legs against the grey-green backdrop of the lough. She made my heart ache in the best way, and I watched her dance with Eoin as they laughed in the fading light, her curls tumbling and her coltish limbs kicking up water. Then Eoin, his arms wrapped around the red ball he’d received from the O’Tooles on his birthday, tripped and fell, scraping his knees on the pebbled sand and losing his ball. Anne scooped him up as I started down the embankment, my reverie broken by his tears. But Eoin was less worried about his scrapes and more worried about the ball that was floating away. He squalled, pointing, and immediately Anne set him down and raced to retrieve it before it was beyond rescue.
She ran into the lough, knees high, holding her skirts from the inevitable. The ball bobbed out of reach. Anne moved out a little farther, straining for it, and the ball lured her deeper. I began to run, filled with an irrational terror, shouting for her to let the ball go. She surged forward, releasing her skirts and immersing herself from the waist down, wading towards the bobbing red sphere.
I was too far away. I yelled at her to come back as I raced across the shore, and for a moment her image wavered, a mirage on the lough. It was like looking through glass, the white of her dress becoming a tendril of mist; the darkness of her hair becoming evening shadows.
Eoin started to scream.
The sound echoed in my head as I splashed towards her fading form, shouting for her to turn back, to stay. The red ball continued to slink away like the sun on the horizon, and I threw myself across the water, to the place where she had been, reaching for the pale suggestion of Anne that still remained. My arms came away empty. I bellowed her name and lunged again, insistent, and my fingers passed through a whisper of cloth. I closed my fist around the folds, drawing them to me like salvation, end over end, until my hands were filled with Anne’s dress.
I couldn’t see the shore or tell the water from the sky. I was caught between now and then, my feet on shifting sand, and I was enveloped totally in white. I could feel her, the line of her back and the length of her legs, but I could not see her. I wrapped my arms around the shape of her, refusing to relinquish my claim, and began to walk towards Eoin’s cries—a siren in the fog—drawing her back with me. Then I heard her say my name, a murmur in the mist, and as the white began to dissipate, the shore began to show herself, and Anne became whole in my arms. I held her body high against my chest, keeping her from the grasping water and the hands of time. When we fell to the pebbled sand, arms locked around each other, Eoin tumbled into the cradle of our bodies, clinging to Anne as she clung to me.
“Where did you go, Mother?” he cried. “You left me! Doc left me too!”
“Shh, Eoin,” Anne soothed. “We’re all right. We’re here.” But she did not deny what the boy had witnessed. We lay in a panting pile—limbs and clothes and reassurances—until our hearts began to quiet and a sense of reality returned. Eoin sat up, his fear already forgotten, and pointed happily at the innocent red ball that had found its way back to shore.
He untangled himself, freeing us from his clinging arms and unanswered questions. Then he was off, scooping up his ball and heading towards the embankment. Brigid had grown tired of waiting for supper and was calling to us from the trees that separated the house from the shore. But she would have to wait a bit longer.
“You were there, walking into the water,” I whispered. “And then you grew faint . . . like a reflection in thick glass, and I knew you were going to disappear. You were going to leave, and I would never see you again.” I had come to terms with the impossible. I had joined Anne’s rebellion.
Anne lifted her face, pale and solemn, and found my eyes in the twilight. She searched my expression for the baptismal glow of the new believer, and I proceeded to bear testimony.
“You really aren’t Anne Finnegan, are you?”
“No, Thomas.” Anne shook her head, her gaze locked on mine. “No. I’m not. Anne Finnegan