wool socks and threw my wet dress in his dryer. Then he called the police—the Gardai—and waited with me, making me drink a glass of water while he patted my back and guarded the door. He thought I was going to run. And I would have.
I couldn’t hold on to a thought, couldn’t stop shuddering, and when he asked me questions, I could only shake my head. He began talking to me instead, keeping his voice low as he checked his watch every few minutes.
“You called me Eamon. That was my grandfather’s name,” he said, trying to distract me. “He lived here on the lough too. We Donnellys have lived here for generations.”
I tried to sip my water, and it slipped from my hand and crashed to the floor. He jumped to his feet and brought me a towel.
“Can I bring you some coffee?” he asked as I took the towel from his hand.
My stomach roiled at the mere mention of coffee, and I shook my head and tried to whisper my thanks. I sounded like a shuddering snake.
He cleared his throat and tried again, his voice conversational. “There was a woman who drowned in that lough a long time ago. A woman named Anne Gallagher. My grandfather knew her, and he told me the story when I was a boy. It’s a small place, and she was a bit of a mystery. Over the years, the story’s taken on a life of its own. The police thought I was pulling a wee joke when I called them and told them your name. It took me a while to convince them that I wasn’t kidding.” He grimaced and fell silent.
“They never knew what happened to her?” I asked, the tears streaming down my face.
“No . . . not really. They never found her body, which was where the mystery started. She lived at Garvagh Glebe—the manor there, behind the trees,” he said, his face reflecting my distress. He rose and came back with a box of tissues.
“And her family?” I whispered. “What happened to them?”
“I don’t know, miss. It was a long time ago. It’s just an old story. Probably half true. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
When the police arrived, Jim Donnelly leapt from his chair in relief, ushering them in, and the questions began again. I was taken to a hospital and admitted for observation. My pregnancy was confirmed, my mental health questioned, and numerous calls were made to ascertain whether I was a threat to myself or others. I grasped very quickly that my freedom and independence relied on my ability to reassure everyone I was all right. I wasn’t. I was destroyed. Devastated. Reeling. But I wasn’t deranged or dangerous. Deny, deflect, refute, Michael Collins had said, and that’s what I did. In the end, I was released.
It hadn’t taken the police long to ascertain where I was staying and collect my suitcases from the Great Southern Hotel in Sligo. They had jimmied the locked door on my rental car and found my purse beneath the seats. My possessions had been combed through but were readily handed over when the investigation was closed. I paid my hospital bill, made a donation to the county search-and-rescue services, and quietly checked back in to the hotel. The desk clerk didn’t flinch when she saw my name; the police had been discreet. I had my purse, my passport, and my clothing, but I needed to rent another car. I bought one instead. I had no intention of leaving Ireland.
I’d left Manhattan one week after Eoin died. I left his clothes in his drawers, his coffee cup in the sink, and his toothbrush in the bathroom. I locked his brownstone in Brooklyn, put off the calls from his lawyer about his estate, and told my assistant and my agent to tell everyone I would deal with what was left of Eoin’s life and mine when I returned from Ireland.
His death had sent me running away. His request to have his ashes brought back to his birthplace had been a blessing. It had given me something to focus on besides the fact that he was gone. And I wasn’t in any state to go back and deal with it now.
The police had discovered a business card inside my purse with my agent’s name, Barbara Cohen, printed directly below my own. They contacted her, the only person on earth who might know where I was or where I’d gone, and they’d been