Collins looked slightly chagrined and bobbed his head in apology at his language, but he continued to study me, holding my hand in his.
“What do you think of our Tommy, Anne Gallagher?”
I started to answer, but he squeezed my hand and shook his head slightly, warning me, “If you lie to me, I’ll know.”
“Mick,” Thomas cautioned again.
“Tommy. Quiet,” he murmured, his gaze locked on mine. “Do ya love him?”
I breathed deeply, unable to look away from the dark eyes of a man who wouldn’t live to make his own wedding vows, who wouldn’t see his thirty-second birthday, who wouldn’t ever know how truly remarkable he was.
“He’s easy to love,” I answered softly, each word like an anchor mooring me to a time and place that weren’t my own.
Collins whooped and swung me up in his arms, as if I’d just made him a very happy man. “Did you hear that, Tommy? She loves you. If she’d said no, I was going to wrestle you for her. Let’s get a picture!” he demanded, pointing at the smiling photographer. “We need to mark this occasion. Tommy has a lass.”
I couldn’t look at Thomas, couldn’t breathe, but Michael Collins was in charge, and he drew us around him and slung an arm over my shoulder, smirking at the camera as though he’d just bested the Brits. I was flooded with the feeling that I’d seen and done this all before. The bulb flashed and realization dawned. I remembered the picture I’d seen of Anne standing in a group beside Michael Collins and the picture of Thomas and Anne, the suggestion of intimacy in the line of their bodies and the angle of their gazes. Those weren’t photos of my great-grandmother at all.
They were pictures of me.
“Was Thomas in love with Anne?” I’d asked my grandfather.
“Yes and no,” Eoin had answered.
“Oh wow. There’s a story there,” I’d crowed.
“Yes. There is,” he’d whispered. “A wonderful story.”
And now I understood.
26 August 1921
I’ll never forget this day. Anne has gone to bed, and still I sit, watching the fire as though it holds a different, better set of answers. Anne told me everything. And yet . . . I know nothing.
I called Garvagh Glebe before we left for the Gresham Hotel, knowing the O’Tooles would be hovering, waiting for word on Robbie’s condition. There are two telephones in all of Dromahair, and Garvagh Glebe boasts one. I’d rationalized the expense of phone lines; a doctor needed to be easily accessible. But no one else had telephones in rural Ireland. They didn’t call me; they fetched me. The only calls I ever received were from Dublin.
Maggie was waiting breathlessly on the end of the line as the operator patched me through, and I could hear her tears when I told her “my patient” had come through surgery well and that the swelling had receded substantially. She was crying the Rosary as she handed the telephone to Daniel, who thanked me profusely, though he knew better than to specify what for, and then, oddly, he gave me an update on the foal that wasn’t due for another two weeks.
“We went in to check on her this afternoon, Doc . . . and the foal was gone,” Daniel said, his voice slow and heavy with meaning.
It took me a moment to understand.
“Someone’s been in the barn, Doc. It’s gone. Nobody knows where. Liam’s been by to see Brigid, and I had to tell him. He’s upset. He had plans for the foal, as you know. Now, with her being gone . . . we need to figure out who took her. Tell Miss Anne, will you, Doc? Liam is certain she already knows. But I don’t imagine how.”
I was silent, reeling. The guns were gone, and Liam was blaming Anne. Daniel was quiet for a moment too, letting me process his metaphor. I told him we would inquire further when I returned from Dublin. He agreed, and we signed off.
I almost told Anne we weren’t going to the Gresham after all, but when I stepped into her room and saw her, lithe and lovely, her curling mass of hair loosely bound, her eyes warm, and her smile eager, I changed my mind once more.
She held my hand, and I walked, half numb and wholly unprepared for the risk I was taking. All I knew was I wanted Mick to meet her. To reassure me. To absolve me. It was madness, bringing Anne to see him. I don’t know what compelled