The Parting Glass

On the narrow main road the few cars that passed gave her wide berth, which was lucky, because it had been some time since she’d ridden a bicycle. Megan and Casey had taught her, of course, running along beside her at breakneck speed to catch her if she fell. They had always been there to catch her, mothers well before their time, and she missed them already.

She passed Technicolor sheep grazing in fields clumped with rushes. The sheep were splotched with dye to establish ownership and gave the landscape a surprisingly whimsical touch. Farmhouses and vacation cottages dotted the undulating hills, and “famine cottages,” nothing more than roofless, abandoned dry stone houses, were more plentiful than she’d expected. Some farmhouses were old, none thatched like Irene’s, and she gave thanks for the stroke of good fortune that had landed her in such a picturesque setting. By all rights, Tierney Cottage should have fallen to the ground years before—and would have, if Brenna and her second husband hadn’t restored it.

She was perspiring by the time she arrived at the outskirts of Shanmullin. Her legs ached, and her behind protested the narrow plastic seat. She still felt exhilarated. Playtime was a concept to introduce to Kieran, not something she indulged in herself. She reveled in it now.

The town of Shanmullin could have been a National Geographic cover. The main street curved in a gentle arc leading farther uphill. Buildings lined it, some white with bright trim like Tierney Cottage, more in varying shades of green, gold or blue. The signs looking over the sidewalk were half divided between “Irish,” the country’s original Gaelic language, and English. Some fair number of the signs advertised pubs, and the Guinness signs were a nostalgic reminder of home.

On one side of the street a dog ambled in and out between parked cars, stopping long enough to sit and scratch in a sliver of sunshine; on the other side a woman stood talking to three men in Wellingtons and woolen flat caps outside one of the pubs.

Peggy parked her bike against one of the buildings and started up the sidewalk, window shopping as she went to discover what Shanmullin had to offer. She found the church, a restaurant, even Finn’s “surgery” tucked away on a side street with an air of abandonment. An hour later she came out of the grocery store, Irene’s shopping list completed. She’d bought hairpins, knitting needles—because Irene was determined to make Kieran a sweater—and the latest issue of The Irish Times. She’d experienced good “craic,” or “crack,” as a bonus, not the illegal variety but the Irish version: lively conversation. The proprietor at the news agent had asked for her life story and given his own, his more colorful than hers. She thought she’d made a friend.

At the end of the sidewalk she saw the same dog she’d noticed earlier. He was floppy-eared, varying shades of red-brown, and vaguely bloodhound in appearance, a change from the multitude of Border Collies that had observed her trip to town. His long body stretched from one end of the slate walkway to the other; his head was pillowed on his paws. If a dog could look forlorn, this one did.

She approached him tentatively. She had great respect for man’s best friend, and she stopped a few feet away, debating just walking around him instead of approaching.

“Hey, fellow.”

He thumped his tail lethargically. He was too thin, and droopy-eyed to boot. As she stared at him, a girl in a school uniform of plaid skirt and navy sweater came out of the shop to her left and joined Peggy in the investigation. She had a cloud of white-blond hair that would undoubtedly darken someday, and delicate features distorted by a frown.

“He’s been out here a week,” she said, her voice rising and falling like a sad Irish ballad. “His owner died.”

Peggy shook her head. “Well, that’s a shame. Does he have a name?”

“Banjax. Mr. McNamara said he wasn’t good for anything, but he’s good for mourning Mr. McNamara, isn’t he?”

“I’d say so.” Peggy stared at the poor tragic beast. “Nobody’s claimed him? Family doesn’t want him?”

“People feed him, I guess, from the pubs at night. Crisps and things. But my father says somebody will carry him out to the country before too long, and he won’t be coming back.”

Peggy didn’t like the sound of that. “I guess there’s no organization in town to take care of homeless pets.”

“Just people who take them in if they can.” The girl looked up at Peggy. “You’re not from Shanmullin.”

“Ohio, in the United States.”

“I’m Bridie O’Malley.”

Finn’s daughter. Peggy hadn’t suspected, not only because the odds were against meeting this way, but because Bridie didn’t resemble her father in the least. She was as blond as he was dark. Peggy thought she had a good idea what Finn’s wife had looked like.

