of them are in any position to support her or the boy. Two groups of people exist in Ireland—farmers with huge families and single adults. With emigration one of the only viable options to find work, men and women who don’t want to leave Ireland are waiting longer than ever to marry, the fear of being unable to provide for a family keeping men from committing to anything but their own survival and women from welcoming a man to their beds.
Brigid talks about her children. She misses them. She writes them letters and begs her sons to come to Garvagh Glebe to visit. They don’t come often. Since Anne has returned, I haven’t seen or heard from either of them. Until now.
Liam visited his mother this evening. He ate dinner with us, made small talk with his mother, and roundly avoided conversing with Anne, though his eyes were continually returning to her. She seemed just as uncomfortable with him, sitting silently beside Eoin, her eyes on her plate. I wonder if it’s his resemblance to Declan that pains her or the unanswered questions hanging over her head. She’s won Daniel over, though. He is convinced she saved them all. Liam doesn’t seem so sure.
When dinner was through, Liam asked for a private word, and we walked to the barn, our voices low and our eyes wide as we scanned the darkness for eavesdropping shadows.
“I’ll wait for the Tans and the Auxies to suspend the patrol,” he told me. “They’re supposed to be pulling back, though we all know the truce is just an excuse for them to double down. We’re not twiddling our thumbs either, Doc. We’re stockpiling. Planning. Preparing for it to ramp up again. In three days, the guns will be moved, and I’ll do my best not to put you in this position again.”
“It could have ended very badly, Liam,” I said, not to reprimand but to remind.
He nodded glumly, his shoulders hunched, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “It could have, Doc. And it still might.”
“How so, Liam?”
“I don’t trust Anne, Thomas. Not at all. She turns up, and suddenly the Tans are on to us. We’ve been running guns through here for three years. The day you dragged her out of the lough, we had to ditch the weapons in the west shore caves instead of unloading them on O’Brien’s dock like we’ve done every other time. We had two dozen Tans waiting for us on the dock. If the fog hadn’t rolled in, we would have been sunk.”
“Who told you I dragged her out of the lough, Liam?” I kept my voice level, but alarm bells were ringing in my head.
“Eamon Donnelly. He thought I should know, being family and all,” he answered, defensive.
“Huh. The way Daniel tells it, if Anne was working with the Tans, you wouldn’t have survived the night,” I said.
“That woman isn’t Anne,” Liam hissed. “I don’t know who she is. But that’s not our Annie.” He scrubbed at his eyes like he wanted to erase her, and when he spoke again, weariness had replaced his adamancy. “You’ve taken care of my mother and my nephew. You take care of a lot of people, Thomas. Everyone knows it. And none of us will ever be able to repay you. But you don’t owe Anne anything. None of us do. You’ve got to get rid of her. The sooner the better.”
Liam left without saying goodbye to Brigid. Anne took Eoin to his room without saying good night to me. I’ve moved Robbie onto a cot in the clinic so Anne doesn’t have to sleep in my bed. The thought tightens my body and loosens my mind. From my desk, I can hear her in the next room, telling Eoin the legend of Niamh and Oisín and the Land of the Young.
I stop writing to listen, entranced once again by her voice and her stories.
I am no longer haunted by Anne but enchanted.
Liam says she isn’t Anne. He’s lost his mind. But deep down I am half convinced he’s right, which makes me just as daft as he.
T. S.
14
I AM OF IRELAND
‘I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
And time runs on,’ cried she.
‘Come out of charity,
Come dance with me in Ireland.’
—W. B. Yeats
Liam Gallagher, Declan Gallagher’s brother and Brigid’s son, was the man who shot me on the lough. He was one of the men on the riverboat. The one who raised his arm, pointed a gun at me, and