a man she doesn’t love.”
I spoke to Deirdre. “I’m not really sure why you’re so angry.”
“Is this about Jack?” she asked.
When she spoke his name, I allowed the same question I’d held at bay to enter my heart. “I’m not sure, Deirdre. I’m confused and lost about a lot of things.”
“You are?” She walked toward me, and half of her face appeared as though her muscles could not decide whether to crumble in tears or clamp down in judgment. “You’re confused and lost? You were about to marry the greatest guy you have probably ever met and you’re confused?” Her voice rose higher and higher until I wanted to cover my ears.
I lifted my hand. “Yes, I’m confused. I know this has probably never happened to you.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, leaned toward me. “You have no idea what confusion is all about, Kara Larson. No idea whatsoever.” Then the muscles wanting to cry gave way, her face fell in on itself and she ran from the room, up the stairs. The slam of a door echoed down the stairs and into Daddy’s office.
I turned to him. “What in the . . . ?”
He shrugged. “Kara, I’m at a loss here. I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know how to help Deirdre.” He bit his lower lip in a gesture I’d never seen from him. “I need your mother right now.”
I reached for him and hugged him. “So do I. I’ve got so much to do to cancel all this, Daddy. Can we talk later?”
He turned back to me. “Yes, and let me know how I can help.” He pointed to a large envelope on the side table. “By the way, that small package arrived for you this morning.”
I walked over, opened it, and took a deep breath: it was the antique postcard of Galway Bay that I’d ordered on eBay. A hooker dominated the photo; it sailed sideways, cutting through water so blue it must have been hand colored. The water separated for the boat as it aimed directly for the side of the quay, and the docked boats, to the thatched-roof houses. The vessel was reaching, sailing, yearning for home: to dock. I imagined Maeve standing on that quay—waiting. Did she really want me to find this man who might not exist? I sighed and turned toward the stairs, took them two at a time to Deirdre’s room.
I pushed her door open without knocking and entered the room with my hands on my hips. “Tell me what in the hell is going on with you.”
She sat on the bed, curled over, staring in her hands. I walked to the bed. She stared at me. “What if we’re not who she wanted us to be? What if we’re a disappointment?” Deirdre choked on the words.
I sighed, sat on the edge of the mattress. “I don’t think that her last words had anything to do with being who she wanted us to be, but with being who . . . we were meant to be.”
Deirdre’s face hardened again. “Don’t you think that after Daddy told you what Mama said, you got confused?”
“No, if anything, I got clearer.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Clearer? What do you mean?”
“You know how Mama said to listen for the hints? Well, I heard them in a story.”
“A story? You are not making any sense at all.”
“I think we all hear hints differently. The way I hear it, you won’t. I think the main thing is, Mama didn’t want us to shut off our hearts.”
Deirdre just stared at me; her face quivered.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I can’t stand to disappoint one more person in my life. Now I’m disappointing our dead mother because I’ve shut off my heart. I want to love . . . I swear I do.”
She spoke as though I had left the room and she was talking to the Spanish moss hanging in front of her window, as if it could catch her words in its net and carry them safely away. “I’ve guarded my heart in every way I know how. I have lost my friends, lost my husband. I’ve guarded my heart with duty, with busyness, with anger. . . .”
She turned to me now. “Do you think we both just don’t know how to love enough?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t believe that.” I paused in thought. “Do you remember when you woke me up in the middle of the night, and took me to see the