The Delaney Woman (18 page)

The woman turned and wide gray eyes met Claire's. She could be her sister, she was so similar, except that she had more hair and that delicate ripple marring the bridge of her nose. Her spirits improved immeasurably. If this was Tom's new love, he'd certainly stayed true to type. Was he living with her? The thought brought an involuntary twitch to her lips. Tom Whelan living in sin. Imagine.

Claire sauntered to the refrigerator and opened it. “Well, well, well,” she said. “This looks well- stocked. Do you cook, too, Miss—?”

“Delaney,” Kellie said automatically, “Kellie Delaney. What are you doing here?” Kellie asked.

“Don't you really mean who let me out?”

“Yes,” Kellie said, “assuming you're Claire.” Claire helped herself to a wedge of apple pie and closed the refrigerator door. “I am. I've been paroled.”

Kellie's color returned. “Then you're here legitimately?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

Claire bit into the pie, leaned against the counter and crossed her arms. “What kind of a question is that? I live here. I'm home. I've come to reclaim my life. What are
you
doing here?”

Kellie opened her mouth, but no words came.

“Let me guess,” Claire continued. “You've moved in to take over my life, my child—” she licked her finger “—and my husband.”

Claire didn't miss the color flooding Kellie's face or the shaking hands and averted eyes. So, it was true. The woman was in love with Tom. Claire dismissed her. It didn't matter. The real question, the important question was,
Was Tom in love with her?
The answer would come soon enough, as soon as she saw them together. She could handle it if he was. Tom and she had been through worse. It was Heather who brought the ground-glass feeling to her stomach. Heather, the child she'd borne, the one she'd thought of every waking moment for seven years. It was imaginary conversations with Heather that had seen her through the agonizing brutality of prison, given her strength, created the desire to maintain, to endure the nightmare of Maidenstone. She dreamed of her daughter, straight and tall and lovely, welcoming her with open arms as if the years, the empty, silent years, had never come between them.

“Not exactly.”

She'd said something. Claire wasn't paying attention. She spoke bluntly. “I want you to go.”

Kellie lifted her chin. “What if I refuse?”

She had courage and she wasn't stupid. Claire had to give her that. “Why would you stay where you're not wanted?”

“Are you sure of that?”

Claire smiled. “I've known Tom Whelan all my life. He'll take me back. He always has.”

“Maybe he's changed.”

They were silent for long seconds, staring at one another, two women alike and yet nothing alike.

“Did he know you were coming?” Kellie asked.

“No.”

Kellie drew a deep, shaky breath. “How will you tell him?”

“I'll handle him.” The conviction of her words was sheer bravado. She no longer knew Tom. Over the years, he'd faded into the back of her mind where all bad memories were stored. She didn't know what to do if he refused to take her back. Surely he wouldn't. After all, she was the mother of his daughter.

“And Heather?”

“Heather is my daughter,” Claire said coldly. “Did you really think I would hand her to you without a fight?”

Kellie smiled slightly. “It's been seven years. Forgive me if I doubt your motherly instincts.”

“Never mind that,” Claire said impatiently. “Will you go?”

“I can't go yet.”

Claire shrugged and changed her tactics. “There are plenty of rooms. As long as you know how things stand, I don't mind your staying.”

“I beg your pardon?” Kellie Delaney had a temper after all. “Do you really think we can all stay here together?”

Claire sighed. “This is my house. If anyone goes it will be you.”

Kellie's lips tightened. She had a point. “Tom will be back soon. He's taken the dog out.”

Claire nodded. “I'll wait upstairs in the room overlooking the garden. You can tell him I'm here.”

Kellie's face was white, pinched. “This is a nightmare. You can't possibly mean for me to tell him his wife is home from prison?”

“What I'd like,” Claire said pointedly, “is to see him alone.”

Kellie stood, her face frozen. “I'll leave you to him,” she said, and left the room.

Claire watched her leave. Was Kellie Delaney really so cool and collected, or was there more beneath her reserve?

She sat down at the table and crossed her legs. Coming home had shaken her. The idea of seeing Tom again left her brain befuddled and her hands clammy. What would he think of her after all these years? Would he help her or reject her completely?

Claire forced herself to think objectively. She hadn't been much of a wife to him when he'd come home after Long Kesh. She'd been absorbed with the life she'd made for herself. She pushed the thought aside. Too many regrets. She wouldn't go there, not now, perhaps not ever. She had today to get through, today and tomorrow. That would be difficult enough. She didn't like to depend on people. They rarely came through. But this time she had little choice. Her mind wandered. If only she could talk to Heather. It was absurd, of course, to imagine that Heather would want her. The child knew only Tom and now, Kellie. She had to think of her. It wasn't good to uproot a little girl no matter how much one wanted it. Not even a mother had a right to do that. She would reassure Tom that she had no such intention. Perhaps, then, he would help her find her place again.

When had it all become so complicated? How had she come to this point in her life, a fugitive with no place to go and no one to care? There had been moments when she'd had it all, when she was Claire Donovan of Banburren and all of life was ahead. When had it changed for her? How could anything have been more important to her than her freedom? What had drawn her in? She thought back. Nothing came to her. Christ, it was cold. She closed her eyes and concentrated, taking herself back and back, further back, her mind settling on a spring day when she first became aware of Tom Whelan.

She'd always known the Whelans, of course. There wasn't anyone on the Taig or Nationalist side of Banburren who didn't know everyone else. She assumed it was the same on the Loyalist side although she had no way of really verifying that. She'd never known a Protestant, never even spoken to one other than to hurl insults across clumsily constructed barricades. Children's games that fed adult hatreds, feuds that spanned the centuries. Did they think it would all go away because a few men had signed a piece of paper? They could mandate jobs and housing and education, but that was all. It would go no further because as long as the drums rolled in July and men gathered to march wearing orange sashes and bowler hats, the anger would endure.

