second’s silence, then, slowly, cautiously, almost lovingly, “You have to come home, Marcy. You have to come home now.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“I saw her, Peter. I saw Devon.”
He sighed. “This is crazy talk, Marcy. You know that.”
“I know what I saw.”
“You only think you saw Devon,” Peter told her gently, the hint of impatience in his voice tempered by his obvious concern. Marcy could almost feel him shaking his head.
Poor Peter, she thought. After all these years, he still had no idea what to make of her. “I did see her.”
“You saw a girl who looked like her.…”
“No.”
“A pretty girl with long dark hair and high cheekbones, who maybe walked the way Devon walked and held her cigarette the same way.…”
“I saw Devon.”
“Just like you saw her all those other times you were so convinced?”
“This time is different.”
“This time is exactly the same,” Peter insisted. “Marcy, please. I thought we got past this.”
“No, you got past it.”
“Because I had to. Because there was no other choice. Our daughter is dead, Marcy.”
“They never found her body.”
Another silence. Another sigh. “So, you’re saying … what? That she faked her own death …?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was an accident and she saw an opportunity …”
“An opportunity for what, for God’s sake? Why would she do something like this? Why would she let us think she was dead?”
“You know why!” Marcy shouted, silencing him. She imagined Peter hanging his head, closing his eyes.
“How did she get there?” he asked quietly.
“What?”
“She didn’t have a passport. She didn’t have any money.…”
Marcy brushed aside these new questions with an impatient wave of her hand. “She could have had money put away. She could have arranged for a passport. She had friends, Peter, friends we knew nothing about.…”
“Think about what you’re saying, Marcy.”
“I don’t have to think about it,” Marcy insisted, refusing to be swayed. “Our daughter is alive, Peter. She’s here in Ireland.”
“And you just happened to run into her.”
“She walked right by the pub where I was sitting.”
“You were drinking?” he asked, almost hopefully.
“I was drinking tea.”
“And Devon walked by,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Dublin has, what … a population of a million and a half?”
“I know. It’s quite a coincidence,” Marcy said before Peter had the chance, deciding not to tell him the sighting had taken place in Cork.
Another moment’s silence, then, “Did you talk to her?”
“What?”
“Did she see you? Did you talk to her?”
“No. I tried following her but I lost her in the crowd.” Again she felt him shaking his head. “Just because she didn’t see me doesn’t mean I didn’t see her.”
He sighed. The sigh said he’d given it his best shot. There was nothing more to talk about. “Come home, Marcy. Your sister is half out of her mind.…”
“Good-bye, Peter. Please tell Judith not to worry.”
“Marcy—”
She hung up the phone before he could say anything else.
The phone rang again almost immediately. This time Marcy let it go directly to voice mail. If it wasn’t Peter, it was Judith, and she didn’t have the strength to have the same conversation a second time. If they wanted to think she was crazy, so be it. They were probably right.
But that didn’t mean she was wrong about Devon.
She’d leave for Cork first thing the next morning, she decided, a renewed burst of energy pushing her to her feet. She retrieved her suitcase from the closet, placing it on the cream-colored ottoman at the foot of the bed. Within minutes, it was packed, shoes and nightgowns at the bottom, shirts and dresses laid neatly over the top, followed by a few T-shirts and her favorite jeans, along with a nice pair of black pants and a couple of sweaters, her underwear stuffed into every available crevice and corner. The travel agent had advised layers. You never knew what the weather in Ireland would be like. Even mid-July could sometimes feel more like the middle of October, she’d warned Marcy. And make sure to pack an umbrella.
Yeah, sure, Marcy thought, picking her dirt-stained coat off the floor and hanging it over the back of the mahogany chair that sat in front of the sleek, modern desk. The travel agent had highly recommended the five-star luxury hotel, perfectly situated on the cusp of the historic old city and the somewhat bohemian district of Temple Bar. Her room was spacious and sophisticated and warm. Probably she didn’t need the rather grand king-size bed, but what the hell? At least she had plenty of room to thrash around without worrying about someone poking her in