Peggy introduced herself. “Irene Tierney tells me you’re a good friend.”

“Oh, you’re the American who’s living at Tierney Cottage. I’ve heard about you.”

“Your father was kind enough to give me a ride up from Shannon Airport.”

“He was off work that day. I wanted to come, but I was in school.”

Peggy glanced at her watch. It was only one-thirty. “You’re off early today?”

“The teachers are talking to the parents this afternoon.” She made another face.

Peggy smiled at her. “Are you worried? I was always worried about conferences, even if I was doing okay.”

“Oh, my father won’t be there. He’s working in Louisburgh all day.”

Peggy hadn’t realized that Finn worked at anything besides his medical practice. She should have figured that out; after all, he and his daughter had to eat, even if he refused to see patients now. She stored this question away to ask Irene.

“I want to take Banjax home,” Bridie said. “I’d like to own a dog.”

Peggy heard an unspoken “but” in that sentence. She supposed it had to do with Finn. He seemed like a man who wouldn’t want any extra warm bodies to feed or care for. “You’re worried about him. Let’s think, is there anybody who might take him? Anybody you could ask?”

Bridie screwed up her face again. While the father rarely allowed thought or feeling to show in his expression, the daughter repressed nothing. “Granny ’rene!” She looked up. “You can take him home with you, Mrs. Donaghue.”

Peggy was the one to grimace now. “Bridie, I don’t think—”

“But Granny ’rene’s dog died last year. Pickles. A little yappy dog who nipped at my ankles every time I visited. Irene didn’t like him, either, but she said an old friend, even a nasty old friend, had to be protected. Well, Banjax was an old friend of Mr. McNamara’s, and now he has to be protected, too. And Granny ’rene’s the one who will do it.”

Against her will, Peggy felt herself sinking deeper into the conspiracy. Irene wasn’t well, and she was already dealing with two strangers in her house. A dog, a dog in urgent need of Prozac, at that, seemed like the ultimate imposition. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll ask her, and if she says yes—”

“But that won’t work,” Bridie insisted. “He could disappear tonight. What if he does? How will we feel? How will poor Granny ’rene feel if she’s decided she wants him?” She saw Peggy begin a protest, and she added quickly, “I saw some men pointing at him and shaking their heads before I went into the store. I really did. Please?”

Peggy supposed there was little harm in bringing the dog home with her. She could buy dog food to carry in the basket on the front of her bike. And with a little encouragement and a few dog treats, Banjax would probably lope along beside her. If Irene objected, as she surely would, Peggy could just bring him back the next time she came to town and hope someone else adopted him. Or she could send him back with Finn in the morning, if getting rid of him was important enough.

Bridie seemed to realize the odds were leaning Banjax’s way. “I can help you get him home. I’ll leave my father a note and tell him I bicycled out to Granny ’rene’s. He won’t mind. Really. And between us, we can get him there. I know we can.”

“How old are you, Bridie?”

“Eleven.”

“Once you’re fifteen, we’ll have a talk about the dangers of using those pretty green eyes to get everything you want.”

Bridie smiled up at her, and Peggy thought her new young friend had already figured out everything she needed to know about green eyes and a charming smile.

“A dog? And a big, ugly odorous dog at that?” Irene stood on the stoop and stared down at Banjax, Peggy and Bridie. “Well, I declare, Peggy Donaghue. What were you thinking?”

“I’ve been bamboozled,” Peggy said. “Tricked. My brain was turned inside out by a pair of lovely eyes, and not Banjax’s.”

Irene was trying to hide a smile. “Bridie, this was your idea, was it now?”

“He needs a place to hide, Granny ’rene. They were going to carry him out to the country!”

“So you did it before they could?” Irene couldn’t hold back the smile any longer. “Well, he can’t come inside, not ever. I put my foot down about that.”

“I’ll give him a bath,” Bridie promised. She had bought a bar of flea soap with her own pocket money when Peggy bought dog food. “Tomorrow after school. I promise. But he needs you. He really does.”

Irene looked at Peggy, and Peggy shrugged. “He’ll make a good watchdog,” Peggy said.

“And what will he watch for out here?”

“Crows? Butterflies?” Peggy couldn’t even add snakes to the list. St. Patrick had taken care of that.

