came in the door. She entered quietly. She wanted him to know something was different. That she was different.
He glanced up, his eyes, his blue eyes, gorgeous still, regarding her over the banner at the top of the paper, the day’s headlines trumpeting an oil spill in the North Sea, a march in Belfast, another bombing in the Middle East, battles and strife, but not there, not in that room. Not if she could help it.
The shyness, the fear, would stop her if she let them. She had to be brave, see it through.
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Colleen had asked her.
Oona hadn’t answered, but she thought, That he will close himself off from me, as I’ve closed myself off from him. That when I reach out, he won’t take my hand.
She carried her clothes in a canvas bag, the same one she took to the market, a scattering of dried parsley at the bottom. She’d worn the new bra and knickers home from the lace society meeting under her balmacaan coat. That was all. She shivered, not so much from cold as from anticipation. She’d never done anything like that before, not since she skinny-dipped in the bay on a dare as a girl when she had beauty and youth on her side, when she had her breasts. She hadn’t known Padraig then. She met him shortly thereafter, at a dance, when she was sixteen, him staring at her across the room with those blue, blue eyes, everything else receding into the background. He was all she could see, all she wanted.
She’d gotten pregnant on their honeymoon, their first, a girl, now living in Galway with three children of her own. Six babies she and Padraig had, gone now. Padraig had been away fishing much of the time. He didn’t go now, but the money was running low and he might have to, like Colleen’s husband, Finn, still at sea, Colleen beside herself with worry. Padraig had almost gone with him. Next time he might, even though they were both too old for such business. Padraig preferred being with his bees. If only more people knew about the honey and the lace, he might not have to consider sailing again.
Oona had spent years of praying to Saint Christopher for his safe return, years watching for the hull of his boat to round the cape and steam toward the shingle beach where she waited, a thermos of coffee and a tin of biscuits clutched in her gloved hands. She didn’t want to do that anymore, didn’t want to risk losing him.
She could tell from his face that he thought something was wrong, that she’d had word from the doctor the cancer had returned. He’d been with her through it all—the surgery, the chemotherapy, holding her hand, his face set with the same calm, penetrating expression with which he watched the horizon, reading the weather for what would come.
A drop of honey glistened on his lip. He liked to lick the spoon after putting a drop or two in his tea.
She crossed the sitting room where they’d spent so many hours of their lives, with the children, then just the two of them, this room with its accumulation of belongings, the braided rug, brass fire tools, framed pictures on the console where their youngest son, Paul, once cut open his head and had to be taken to hospital, the stacks of history books and novels, spindled tables and lamps, candlesticks dripping with old wax.
“What is it?” he whispered.
She wiped the drop of honey from his lip and sucked on her finger. “This,” she said.
She took the paper from him, folded it neatly in two places and set it on the hassock, then opened her coat. “And this.”
She stood before him, threads of lace shining, golden as the honey he’d made, the first time she’d undressed for him, let him see her in the light, in so very long.
“Oh, love.” He pulled her toward him, pressing his face against her chest. “Love.”
Chapter 14
Sullivan Deane
Bernie had been awake since 5:00 a.m., thinking. Kate needed another reason to stay in Glenmara. The lace was a start, a thread tying her to the community, but she could snap it any moment and walk away, up the road down which she’d come. Had it only been days she’d been in the village? It seemed as if Kate had been with them longer, with Bernie longer.
Bernie looked for clues each day as she straightened the