What the Wind Knows(79)

“Doc!” Eoin cried, his blue eyes searching the room for Thomas. “Doc, where are you?”

“Shh, Eoin,” I soothed. “Thomas isn’t back yet.”

“Where’s Doc?” he wept. He wasn’t whimpering. He was crying, the raw wails making my own eyes fill and spill over.

“He’ll be home soon, Eoin. Nana is here. I’m here. Everything is all right.”

“He’s in the water,” he moaned. “He’s in the water!”

“No, Eoin. No,” I said, even as my heart grew cold and heavy in my chest. I was to blame for Eoin’s nightmare this time. He hadn’t just seen me disappear; he’d seen Thomas disappear too.

After several minutes, Eoin’s body grew more pliant, but his tears continued as he sobbed with brokenhearted conviction.

I held him close, rubbing his back and stroking his hair.

“Would you like a story, Eoin?” I whispered, trying to coax him back from the edges of the nightmare and into the comfort of waking.

“I want Doc,” he cried. Brigid sat down on Eoin’s bed. She wore a ruffled nightcap that made her look like Mrs. Claus, and her face was creased and careworn in the meager light. She didn’t reach for Eoin but clasped her hands together as if she wished someone would hold her too.

“What if you tell me what Doc does to make you feel better when you have a bad dream?” I suggested.

Eoin continued to cry as if Thomas were never coming back.

“He sings to you, Eoin,” Brigid murmured. “Should I sing to you?”

Eoin shook his head, turning his face into my chest.

“He tamed the waters, tamed the wind, He saved a dying world from sin, they can’t forget, they never will, the wind and waves remember Him still,” Brigid warbled tentatively.

“He healed the sick, the blind, the lame, the poor in heart cry out His name. We can’t forget, we never will, the wind and waves remember Him still,” she continued.

“I don’t like that song, Nana,” Eoin said, his voice hitching with the sobs that still shuddered through him.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because it’s about Jesus, and Jesus died.”

Brigid looked a little shocked, and I felt inappropriate laughter bubbling in my chest.

“It’s not a sad song, though. It’s a song about remembering,” she protested.

“I don’t like remembering that Jesus died,” Eoin insisted, his voice rising. Brigid’s shoulders fell, and I patted her hand. She was trying, and Eoin wasn’t being especially receptive.

“Remember Him, remember when, remember that He’ll come again, when all the hope and love is lost, remember that He paid the cost,” Thomas sang softly from the doorway. “They can’t forget, they never will, the wind and waves remember Him still.”

Thomas’s pale eyes had dark circles, and his clothes were rumpled, but he walked forward and lifted Eoin from my arms. Eoin clung to him, burrowing his face in Thomas’s neck. His sobs rose again, gut-wrenching and unrelenting.

“What’s wrong, little man?” Thomas sighed. I stood, vacating my spot so Thomas could tuck Eoin back in his bed. Brigid stood as well, and with a soft good night, she walked quickly from the room. I followed, leaving Eoin in Thomas’s capable hands.

“Brigid?”

She turned toward me, her face tragic, her mouth tight.

“Are you all right?” I asked. She nodded briskly, but I could see that she was struggling for her composure.

“When my children were small, sometimes they would cry in their sleep like that,” she said. She paused, tangled in a memory. “My husband—Declan’s father—he wasn’t gentle the way Thomas is. He was bitter and tired. Anger was the only thing that kept him going. He worked himself into the ground; he worked us into the ground. And he had no patience for our tears.”

I listened, not commenting. It was almost as if she wasn’t talking to me at all, and I didn’t want to startle her.

“I wouldn’t let Eoin call Thomas Daddy. I couldn’t bear it. And Thomas has never complained. Now Eoin calls him Doc. I shouldn’t have done that, Anne. Thomas deserves more,” Brigid whispered. Her eyes found mine then, and there was a look of pleading in them that begged for absolution. I gave it to her, gladly.

“Thomas wants Eoin to know who his father was. He’s very protective of Declan,” I soothed.

She nodded. “Yes. He is. He looked after Declan the way he looks after everyone else.” Her eyes skittered away again. “My children . . . especially my sons . . . inherited their father’s temper. I know that Declan—Declan wasn’t always gentle with you, Anne. I want you to know . . . I don’t blame you for leaving when you had the chance. And I don’t blame you now for falling in love with Thomas. Any wise woman would.”

I stared at my great-great-grandmother, shocked beyond speech.

“You are in love with Thomas, aren’t you?” she asked, misinterpreting my stunned expression.

I didn’t answer. I wanted to defend Declan. To tell Brigid that Anne hadn’t left, that her beloved Declan hadn’t raised a hand to his wife or scared her away. But I didn’t know what was true.

“I think I’ve outlived my usefulness, Anne,” Brigid said, her tone brittle. “I’m making plans to go to America to live with my daughter. It’s time. Eoin has you. He has Thomas. And like my dear, departed husband, I’m no good with tears anymore.”