“Not even that. She burned a joint of lamb, and from her reaction, you’d think she’d started an inferno that leveled the village.”
“Well then, your ma’s never been much of a cook.”
Meara snorted out a laugh, drank some beer. “She’s a terrible cook. Why she got it into her head to have a little dinner party for Donal and his girl is beyond me. Because it’s proper,” she said immediately. “In her world, it’s the proper thing, and she must be proper. She’s bits of Belleek and Royal Tara and Waterford all around, fine Irish lace curtains at the windows. And I swear she dresses for gardening or marketing as if she’s having lunch at a five-star. Never a hair out of place, her lipstick never smudged. And she can’t boil a potato without disaster falling.”
When she paused, drank, he patted her leg and said nothing.
“She’s living in a rental barely bigger than the garden shed where she lived with my father, keeps it locked like a vault in defense against the bands of thieves and villains she imagines lie in wait—and can’t think to open a bleeding window when she has a house full of smoke.”
“She called for you then.”
“For me, of course. She couldn’t very well call for Donal, as he was at his work, and I’m just playing with the horses. At my leisure.”
Then she sighed. “She doesn’t mean it that way, I know it, but it feels that way. She never worked at a job. She married my father when she was but a girl, and he swept her up, gave her a fine house with staff to tend it, showered her with luxuries. All she had to do was be his pretty ornament and raise the children—entertain, of course, but that was being a pretty ornament as well, and there was Mrs. Hannigan to cook and maids to see to the rest.”
Tired all over again, she looked down at her beer. “Then her world crashed down around her. It’s not a wonder she’s helpless about the most practical things.”
“Your world crashed down as well.”
“It’s different. I was young enough to adjust to things, and didn’t feel the shame she did. I had Branna and you and Boyle and Fin. She loved him. She loved Joseph Quinn.”
“Didn’t you, Meara?”
“Love can die.” She drank again. “Hers hasn’t. She keeps his picture in a silver frame in her room. It makes me want to scream bloody hell every time I see it. He’s never coming back to her, and why would she have him if he did? But she would.”
“It’s not your heart, but hers.”
“Hers holds on to an illusion, not to reality. But you’re right. It’s hers, not mine.”
She leaned her head back, closed her eyes.
“You got her settled again?”
“Cleaned up the mess—she’d swamped the kitchen floor with water and potatoes—and I can be grateful she’d forgotten to turn the flame on under the potatoes so I didn’t have that secondary disaster to deal with. She’ll be having dinner at Ryan’s Hotel with Donal and his girl now.”
He rubbed a hand on her thigh, soothing. “On your tab.”
“The
money’s the least of it. I rang Maureen, and had it out with her. It’s her turn, fuck it all. Mary Clare lives too far. But from Maureen’s, Ma could see Mary Clare and her children as well as come back here for visits. And my brother . . . His wife’s grand, but it would be easier for Ma to live with her own daughter than her son’s wife, I’m thinking. And Maureen has the room, and a sweet, easy-goer of a husband.”
“What does your mother want?”
“She wants my father back, the life she knew back, but as that’s not happening, she’d be happy with the children. She’s good with children, loves them, has endless patience with them. In the end Maureen came around, for at least a trial of it. I believe—I swear this is the truth—I believe it’ll be good for all. She’ll be a great help to Maureen with the kids, and they love her. She’ll be happy living there, in a bigger, finer house, and away from here where there are too many memories of what was.”
“I think you’re right on it, if it matters.”
She sighed again, drank. “It does. She’s not one who can live content and easy alone. Donal needs to start his life. I need to have mine. Maureen’s the answer to this, and she’ll only benefit from having her own mother mind the children when she wants to go out and about.”
“It’s a good plan, for all.” He patted her hand, then rose at the buzz of the timer. “Now it’s pizza for all, and you can tell me what’s all this about Cabhan.”
It wasn’t the evening she’d imagined, but she found herself relaxing, despite all. Pizza, eaten on the living room sofa, filled the hole in her belly she hadn’t realized was there until the first bite. And the second beer went down easy.
“As I told Branna, it was all soft and dreamy. I understand now what Iona meant when it happened to her last winter. It’s a bit like floating, and not being fully inside yourself. The cold,” she murmured. “I’d forgotten that.”
“The cold?”
“Before, right before. It got cold, all of a sudden. I even took my gloves out of my pocket. And the wind came up strong. The light changed. It had been a bright morning, as they said it would, but it went gray and gloomy. Clouds rolling over the sun, I thought, but . . .”