Chapter Thirty-Four
Alannah
Finn walks me up the path to my front door, close enough that his hand brushes mine as we go.
Since the dance a few weeks ago, he’s been determined to show me how serious he is about courting me.
On Sundays, we sit together at Mass with our families on either side of us.
There have been suppers at his house and mine, afternoon walks, and a few evenings at the pictures with friends.
Even when his da or Grandda has work waiting for him, he always finds a way to see me.
Like today—he still had things to finish, but he took me for tea first.
At the step, I turn to thank him for the afternoon, only to find him standing closer than I expect. His eyes hold mine, and when he leans in, my breath catches. For a second, I think he might actually kiss me. Not on my cheek, the way he usually does, but on my mouth.
“I had a really nice time with you today, Lannie,” he murmurs, then brushes a kiss to my cheek.
“Me too,” I say, a little too quickly. My cheeks heat as soon as the words are out. I feel foolish for thinking he meant to kiss me, and oddly relieved that he didn’t.
“I’ll see you soon,” he says.
“Soon,” I echo, then let myself inside.
The moment the front door closes behind me, I hear Grandda call from the kitchen. “Maura? Is that you?”
“It’s me, Grandda,” I call back, shrugging out of my coat and toeing off my boots before following his voice into the kitchen. I find him at the table with a loaf of soda bread in front of him, a thick slice already cut, butter and jam beside it, and the teapot near his mug.
“Ah, Alannah girl,” he says, looking up. “Come and sit. Have a bit with me. Your Aunt Maeve wasn’t feeling well today, so your grandmam ran over with some soup.” Now that he mentions it, I realize I didn’t see her at Mass that morning.
I take a plate and a mug from the dresser and sit down at the table. Grandda reaches for the loaf, cuts me off a piece, and sets it on my plate. I spread butter over it while he fills my mug. “Thanks, Grandda.”
“Was that Finn dropping you home?” he asks.
I nod, spooning some jam onto my bread.
He watches me as I spread it. “You two have been spending a fair bit of time together lately.” A small smile touches his mouth. “Good lad, that Finn.” He takes a bite of his bread and chews before adding, “Steady. Good head on his shoulders. You’d be well looked after with a man like Finn.”
“We’re taking it slow,” I say, setting the spoon down and reaching for my tea.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this from Grandda.
Ever since he found out I’d agreed to let Finn court me, he’s said some version of the same thing every chance he gets.
And he isn’t wrong. Finn is a good man. Steady.
Kind. The sort of man who would take care of me if I let him.
But knowing all of that doesn’t stop my thoughts from going back to Ronin, the way they always do.
He still writes every week. I’ve read each letter so many times that I know most of them by heart. I don’t bother making excuses anymore for wanting to read them. I read them because I want to. Because I miss him. Because his words are all I have of him now.
One of his most recent letters left me with an uneasy hope I haven’t known what to do with. I’ve been meaning to ask Grandda about it, and with him sitting across from me now, I finally do. “Grandda… you haven’t seen any letters come from Mam and Da, have you?”
Grandda lifts his mug and takes a sip. “Letters?” he murmurs distractedly.
I glance down at the bread on my plate and start picking at the crust. “Yes. Ronin mentioned it in one of his letters. He said my da asked if, while he was in Ireland, I’d said anything about receiving letters from him and Mam.
” I pull off another small piece, watching the crumbs fall onto my plate before I look back at him.
“But that’s the thing, Grandda. I haven’t received any letters from them. ”
That gets his attention. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“I mean I haven’t heard from them since I left Boston,” I say. “I thought about writing not long after I got here, but Grandmam said I ought to leave it to them because of what they did. That if they had something to say to me, it should be them reaching out first.”
His face hardens as he sets his cup down. “Did she now?” he says quietly, and I suddenly feel like I’ve said something wrong. I open my mouth to ask what’s the matter—
The door opens and Grandmam steps inside, shaking the rain from her coat.
“Lord above, it’s coming down out there now,” she says as she hangs it on the hook.
“Poor Maeve looked worn out, but she was thankful for the soup.” When she turns, she sees the look on Grandda’s face and stops. Her eyes move to me. “What is it?”
