What the Wind Knows(57)

He’d already been seated at the table when I’d walked into the dining room that evening. He and Brigid had ignored me, and Eoin had patted the chair next to him, excited that I would be sitting by him for the first time. I’d almost fallen into the chair, sick and shocked. Thomas had come in a few moments later, and he’d been drawn into conversation with Liam, leaving me to shrink in petrified silence.

I’d excused myself as quickly as I could, but Eoin had slipped his hand in mine and begged me to give him his bath and a story. Brigid had agreed eagerly, clearly wanting to spend time with her son. Now I sit in Eoin’s room in the dark, watching him sleep, afraid to be alone, afraid to move at all.

I will have to tell Thomas. I will have to tell him Liam shot me. But he will want to know why I’d said nothing before. If I was Anne Gallagher, I would have recognized Liam. And Liam would have recognized Anne. Yet he’d tried to kill her. Me. Us.

A terrified moan slipped through my lips, and Eoin stirred. I pressed my hand over my mouth to muffle my distress. Liam hadn’t been afraid. He’d sat across the table from me and made small talk with Thomas and his mother, eating everything on his plate and asking for seconds. He must feel safe; I’d been at Garvagh Glebe for almost two months, and I hadn’t made a single accusation.

If I did, it was my word against his, and I was the one with the most to explain.

I spent the night sitting in the chair in Eoin’s room, too afraid to return to my own. Thomas found me there early the next morning. I was curled in an unnatural position, my neck stiff and my dress rumpled. He leaned over the chair and touched my cheek. I came awake gasping and flailing, and he shushed me, putting a hand to my mouth.

“Your bed hadn’t been slept in. I was worried,” Thomas said softly. “I thought—” He straightened, not finishing his sentence.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. I wasn’t the only one still dressed in the clothes from the night before.

“Robbie’s taken a turn for the worse. He needs a hospital. I think he’s got some swelling—maybe bone fragments—in his brain. I don’t have the facilities or the expertise to do what needs to be done. I’m taking him to Dublin.”

“Can I come with you?” I asked. I didn’t want to be left behind again. Not yet. Not with Liam Gallagher still lurking around. When the guns were gone, maybe he would go too, and I would have nothing to fear.

My question surprised Thomas. “You want to come with me to Dublin?”

“You drive, and I’ll do my best to take care of Robbie.”

He nodded slowly, as if considering.

“I wanna come too,” Eoin mumbled from his bed. “I’ll help take care of Robbie.”

“Not this time, Eoin,” Thomas soothed, sitting on Eoin’s bed and pulling him close for a quick embrace. “I miss you, lad. I would like nothing better than to bring you with me everywhere I go. But Robbie’s very sick. This won’t be an outing you would enjoy.”

“But Mother will enjoy it?” Eoin asked doubtfully.

“No. She won’t enjoy it either. But I might need her help.”

“But we’re working on our book,” Eoin protested. “She’s writing a new adventure for Eoin Gallagher.”

The book for his birthday had been a great hit. I’d written another and was working on a third, and Eoin had already asked for adventures in Japan and New York and Timbuktu.

“Are you leaving room for pictures?” Thomas asked.

Eoin nodded. “At the bottom. You’ll never catch up, Doc,” he said sadly.

“I promise I will. And you might want to try drawing some of the pictures too,” Thomas suggested. “Your drawings always make me smile.”

Eoin yawned and nodded. Rejected and still sleepy, he rolled over, and Thomas pulled the covers over his shoulders. I kissed Eoin’s cheek and whispered my devotion, and we crept out.

“We need to leave as quickly as possible. I’ll have Daniel help me get Robbie to the car. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?” Thomas asked.

I nodded eagerly and started down the hall, making a mental list.

“Anne?”

“Yes?”

“You’ll need to pack a nice dress. The red one. There’s a suitcase in the closet beneath the stairs.”

I nodded, not questioning him, and raced to my room.



The drive between Dublin and Dromahair took much longer than it had in 2001. Dirt roads, lower speeds, and a patient in the rear seat all contributed to a stressful ride. However, traffic was minimal, and I was not the one behind the wheel dodging oncoming traffic and praying for deliverance like I’d done a lifetime ago. We stopped once for gas—petrol—and I had to disembark because the gas tank, much to my surprise, was located under the front seat. Thomas noted my surprise and frowned, asking, “Where else would it be?”

Three and a half hours after we left Dromahair, we arrived in Dublin. I should have been prepared for the clothes and the cars, the streets and the sounds, but I wasn’t. Thomas remarked with relief at the absence of checkpoints—the most glaring sign of the truce. I could only nod and stare, trying to take it all in. It was nine on a Friday morning, and Dublin was dingy, dilapidated, and completely unrecognizable until we neared the center of the city. The old pictures I’d studied were suddenly bustling backdrops; the black-and-white photos were now drenched in life and color. Sackville had been renamed O’Connell Street—I remembered that much—and Nelson’s Pillar had not yet been blown up. The post office was a burned-out shell, and my eyes clung to its skeletal remains. From what I remembered of the maps of 1916 Dublin—one of which was still pinned to my office wall—I didn’t think we were taking the most direct route to the Mater Hospital. I suspected Thomas wanted to gauge my reaction to the war zone. If my wonder confused him, he kept it hidden.