The system had worked perfectly, with no grumbling. Relatives played at tending bar and helping in the kitchen; then they went home at night to their other lives. The saloon was a hobby, a welcome family link. She didn’t want the system to change.

“Uncle Frank and Aunt Deirdre will foot the whole bill,” Casey said. “He already gave me a check.”

“Tear it up.” Megan swallowed tears. She couldn’t cry. There was too much to do.

“He did it gladly, you know he did.”

“He’s a gem. I love him. I love them all. But we can’t make this a family enterprise, Casey. It’s too dangerous. Too many hotheads and firm opinions, and rambling lectures on tradition vs. modernization.”

Casey didn’t argue. Megan knew she agreed.

“So the other options?” Casey said at last.

The kitchen door slammed, and the two women looked at each other.

“Megan?”

Megan couldn’t believe it. “Nick?”

He came through the kitchen door into the saloon. “Surprise.”

“Nick!” She was so thrilled to see him that she forgot her dignity. She ran to him, falling into his arms as if she hadn’t seen him for weeks. “What happened? Why are you back so soon?”

“Anxiety attack,” Nick said. “And not mine. Mama’s. Mama wasn’t dealing with our wedding quite as well as we all thought.” He held her away and grinned. “We’ve had a little talk, Mama and me. She’s on the road to recovery.”

“You’re kidding!”

“It was real. She’s not given to hysterics. Just too much change in her orderly life. But she’ll cope. She’s humiliated. Next time she’ll die of a heart attack before she tells anybody she has pains in her chest. And she’s going to take up yoga. My mother in the lotus position. I’ve demanded photographs.”

“Poor woman,” Casey said. “I actually liked your mother, Nick, even if she spent most of our time together telling me about the day you were ordained.”

“You’re okay?” Niccolo asked Megan. “The drive back went okay?”

“It was lonely.” She smiled up at him; then she sobered. “Nick, Casey has bad news.”

“Jon already told him,” Casey said. “He thought Nick should be warned.”

“Why? So he’d be prepared to come home to a basket case?” She tempered the words with all the smile she could manage. “Listen, you two, I’ll cope. Maybe I’ll take up yoga, too. I’m going to find a way around this, even if I have to do the damned repairs myself. And I could, you know. If I had to.”

“You don’t,” Niccolo said.

“You know, I should leave,” Casey said. “You’re invited for dinner tonight. I’ll see you two then. You can fill me—”

“No, I want you to hear this, too,” Niccolo said.

Casey waited.

“Megan, since Mama was fine, I used the trip to Pittsburgh to spend some time with Marco.”

Clearly Niccolo was on his way to being accepted back into the heart of the family, and that pleased Megan very much. She wanted Niccolo to be happy.

“I’m delighted.” She didn’t know what else was called for.

“It was like old times. But that’s not my whole point. We talked about the saloon.”

She wondered if Marco disapproved of Niccolo’s new wife working as a saloon keeper. He was a traditional male. His wife, Carrie, stayed home with their two children and cooked. And cooked. Megan wished she could hire her.

“Marco has the contracting skills that I don’t,” Niccolo continued. “I could never tackle the repairs here alone, particularly if we expand the project and make the changes we need to.”

Megan felt her mind slowing. She was afraid to let it move forward, afraid she might be wrong.

“But Marco could do this job with his hands tied behind his back. Problem is, he has to pay a crew, and even if he could bring them here and house them for free, with union wages and building supplies, we’d be out of our range again.”

“And he couldn’t get his crew over here, anyway,” Megan said. “Why would they want to come to Cleveland?”

“No, but with Marco and me doing the work with the Brick kids and occasionally a temporary crew, we can do it for the insurance settlement, Megan. We went over and over the figures last night. I had Jon fax me all the estimates we’d already gotten, the plans I drew up for the changes you want. It’s doable.”

“But why would Marco come and do this? He has a business to run. Can he be away that long?”

“He’ll go home as often as he can. In the meantime—and get this—Carrie’s going to run his business.”

Megan stared at him. “Carrie? Of the fabulous parsley pesto sauce? Of the sun-dried tomato ravioli?”

“She’s been answering his telephones, printing up his bills, making calls to the lumberyard and supply houses for years. She’s even bossed the crew a time or two when he was sick. Marco says she can do it. He’ll go back and forth. It’s not that long a drive. A couple of days here, several days there.”

“Why?”

Niccolo smiled. “Because he’s my brother.”

Megan couldn’t believe her good luck. Casey could, though. She came over to hug them both. “This is so great! Now you can get everything you want, Megan. Expanded kitchen, a redesigned space behind the bar. And if you have to take money from the family, it will only be a little.”

“I might borrow,” Megan said. “And pay them back with interest.” With her current rush of goodwill, depleting their bank accounts seemed like the least she could do.

“Then it’s a deal?” he said.

“Of course it’s a deal!” She hugged him. She hugged Casey. “Thank you so much for coming up with this. I can’t believe it!”

“We’ll be slower than professionals,” Niccolo warned her. “It won’t get done overnight.”

“I don’t care. Just get it done. I’ll help. I’m good at this stuff.”

“You are.” He touched her hair. “Good at everything you do.”

Casey broke away. “That’s too much sweetness and light for me. Ever since you saw the Virgin in the tunnel, folks, it’s been like an episode of ‘Touched By An Angel’ around here. Gag me.”

“A couple more people want to see the Virgin,” Niccolo said. “Marco, for one. How would you feel if I took him through the tunnel, Megan?”

She was feeling much too fabulous to worry about anything so inconsequential. In fact, she was feeling so kindly toward Marco that she would scrape the image off the wall and give it to him for Christmas if he asked for it.

“The more the merrier.” Her smile was so broad it threatened to permanently stretch her cheeks. “I’m becoming a believer in miracles myself. Light candles, burn incense, make novenas. I don’t care.”

“I’m heading home before you start the Gregorian chants,” Casey said. “The invitation stands. You two come for dinner tonight.”

Niccolo looked at Megan. Megan looked at Niccolo. Casey looked at both of them.

“Another time,” Casey countered. “I know that look when I see it.”

“Thanks. And you can look after Rooney another night?”

“Not a problem. And Josh will hold the fort at your house. What hotel are you going to?”

“That would be none of your business.”

chapter 11

Bridie had an insatiable need to connect with people, and Kieran had as strong a need to keep them at bay. Yet the two children were fascinated by each other. She was an intelligent girl, with problem-solving abilities far advanced for her age. She saw Kieran’s desires and needs as puzzles to assemble so that, in the end, the picture that emerged would please everyone. She didn’t gush, and she didn’t ask for more than he would give. She seemed to have no need for hugs or kisses. When he shouted “hi” in her direction, she took it as her due. When he threw himself on the floor in an exhausted temper tantrum, she raised her slight shoulders as if to say “I warned you he was reaching his limit.”

Bridie was almost a daily visitor now, and Peggy had quickly grown dependent on the eleven-year-old’s common sense and insight, as well as her help.

“Red.” Bridie picked up a red sweater and dropped it on the small table where Kieran was sitting in the “classroom” Peggy had made for him. She picked up a red slipper she’d brought from home and put that on the table, too. “Red.” A third item, a lovely polished apple, followed the other two. “Red.”

Kieran showed as little interest as usual, standing, then wandering around the table. Peggy gently guided him back to his little chair, and when he sat at her instruction, she gave him a tiny fish-shaped cracker.

Bridie had cleared the table in the interim. This time she set out a giant red crayon. “Point to red,” she said. “Where’s red, Kieran?”

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