The Parting Glass (25 page)

Peggy shuddered. He had not gone into great detail, but she could imagine the horror. “Finn, if you don’t want to go on…”

“You asked. Here it is. Part of the hull was still floating. Sheila was a strong enough swimmer to help me get the boys to it, although she seemed sluggish and dazed. I had been thrown clear, and I wasn’t injured. I managed to lift Brian to the top. He was too young to cling effectively. The water was cold, and now there was no beach to warm ourselves on, of course. The waves tossed us in every direction, and Mark went under, despite his jacket. I tried to hold him up, to hold Brian on the wreckage at the same time. That was when I realized Sheila had been injured and needed my help, as well. I shouted for her to hang on, that help would come. But we were the last boat to leave, and of course the ferries had stopped until the weather improved.”

He cleared his throat. “I turned my head to try to get a better grip on Mark, and when I turned back to her, she was gone. I never saw her again.”

“Finn…”

“I couldn’t look for her. I couldn’t help her. I had the boys. Both of them. Brian kept sliding off the hull, and it was breaking up. Mark was clinging to me, but he kept going under, and I realized…” He paused. “I realized I couldn’t save them both.”

Peggy’s stomach clenched. She felt nauseous, but if she felt this way just hearing the story, how must Finn have felt these past two years?

“In the end, I saved neither of them,” Finn said at last. “I knew that I had to choose, that I had to try to swim to shore with one of them. I knew this with every fiber of my being. But I could not choose between my own sons. So I waited, praying, fighting, until Brian was no more. And by the time I set out with Mark, it was too late for him, as well.”

“I’m so sorry,” Peggy said.

“I don’t know why I survived. I knew Mark was dead, but I held on to him. I thought I heard waves slapping at the shore. I kept swimming, praying for a miracle, then I passed out. I woke up the next day in hospital. Someone had seen me. Someone had launched a rescue boat and fished me out in what should have been the last moments of my life. Mark’s body was retrieved the next morning after it washed up on the strand. Brian and Sheila were never found.”

“You must have felt like your life had ended.”

“I only wished it had. I was trained to save lives, and I couldn’t save the people I loved most. I’m a scientist. I knew what I had to do, I understood the facts even when I was gripped by terror, and I couldn’t act.”

Peggy got up and joined him at the cliff’s edge, although she was careful not to touch him. She knew he would not appreciate it. “Is that why you stopped practicing medicine? To punish yourself for acting like a father instead of a physician?”

He was silent for a while, as if deciding whether to continue. When he spoke, he sounded exhausted.

“I closed my surgery temporarily until I’d recovered physically. I made arrangements for three funerals. I put our house up for sale and moved Bridie into town. And when six weeks had passed, I went back to work. My first patient was a young boy. He reminded me a little of Brian. The child had a growth on his back, just a mole, as it turned out, but I stared at it, unable to decide what to do. Was it malignant? Was it worth a trip out of the village for another look by a specialist? In the end I sent them off to Castlebar because I could no longer tell the difference between a simple mole and a tumor. Then the next patient arrived. An adolescent girl with a sore throat. I didn’t know how to treat it. I thought of all the children who had died of bad throats, the drug-resistant bacteria, the complications. I made an excuse and sent her off to be looked after by someone else.

“The third patient was an emergency, a man I’d known for years who had tenderness in his abdomen, a low-grade fever. Bad mussels, as it turns out, but I was certain he was dying, and that if I didn’t rush him straight to hospital, I might be
his
murderer, too.”

“Finn—”

He shook his head. “I closed my doors that day, this time for good. Does a man need to be beaten over the head with the truth? In an emergency, when it counts most, I can’t make decisions. I can’t act, even when lives depend on it. And now I don’t even want to try.”

The last sentence was the most telling. From everything Peggy had heard, she knew that Finn was an excellent physician, a diagnostician who had rooted out the rarest disorders, often in the nick of time. He had never given up hope of finding the right treatment until it was clear that none existed. Patients from all over Western Ireland had come to Shanmullin to see him, driving many miles because he was the best doctor and the most compassionate.