Tom Whelan was different from the beefy lads who slouched on street corners, smoked incessantly and swore vengeance on those from the other side who walked away with the jobs. She remembered the first time their eyes locked, the slow magic of his smile and the lean, spare look of him that stopped the breath in her throat.

Claire was no stranger to admiring glances. She knew she was pretty, the prettiest girl in Banburren except for Maggie Whelan and she didn't count because she was Tom's sister. But when Tom looked at her and then looked again, she felt a stirring inside that she'd never felt before.

He wasn't forward like the others. Neither was he shy or self-conscious. Rather it was his reserve, a serious sort of calm, that she'd noticed. It was as if he valued himself too much to allow anyone close to him who, when all was said and done, wouldn't matter.

Claire became the aggressor, arranging to be where she knew he would be, pretending it was all mere coincidence. Whether he knew or not he never said. It took time, nearly a year, but Claire was tenacious and in the end she won him. Tom was a one-woman man and a terrifyingly traditional one. She bound him to her by giving him her body, willingly and frequently. Looking back she should have known that a man so single-minded in such matters would be the same in other ways as well. It was his single- mindedness, his regimented focus that allowed for no other way but his own and, in the end, that drove her away.

Uncomfortable with her memories, Claire looked around, struggling against the claustrophobia of closed doors. She'd had enough of those for a lifetime. The walls were covered with family photos, mostly of Heather at various stages of her life. There was Lexi as a puppy and Susan with her brood. Her own mother and father smiled at her with Heather balancing on unsteady legs between them. The entire family was represented with one exception. Claire's mouth twisted. How he must despise her to have eradicated her so completely from his life.

Was Tom a different man than he'd been seven years before because he'd changed or because he was with a different woman? An interesting question. One that should be explored, but not now, not in this room that was growing colder as the minutes passed.

She'd given no real thought as to where she would go if Tom wouldn't have her back. Canada, perhaps, or America. She couldn't stay in Banburren, not with Tom here. The thought of leaving Ireland was like a fist closing around her heart. She was a revolutionary, not a pioneer. She wanted to fix the old, not take on the new. Ireland was in her blood, its rhythms a part of her, ebbing and flowing, always present even in the prison cell that had been her home for the last seven years. What would she do if she had to leave, how would she live, a stranger in a strange land? She swallowed hard. Sometimes survival carried a price and she would survive. She would return someday. Nothing was forever except death.

She glanced at the clock and ran her tongue over her lip. For the first time in years she wished for lipstick. What did one say to a husband after seven years in prison? She finger-combed her hair and pushed it behind her ears. If only she could take back the wasted years.

Suddenly, the door opened and he was there in the room with her. She stared at him, her eyes wide and dry in the pale thinness of her face.

He stepped forward and gripped her shoulders, his fingers hard and hurting, his gaze searching, fierce, urgent. “My God,” he said harshly, “it really is you. I stopped at Mam's and she said—”

Claire nodded and would have replied, but he pulled her against his chest and held her in a tight, impenetrable embrace.

“Claire,” he said, brokenly, “Claire.”

It was the sound of her name on his lips that broke her reserve. Nothing had prepared her for this. She'd expected anger, sarcasm, coldness, even rejection, but never this hurting sorrow that came from a place deep inside of him.

Pain and regret and loss welled up and spilled over. The tears flowed and flowed, tears for the years of separation and all the years before that. She cried for hope that was lost, for what she had given up and could never bring back. She cried until her eyes were beyond swollen and her nose ached and she no longer felt anything at all. It was only then that she stepped away, wiped her eyes and nose with the hem of her shirt and looked at him.

What she saw shocked her beyond tears. Seven years had changed him. She'd left behind a boy and come home to a man. Silver threads softened the dark hair at his temples and fine lines radiated from his eyes. He was still lean and spare of flesh but sorrow and experience and time had taken their toll and the bones of his face had hardened into the man he would be until the end of his days. He allowed her inspection with a quiet stillness that was new to him.

“They let me out,” she said at last.

“Aye.”

“Are you pleased?”

“Very pleased.”

“Will you send her away?”

Something flickered in his eyes. He spoke carefully. “I'm happy that you've been released, Claire, but we have a great deal to settle.”

She wanted to ask if he was in love with Kellie but the words wouldn't come. How did a woman ask her husband if he loved another woman?

“You haven't asked about Heather.”

“I was coming to that.”

“I assume you'll want to see her.”

“Of course.”

“Who will you say you are?”

Color flamed in Claire's cheeks. “I'm her mother, Tom. She has a right to know that.”

“Does she?”

“What do you think?”

“I think she has a right to know why her mother hasn't asked to see her in seven years.”

He was bitter after all. The back of her throat was very dry. It was difficult to breathe. “You know why.”

“I know you wanted no part of me, but your own daughter? Why, Claire?”

“Don't do this, Tom.”

“How could you? Is there anything more reprehensible than to ignore the existence of your child?”

Her eyes filled. “I'm not going to discuss this with you, not now after all this time.”

“When should we have discussed it? Before she was born or at some point during the last seven years?”

“Don't blame me for that.” Her voice shook. “You have no idea what it was like for me.”

“You wouldn't see me. You refused my help.”

“You brought a barrister, a
British
barrister.”

“I wanted to help you.”

“I didn't want
his
help.”

“We both know you served seven years because you wouldn't implicate Dennis McGarrety. Your friends were no help to you, Claire. I wanted to help you. What was wrong with fighting British injustice with a British barrister?”

She tightened her lips stubbornly. “You don't understand. You never did.”

He sighed. “Whether I do or not is beside the point. The issue at hand is more important. What do you want from me and what do you expect from Heather?”