Grandda answers before I can. “Alannah’s just told me Ronin mentioned in one of his letters that Seamus and Siobhán asked after her,” he says. “Asked him if, while he was in Ireland, she’d said anything about getting letters from them.”
She gives a small huff and waves a hand as if to brush the whole thing aside. “That boy would say anything,” she says. “I wouldn’t put much stock in what he says.”
I look between them. Grandmam stands there staring Grandda down, and he leans back in his chair, looking right back at her. “Maura,” he says quietly.
Grandmam narrows her eyes at Grandda, then lifts her chin when she looks at me. “Fine,” she says. “I didn’t give them to you.”
For a second, I think I must have misheard her. “What?”
Grandmam lets out a slow breath and turns away, bending to pull off her boots.
She takes longer than she needs to set them on the mat.
When she finally turns back, her shoulders are stiff and her mouth is tight.
“You didn’t need to read what they had to say,” she says.
“Not after everything they did. I was protecting you.”
I just stare at her, trying to make sense of what she’s telling me. “You mean my parents did write to me?”
Grandmam shifts her gaze away. “A few times,” she says.
“A few—do you still have them?” I trip over the words.
Instead of answering, Grandmam comes closer. “Listen to me, pet,” she says gently, reaching for me. I flinch back in my seat, and she freezes, her hand hanging between us. Hurt flashes across her face before she swallows and lets it fall to her side. “No,” she says at last. “I threw them out.”
“But… why?” My voice comes out small. I’m not even sure I want the answer, but I can’t seem to stop myself from asking.
“Because you didn’t need that put on you,” Grandmam says, her voice softening like she’s trying to make me understand. “You’d been through enough and you were only just starting to come back to yourself. I wasn’t about to let them come along after all of it and upset you more.”
I stare at her, but the longer she talks, the less I hear. She knew my parents had written. She had their letters in her hands and decided I would never see them. I can’t believe she did this. I push back from the table so suddenly the chair scrapes against the floor. “I think I need some air.”
Behind me, Grandmam’s voice rises as I head for the door. “Alannah, listen to me. I was only doing what I thought was right.” Her footsteps follow me across the kitchen.
“That’s enough, Maura,” Grandda says, his voice low and hard.
I don’t turn around. I pull on the first coat my hand touches.
It’s too big on me, but I don’t care. My hands are shaking so badly that I fumble with the buttons and give up.
Then I force my feet into a pair of boots.
A crash behind me makes me look back. One of the cups lies broken on the floor, and Grandda has hold of Grandmam, keeping her from following me.
Her eyes remain fixed on me, wild and pleading, as she keeps trying to make me listen.
But I’m done listening. I pull open the back door and hurry outside into the rain.
And then I’m running.
I tear across the yard and down the lane, my boots slipping in the mud and splashing through puddles.
The rain lashes my face, cold and stinging.
My half-buttoned coat flaps in the wind, and the shirt beneath it is already soaked through, the wet fabric clinging to my skin.
My skirt grows heavier with every step, but I don’t slow down. I can’t.
I don’t stop until I’m standing with the sea in front of me.
My breath comes in ragged gasps, and I bend over, bracing my hands on my knees as I try to draw enough air into my lungs.
The wind howls around me, and the waves crash violently against the rocks below.
My heart is hammering and my whole body is shaking.
Rain runs down my face, and I wait for tears to come, but they don’t.
My chest aches with everything trapped inside, too much to hold and nowhere for it to go.
My parents wrote to me. Grandmam knew. She threw their letters away. What am I supposed to do with that?
I can still hear her voice. I was protecting you.
The words sharpen the ache in my chest. Protecting me?
She watched me fall apart over their silence and let me believe they had turned their backs on me for good.
All that time, she knew they had tried to reach me.
She decided I didn’t need to know what they had said, then threw away my only chance to find out.
How could she do that to me? How could she not understand that this would hurt me too?
I don’t know how long I stand there staring at the water.
Eventually, the rain stops, and the waves begin to lose some of their force.
My breathing slows with them. My soaked clothes cling cold and heavy against me, but I barely feel them.
The ache is still there, deep in my chest, but the rest of me has gone numb.