“We’ll give him a try, poor old thing,” Irene said. “He can sleep in my shed if he likes.”

“I’ll make him a bed,” Bridie said.

Peggy heard a familiar wail from the direction of her bedroom. “Well, looks like my timing was good.”

Nora came to the door and stared down at Banjax. “I know that dog. As useless as a chocolate teapot, he is. He’ll eat and sleep and nothing more.”

That seemed to strike a chord with Irene, whose days consisted of much the same. “He can stay. We’ll see.”

Peggy and Bridie followed her inside. Bridie peeked in the direction of Peggy’s room. Peggy had told her about Kieran on the ride home. “May I play with him?”

Peggy tried to think of the best way of answering. Kieran didn’t play, not the way Bridie surely expected.

“I’m good with children,” Bridie said. “He’ll like me.”

She said it with such confidence that Peggy had to relent. “I bet you are. It’s just that Kieran’s not good with people he doesn’t know.” And even the people he did weren’t sure how to approach him.

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll just watch at first.”

“Let me get him up. I’ll be right out. Why don’t you put some food out for Banjax?”

By the time she returned with a freshly changed Kieran, Nora had set a pot of tea on the table and a plate of freshly baked currant scones, and Bridie was digging in. She cooed over Kieran but was careful not to rush him. She continued to sit and watch him from the corner of her eye as she ate.

Kieran looked around the room with sleepy, suspicious eyes. As always, Peggy wondered what convoluted mixture of signals his tiny brain was sending. When he struggled to get down she set him on the floor, standing close by in case he wanted to be protected from yet another unfamiliar face. But Kieran was gazing at Bridie the way he gazed at light flickering on the wall. He toddled closer, peering at her, stopping, peering at her again. Peggy held her breath. Beside her, she knew Irene was doing the same.

“Hi, hi,” he said at last. He moved closer. “Hi!”

Bridie took it in stride. “Well, hi to you, too, boyo.” She went back to her scones, unaware of the small miracle that had just taken place right in front of her.

“Kieran was fascinated by Bridie,” Peggy said that evening, as she and Irene sat studying a smoldering fire. “I think it’s her hair. It’s so bright, and light fascinates him.”

“She’s a beautiful girl.” Irene leaned back in her comfortable armchair and rested her feet on a small padded stool. “Sheila was lovely, as well. Bridie resembles her, but her bones are finer. Sheila’s beauty wouldn’t have lasted past forty, but Bridie’s will.”

“She must miss her mother so much. A girl that age needs one.” Peggy had lost her own mother at a much earlier age, but she’d had sisters and her aunt Deirdre to make up for it. Still, there was a yearning for Kathleen Donaghue that never quite went away.

“I suspect she’ll be finding her way out to Tierney Cottage more often now that you’re here. She’s taken to you.”

“And to Banjax,” Peggy said. The dog had settled into the shed as if he’d lived there forever. Irene had made her way outside to supervise the placement of his bedding, even deigning to pat his bony head.

“A girl needs her father, too,” Irene said.

“Bridie says Finn was working in Louisburgh today?”

“Construction. He wants nothing to do with medicine. He won’t even work in a laboratory. He works so hard building houses, he sees little of his own daughter.”

Bridie’s plight was too familiar. Peggy had grown up without a father, too.

Irene pulled a knitted afghan over her lap, as if settling in for a very long time. “I needed my father and missed him every day I was growing up.”

Since Peggy’s arrival, they had hardly talked about Liam Tierney or his death in Cleveland. That had been the purpose of Irene’s first contact with the Donaghue sisters, and Peggy had offered so little information.

“I wish I’d had time to dig deeper into city records,” Peggy said. “Sometimes the amount of information that’s out there is a curse in itself.”

“I grew up wishing I knew more about him. The urge doesn’t seem to go away. And I worry I’ll die without that mystery being solved. It nags at me, although why it should, I don’t know.”

“Tell me what you do know,” Peggy said. “Megan and Casey have promised to continue to search. You and I have the whole evening, if you’re not too tired. Start from the beginning, and tell me everything. Maybe you’ll remember something that will make their job simpler.”

“I was very young.”

“Then tell me what your mother told you.”

Irene sighed contentedly. “A cup of tea would be nice, don’t you think? If I’m going to tell the story.”

