What the Wind Knows(106)

I wasn’t just grieving for my grandfather. I was grieving for the little boy he’d been. For the mother I’d been to him. For my husband. For my life. I wasn’t empty, I was drowning. I was still in the lough.

“She just needs time, Harvey. Give her time,” Barbara protested.

“Yes,” I agreed, nodding. “I just need time.” I needed time to take me back, to whisk me away. Time was the one thing I wanted and the one thing no one could give me.



“Are you related to the O’Tooles, by any chance?” I asked the young caretaker when Harvey and his entourage drove away. The caretaker couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and there was something in the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders that made me think he belonged in the family tree. He’d introduced himself as Kevin Sheridan, but the name didn’t fit him.

“Yes, ma’am. My great-grandfather was Robert O’Toole. He was the caretaker here for years. My mother—his granddaughter—and my father took care of the place when he died. Now it’s my turn . . . for as long as you need me, that is.” A cloud passed over his features, and I knew the sudden interest in the property was concerning to him.

“Robbie?” I asked.

“Yes. Everyone called him Robbie. My mother says I look like him. I’m not sure that’s a compliment. He wasn’t much to look at—only had one eye—but his family loved him.” He was trying to be self-deprecating, to make me laugh at his unimpressive lineage, but I could only gape at him, stricken. He did look like Robbie. But Robbie was gone now. They all were.

Kevin must have seen how close I was to crumbling, and he left me alone to wander around, promising he would be on the grounds if I needed him and mentioning in a cheerful, tour-guide tone that Michael Collins himself had stayed at Garvagh Glebe many times.

I wandered for close to an hour, moving silently through the rooms, looking for my family, for my life, and finding only pieces and parts, whispers and wisps of a time that existed only in my memory. Each room had an emptiness and an expectancy that pulled at me. New king-sized beds heaped with pillows and comforters that coordinated with the updated window coverings were the centerpiece in every room. One or two pieces of the original furniture remained to give each chamber a touch of nostalgia—Thomas’s writing table and his chest of drawers, Eoin’s rocking horse and a high shelf of his “antique” toys, and Brigid’s vanity and her Victorian chair, which was reupholstered in a similar floral fabric. My gramophone and the huge wardrobe still stood in my old room. I opened the doors and stared at the empty interior, remembering the day Thomas had come home from Lyons with all the things he thought I needed. That was the night I knew I was in trouble, in danger of losing my heart.

The oak floors and cabinets in the kitchen were the same but had been resurfaced and were gleaming. The stately staircase and the oak balustrade remained, warm and reliable with years and use. The baseboards and the moldings had all been maintained, the walls painted, and the countertops and appliances upgraded to reflect the times. It smelled like lemons and furniture polish. I breathed deeply, trying to find Thomas, to coax him from the walls and the wood, but I couldn’t smell him. Couldn’t feel him. I moved on trembling legs toward his library, to the shelves filled with books that he wouldn’t read anymore, and halted at the door. A painting, framed in an ornate oval, hung on the wall where a pendulum clock used to toll away the hours.

“Miss Gallagher?” Robbie called from the foyer. Not Robbie. Kevin. It was Kevin. I tried to answer him, to tell him where I was, but my voice shook and broke. I wiped desperately at my eyes, trying to find my composure, but I was unsuccessful. When Kevin found me in the library, I pointed up at the picture, overcome.

“Uh . . . well, that’s a picture of the Lady of the Lough,” he explained, trying not to look at me and call attention to my tears. “She’s famous around here. As famous as an eighty-year-old ghost can be, I suppose. The story goes that she only lived at Garvagh Glebe for a little while. She drowned in Lough Gill. Her husband was devastated and spent years painting pictures of her. This is the one he kept. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? She was a lovely woman.” He hadn’t noticed the resemblance, proof that people weren’t very observant. Or maybe I wasn’t especially lovely now.

“She never returned?” I whimpered, my voice a childlike cry. Jim Donnelly had said the same thing.

“No, ma’am. She, uh, she drowned. So she never returned,” he stammered, handing me a handkerchief. I grabbed it, desperate to stem my tears.

“Ma’am, are you all right?”

“It’s just sad,” I whispered. I turned my back on the picture. She never returned. I never returned. God help me.

“Yes. But it was a long time ago, miss.”

I couldn’t tell him it was only a week and a handful of days.

“Mr. Cohen told me you lost someone recently. I’m sorry, ma’am,” he added softly. Kindly.

I nodded, and he hovered nearby until I regained control.

“I know what Mr. Cohen said, Robbie. But I’m not selling Garvagh Glebe. I’m going to be staying here. Living here. I still want you to remain on as caretaker. I will raise your salary for any inconvenience that causes, but we won’t be renting out the rooms. Not for a while . . . all right?”