And I understood how it had happened. I would have understood then. I would have forgiven him then. But he’d lied to me for six years, and he’d tried to cover his sins by killing again.
“I took her shawl—she’d been holding it—it was too hot in the GPO to wear it. It didn’t have a single drop of blood on it.” He was obviously still awed by the fact. I grimaced, imagining the blood that must have pooled beneath her bullet-ridden body.
“And her ring?” It was all so clear to me now.
“I took it off her finger. I didn’t want anyone to know it was her. I knew if I left her in the GPO, her body would burn, and no one would ever have to know what I’d done.”
“Except for you. You knew.”
Liam nodded, but his face was blank, as though he’d suffered so long with the sharp edge of guilt it had carved him into an empty shell.
“Then I walked out. I walked to Henry Place, Anne’s shawl in my hands, her ring in my pocket. I felt the bullets whizzing past me. I wanted to die. But I didn’t. Kavanagh pulled me into a tenement on Moore Street, and I spent the rest of the night burrowing through the walls, from one tenement to the next, working my way towards Sackville Lane with some of the others. I left the shawl in a pile of rubble, and I kept the ring. I’ve carried it in my pocket ever since. I don’t know why.”
“Ever since?” I asked, disbelieving. How was that possible? Anne had been wearing the ring when I’d seen her last. My Anne. My Anne. My legs buckled, and for a moment I thought I would fall.
“Surely you noticed that Anne was wearing the same ring,” I moaned, covering my face with my hands.
“Those English bastards thought of everything, didn’t they? Feckin’ spies. But they didn’t count on me. I knew it wasn’t her all along. I told you, Doc. But you wouldn’t listen, remember?”
I stood abruptly, knocking over my stool in my haste and moving away from him so I wouldn’t strangle the righteous indignation from his face.
Anne told me her grandfather—Eoin—gave her the ring along with my diary and several pictures. They were the pieces of the life he had wanted her to reclaim. Oh, Eoin, my precious boy, my poor little boy. He would have to wait so long to see her again.
“Where’s her ring now?” I asked, overcome.
Liam pulled it from his pocket and held it towards me, seemingly relieved to be rid of it. I took it from him, reeling with the knowledge that someday I would give it to Eoin. Eoin would eventually give it to Anne, his granddaughter, and she would wear it back to Ireland.
But that chapter had already been read, and my part in the rippled progression of future and past had already been played. My Anne had crossed the lough and gone home again.
“Last July, when you were moving guns on the lough, why did you shoot Anne when you saw her? I don’t understand,” I asked, seeking the final piece of the puzzle.
“I didn’t think she was real,” Liam murmured. “I see her everywhere I go. I keep killing her, and she keeps coming back.”
Oh God. If only she would come back. If only she would.
The next morning, I told Liam to go. To never come back. I promised him if he did, I would kill him myself. I gave Brigid the choice to go with him. She stayed behind, but she and I both know I wish she was gone. I can’t bring myself to forgive her. Not yet.
I don’t know how I will go on. Breathing hurts. Speaking hurts. Waking is agony. I cannot comfort myself. I cannot comfort Eoin, who does not understand any of this. He keeps asking me where his mother is, and I have no idea what to tell him. The O’Tooles are insisting we have a service for her, even without a body. Father Darby said it would help us move on. But I will never move on.
T. S.
24
WHAT WAS LOST
I sing what was lost and dread what was won,
I walk in a battle fought over again,
My king a lost king, and lost soldiers my men;
Feet to the Rising and Setting may run,
They always beat on the same small stone.
—W. B. Yeats
Jim Donnelly was Eamon Donnelly’s grandson, and he was kind. He brought me a blanket and some