Peggy rose. “I’ll make it. You gather your thoughts.”

“I’ll do that.” Irene closed her eyes. “It’s a happy story, at least at first. The telling of it won’t be so hard.”

1923

Castlebar, County Mayo

My dearest Patrick,

As always, I think of you, my only brother, so far removed from Ireland, and I mourn your leaving for Ohio as if it only happened yesterday instead of nearly a lifetime ago. Cleveland is more your home now than Ireland ever was, and St. Brigid’s still the center of your heart, even though you have now retired and serve as its priest only occasionally. But how sharp your mind has remained, and how astute your observations. We are lucky, you and I, that we still have our wits left, and that only an ocean separates us and not yet death.

How different our views on the plight of our people. Yours garnered at one end of our national tragedy and mine at the other. Yours when the immigrant steps off the ship or train and into a world of belching factories and hastily constructed shanty houses. Mine when the emigrant leaves his poor barren farm, prayers in his heart and hope glimmering in his eyes.

They say we live in a new Ireland. So far I’ve yet to see it. Last year assassins killed the Big Fellow at Beal na mBlath, a terrible loss to all men and women who believe our best fate lies in compromise. We Irish still fight among ourselves, as surely and naturally as we fought the British invaders. Men who survived the horror of Gallipoli fall in Dublin’s streets, and sabotage, execution and other atrocities have become as symbolic of our ancient and honorable culture as rainbows and church spires.

You tell stories in your letters of new Irish blood for Cleveland, of men with surnames such as Durkan and Doyle, Heneghan and Lavelle, names as familiar to me as my own. I mourn for these men, although I never knew them, for their need to depart the country of their birth, and for unwelcome surprises on arrival. I remember too well your letters about the place called Whiskey Island, dear Patrick, and the horrors of life there for men who had only known Ireland’s green splendors. Perhaps things are better now, but Cleveland will never be Ireland, will it?

There are still few enough opportunities here, particularly for those who allied themselves with the Republicans. Some wounds never heal. Perhaps it is better they leave for America’s far-off shores, but perhaps it is not. For what will our beloved Ireland do without its strong, courageous sons?

Your grieving sister,

Maura McSweeney

chapter 9

At his father’s knee, Liam Tierney had learned not to expect anything from life. At his mother’s, he had learned he was not deserving of love. Fortunately for Liam, he met Brenna Duffy when he was still young enough to be skeptical.

Lorcan Tierney, Liam’s father, was a hard man, and having a son late in life hadn’t softened him. He provided the bare essentials without a smile and demanded nothing more of himself.

Walton Gaol, Liverpool’s prison, had made Lorcan the man he was. As nothing more than a feckless boy, he had left the family home in Shanmullin to seek his fortune in England, but only a month later, overriding hunger, a slab of hastily stolen beef and an unlucky eyewitness to his robbery cured him of hope. Deeply ashamed, he told no one what he had done or where he was.

Upon his release years later, he returned to Ireland to find his family gone, likely all dead, and nothing left for him except the rocky soil and tumbling cottage he had abandoned with such expectations in his youth.

Liam’s mother had been a spinster, sickly and morose, who accepted Lorcan’s curt offer of marriage when a brother made it clear that she would have no place to live if she said no. She gave birth to Liam, her only child, with a maximum of pain and a minimum of joy. Had Lorcan not intervened, she would have left their infant son on the doorstep of the rectory that night.

Twelve years later, upon Lorcan’s death, she made good on her threat and abandoned the adolescent Liam at the rectory doorstep, disappearing that same night, never to be seen or heard from again. Castlebar’s conscientious parish priest sent Liam south to finish growing up under the strict tutelage of the Christian Brothers. Very little of what he learned in the orphanage served him well.

Lonely, angry boys find others like themselves as friends. Lonely, angry boys seek solace in action, in violence, in causes that fill the empty places inside them. Upon leaving the orphanage at sixteen, Liam Tierney found just such friends and just such a cause in the political upheaval of his time. Only the miraculous appearance of Brenna, an auburn-haired, blue-eyed angel and orphan from another institution, had saved him.

