There You'll Find Me (13 page)

“Anyone ever tell you you’re too hard on yourself?”

“All my life. And you?” It was time to turn this conversation around. “Is acting the career you want?”

“Who wouldn’t want my life?”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“So it doesn’t.”

“Do you ever miss your mother?”

“I never knew her, so no. But I miss what could’ve been.” He tilted his head. “It’s nothing like what you went through, is it now? It was a horrible story, about your brother. How do you get over something like that?”

“You don’t.”

The stitches on the old wound unraveled within me as I thought about the answer. “I held on to hope that he was alive for almost a year.” I wiped my nose and told myself to stop. I’d never even told my counselors that. “I prayed by the hour during those months. I had faith then. And where did that get me? Where was God when my brother died? When my world imploded?” My voice broke and I covered my face. “I have to go.” I dashed past Beckett and walked as fast as I could.

With Bob running ahead, Beckett caught up with me in three strides. He reached for my arm and pulled me to a stop. “Wait.”

“I should be over this. I know I should. But I’m not.” Through my tears, I saw concern staring back at me. And it just added another knot to the dark tangle inside. “I want to be me again—to have faith, to feel hope, to feel . . . something. Something besides this . . . this . . .” Ugliness. I closed my mouth and just shook my head.

“Hey. It’s okay to be mad.” Beckett slid his arms around me and enfolded me in a hug. “But you can’t give up on your faith.”

“What do you know about it?” I asked against his jacket.

“I watch a lot of TV.”

He rubbed circles on my back while I held on, despite my better judgment. I blinked away the last of the tears. “I just spilled my guts to a vampire.”

“It’s one of our many tricks.” He took a step back, and the wind filled the space between us. “Before I’m done with you, you’ll be craving type O and hanging out with bats.”

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and touched the screen. “Do you recognize this?”

His hand on mine, Beckett drew the phone toward him. “It’s a Celtic cross.”

“I have to find it.”

He looked at me and gave a low laugh. “They’re all over the country. There are thousands just like that.”

No, there couldn’t be any just like that one. “This one apparently captured my brother’s attention. And I have to find it. It’s the last thing he put in his journal. If I don’t locate it, my trip is incomplete— my audition piece, incomplete. I will find this.”

“It’s going to be next to impossible.”

“It was important to my brother. And now”—I shook my head, knowing I sounded like I’d lost it—“now it’s become this obsession.” I seemed to have quite a collection of those.

Clouds darkened overhead, forming a canopy of gray. “But what if you’ve let your grief become your guilt?” His voice was as soft as the night breeze. “It’s okay to let it go.”

I shook my head and moved out of his grip. “I can’t,” I said.

“Not now. Not yet.”

And sometimes I feared . . . not ever.

Chapter Eleven

• Lunch: one apple, two plain rice cakes, Diet Coke

• Calories: 150

• Taste: zero

• Days to audition: 32

A
s I pedaled my bike, a man I recognized as the local butcher strolled with his wife, an umbrella over their heads. “Good day to you, Finley from America.”

“Good day to you, Mr. and Mrs. Walsh.” I loved the sound of their accents.

“Sure, we saw you running this morning,” Mr. Walsh said as I stopped, putting my toes to the ground. “We called out to you, but me wife said you had in those ear thingamabobs and couldn’t hear. Running so fast, you scared the coats right off me sheep.”

I laughed, my legs still jelly from pushing myself four miles.

Pretty good for not putting on running shoes in a month.

“Next time you come round, you stop in for tea,” Mrs. Walsh said.

“I’ll do that.” As I pedaled away, I thought how back home, we threw out invitations and knew it was just polite talk. In Ireland? It meant I’d better see you at my house soon.

A light misting rain peppered down on this chilly Wednesday afternoon, and I held my own umbrella while steering my bicycle with one hand, a skill I was proud to have acquired. And one that was necessary. I was sure I hadn’t had a frizz-free day since arriving. I guess it was the price you paid to be in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Hopping off my bike, I wheeled it under the awning of the Rosemore and went inside. Every time I opened the door, a wave of disappointment washed over me. The nursing home looked the same. Smelled the same. Felt the same. I didn’t know why I kept hoping for it to magically transform into Disney World or some other place of happiness and smiles. But it was never going to do that. This was a building where old people came to spend their last days. Where they came to die. Like Mrs. Sweeney.

I said hello to the nurse on duty at the front desk and found my way to Mrs. Sweeney’s door. “Hello?”

I waited for Mrs. Sweeney’s usual command to leave, but heard nothing.

The room was dark, save for the dim light coming through the window. I flipped on the lights.

“Mrs. Sweeney!” She lay on the floor in a heap, eyes wide, shaking. I rushed to her and dropped to my knees. “Are you all right?”

She closed her eyes. “Does it . . . does it look like I’m all right?”

