would be a hundred times worse when they saw me weeping as I haunted the halls of my home.
“You go ahead. Meet with the realtor and the appraiser. When you are finished, I will look through the house. By myself,” I suggested.
“What is it with this house?” Harvey groaned. “Eoin acted exactly the same way.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. And Harvey sighed and ran his hands through his white mane and looked around the sparsely populated dining room at the Great Southern Hotel.
“I feel like I’m on the bloody Titanic,” he grumbled.
I smiled wanly, surprising myself and them.
“You and Eoin had an incredible bond,” Harvey murmured. “He loved you so much. He was so proud of you. When he told me about his cancer, I knew you would be devastated. But you are scaring me, Anne. You aren’t just devastated. You’re . . . you’re . . .” He searched for the right word.
“You’re lost,” Barbara supplied.
“No, not lost,” Harvey argued. “You’re missing.”
Our eyes met, and he reached for my hand.
“Where are you, Anne?” he pressed. “Your spirit is gone. You seem so empty.”
I wasn’t just grieving for my grandfather. I was grieving for the little boy he’d been. For the mother I’d been to him. For my husband. For my life. I wasn’t empty, I was drowning. I was still in the lough.
“She just needs time, Harvey. Give her time,” Barbara protested.
“Yes,” I agreed, nodding. “I just need time.” I needed time to take me back, to whisk me away. Time was the one thing I wanted and the one thing no one could give me.
“Are you related to the O’Tooles, by any chance?” I asked the young caretaker when Harvey and his entourage drove away. The caretaker couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and there was something in the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders that made me think he belonged in the family tree. He’d introduced himself as Kevin Sheridan, but the name didn’t fit him.
“Yes, ma’am. My great-grandfather was Robert O’Toole. He was the caretaker here for years. My mother—his granddaughter—and my father took care of the place when he died. Now it’s my turn . . . for as long as you need me, that is.” A cloud passed over his features, and I knew the sudden interest in the property was concerning to him.
“Robbie?” I asked.
“Yes. Everyone called him Robbie. My mother says I look like him. I’m not sure that’s a compliment. He wasn’t much to look at—only had one eye—but his family loved him.” He was trying to be self-deprecating, to make me laugh at his unimpressive lineage, but I could only gape at him, stricken. He did look like Robbie. But Robbie was gone now. They all were.
Kevin must have seen how close I was to crumbling, and he left me alone to wander around, promising he would be on the grounds if I needed him and mentioning in a cheerful, tour-guide tone that Michael Collins himself had stayed at Garvagh Glebe many times.
I wandered for close to an hour, moving silently through the rooms, looking for my family, for my life, and finding only pieces and parts, whispers and wisps of a time that existed only in my memory. Each room had an emptiness and an expectancy that pulled at me. New king-sized beds heaped with pillows and comforters that coordinated with the updated window coverings were the centerpiece in every room. One or two pieces of the original furniture remained to give each chamber a touch of nostalgia—Thomas’s writing table and his chest of drawers, Eoin’s rocking horse and a high shelf of his “antique” toys, and Brigid’s vanity and her Victorian chair, which was reupholstered in a similar floral fabric. My gramophone and the huge wardrobe still stood in my old room. I opened the doors and stared at the empty interior, remembering the day Thomas had come home from Lyons with all the things he thought I needed. That was the night I knew I was in trouble, in danger of losing my heart.
The oak floors and cabinets in the kitchen were the same but had been resurfaced and were gleaming. The stately staircase and the oak balustrade remained, warm and reliable with years and use. The baseboards and the moldings had all been maintained, the walls painted, and the countertops and appliances upgraded to reflect the times. It smelled like lemons and furniture polish. I breathed deeply, trying to find Thomas, to