Home to Me (Longing for Home #8)

Chapter One

Finbarr O’Connor had been dead for ten years.

It was an overly dramatic sentiment; he knew that.

But it was true. He’d been pulled from the smoldering ashes of a horrific fire that had forever changed Hope Springs.

Everyone had said what a miracle it was that he’d lived.

But in the ways that mattered, he hadn’t. Not really.

He’d managed to get his feet under him, to navigate in a world that had gone dark.

He’d learned to do his work and look after himself.

He went through the motions of life convincingly enough that his family had stopped weeping over him, but they still worried and fretted.

So he made certain to spend time with them.

That kept them from swarming, which kept him from retreating entirely.

It was exhausting.

With the threat of familial concern looming over him once again, Finbarr left the blessed silence of his home and, with his faithful dog, Madra, at his side and his trusty cane sweeping the ground in front of him, made the long walk to the Hope Springs Inn for the town’s weekly céilí.

He could make an appearance, be seen by enough people to prevent crowds from gathering at his door declaring that they were worried about him, then retreat to his sanctuary once more.

A whirlwind of voices echoed around the inn yard as he approached. He was better at making sense of chaotic sounds than he had been ten years earlier. But the weekly parties were still a challenge.

Irish voices mingled with American ones.

Fiddles, penny whistles, bodhráns, some weeks even uilleann pipes filled in any gap in the noise that might have accidentally occurred.

And the sound of footsteps and the swish of dresses hummed below it all.

Before he’d lost his vision, Finbarr hadn’t even noticed the sounds. Now, they were overwhelming.

But his family were reassured when he attended the céilís, so he endured the chaos of it as regularly as he could.

Madra brushed up against his leg every few steps, helping to guide him around the crowd he could hear but not see.

The townspeople had learned to slip out of his way when he was trying to navigate among them.

Madra stopped him, which meant he’d either reached someone in the family that she assumed he’d want to talk to, or he’d reached the chairs.

“There are empty chairs directly behind you, Finbarr.” That was his ma’s voice. He’d be able to pick it out even in the loudest of places.

He carefully sat. He rested his cane against his leg. Madra laid on the ground with her head resting on his feet.

Finbarr felt Ma take hold of his hand. “I’d hoped you’d join us tonight. You’ve not attended in a few weeks.”

“Sean Archer told me Katie was bringing one of her famous berry tarts. I couldn’t resist.”

“Your own ma’s cooking isn’t enough to get you here, is it?” There was enough laughter in her voice to tell him she was teasing him, likely smiling while she did so.

“Yes, well, Katie doesn’t hold my hand, now, does she?”

Ma squeezed his fingers. “Katie’s not your mother.”

Katie Archer was, in fact, a very dear friend who felt much like an older sister.

She and her husband, Joseph, were, in Finbarr’s mind, part of the mass of family he both longed to spend more time with and dreaded being surrounded by.

The Archers, however, managed to balance concerned and suffocating better than the O’Connors did.

Somewhere in the distance, the musicians began another tune.

Finbarr liked music. Before the fire, he was always among the first to be up and dancing.

Part of him had thought for a while after the fire had stolen most of his sight that he could sort out a way to join in again.

He had just enough vision to make out very vague shadows.

He could tell people were moving, and moving a lot, but not much beyond that.

Trying to navigate shapeless silhouettes and noise while surrounded by other dancers would absolutely end in disaster.

It was safer—and far less humiliating—to let others enjoy that part of the weekly parties.

“The musicians sound particularly fine tonight,” Ma said, still holding his hand.

He had not always allowed her to do so in the aftermath of the fire.

At first, it had been the pain of still-healing burns on his hands.

After the burns had turned to scars, he’d struggled with the babying he’d felt in it. But he found comfort in it now.

“I hope a few of the men making the journey to the depot this next week will bring an instrument or two with them,” Ma said. “A bit of music during the journey would be welcome among you, I’d wager.”

“Thomas’ll bring his penny whistle, I’m sure. And Patrick brought his fiddle last year.”

“I’m so pleased you go with them every year,” Ma said. “I know you don’t need to make the journey, but ’tis a fine thing for all you brothers to be together.”

