The Stars Are Fire(39)



Grace snatches her wool coat off a hook and steps outside at the front of the house, and for a few minutes, she is free. She slides down the slippery hill of the driveway, crosses the coast road, stumbles through the brush, and arrives at the beach. In her haste, she forgot her gloves and hat. Her ears sting. She puts her hands into her coat pockets, where she finds a quarter. Where did that come from?

The sea has a chop to it that produces a deep blue-green. Living on the water is like watching a movie in color. She happens upon a large rock and sits on it and covers her ears until her hands are too cold.

She’s not sure she’s ever been this happy—with her children and her mother safely in a large house; with Aidan to help and to talk to. She remembers sitting at her kitchen table at Hunts Beach, smoking a cigarette, and staring at the sink. How lonely and grim that seems now.

“You forgot your hat and gloves.”

Aidan settles the hat on her head and hands her the gloves, and she realizes she wished him here.

“Thanks,” she says, glancing up at him. “My ears were stinging.”

“It’s pretty cold out,” he says, drawing his black wool coat tighter. He claps his gloved hands together. He wears a black watch cap.

“The children are in?” she asks.

“Tom got a snootful of snow and started to cry. I had to take them to your mother.”

“It looked like fun.”

“They’re wonderful.”

Grace smiles. “I agree.”

He stands beside her, staring out to sea. Perhaps he’s as mesmerized by the chop as she is. It makes the ocean seem alive.

“I’m always amazed that we’re not looking at England, but at Portugal,” she says. “And it’s warmer in London than it is here.”

“The Gulf Stream,” they say simultaneously.

“Do you ever wish you could go back to Ireland?” she asks.

“In the war, I went to every Allied country on the European front, which didn’t include Ireland or Switzerland because of their neutrality. Yes, I’d like to go back there sometime. I still have brothers there.”

“Do you?” Grace asks, surprised.

“Two of them. They were older than I and more settled when we left.”

“It must have been painful for your mother to leave them.”

“My parents planned to save money for their passage, but the oldest refused to leave and the other followed suit.”

“I can’t imagine growing up in a large family. I was an only child.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four,” Grace answers. “You?”

“Twenty-nine last September.”

“So you just travel from place to place whenever they need a pianist?”

“I’ve done it all,” he says. “Taught music in school, soloed with orchestras, tried to put some bands together.”

“You don’t mind not having a place to call home?”

“I didn’t used to.”

“It’s wonderful to have such dedication,” Grace says.

“It’s a gift. I won’t deny that. But I admire you.”

“What for?” she asks, squinting up at him.

“Finding a safe place for your family, keeping life sane when you must be worried sick about your husband.”


After dinner, Grace meanders into the sitting room with her book and is glad to see Aidan there.

“I’ll go out tomorrow and start looking for a job,” she announces. “There’s a bus I can take.”

“Where will you start?”

She tilts her head. “I’ll tell you when I get one.”

“I’m breathless with anticipation.”

She reaches a leg out and kicks his boot. “How is your search going?” she asks.

“I’ve half a dozen queries out. We’ll see what comes of them.”

“Where are you looking?” she asks. She notes his knitted vest of brown wool. Hand knit. A mother? A lover? A sister? A wife?

“Boston, New York, Chicago, Baltimore.”

“So far away?”

He sits up straight and clears his throat. “I’ve got to go where there are orchestras.”

“What are you reading?” she asks.

“It’s a biography of Antonin Dvo?ák.”

She doesn’t know who Antonin Dvo?ák is.

“He was a Czech composer. Brahms was his mentor. What are you reading?”

“The plays of Eugene O’Neill. I found the volume in the bookcase beside you. Right now I’m reading something called The Iceman Cometh.”

He nods.

“You know it?”

“Yes.”

“I try to picture the play as I read it,” she says. “O’Neill was Irish American.”

“Are you enjoying them?”

“He’s very dark and full of pain.”

“Our national heritage.”

“Are you dark and full of pain?” She means it as a joke.

“Sometimes.”


Grace’s evening conversations with Aidan often end abruptly. She wants to tell—ask him—so much more, but like in her exchanges with Gene, they talk in bits; unlike her exchanges with Gene, the bits fascinate her.

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