The police had discovered a business card inside my purse with my agent’s name, Barbara Cohen, printed directly below my own. They contacted her, the only person on earth who might know where I was or where I’d gone, and they’d been in constant touch throughout the investigation. When I called her the day after being released from the hospital, she cried across the miles, yelling and blowing her nose and telling me to come home immediately.
“I’m going to stay here, Barbara,” I said softly. Speaking was painful. It jarred my bruised spirit.
“What?” she gasped in the middle of her rant. “Why?”
“Ireland feels like home.”
“It does? But . . . you’re an American citizen. You can’t just live there. And what about your career?”
“I can write from anywhere,” I answered, and I winced. I’d said the same thing to Thomas. “I’ll apply for dual citizenship. My grandfather was born here. My mother was born here too. Citizenship shouldn’t be especially difficult to acquire.” I said the words as if I meant them, but everything felt difficult. Blinking was difficult. Speaking. Staying upright.
“But . . . what about your apartment here? Your things? Your grandfather’s home?”
“The best thing about money, Barbara, is that it makes so many things easier. I can hire someone to handle all of that for me,” I soothed, already desperate to get off the phone.
“Well . . . at least you have property there. Is it livable? Maybe you won’t need to buy a home.”
“What property?” I said wearily. I loved Barbara, but I was so tired. So very tired.
“Harvey mentioned your grandfather owned property there. I just assumed you knew. Haven’t you talked to Harvey?” Harvey Cohen was married to Barbara, and he just so happened to be Eoin’s estate lawyer. It was all a little incestuous, but it was also convenient and streamlined, and Harvey and Barbara were the best at what they did. It made sense to keep it all in-house.
“You know I haven’t talked to him, Barbara.” I hadn’t talked to anyone before I left. I’d shoved everything away, sending emails and leaving messages and avoiding everyone and everything. My heart picked up its pace, thundering clumsily, angry that I was making it move when it was so sore. “Is Harvey there now? If there’s a house, I want to know about it.”
“I’ll get him,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, and I could tell she was moving through her home. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle. “What happened to you, kiddo? Where have you been?”
“I guess I got lost in Ireland,” I murmured.
“Well,” she harrumphed. “Next time you decide to get lost, give the Cohens a heads-up, will you please?” She was back to her salty self when she handed Harvey the phone.
Harvey and Barbara flew to Ireland two days later. Harvey brought all Eoin’s personal papers, our family records, and documents—birth certificates, naturalization and medical records, deeds, wills, and financial statements. He even brought the box of unaddressed letters from Eoin’s desk drawer, stating that Eoin had been adamant that I have them. Eoin had named me executor of the Smith-Gallagher family trust—a trust I knew nothing about—of which I am the sole beneficiary. Garvagh Glebe and her surrounding properties were included in the trust. Thomas was a very wealthy man, he left Eoin a very wealthy man, and Eoin gave it all to me. I would give it all away to have one more day with either of them.
Garvagh Glebe belonged to me now, and I was desperate to return to her, even as I shuddered at the thought of living there alone.
“I’ve made all the calls,” Harvey said, checking his watch and eyeing the list in front of him. “We have a meeting at noon with the caretaker. You can walk through the property. It’s huge, Anne. I never understood Eoin’s attachment to it. It’s not a moneymaker, and he never visited. In fact, he didn’t want to talk about it at all. Ever. But he wouldn’t sell. However . . . he made no stipulation on your selling. I have an appraiser and a realtor scheduled to meet us there, just so you have an idea of what it’s worth. It will give you more options.”
“I need to go by myself,” I whispered. I didn’t bother to tell him I wouldn’t be selling the house under any circumstances.
“Why?” he gasped.
“Because.”
Harvey sighed, and Barbara bit her lip. They were worried about me. But there was no way I could walk through Garvagh Glebe, listening for Eoin, looking for Thomas, and seeing only the years that stretched between us. I couldn’t return to Garvagh Glebe with an audience. If Barbara and Harvey were worried about me now, it would be a hundred times worse when they saw me weeping as I haunted the halls of my home.
“You go ahead. Meet with the realtor and the appraiser. When you are finished, I will look through the house. By myself,” I suggested.
“What is it with this house?” Harvey groaned. “Eoin acted exactly the same way.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. And Harvey sighed and ran his hands through his white mane and looked around the sparsely populated dining room at the Great Southern Hotel.
“I feel like I’m on the bloody Titanic,” he grumbled.
I smiled wanly, surprising myself and them.
“You and Eoin had an incredible bond,” Harvey murmured. “He loved you so much. He was so proud of you. When he told me about his cancer, I knew you would be devastated. But you are scaring me, Anne. You aren’t just devastated. You’re . . . you’re . . .” He searched for the right word.
“You’re lost,” Barbara supplied.
“No, not lost,” Harvey argued. “You’re missing.”
Our eyes met, and he reached for my hand.
“Where are you, Anne?” he pressed. “Your spirit is gone. You seem so empty.”
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.