“You know recovery takes time,” she said. “As a doctor, you know that. Six weeks wasn’t enough.”

“No amount of time will ever be enough. I didn’t trust myself that day, and I don’t trust myself now. I started to drink. Six weeks later I woke up and realized I might lose Bridie, as well. Irene helped me see it, so I got sober for Bridie and Irene, and I stay sober. But I won’t stay that way if I have to face the day-to-day decisions I used to make so effortlessly. When I’m needed the most, I can’t act.”

“You did act, Finn. You made a decision and tried to save both your children. Had you done anything else, could you have lived with yourself?”

He turned. In the moonlight she saw that his face was pale. “Am I living now? I’m not sure anymore.”

She thought of Kieran, who would not let her comfort him. Finn would surely feel the same way. She touched his cheek despite that. He closed his eyes, but he did not step away.

It was a beginning.

chapter 16

M
egan woke up from a nightmare in which she was chasing Niccolo through a railway tunnel. A train was gaining behind them. She could hear the wheels clickety-clacking, faster and faster, the horn shrieking a frantic warning. She shouted for Niccolo to get off the track, but he couldn’t hear her, no matter how loudly she screamed.

She sat bolt upright, her heart pummeling her breastbone. She gasped for air and couldn’t find enough.

“Are you all right?” Niccolo sat up and put his arm around her shoulders. “Take it easy. I’m right here.”

“Damn it, you weren’t. You were…just ahead of me. And you couldn’t hear me.”

“It was a dream. Just a dream.”

She knew what a dream was. This wasn’t a dream. It was the starkest of warnings, a no-holds-barred, no-dream-dictionary-needed plea that she recognize and deal with the problems in her marriage. Next time her subconscious would simply clobber her over the head.

“You wouldn’t get off the track, and a train was coming. I kept shouting, but you wouldn’t listen.”

He kissed her cheek. “Sit there. I’ll bring you some coffee. Caffeine will shake the clouds away.”

He was gone before she could respond. Good old Nick, taking care of her the way he took care of everybody else. She had given him something to do, a problem to solve, and that was what he liked best.

She was furious at somebody, she just wasn’t sure who, exactly. When had the problems between them crept into every hour of her life? While she was awake she could be rational—most of the time. Niccolo had a lot on his mind. Brick was badly in need of additional funding if it was ever going to be as comprehensive and useful as it could be. Renovations on the saloon took hours of every day, and Niccolo felt the pressure to finish so she could open the doors again and send Marco home for good. The accident in the tunnel had created a new groundswell of interest in the image on the wall, and people who had ignored or joked about it before were suddenly moved to ask for tours.

Fortunately for her, city inspectors had closed the tunnel. Unfortunately it could be opened again as soon as some repair work on the ceiling was completed. Not for business, of course, but Niccolo had been told that no one was going to close down the saloon if people wanted a tour. After all, the tunnel was architecturally sound and a piece of local history.

And fast
making
history, unfortunately.

She propped herself against pillows, stealing Niccolo’s in a fit of temper to make herself more comfortable. If she was going to stay one step in front of a fast-moving train for his sake, he owed her something.

He nudged the door open a few minutes later, coffee and
Plain Dealer
in hand. “Here you are.”

He had one cup. The paper was folded under his arm so he had an extra—empty—hand. “Where’s yours?” she asked.

“I told Iggy I’d stop by early this morning. He wants to talk to me about something. I’ll have coffee with him.”

She could feel her forehead puckering. “It’s not even seven.”

“It will be by the time I shower and dress. And he’s up at the crack of dawn. Besides, I have a full day.”

“That’s not unusual.” The words sounded as if she’d strained them through a sieve, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He handed her the cup and the paper. He had taught her the ins and outs of good coffee and spoiled her for anything else. This was dark roast with cream and more sugar than he ate in a month. From the first cup, he hadn’t forgotten how she liked it.

“What’s the meeting about?” she asked. “Or is it just priestly discussion?”

Again he seemed oblivious to the undertone. “Iggy didn’t go into detail. But I think it has something to do with the tunnel.”