“Let me call the nurse.”

“No.” Her whisper sounded loud in the still room. “Just help me up. I’m . . . I’m too weak.”

“You might’ve broken something. I don’t think I should try to move you.” What would Erin have done? She’d have known all that medical stuff.

She lifted her head and glared. “Am I not eighty-three years old? I believe I would know if something was broken. I just can’t get meself up. Quit your prattling and give us some assistance.”

Reluctantly, I eased my arms under hers, and together we slowly raised her from the floor. The woman weighed no more than Erin’s stick of a brother, and as I settled her into her silver wheelchair, she heaved a long breath.

“Thank you.” She rested her elbow on the chair and leaned her head into her hand.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Fine.”

“Because you just thanked me.”

“’Twas an accident.” She continued to take deep, quivery breaths with her eyes closed, as if she was trying not to relive those last few moments on the floor.

“What happened?”

Mrs. Sweeney remained quiet for a long stretch before finally answering. “I had to go to the loo. Normally I can take meself.” She lifted her head and took some steadying breaths. “It was dark. I was groggy. Tripped over my slippers.” Holding up her hands she grimaced. “No harm done.”

“This time,” I said. “And how long had you been on the floor?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped as the color returned to her cheeks. “Make yourself useful and get us a glass of water.”

Biting my tongue, I did as I was told, letting my heart return to its regular pace.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

“It’s lunchtime.” I forced my voice to speak in notes of calm.

“You crazy Irish folk let your teenagers run all over town for lunch.”

“Where you do nothing but find trouble.”

“The more scandalous the better. Like visiting nursing homes.”

I handed her the cup. “I still think I should call the nurse. Have her check you out.”

“Don’t you dare. I’ve been poked and prodded all day.”

“And nothing hurts?”

“Just me ears.”

“From my prattling. Yes, got it.” I smiled just to annoy her. “I brought us a book to read.”

She
harrumph
ed as I sat down and pulled it from my bag.

“Stephen King.” I showed her the cover. “
Carrie
.”

“I read that years ago.” Mrs. Sweeney rubbed her elbow. “I guess I could give it another listen. Until you find me another.”

“Since it’s about a girl who ends up terrorizing people, I thought maybe you could pick up some new tricks.”

She slid me a look. “The only evil in this room is you.

Impertinent girl.”

She was half right. Sunday as I sat with the O’Callaghan family in the seventh row of their church, I found myself tuning out. After I doodled my name fifty-seven times on a bulletin, I started strat-egizing my approach with Mrs. Sweeney. The assignment wasn’t going away. I needed to deal with her in a way that would keep her at arm’s length—because I would not be getting attached—yet I needed to be friendly enough to get her to cooperate.

My church-inspired conclusion was that she was obviously a proud woman, so if she was anything like me, sympathy over her situation would not win her over. After my brother’s disappearance, there was nothing I detested more than people oozing with softly spoken words and hugs that went on way too long. And Mrs. Sweeney didn’t need that either.

At least that was the theory. And since I came up with it in a church, surely it was inspired by God. Or boredom. Either way, I thought it was sound. I’d just have to log in those twenty hours as quickly as possible, then I could say good-bye to the crabby woman.

“Are you ready for me to read?” I took her outstretched cup and placed it on the bedside table.

“I was ready ten minutes ago. If you wait any longer I’ll have time to write a novel meself.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I opened the book and read, filling the sentences with an animated voice and pausing for suspense at all the right places, composing a soundtrack in my head, heavy on the strings.

By the time I got to chapter three, Mrs. Sweeney’s eyes had closed and her breathing came slow and even. I’d have been insulted, but I decided I liked her this way.

“Knock, knock!” Nurse Belinda stuck her head inside and smiled. “Cathleen, I brought the mail. Oh.” She lowered her booming voice. “She’s asleep.”

I double-checked to make sure Mrs. Sweeney was truly out. “She fell this afternoon,” I whispered.

“Did she now?” Belinda shook her head, and the salt-and-pepper bun on her head tottered. “She’s had a rough week. Hardly gets out of bed now. It breaks my heart.” She held out an envelope just as an alarm went off somewhere down the hall. “Do me a favor and stick this in her top drawer. I’ve got to go check on a resident. Cathleen always tells me to throw her mail away, but I know she just digs these letters out of the trash and saves them.” The alarm continued to squawk like an angry bird, and Belinda sailed out of the room.

I tiptoed around Mrs. Sweeney’s bed and to her dresser. I reached for the top drawer, and the thing wouldn’t budge. Gripping the pull, I gave it a yank. On the third try, it flung open and letters spilled onto the floor.

Peering inside, I saw stacks and stacks of letters. Same white envelopes. Same address. To Fiona Doyle, Galway. From Cathleen Sweeney.

Each one marked return to sender.

Just like the one in my hand.