Finbarr didn’t love the journey. While on the trail, there was no escaping company. There was no time to himself.

“Finbarr, we’d hoped you’d be here.” That was Tavish, one of his brothers. “Cecily and I have packed up the books to take to the depot. She’s included instructions for you. In braille, of course.”

“Of course.” Finbarr wasn’t certain why people so often thought they had to specify things like that.

Cecily was even more blind than Finbarr.

She had moved to Hope Springs specifically to teach him how to survive after his life had changed so drastically.

She was the one who had taught him to read and write braille.

Any note she wrote for him would be written that way.

The books, themselves, were written that way.

For years now, the people of Hope Springs had been united in an ongoing effort to translate books into braille.

Those books, which were little more than sheets of heavy parchment, handbound by the townspeople, were then sent to the school where Cecily had once been a teacher.

“Our wagon’s being filled with what doesn’t fit in everyone else’s, so the trunk of books can go in there.” Though he sounded a great deal like Tavish, Finbarr knew that was Patrick, another of his brothers.

Finbarr made a quick mental note of where they were standing, trying to sort out how close they were. They couldn’t have been at too much of a distance or he wouldn’t have been able to hear them over the other voices and the music.

“Oh, Finbarr did make it.” And there was the last remaining brother, Ian.

It always happened like this. Once one member of the O’Connor family spotted him, they all flocked over. Finbarr appreciated that they were glad to see him, but they were overwhelming.

“Tavish, here, issued a challenge,” Ian continued.

“He, Patrick, Da, my own self, along with Thomas, Keefe, and Ryan”—the last three listed were Finbarr’s brothers-in-law—“are charged with finding some little bauble to bring back from the depot for our wives. Nothing that costs more than a dime. Whichever man picks the thing that’ll be most loved, he’ll be declared the winner. ”

“And you wish for me to decide who that winner is?” His brothers and brothers-in-law were always challenging each other to one type of competition or another, and Finbarr was always recruited to be the judge and evaluator of their mischief. Before the fire, he’d been part of that mischief.

“You could participate in the challenge.” That was Thomas, his oldest sister’s husband.

How many of them were standing about? Thomas must have been directly behind or beside Ian, as his voice came from almost the exact same location.

“Participate in what way?” His question emerged faster than he’d expected it to, but the familiar feeling of being crowded in was beginning to tiptoe over him.

“Buy a little bauble as well.” There was Ryan, whose connection to the family was a little more complicated, but who was thought of, in every way that mattered, as a brother-in-law to them all. Ryan was over near Tavish.

“And who am I supposed to buy a bauble for?” Finbarr asked, not bothering to turn in the direction of any specific voice; there were too many. “Madra? She’s the closest thing to a sweetheart I have.”

“For the new school teacher.” There was Keefe.

A few minutes more and his sisters and sisters-in-law would be there also. And then he’d not be able to keep track of anything.

Madra sat up and rested her head on his lap. He softly stroked the top of her head, something that always helped calm him when he was feeling these first hints of panic. How Madra always sorted it out when he was growing anxious, he didn’t know. But he was grateful for her.

“The new school teacher isn’t even here yet,” Finbarr said. “How am I supposed to decide on something that she would like?”

“You’ll simply have to make her acquaintance while you’re at the depot.” Ma leaned in close. “She’s meant to be arriving when the men are there selling their grain.”

“I’ll be the judge in this contest,” Finbarr insisted. “Leave me out of the rest of it.”

“But why shouldn’t you come to know this school teacher? From what the preacher says of her, she’s near to your age and—”

“Give over, Ma.”

“Come now, Finbarr. I’ll ask—”

“Don’t bother bringing my sisters and sisters-in-law into this,” he said. “My stubbornness will outlast all of theirs.”

“That’s a tall declaration, that. The women in this family aren’t easily dissuaded.” Of course Da was nearby too. From the direction of his voice, he was standing a little behind Finbarr.

They really were circling the wagons on this one. Did they have any idea how daunting it was when they suddenly arrived as a group and just began talking without letting him know who was there or giving him even a moment to place himself among them?

“What the women in this family aren’t is being danced with,” Finbarr said.