What the Wind Knows(25)
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.” The apology rang in the air for several moments before he continued. “I left you behind in Dublin. I looked for you. But I should have kept looking.” His voice was very soft, his face averted, his back rigid. I’d read his words, his account of the Rising. I’d felt his anguish. I felt it now, and I wanted to unburden him.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” I said, conviction ringing in my voice. “You took care of Eoin. And Brigid. You brought Declan home. You are a good man, Thomas Smith. A very good man.”
He shook his head, resistant, and when he spoke again, his voice was strained. “Your name is on his headstone. I buried your shawl beside him—the green one you loved. It was all I could find.”
“I know,” I soothed.
“You know?” He turned abruptly, and the grief I’d heard in his voice glittered in his eyes. “How do you know?”
“I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the grave at Ballinagar.”
“What happened to you, Anne?” he pressed, repeating the question he’d asked too many times.
“I can’t tell you,” I implored.
“Why?” The word was a frustrated cry, and I raised my voice to match it.
“Because I don’t know. I don’t know how I got here!” I was clinging to the edge of the sink, and there must have been enough truth or desperation in my face because he sighed heavily, running his hand through his now-tousled hair.
“All right,” he whispered. “Call to me when you’re done.” He left without another word, closing the bathroom door behind him, and I washed myself with shaking hands and trembling legs, more afraid than I’d ever been in my entire life.
Eoin and Brigid returned the next day. I heard Eoin scampering up the wide staircase and down again and heard Brigid telling him I was resting and not to disturb me. I’d been to the bathroom twice by myself, moving gingerly but with increasing confidence, brushing my teeth, and combing my own hair. I wanted to get dressed, to see Eoin, to move, but I had nothing to wear but the two borrowed nightgowns I’d been wearing through my convalescence. I was restless and weak, and I spent the day staring at the view beyond my two windows. The room I slept in was on the corner of the house, and I had a clear view of the front drive out one window and a nice view of the lake out the other. When I wasn’t staring at the leafy trees and the shimmering lake framed in their boughs, I was watching for Thomas to return down the canopied lane.
The man rarely slept. Someone had summoned him Sunday evening—a baby needed delivering—and I’d spent the night in the big house alone, exploring the main floor. Thomas had come to my room before he left, concerned that I was not well enough to be left by myself. I reassured him that I was fine. I didn’t tell him that I’d spent much of my adult life alone, and I didn’t need constant companionship.
I didn’t explore for long. My shuffling from the formal dining room to the huge kitchen and beyond, to the two rooms Thomas clearly used as an office and clinic, almost did me in. I wobbled to my bed, grateful beyond measure that the room I’d been given didn’t require climbing stairs.
The staff returned the next morning, and a young girl in a long, plain dress covered in a white apron, her blond hair braided down her back, came in with a tray of soup and bread at suppertime. She stripped my bed of the sheets and comforter while I ate, making it up again with quiet competence. When she finished, she turned, her eyes curious, her arms full of the soiled bedding.
“Can I do anything else for you, ma’am?” she asked.
“No. Thank you. Please call me Anne. What’s your name?”
“I’m Maeve, ma’am. I’ve just started. My older sisters, Josephine and Eleanor, work in the kitchen. And I’m here to help Moira, my other sister, clean. I’m a hard worker.”
“Maeve O’Toole?” My spoon clattered loudly against the porcelain bowl.
“That’s right, miss. My dad is the overseer for Dr. Smith. My brothers work outside; we girls work inside. There’s ten of us O’Tooles, though wee Bart is just a baby. Eleven if you count my great-grandmother, though she’s a Gillis, not an O’Toole. She’s so old, we might have to count her twice!” She laughed. “We live a little farther down the lane, behind the big house.”
I stared at the girl—twelve years old at the most—and tried to find the old woman in her features. I couldn’t. Time had transformed her so completely there was no obvious resemblance.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Maeve,” I stammered, trying to cover my shock. She beamed and bobbed her head, as if I were visiting royalty, and left the room.
She came back. Anne came back. That’s what Maeve had said. She hadn’t forgotten. I’d been a part of her history. Me. Not my great-grandmother. Anne Finnegan Gallagher hadn’t come back. I had.
23 May 1918
An anticonscription pledge was waiting for Irish signatures at the doors of every church in Ireland last month. The prime minister of England declared that Britain’s boys are in anguish, fighting on a fifty-mile front in France, and the Irish have no real grievance. Forced conscription into the British armed services is the current fear in every Irish home.
The British have begun a cat-and-mouse game of releasing political prisoners only to snatch them up again and rearrest them. They’ve also started arresting people for participating in any activity seen as promoting Irishism—traditional dancing, language classes, hurling matches—and fomenting anti-British sentiment.