“Do you want to go back, Anne?” Thomas asked. His voice was gentle, but I could feel his tension in the weight of his arms.
“Do you think I get to choose, Thomas? I didn’t choose to come. So what if I can’t choose whether or not I go?” My voice was timorous and small; I didn’t want to wake time or fate with my musings.
“Don’t go in the lough,” he begged. “If you stay out of the lough . . .” His voice trailed off. “Your life could be here, Anne. If you want it to be, your life could be here.” I could hear the strain in his voice, his reluctance to ask me to stay, even though I was sure it was what he wanted.
“One of the best things about being a writer, about being a storyteller, is that it can be done in any time and in any place,” I whispered. “I just need a pencil and some paper.”
“Ah, lass,” he murmured, protesting my capitulation, even as his heart quickened against my cheek. “I love you, Manhattan Annie. I do. I’m afraid that love will only bring us pain, but it doesn’t change the truth now, does it?” he said.
“And I love you, Tommy Dromahair,” I replied, glib and unwilling to talk of pain or hard truths.
His chest rumbled with laughter. “Tommy Dromahair. That I am. And I’ll never be anything else.”
“Niamh was a fool, Thomas. She should have told poor Oisín what would happen if he set foot on Irish soil.” His hands rose to my hair, and he began to loosen my braid. I tried not to purr as he separated my curls, spreading them over my shoulders.
“Maybe she wanted him to choose,” Thomas argued, and I knew it was what he expected me to do, without pressure from him.
“Then maybe she should have let him know what was at stake, so he could,” I chided, rubbing my lips across his throat. Thomas’s breath hitched, and I repeated the action, enjoying his response.
“We’re arguing about a fairy tale, Countess,” he whispered, his hands tightening in my hair.
“No, Thomas. We’re living in one.”
He rolled me beneath him abruptly, and the fairy tale took on new life and new wonder. Thomas kissed me until I began to float up, up, up before drifting down, down, down, sinking into him as he welcomed me home.
“Thomas?” I moaned into his mouth.
“Yes?” he murmured, his body thrumming beneath my hands.
“I want to stay,” I panted.
“Anne,” he demanded, swallowing my sighs and caressing my cares away.
“Yes?”
“Please don’t go.”
October 20, 1921, fell on a Thursday, and Thomas brought home presents—a gramophone with a wind-up crank and several classical recordings, a long coat to replace the one I’d lost in Dublin, and a newly published book of Yeats poetry. Hot off the presses. He quietly put the gifts in my room, probably worried that I would be uncomfortable with his generosity, but he instructed Eleanor to make an apple cake with custard sauce and invited the O’Tooles to dinner, making the meal a celebration. Brigid obviously didn’t remember when her daughter-in-law’s birthday had been, and she didn’t balk at all when Thomas insisted on a party.
Eoin was more excited for me than he’d been for his own birthday, and he asked if Thomas was going to hold me upside down and administer my “birthday bumps,” knocking my head against the floor for every year of my life and once more for the year to come. Thomas laughed and said birthday bumps were for laddies and lassies, and Brigid scolded Eoin for his impertinence. I whispered to Eoin that he could give me thirty-one kisses instead and a tight squeeze for the year to come, and he climbed up into my lap and dutifully complied.
The O’Tooles didn’t bring gifts, thankfully, but they each offered a blessing and took a turn bestowing them on me after the meal was consumed, with their cups raised high.
“May you live a hundred years with an extra year to repent,” Daniel O’Toole quipped.
“May angels linger at your door. May your troubles be less, and your blessings be more,” Maggie added.
“May your face remain bonny and your arse never grow bony,” was a blessing bestowed by Robbie, who hadn’t yet regained a sense of what was appropriate. I laughed into the handkerchief Brigid had adorned with the letter A, and a new blessing was hastily offered by another