What the Wind Knows(23)

For three days, I lay in discomfort and denial, sleeping when I could and staring at the flowered walls when I could not. I listened to the house and begged it to take me into its confidence, to reveal the secrets I didn’t know and to confess the details I should know, the pieces that were scattered like bits of paper in the wind, impossible to recapture. With all the innocent ambivalence of a child, I hadn’t thought to ask Eoin about his early life. Growing up, I was immersed in the world he built for me—a world that was filled with all the accoutrements of childhood. I was the center of his universe. I had never thought about the time before, when he had existed separate from me, without me. But he had. And I realized how little I knew of that life.

There were moments I wept in fear, pulling the blankets up over my face to hide and tremble beneath a comforter that should not—did not—really exist. These people—Thomas, Brigid, Eoin—they didn’t exist. Not anymore. Yet here they were, as alive as I was, flesh and bone and feelings, moving through days that were already past. And then the tears would begin again.

I was half convinced I was dead, that I’d died on the lake and gone to a strange heaven where Eoin existed as a child again. Ultimately, that was the thought that glimmered and grew, a spark that became a flame, warming me and calming the crazed circling of my thoughts. Eoin was here, in this place. In my world, he was gone. Here, we were together again, just like he’d promised we would be. Eoin made me want to stay, if only for a while.

Thomas checked on me frequently, changing my bandages and checking for infection. “You’ll be fine, Anne. Sore. But fine. No serious damage was done.”

“Where’s Eoin?” I asked. The boy had not been in to see me since that first night.

“Brigid has gone to her sister’s in Kiltyclogher for a few days.”

“Kiltyclogher,” I repeated, trying to remember where I’d heard it before. “Seán Mac Diarmada was born in Kiltyclogher,” I said, pulling the factoid from the recesses of my mind.

“He was. His mother, Mary, was a McMorrow. She and Brigid are sisters.”

“Declan and Seán were cousins?” I marveled.

“They were. Anne, you know this.”

I could only shake my head in incredulous denial. Why had Eoin kept so much of his history from me? Such an important family connection, and he’d never divulged it. Brigid McMorrow Gallagher. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head, but not before a little honesty slipped from my lips.

“Brigid wants to keep Eoin from me,” I whispered.

“Yes,” Thomas answered, unapologetic. “Can you blame her?”

“No.” I understood Brigid perfectly. I wouldn’t trust me either. But I was not guilty of Anne’s sins, whatever they might be. “I’d like a bath. Would that be possible?” I needed a bath. Desperately. My hair was lank and limp against my back, and I smoothed it self-consciously.

“No. Not yet. You need to keep your wound dry.”

“Maybe I can just wash a little? With a cloth? Brush my teeth, maybe wash my hair?”

His eyes fell on the tangled mess and quickly looked away. He nodded. “If you feel strong enough, then yes. But the help is gone. Even Brigid is not here to assist you.”

I didn’t want Brigid to assist me. She’d entered my room once like a frigid wind and left a draft in her wake. She wouldn’t look directly at me, not even when she’d helped me into an ancient nightgown that tied at my throat and hung to my ankles.

“I can do it myself, Thomas.”

“Not your hair, you can’t. You’ll pull the stitches from your side. I’ll do it,” he said stiffly, drawing back the blankets and helping me rise. “Can you walk?”

I nodded, and he held my arm as I shuffled to the bathroom he’d carried me to several times in the last few days. My persistent, ordinary need to pee was one of the things that had convinced me I wasn’t dreaming. Or dead.

“Teeth first, please,” I said.

Thomas set a small wooden brush with short bristles and a tube, not unlike the toothpaste I was familiar with, on the sink. The bristles were some sort of animal hair, and they were rough. I tried not to think too much about it or the soapy taste of the paste. I scrubbed carefully, finishing with my finger to avoid making myself bleed. Thomas waited for the warm water to gurgle through the pipes, though I caught him watching me, a small furrow between his brows.

When I was finished, Thomas moved a wooden stool of medium height next to the enormous claw-foot tub and eased me down onto it. I wrapped Brigid’s ill-fitting old nightgown around me and tried to lean over the edge of the large tub, but the angle made me hiss in pain.

“I don’t think I can bend over yet.”

“Stand. Hold on to the side, and I’ll do the rest.”

The angle was better with me on my feet, but I was wobbly and weak, and the weight of my head was uncomfortable. I let it fall against my chest as he began to fill a porcelain pitcher and pour the water over my head, following the lukewarm stream with steady hands.

It felt wonderful, the warmth and his gentle ministrations, but I felt so undignified as I tried to keep the voluminous nightgown from getting wet while I struggled to stay upright that I started to laugh. I felt Thomas become still beside me.

“Am I doing it wrong?” he asked.