“So did my dream.”

She watched him glance at the bedside clock. She very nearly knocked it to the floor.

Niccolo lowered himself to the bed. He was wearing pajama bottoms, but not tops. He had a wide chest, with soft dark hair tapering toward a still-flat belly. He took her breath away. Most of the time.

“Tell me more about it,” he said.

She had gotten what she wished for, but now she thought of the saying that went with that. Because sometimes the worst thing
was
to get exactly what you wanted.

“A train was bearing down on us. In a tunnel, of course. You were just ahead of me. I couldn’t reach you. I couldn’t warn you it was coming.”

“You’re saving us a lot of money on psyhoanalysts, aren’t you?”

“I’ve never been much for symbolism.” She set her coffee on the table. “I like to get right down to basics.”

“We’re not communicating, and you can’t reach me.”

“That pretty well sums it up.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, a typical morning gesture, just one of many she had come to love. This morning it annoyed her. It seemed like a barrier, a moment of private thought before he explained rationally, calmly, that she was off base.

“I know I’ve been too busy,” he said when he’d run out of hair to ruffle. “I don’t know what to do about it.”

“I thought after the roof caved in, you’d be done with the tunnel for good. Instead, you’ve just added it to your repair schedule. And there seem to be endless numbers of people who want to discuss the way the boys weren’t touched when the ceiling fell around them.”

“I know, Megan.”

“Nick, I’m feeling a little desperate here. We’re supposed to be starting our life together, and you’re always gone.”

He stared at her as if she were speaking in tongues. “I’m busy. I’m not always gone. I come home every night.”

“And lock yourself away to go over costs and figures and grant proposals.”

He plowed a new trail through his hair. She wanted to slap his hands.

“I know all this is important to you,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’m trying to understand.”

“I have to get more funding for Brick. The only time I can work on it is when I’m home in the evenings. I’m working on the saloon during the day. And nothing has ever convinced me more that I need funding than that cave-in. I’m trying to do too much—”

“And how.”

He ignored her. “And I’m trying to do it alone. But we run on a shoestring. Either I shut down the program, get some substantial funding to hire help, or I keep working like a maniac. I’m trying to make this successful in the only way I know how.”

Guilt was a glimmer on the horizon, but anger subdued it. She struggled to be rational. “And you’re doing the saloon for me. I know. It’s just that—”

“What?” He got to his feet and glanced at the clock again. “What can I do? Just give me one good idea. I’ll do it. Whatever it is.”

“Forget the tunnel repairs. Close it down and forget it. Maybe later, when everything else is finished and life’s settled down—”

“By then the image will be gone. It probably has a short life at this point. Once we replace the pipes—”

“I don’t care about the image. Let it dry up. Real miracles don’t disappear when leaks are plugged. You can tell people that. They’ll go away. Things will get back to normal.”

“Just for the record, there’s no train coming up behind you. I can hear you just fine.”

She hadn’t realized her voice had risen, but she was angry at him for pointing it out instead of dealing with what she’d said. “You hear the words and the tone, Nick, but I don’t think you hear my message at all.”

“I hear you making demands. I’m up to here with demands. I don’t think I can satisfy another one. Not this morning. Not with so much else I have to do. And now I have to get going.”

She watched him head for the bathroom. She carefully removed the coffee cup before she swept her hand across the table.

The bedside clock was not so lucky.

Iggy set a cup of coffee in front of Niccolo. “The archbishop’s not happy.”

Niccolo watched in silence as Iggy poured a cup of coffee for himself. His old friend had already set out a plate of freshly baked brioche, delivered that morning by a grateful parishioner. The rectory kitchen was bright and cheerful, and best of all, the housekeeper, a dour woman who counted each crumb and calorie, was gone for the day.

He waited until Iggy was blissfully sipping before he answered. “I never understood the urge to move up in the Church hierarchy.”

“Clearly you didn’t. Hierarchy never appealed to you. That’s one reason you’re a married man now. Although I suppose that’s a different kind of hierarchy, isn’t it?”