The Boatman's Wife(80)

We. That’s what he had said. Including you in the family. I guess, my dad came to love you like a son. I think you knew that, didn’t you?

I left Maine because I was so angry with my dad. I couldn’t look at him, Connor, because I blamed him for your death. But he and Mom lost you too. Now when I think about it all the rage is gone. I’m grieving and all I need is them so bad.

I am writing all this down for myself. Afterwards, like all the other letters I’ve written you since you’ve been lost, I’ll tear it up into little pieces and burn it, so that all my words to you become ashes. It’s a small ritual of departure, of saying goodbye from me to you. At first when they never found your body, I desperately wanted them to, so we could have a coffin and I could cling to it and let out all my grief. I wanted to have an urn of ashes to carry all the way to Ireland and throw into the wind off the edge of Mullaghmore Head. But all I have are the letters I’ve been writing you every day. All my anger, regret, and love, love, love for a man I will never be able to hold again.

I look out the airplane window, and we begin to descend to land. We are flying above the ocean. I watch the steady motion of the waves, relentlessly pushing in towards land, and pulling away. They move in rhythm to my breath. All I can do from now on is just breathe, in and out, just like our wide blue Atlantic Ocean.





Chapter Twenty-Six





Sedona, Arizona, 15th August 1998





Niamh had travelled as far away from the sea as she could go, to a place so different from home. As soon as she got out of the truck in Sedona and surveyed the arid landscape, red boulders, and cloudless blue sky, she decided to stop running and stay put for a while. The landscape felt so alien. Here, she hoped she could forget about who she was.

Yet still the green fields, the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean, haunted her. In the face of every baby, she saw Connor.

She could never forget that terrible day. She’d driven like a zombie back towards the checkpoint with Connor screaming in the back of the car. She’d pulled in and placated him with a biscuit, and a drink of milk in his beaker. Tears had streamed down her cheeks, and Connor had grabbed on to her hair, tugging it. His big brown eyes had been hooked on her; her own fear reflected in them.

She’d held him tight. Hugged him fiercely, his heart beating fast against her chest. She’d inhaled the scent of his soft hair, felt his cheeks damp from their tears mixed together. Gradually, she’d began to calm down. All that mattered was protecting Connor.

By the time she reached the checkpoint, Connor was already asleep. The soldiers waved her on without stopping her.

As she neared her home, speeding around the twists and turns of the country roads, bumping through potholes and not caring if she damaged her car, Niamh knew what she must do. Leave. Take Connor, and hopefully her mother, and leave Ireland. Now was the time to go get Jesse’s address from Joseph O’Reilly. Pride had stopped her before, but their situation was desperate.

The bad feeling came upon her again as she passed the graveyard where her daddy was buried. Her body tensed with dread as she pulled into the drive and saw a strange car parked next to her mam’s An Post van. Its registration plate was northern.

She began to shake uncontrollably. Should she drive away? But what about her mam?

Niamh took a breath, and got out of the car. She unstrapped Connor, who was fast asleep, and gently lifted him up. He stirred, wrapping his arms around her neck, and sticking his thumb in his mouth.

The back door was open, and to Niamh’s relief, Pixie came trotting across the kitchen to greet her before retreating to her basket. But she could sense the tension as she pushed open the door into the front room. Her mam was sitting on her father’s chair, rigid and pale. On the couch opposite was Deirdre and the man she’d been kissing the day Niamh had driven her across the border with the explosives. He had an AK-47 laid across his lap. The same type of gun as the ones Niamh smuggled.

‘Well, there she is,’ Deirdre said, raising her eyebrows at Niamh. ‘Johnny and I’ve been waiting with your mam a wee while, so we have.’

Niamh wanted to rush at her and scratch her eyes out. Brendan was dead. Tadhg was dead. But her eyes were on the AK-47, which the man was cradling in his lap.

‘What’re you doing here?’ Niamh managed to ask.

‘Johnny and I want the guns, Niamh, then we’ll be on our way, so we will,’ Deirdre said.

Niamh sensed her mam’s head turn, the heat of her gaze. Connor was a dead weight in her arms. But she wasn’t letting go of him.

‘I don’t have them,’ she said.

Deirdre gave her a cold stare. She had the eyes of a lizard.

‘I left them with Brendan.’

She heard her mam’s gasp of disapproval. But all Niamh could think about was Brendan’s shot-up body. Had it been Johnny who’d done the deed?

‘Sure, you know that’s bollocks,’ Deirdre said evenly.

Silence pooled around Niamh. She should be protecting her mam and Connor, but she was also raging. She let her gaze drop to the gun and then stared back at Deirdre. She wanted Deirdre to say it out loud, to say why she knew Brendan couldn’t have the guns.

Eventually, Johnny stood up impatiently, waving his AK-47 around. ‘Where’s the fucking bag of guns, girl?’

Her mam shrank back in her chair.