Chapter Nine #2
That started a wave of departures, accompanied by the making of plans for various things they were all undertaking. Katie had gathered up her sewing, but hung back after everyone else left.
She crossed to Maura. “Best leave a note for your lads.”
“I wondered,” Maura said.
Emma had no idea what they were discussing. But even a cursory glance at Ivy revealed that her sister was not at all confused.
Ivy scooped up Eimear. “Time to go home. Mrs. Maura’s going to come with us.”
Eimear wrapped her arms around Ivy’s neck, very comfortable with that sister.
“I feel like we are missing an important piece of this conversation,” Sybil whispered.
“So do I.”
They must not have been talking quietly enough; Maura turned to them. “Katie’s been having labor pains.”
Everything fell into place quickly with that one revelation. To Sybil, Emma said, “Maura’s a midwife.”
“Oh!” Sybil looked at Katie and Ivy in quick succession. “What can we do to help?”
“We have a plan,” Ivy said, walking with Eimear to the door. “My Pompah likes having a plan.”
That was true. Papa was very methodical about his approach to most everything.
It was something Emma had in common with him.
That made her current situation all the more baffling.
She’d not spent more than a couple of days thinking through and planning her return to Hope Springs.
She’d rushed across the country to a place she didn’t want to be without telling anyone that she was coming and not knowing why she was there.
Maura and Katie walked from the house. Sybil and Ivy followed, Ivy holding Eimear. Emma was the odd one out.
They walked across the road and turned in the direction of Emma’s family’s home. Just ahead of her, Ivy spoke to Sybil.
“Mrs. Paxton will look after the house. I will look after Eimear. When Sean is done with school for the day, I will take the little ones to Ian and Biddy O’Connor’s house. Pompah will get us from there when it’s time for us to return home.”
“I’ll go with you to fetch him from school,” Sybil eagerly offered.
Ivy nodded, seemingly excited at the possibility. During the family’s visits to Baltimore, Ivy had found a place among all of Emma’s friends and had always seemed eager to spend time with them. She’d also, at that time, been excited to spend time with Emma. What had changed?
As they walked over the bridge, Katie looked back at Emma. “Will you fetch your papa?”
“Of course. Is he in the fields today?”
She shook her head. “He was going to help Finbarr make some repairs at his home and then do some work in the barn.”
Finbarr’s house.
Or the barn.
Emma swallowed thickly. She didn’t overly want to go to either place.
She’d had easier conversations with Finbarr since her return, which ought to have lessened her unease.
But it didn’t. And she didn’t imagine she would ever feel truly comfortable in Papa’s barn, no matter that it wasn’t the same barn that had, ten years earlier, been engulfed in flames.
Finbarr’s house.
Or the barn.
This was the first time she’d been given any purpose since returning to Hope Springs. She’d so seldom felt needed before she’d moved away. How could she refuse to help when Katie needed her?
Finbarr’s house.
Or the barn.
She turned off the road as the barn came into sight. The others continued on toward the house.
“Breathe,” she whispered. “You need only peek inside. Papa might not even be there.”
Of course, that would mean he was at Finbarr’s house, and she would have to convince herself to make that journey as well.
Surely that would be less daunting. Finbarr was happy she was back.
He was talking to her again. But somehow meeting him on the riverbank was far less daunting than journeying to his house.
Each step closer to the barn proved a little harder to take, but she continued on. Her lungs tightened, but she managed to breathe.
“Katie needs Papa. And Papa needs to be with Katie.” Emma had once been so good at hiding these moments of panic and pain. It seemed her time in Baltimore hadn’t afforded her any additional strength or endurance. It had simply rendered her out of practice.
She reached the barn doors. Her next breath trembled, but she set her shoulders. She had pretended her way through moments just like this for years before seeking refuge across the country. A person didn’t simply forget how to do that.
With a surge of determination, she stepped inside. The usual smells of a barn washed over her, yet her mind overruled what her nose was detecting, telling her, instead, that the space was filled with the smell of smoke.
Emma squinted a little, her eyes trying to grow accustomed to the dimmer light. Just as she was beginning to make out more details of the interior, Papa’s voice reached her.
“Emma. What has brought you out here?”
“Emma’s stepped inside?” Heavens, that was Finbarr.
She could see him now, sitting on a stool next to Papa’s.
The unease of being in the barn swirled with a feeling of worry at Finbarr being there.
She wanted to believe that he wasn’t still angry with her.
She wanted to trust that their conversations on the river were a true reflection of how he felt about her.
But what if they weren’t? What if, in this place of pain, all that anger simply bubbled to the surface again?
What if being in here reminded him of why he hated her?
Emma waved Papa over. He looked confused but didn’t refuse to cross to her.
Dropping her voice to a whisper, she said, “Katie asked me to send you up to the house. Her labor has started.”
Papa pulled in a quick breath. He turned back toward Finbarr. “Katie’s having her baby.”
Finbarr stood, waving him away. “Go. I can make my way home.”
“Maybe Emma can walk back with you.” Papa gave her a questioning look.
It was such an innocuous suggestion. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
With an unarguably frantic shake of her head, she turned and rushed from the barn.
Behind her, she heard Finbarr say, “Did she leave? I heard skirts and feet.”
“Ran like ‘the banshee was on her heels,’ as my Katie would say.”
Emma tucked herself against the side of the barn. She pressed her hand to her heart, pleading with it to calm down. This was why she’d left Hope Springs in the first place. Every place, every encounter, dredged up too much pain and fear.
Papa left the barn, walking to the house without looking back or realizing she was there. Finbarr stepped out a moment later, making his way around the barn to the riverside path. He didn’t cross by her, and Madra kept at his side, neither seeming to be the least aware that she was watching them.
If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be like this in the first place. He’d said that to her nine years ago. He’d said it, and she’d never forgotten. She still heard it in her thoughts as clear as if he’d only just spoken.
He’d apologized afterward. He’d said he was wrong.
But he wasn’t. She had always and would always know that the pain of so many people these past ten years was all her fault.