she offered no further explanation.
We finished dinner and still Thomas and Robbie had not returned. Eoin was drawn into a game of charades with the O’Tooles, and Michael, Joe, and I slipped out the front door and into the twilight, unable to wait any longer. We were met by Thomas and Robbie coming through the trees where the marsh met the lake on the east side of Lough Gill. Their clothes were wet to their hips from walking through the bog, and they were shivering and tight-lipped.
“What happened?” Michael asked. “Where’s Fergus?”
“He’ll be along shortly,” Thomas answered and tried to herd us toward the house.
“Who did he shoot, Tommy?” Michael demanded, refusing to budge, his voice grim.
“Nobody from Dromahair, thank God. There won’t be any locals missing a father or a son,” Thomas muttered. Reluctance and regret bracketed his mouth, and he rubbed at his eyes wearily. “Fergus said the man had a rifle, long range, aimed at the house. He’d been dug in for a while, waiting for his shot from the looks of it.”
“Waitin’ for me?” Michael asked, his voice flat.
Robbie’s good eye shifted nervously in his head, and he shivered violently. “I recognized him, Mr. Collins. He was a gunrunner for the Volunteers. I saw him a few times with Liam Gallagher. They called him Brody, though I don’t know if that was his first or last name. Liam’s runners haven’t fared especially well.”
“How’s that?” Michael asked.
“Martin Carrigan was killed by the Tans last July, and now Brody’s got himself killed too. They weren’t with our column, but they were on our side,” Robbie protested, shaking his head as though he couldn’t make sense of it.
“The sides are shifting, lad,” Michael said. “And every man is feeling caught in the middle.”
“Martin Carrigan was bearded, Anne, and blond,” Thomas said, his eyes holding mine. “I think he may have been one of the men on the riverboat on the lough last June. Brody matches your description of the third man. I didn’t put it together until Robbie told me they were Liam’s boys.”
“What are you saying, Tommy? What riverboat?” Michael wasn’t following. Robbie didn’t answer, and Thomas was silent, waiting for me to put the pieces together.
“What he’s saying, Michael, is the man Fergus shot this evening wasn’t necessarily here to kill you,” I said, reeling.
“What?” Joe O’Reilly cried, completely flummoxed.
“He may have been trying to kill me,” I said.
26 December 1921
I married Anne today. For all their physical similarities, she no longer reminds me of Declan’s Anne. She is my Anne, and that is all I see. She wore Brigid’s veil and Anne Finnegan’s dress, a Christmas angel all in white. When I remarked on her choice, she simply smiled and said, “How many women get to wear their great-grandmother’s dress and their great-great-grandmother’s veil?” She carried a cluster of holly, the red berries vivid in her pale hands, and wore her dark hair down. It curled around her shoulders beneath the veil. She looked so beautiful.
The church was cold, and the wedding party was subdued and sleepy after two days of merriment and mayhem. I thought Anne would want to postpone our marriage after the events of last night, but when I’d suggested it, she shook her head, claiming if Michael Collins could carry on amid the chaos, so could we. She was calm and clear-eyed as I took her hand to enter the chapel. She refused to cover the dress in a coat or shawl, and she knelt, shivering, at the altar as Father Darby led us through the nuptial Mass, the liturgy falling from his lips in a quiet cadence that was answered by all in attendance. I trembled too, watching her, but it was not from the cold.
I clung to every word, desperate to savor the ceremony, to miss nothing. Yet in the years to come, it will be the memory of Anne, her gaze steady, her back straight, her promises sure, that I will cherish most. She was as solemn and serene as the stained-glass Madonna looking down on us as the rites were performed.
When Anne said her vows, she abandoned her Irish accent, as if the pledge she made was too sacred for disguises. If Father Darby wondered at her Yankee inflections, he made no sound or indication. If there was confusion amid the congregants, I would never know; our eyes were locked as she promised me a lifetime, however it unfolded.
When it was my turn, my voice echoed in the