Eoin was younger than Maeve? Eoin was just shy of eighty-six when he died. I tried to calculate what “much younger” might mean.
“I’m ninety-two,” Maeve supplied. “My mother lived to be one hundred and three. My grandmother was ninety-eight. My great-grandmother was so old, no one really knew exactly how old she was. We were glad to see the auld wan go.”
I hid my snort of laughter in a demure cough.
“Let me look at you,” she demanded, and I raised my eyes to hers obediently.
“I can’t believe it. You look just like her,” she marveled.
“Like Eoin’s mother?”
“Like Anne,” she agreed. “It’s uncanny.”
“I’ve seen pictures. The resemblance is strong. But I’m surprised you remember. You would have been a very little girl when she died.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Oh no. I knew her well.”
“I was told Declan and Anne Gallagher died in 1916. Eoin was raised by his grandmother, Brigid, Declan’s mother.”
“Nooo,” she disagreed, drawing out the word as she shook her head. “Anne came back. Not right away, mind you. I remember how folks talked about her after she returned. There were some rumors . . . speculation about where she’d been. But she came back.”
I stared at the old woman, stunned. “M-my grandfather didn’t tell me,” I stammered.
She considered this, nodding and drinking her tea, her eyes cast down, and I gulped my own, my heart racing from a sense of betrayal.
“Maybe I am confused,” she retracted softly. “Don’t let the ramblings of an old woman cause you to doubt.”
“It was a long time ago,” I offered.
“Yes. It was. And memory is a funny thing. It plays tricks on us.”
I nodded, relieved that she had withdrawn her assertion so easily. For a moment, she had seemed so sure, and her confidence had made mine crumble.
“They’re buried in Ballinagar. That I am sure of.”
I rushed to retrieve my little notebook and a pencil from my bag. “How do I get there?”
“Well now. It’s a pretty walk from here. Or a short drive. Maybe ten minutes or less. Go south on the main street—just there, see?” She pointed toward the front door. “It’ll take you straight out of town. Go about three kilometers. You’re going to veer right at the fork and continue for, oh . . . for half a kilometer or so. Then go left. Go a wee bit farther. Then the church—St. Mary’s—will be on your left. The cemetery is there too, behind it.”
I’d stopped writing after she said to veer right.
“Don’t these streets have names?”
“Well, they’re not streets, dear. They’re roads. And people around here just know. If you get lost, pull over and ask someone. They’ll know where the church is. And you can always pray. God always hears our prayers when we’re wantin’ a church.”
15 May 1916
The drive to Dromahair with Declan’s body wrapped and secured to the running board of the car was the longest of my life. Brigid would not speak, and the baby was inconsolable, as though he felt the black of our despair. After I dropped them at Garvagh Glebe, I took Declan to Father Darby for burial. We laid him to rest in Ballinagar, next to his father. I purchased a stone that will be laid when the engraving is done. If Anne is dead, as I fear, we will bury her beside Declan, and they will share the stone. It is what they would have wanted.
I returned to Dublin, though getting back into the city proved arduous. The British army had declared martial law, and all the roads were cordoned with armoured vehicles and soldiers. I showed my papers and my medical bag, and they eventually let me pass. The hospitals are full of injured insurgents, soldiers, and civilians. Mostly civilians. The need is great enough so they let me through when others were turned away.
I searched the deadhouses and the hospital morgues—Jervis Street, the Mater, St. Patrick Dun’s, even the women’s hospital where I’d heard the rebels had gathered on the grass after they surrendered. A temporary field hospital had been assembled at Merrion Square, and I went there as well, though nothing remained but the folks that resided in the homes nearby. They told me the wounded and dead had been taken, and they weren’t sure where. Rumours of mass graves of the unidentified dead at the Glasnevin and Deansgrange cemeteries had me begging beleaguered groundsmen for names they couldn’t provide. I was too late, they said, adding that the lists of