I spent most of my time in the years from 1923 to 1933, soaking up every mention of Eoin. Thomas loved him well, and his entries revolved around him. He reveled in Eoin’s victories, took his cares personally, and fretted like a father. In one entry, he talked about catching sixteen-year-old Eoin kissing Miriam McHugh in the clinic and worried that Eoin would lose focus on his studies.
There is little that is more intoxicating than being in love and in lust, but Miriam isn’t the girl for Eoin. And this is not the time for romantic attachments. Eoin sulked a little when I counseled him to talk to Miriam instead of kissing her. Kisses can fool a man but deep conversation seldom does. He scoffed and questioned my experience. “How would you know, Doc? You never talk to women. And you sure as hell aren’t kissing them,” he said. I reminded him that I’d loved a woman who had excelled at conversation and kissing—a woman who’d ruined me for all others, and I damn well did know what I was talking about. Mentioning Anne always makes Eoin contemplative. He didn’t say much after that, but tonight he knocked on my bedroom door. When I opened it, he put his arms around me and embraced me. I could tell he was close to tears, so I just held him until he was ready to let go.
I had to put the journals away for a few days after that, but I found more comfort in them than pain. When it hurt too much to think of Thomas and the little boy I’d left behind, I sifted through the pages and turned back the years, reading their triumphs and troubles, their joys and their struggles, and I watched them go on together.
I found an entry written on the day that Brigid died. Thomas wrote about her with compassion and forgiveness. I was grateful she was not alone in the end. I read about illnesses and deaths in Dromahair and about new treatments and advances in medicine. Sometimes Thomas’s journals felt like a patient log, detailing a myriad of ailments and remedies, but he never wrote about politics. It was as though he had divorced himself entirely from the fray. The patriot heart he spoke of in his early years had been replaced by a nonpartisan soul. Something died in him when Michael was killed. He lost his faith in Ireland. Or maybe he just lost his faith in men.
There was one entry in July of 1927 where Thomas mentioned the assassination of Kevin O’Higgins, the minister for home affairs. O’Higgins had been responsible for the implementation of the special powers in 1922 that had created so much bitterness. The assassination came on the heels of the establishment of a new political party, Fianna Fáil, which was organized by Eamon de Valera and other prominent republicans. Public sentiment was with de Valera. Someone had asked Thomas which party he would support in the upcoming election. His failure to publicly support any of them had upset more than a few candidates who sought his approval and his financial backing. His response had me gasping and rereading his words.
There are some paths that inevitably lead to heartache, some acts that steal men’s souls, leaving them wandering forever after without them, trying to find what they lost. There are too many lost souls in Ireland because of politics. I’m going to hold on to what’s left of mine.
The first few lines were the words Eoin had quoted the night he died. Any questions I’d had about Eoin’s knowledge of the journals, of his intimate understanding of the man who had raised him, were gone. He’d only taken one journal with him when he left home, but he’d read them all.
I bought Maeve a stack of romance novels in Sligo after my doctor’s appointment, along with an assortment of little cakes in pale pastels. I showed up unannounced; I didn’t have her phone number. She came to the door wearing a royal-blue blouse, yellow slacks, and cheetah-print house slippers. Her fuchsia lipstick was fresh, and her pleasure at seeing me was genuine, though she feigned irritation.
“It took you long enough, young lady!” she scolded. “I tried walking to Garvagh Glebe last week, and Father Dornan dragged me home. He thinks I have dementia. He doesn’t understand that I’m just old and rude.”
I followed her into the house, pushing the door shut with my