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“They’ve still not resolved that?”

“Not so’s anyone could see. The tub’s out
back. I saved the last pail so’s it would go in hot for ya,
Da.”

“Thank you,
leanbha
. I can’t think
of a thing that’ll do this broken down body more good at the
moment. Tell yer mum I’ll be over directly, eh? And
Papin?”

The girl turned and gave him a questioning
look before leaving the porch.

“Go easy on her, will ya? This isn’t the
easiest time for her.”

“Nor for none of us, Da,” Papin said,
shrugging. She turned and left.

The dinner that night was quieter than
usual. Mike chalked it up to the fact he was so tired he could
barely lift his fork. That, and the usual chatter the family could
always count on from Papin was not forthcoming.

Whatever fight she had had with Sarah, Mike
thought, must have been serious. When John and Papin excused
themselves to go to their rooms for the night, he was relieved to
be able to talk to Sarah alone. She made tea and brought two cups
out to the porch for them. It was a fine night and quiet, only the
soft murmurings of the gypsy men still sitting by the central
campfire and their gentle guitar strumming breaking the night’s
calm.

Mike took a sip from his mug and nodded his
thanks to Sarah. She looked tired, too, although it could be
emotion, he realized. She worked hard on the best of days. Still
feuding with Fi and now a row with Papin…

“We’re not fighting,” Sarah said.

He frowned. “Eh?”

“Papin and me. You acted
like you were on eggshells all through dinner. We didn’t have
words.”

“Well, then, what’s going on?”

Sarah sighed and looked
out at the night camp, as if trying to memorize the images in order
to recall them many nights later—air-conditioned nights with the
sounds of the telly coming in from the salon, Mike
thought.

“Fi caught her making out with one of the
camp boys.”

“Making out?”

“Do you not have that
phrase over here? It means—”

“I know what it means,
Sarah. When she was supposed to be watching the bairns?”

“Exactly.”

“What’s going on with her?
Is it my imagination or has she started to act the maggot ever
since you announced you were taking her back with you?”

“I don’t know. I also don’t know how to
handle it.” She looked at him. “Fi suggested you spank her.”

He grimaced. “She’s had
enough of being hit,” he said. “I’d rather make her whitewash the
entire camp.”

“Like Tom Sawyer?”

Mike gave her a
questioning look.

“Never mind. And I agree, I think that’s the
best way to handle it, too, but what with us leaving in two weeks,
well, she doesn’t feel like anyone’s really in charge of her
now.”

Mike didn’t say anything.

“You know, Mike, speaking
of that, it occurred to me that I’m being very unfair to you by
taking Papin and John away. You love them like your own and I’m
just…
removing
them where you’ll never…or… likely never…”

“Whisht, Sarah,” Mike
said. “It can’t be helped. I know that.”

But it could be helped.

“I just hate this.”

“Let’s leave it, shall we?
There’s nothing for it, so let’s stop picking at it. In the
meantime, I’ll put wee Papin to work where she’ll be too busy to
get into trouble. And mebbe, by the time you get her back home,
she’ll be too distracted by the newness of everything and she’ll
settle right down.”

Yeah,
sure
. But he watched the hope in Sarah’s
eyes and he realized how tense she was, herself, about leaving. He
and Fiona had kept her so busy trying to explain why she was
leaving, that he hadn’t stopped to think about her having to
process her own grief about leaving.

Nothing’s ever easy, that’s for sure.

If this had been a normal day in their
lives, the two of them discussing one of the kids and what’s to be
done, he’d have leaned over and kissed her to end the day as
sweetly as he knew how. They didn’t often kiss. He could definitely
count the times. He could also tell she wanted him to kiss her, but
for reasons he couldn’t explain—and he didn’t want to hear—she
pulled away too.

Now of all times, with her
leaving, he knew if he wanted to—
don’t I
want to?—
he could not only kiss her
without worrying about being rebuffed, he could probably take her
to bed, something he’d thought of pretty much nonstop since the
moment he’d laid eyes on her.

Only the knowing of
why
she’d finally do it,
because she knew she was saying goodbye to him for good, well, that
pretty much took the desire and the pleasure in the idea of it and
nailed it facedown to a bloody tree.

5

She couldn’t blame him. As
Sarah watched Mike walk across the camp, stopping briefly to talk
to a few of the gypsy men still by the campfire, she found a
deepening sense of disappointment fill her. If there was ever a
night when she wanted, needed, Mike to take her into his arms and
help her forget what she was doing, what was going to happen in two
weeks,
this
was
the night. She had hoped he wouldn’t be too tired or too
discouraged by the thought of her leaving, that perhaps together
they could have shared their grief, finally express their
love.

In many ways, it seemed to
her that he was always just out of reach. She knew at least up to
now she had been the reason for that. Tonight she had given him
every silent cue she could to communicate that an overture on his
part would be welcome, short of launching herself at him, which she
didn’t feel she could do. If he wasn’t up for it—what with her
leaving—she could understand that. As she turned to go back inside
the cottage, she found herself thinking,
doesn’t he know I want what he wants? How could he spend the
last year with me and not know how I feel?

She closed the heavy
cottage door on the creeping chill of the night.

But because I’ve had to
make the decision to walk away, I don’t get to feel regret or
longing or sadness about what I’m leaving behind.

It’s so unfair.

“Mom?”

Sarah walked to John’s doorway and peeked
inside. “Hey, sweetie. It’s late. I thought you’d be asleep.”

“Uncle Mike go home?”

“Yep.”

“Aren’t you gonna miss him?”

“I am, sweetie. Very
much.”

“What about Dad?”

