hand.
“Peyton . . . he’s the man I’m marrying.” Why was I having this discussion with a woman who still had oatmeal from breakfast on her chin?
“No . . . go back. Before him. Before the first kiss. Before the first time you said you loved him. Back further.”
“What?” Yes, she was mad. “Before what?” I asked, groping for some appropriate response.
“Back to the first boy who gave you butterflies. The first boy you wrote about in your diary; the one you loved, really loved. Not the first boy you slept with, but the first boy you dreamed about.”
“Slept with? Why, Mrs. Mahoney.” I covered my mouth with my palm. Where was she going with this?
“Yes, before him.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t have to reach that far back—he lay like the cornerstone of my memories, as if all the others were formed on top of his. His name rolled off my tongue as though I’d said it yesterday. “Jack Sullivan.”
“Yes, him. That far back. What happened to him?” Maeve leaned forward in a quick movement.
“I haven’t seen him since I was fourteen years old.” I looked at her.
Then a tear dropped from her eye, ran to the top of her cheek and joined the oatmeal on her chin. I reached for a Kleenex on her wooden bedside table and wiped both from her face. A slow wave of something painful and lost long ago overcame me. If I was forced to define it, I’d have called it hopelessness.
“Why not?” she said, or maybe sang.
“What?” I threw the Kleenex in the wicker wastebasket.
“Why haven’t you seen him?”
I shrugged. I would not discuss Jack Sullivan.
Mrs. Mahoney took a deep breath. “He lived across the lane. His father and brothers were involved in the ‘troubles,’ and my mother disapproved. Before he left, he told me he loved me and would come back for me. And I knew he would.”
“Did he?” I glanced again at my watch—one minute remaining until I had to leave to meet the dressmaker downtown.
Mrs. Mahoney sighed, picked up the book, then placed it back on her lap. “Did he what?” she asked.
“Come back for you?”
“Who?”
“The boy across the lane,” I said, then blew a long breath.
“You need to find him.” She lifted both hands in the air, as if in supplication.
“Who?”
“The boy across the lane.”
“Mrs. Mahoney, I don’t know the boy across the lane.”
“Not my boy. Your boy.” She rolled her eyes, as if I exasperated her and not the other way around.
“He lived next door, not across the lane,” I said. We had obviously steered into the land of confusion. “I’ve got to get going, Mrs. Mahoney. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Ahya,” she said, “you be thinking about what I said now, won’t you? I don’t want to be the only one telling stories around here. We trade stories, you and I. You know, when you start to think about things, talk about them . . . they happen.”
“Oh?” I stood.
“You know, dear, everything happens for a reason. You’ve been sent to me, I do believe. Yes, I do believe that. You look much like me in my younger days—dark waves of hair, green eyes, marrying the right man. Now you be careful what you believe—it is who you are.”
“What?” I gathered my satchel, looked down at Maeve.
“You will help me, I know you will.”
“Well . . . ,” I said, “I will visit you. I promise. I’m not sure how much I can help you, though.”
“Oh, we’ll get to that in good time. We will. As I tell you the story, we’ll get to that. There has to be a way to find him now.”
I nodded, not knowing what else to do, and completely unsure who she wanted me to find. She lifted her right hand as though she were giving a benediction. “An áit a bhfuil do chroí is ann a thabharfas do chosa thú.”
Gibberish, I was sure. So I nodded and smiled at her.
“It means, Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.” Her eyes slid shut.
A sinking feeling of inadequacy overwhelmed me. I had no idea what language she was speaking, but it wasn’t mine.
I left Verandah House and ran out to the car—the Mercedes Daddy had given me when he bought his new Ford F-150 after he decided he was truly a pickup truck kind of man. Which is absolutely not the kind of man he was; a Mercedes was just his style. But what twenty-seven-year-old woman in her right mind