Now Liam and Brenna had come to Cleveland for a new life, a new start, a new home for their darling baby girl. Brenna had named their red-haired daughter Irene. It wasn’t an Irish name, because at Irene’s birth Brenna had hoped so desperately that someday the Tierneys would not be Irish anymore.

“Irishtown Bend?” Brenna looked at the tiny, lopsided house that perched on a hillside looking over the place the local people called Whiskey Island. “We’ve come all this way, Liam, gladly left everything behind, to live in a place called Irishtown Bend?”

It was so rare for Brenna to be critical that Liam felt her words in the pit of his stomach. “I’m aware of the irony,” he said. “But we needn’t live here forever. It’s a place to start, and not such a bad place at that. Isn’t it better to be with people we understand? People like us? So many of them came from Mayo. I might well run into people I knew there.”

“Exactly what I hoped you wouldn’t do.”

Liam wanted the world for Brenna and Irene. He was going to give them the world, but unfortunately, not quite yet. And, of course, she wasn’t asking for that. She only wanted freedom from worry, from a past that haunted her nights. His past.

“I think the house has charm.” Liam cocked his head and stared up at it. The house was narrow as a young man’s hips and tall as a young man’s dreams. A rickety front porch ran across the front. His inspection had turned up boards so rotten that Irene’s meager weight would crumble them to dust.

Brenna hiked their daughter higher on one hip. Most of the time Irene would not allow herself to be carried. She was a lively child, only content when she was moving. But the voyage, the nights in Boston, then the nights in a West Side hotel that housed as many rats as immigrants, had nipped at her good humor. She rubbed her eyes and angrily brushed red-gold locks of hair away from her face.

His daughter. His reason for coming here.

“Perhaps it has charm,” Brenna said, “but I suspect it has mice and bugs, as well, and in winter, it will have icicles inside.”

“By winter we’ll live somewhere else, farther up the hill into the Angle, perhaps someday away from the Irish entirely.” He hesitated. “Unless we find family.”

Brenna looked as exhausted as their daughter, and that prospect didn’t seem to please her. “There’s little chance of it, Liam. You shouldn’t raise your hopes so high.”

Liam didn’t need the warning. His hopes weren’t high; in fact, he wasn’t sure what to hope for. Once, in a rare moment of conversation, his father had told him of uncles who had come here during the last century, Lorcan’s own brothers, Darrin and Terence, both of whom had died young and poor.

All the Tierney family had already died or abandoned Shanmullin when Lorcan arrived home from Liverpool, as had most of the villagers he had known as a boy. Even Shanmullin’s priest had moved to America, but one neighbor recalled that Terence had married, and his wife might still be alive. The wife might even have given birth to Terence’s child. In a place called Cleveland, where she and Terence had gone to live.

Liam knew so little of his family’s past, and he cared only a little more. Family had failed him so miserably. What reason was there to think that anything might change? He had made his own family when he married Brenna Duffy and sired Irene. If Tierneys were here, he would observe them carefully before he told them who he was.

Now he tried to make the best of their bad situation, hoping to cheer his wife. “Be careful on the stairs,” Liam said. “Best give me Irene. I know what to avoid.”

He took the little girl, who was fussing, and jiggled her as he climbed. He skirted the worst of the holes and pushed open the door. The house was dismal inside but surprisingly clean. The former occupants had been too poor for repairs but too proud for dirt. Only the faintest dust filmed the rickety table in one corner and the ladder-back chair beside it. The windows were few but gleaming.

“Good people lived here.” That was the most he could say, since the house had nothing else to recommend it. It was cramped and dark, and the moldering boards on the porch had close cousins here. He hadn’t been inside before this. The house was all he could afford, and the state of its interior had hardly been at issue. It had a roof and a floor of sorts, a place to cook and sleep. Until he found work, there was little else he could ask for.

He didn’t look at Brenna. He didn’t want to see the horror on her face. He had brought her here, far from everything she knew. True, like him, she had no family in Ireland. The orphanage where she had been taken at birth was a cruel place, and her memories of Ireland were sad ones. But she had married him to improve her life. And this was no improvement.

“Oh, Liam, look at the way the sun shines in this window.” She stepped carefully around the room and peered outside, down the gentle slope that led to the river and the smoke of Whiskey Island.

The sunlight wavered through the old glass, making patterns on the wall. He was pleased she’d chosen to notice them.