Sarah moved into John’s
bedroom and sat down on his bed. She put a hand on his cheek. There
had been a time when she wondered if she would need to have a
conversation with John about Mike perhaps someday moving in with
them if she and Mike were to…but those thoughts had vanished, and
the worry about having to have that conversation, too, the day she
got the news of the US helicopter in Limerick.

“What about him?”

“Are we just gonna leave
him behind, too?”

An image of David’s grave
came to her mind and tears sprang to her eyes. She leaned over and
hugged her boy and kissed his cheek. “Go to sleep, angel,” she
said. “No room left in this day for any more worries.”

“G’nite, Mom.”

“Good night, John.”

***

Brian pulled the flap of
his sleeping bag over his face and turned his back to the campfire.
The nights were fine lately, being summer and all, but it still
felt good to have the warmth of the fire to his back. The long day
of labor felt good too, as did the warmth with which he was
received back at camp when he’d trudged in after the day’s work.
This place was more than he could have hoped for or imagined
finding. It was, in fact, everything he needed or wanted—with a few
notable exceptions, of course.

Mike Donovan walked past
him on his way back from the American widow’s place to his own
hut.
So at least he had the decency to
keep up appearances
, Brian thought. He
waited until the big man had climbed the steps to his hut and shut
the door behind him before he closed his eyes.

All in due time, he
reminded himself as the distant strumming of the gypsies’ guitars
began to lure him off to sleep.

All in due time.

Mike broke his fast at
Fiona and Dec’s the next morning. It gave him a chance to ask
Declan’s opinion of the animal tracks Gavin had discovered near the
north perimeter of the camp. And to intervene, if he needed to, in
Fiona’s ongoing war with Sarah. He intended to remind her of how
long they had been friends and how hard this was on Sarah. He
expected her to be open to hearing that Sarah wasn’t happy about
leaving either. Not really.

“Don’t fash yourself,
brother dear,” Fiona said as she scraped a portion of scrambled
eggs onto his plate. “Sarah and I kissed and made up hours ago so
you can take me off your to-do list and put your mind to more
important camp leadership tasks. Like finding out who’s been
stealing the whiskey barrels and now us without any decent storage
vessels. You know barrel-making used to be considered a skill in
the old days?”

Mike dug into his
breakfast, concentrating on not noticing how Declan couldn’t seem
to keep his hands off his sister, even as she was trying to pull
hot rolls out of the oven.

“Mind yourself, Dec,” she said, laughing.
“Let me at least straighten up.”

“And let me clear out of the house first,”
Mike growled.

“Aww nah, the two of yas,”
Dec said settling into the chair at the table. “I’m just starting
my day in rare form. What a glorious day it is, is it not, brother?
The corn is high and the sun shines and I have the love of a good
woman. Kill me now. I’ll not need for anything more.”

Fiona tumbled three rolls
onto each of their plates, then shocked Mike by plopping herself
down in Declan’s lap to butter and eat one of the rolls while
inside his embrace.

“Oh, get on with you, Mike
Donovan,” she laughed when she saw him staring. “We’re newlyweds,
ya wally.”

Declan bounced her on his knee, prompting
schoolgirl squeals and giggles that brought Mike out of his
chair.

“Right,” he said, wolfing
down the last bite on his plate. “Remind me to have breakfast from
now on with old Joe McGillems. Dec, I’ll see you in the
field.”

As he exited Fiona’s
cottage, a biscuit in one hand, he watched several of the families
walking out of camp toward the fields. By his current calculations,
they’d finish up sooner than the week, although whether that was
because there wasn’t as much corn as he’d estimated or because
people were working faster than he expected, he wasn’t
sure.

He spotted Gavin and Brian
Gilhooley walking together, both with long raffia bags draped from
their shoulders.

“Morning, Da. Heading out, are you?”

Mike nodded to Gilhooley,
who slowed his pace as Gavin did as if they were mates and he
wouldn’t carry on walking if Gavin decided to visit a spell with
his father.

“In a bit. It looks like
rain later so we’ll need to get as much as we can done
today.”

“Da, Brian here was talking about a way we
could strengthen the camp’s perimeter without stringing ten
kilometers of wire to do it. He said—”

“While I’m grateful for
Mr. Gilhooley’s vast knowledge and irrefutable expertise on
community defense,” Mike said briskly, “I think we’ll settle for
the sweat of his back to be helping us bring in our harvest. And
again,” Mike looked directly at Gilhooley, “I’ll be thanking you
for your efforts on behalf of the whole camp.”

“No problem,” Gilhooley
said dryly. “Come on, Gav. The corn won’t pick itself.”

Mike watched the two walk
off together. Brian was easily ten years older than Gavin, he
guessed. Old enough to be considered wiser and more experienced,
but not so old as to be irrelevant and clueless. He sighed and
walked back to his hut to get his tools for the day’s
work.

***

Papin waited until she saw Sarah run out to
grab the wash from the clothesline before the heavens broke open
and ruined a hard morning’s work. She knew she should help her. Two
hands would bring it in quickly enough.

But then I wouldn’t have Sarah busy and
looking the other way, would I?

Careful not to move too
quickly and attract attention, she slipped out the front door and
off the porch.
The silly cow was so intent
on pulling the shirts and tea towels off the line,
she thought,
I could
probably sashay right out in front of her.

But if Papin had learned one thing in her
life, it was that there was never a need to take chances that
weren’t absolutely vital to take.

She pulled down the bodice of her singlet to
force out the tops of her breasts to best advantage and hurried
around the back of the cottage. Just one more time, she promised
herself. One more time and then she would leave him alone. The
randy bastard certainly wasn’t able to tell her no, himself. It
looked like she would have to be the responsible one. The mature
one.

The very thought made her giggle.

She began to trot to where she knew he
waited for her.

***

Mike squinted at the gray
deluge pouring from the skies.