Chapter Seventeen
Emma slowly returned to the house, weighed down and broken-spirited.
How excited she’d been when she’d slipped out, so certain Finbarr would be excited that she was staying longer.
She had been absolutely certain that adding a week to her time in Hope Springs meant an entire additional week of talking with him, of rekindling a connection she had missed for so long.
And that connection had felt like something different, something bigger than what it had once been.
Though she’d not put a name to the emotion she had been feeling when she thought of him lately, she suspected she knew what it was.
And that only added to the ache in her heart.
Ivy and Sybil were likely still discussing Baltimore and sharing sketches. Emma wasn’t certain she had it in her to pretend to participate in that while her thoughts were heavy and her heart was hurting.
Above her head, she heard little Finn crying.
Firming her resolve and pasting a pleased expression on her face, she climbed the stairs and made her way to Papa and Katie’s room.
The door was ajar, so she peeked inside. Katie was walking with Finn, bouncing him a little. He was fussy but not inconsolable. He would probably settle down soon enough. Still, Katie would likely appreciate a reprieve.
“I thought I heard our newest little tyrant,” Emma said.
Katie looked back at her with a smile. “I don’t know if Finn deserves that title quite as much as Sean did.”
“Time will tell.” Emma crossed toward her.
“I hear we’re to have a little more time with you,” Katie said. “Another week. I thought for a moment your father was going to cry.”
Someone else she was hurting. Papa wouldn’t stop her from returning to Baltimore, but it would cause him pain when she left. She couldn’t get anything right.
She reached out for Finn, and Katie made the exchange. “I was glad Sybil was willing to stay a little longer,” Emma said.
“I hope that means this visit hasn’t been terrible.”
“It hasn’t been.” Difficult and now heartbreaking, but not terrible.
Katie picked up what looked to be a wooden rattle from her dressing table and brought it over to Finn. She shook it a little, proving it was indeed a rattle. That caught the baby’s attention long enough to stop his fussing. Katie set it in Emma’s free hand.
It was a beautifully intricate rattle, with very detailed carvings all along the handle. She’d never seen anything quite like it.
“This is beautiful.”
“It was Finbarr’s gift to his little namesake. Joseph says he must have bought it at the train depot on the grain delivery trip. ’Twas very thoughtful of him.”
To Emma’s horror, tears stung at her eyes at the mention of Finbarr’s thoughtfulness.
She obviously didn’t keep her emotions hidden. Katie’s eyes pulled wide as she studied her. Then, without a word, she crossed to the door and closed it. Turning around to look at Emma once more, she asked, “What’s happened?”
“Finbarr is upset with me.”
Katie crossed back toward her. “You said you had a nice gab with him at the céilí.”
Emma nodded. “We did. Or, I thought we did. But just now—”
That pulled Katie’s eyes wide again. This was, apparently, going to be a conversation filled with confessions.
“I’ve been talking with him when we’ve crossed paths by the river.”
“You have?”
Emma gently rocked Finn, moving the rattle around so he’d stay distracted.
“It was a chance meeting the first time. But it kept happening. And I was so amazed that he wasn’t avoiding me.
We talked like we used to, more or less.
But as adults now. It was really nice. He smiled at me and even laughed a few times.
He hasn’t done that in ages.” Oh, how she’d loved seeing it.
It had given her hope in ways she could not have anticipated.
“He said he liked talking with me and looked forward to bumping into me at the river. He liked talking with me, Katie. That hasn’t been true for a decade.
He wasn’t avoiding me. He didn’t seem to resent me anymore. He was just sweet, kind Finbarr again.”
Katie listened intently but offered no insights.
Emma took a deep breath. “I saw him again just now. He told me that he didn’t know until last night that I was the one he was talking to these last two weeks. I don’t know who he thought I was, but he didn’t realize it was me, and he’s upset that I didn’t tell him.”
“Did you know that he didn’t know who you were?”
“I wondered during our very first conversation. But the next time I saw him there, we talked about our families and the weekly céilís. The time after that, we talked about my visit to the school. I didn’t pretend I was someone else. I never said I wasn’t me.”
“But you never came right out and said, ‘’Tis me, Emma Archer, come back from Baltimore unexpectedly’?”
Emma shook her head. “I should have during that very first conversation. Sybil and I had been in town literally minutes, and I hadn’t yet been able to find you, and I was feeling very upended .
. .” It felt like a very shallow excuse.
“The next time I talked to him, I thought he knew it was me. It didn’t even occur to me that he might not; otherwise, I would have said something.
Perhaps I should have anyway, just to make certain. ”
“Can you imagine how vulnerable he must feel all the time, Emma? I suspect the only reason he attends any of the céilís is because he trusts the town won’t let him be in danger from things he can’t see.
But even among his family, he never looks at ease.
Watching him, it’s clear that he’s listening closely and carefully to every noise in an attempt to sort it all out.
It must be exhausting to never be able to relax. ”
“He did, though,” Emma said. “During our conversations at the river he didn’t seem overwhelmed or uneasy. I don’t remember ever seeing him like that, even before I left Hope Springs.”
“Which means he let himself trust you, even though he didn’t know you were Emma Archer.”
“Maybe because he didn’t know it was me.” Her next breath shook a little. “Now that he does know, he says he doesn’t want to talk with me at the river anymore. He said he’d prefer we avoid each other for however long I’m going to be here.” Heavens, that hurt.
“You must have dealt him quite a blow.”
“Unintentionally,” she insisted. “To cut me off entirely over it feels—It feels like there’s something more to it. Like if it had been anyone else, he’d be frustrated. But because it was me he’s—”
“Crushed.”
Emma shook her head. “Angry.” He had clearly been vexed, but there had been anger underneath it.
“I don’t think it’s merely—” She hadn’t let her thoughts formulate fully on this, but the truth of it was washing over her.
“I think he feels like I tricked him into talking to me, and if I’d given him the choice—” Admitting this was beyond difficult.
Her voice broke as she pushed out the remainder of her thoughts.
“If he’d known it was me, he would have walked away because he doesn’t want to talk to me.
He doesn’t want anything to do with me, and he feels like I tricked him into being my friend. ”
Katie put her arms around Emma, essentially hugging her and Finn both.
“I thought things were getting better between us,” Emma said. “But instead it’s even worse than it was before, which I didn’t think was possible.”
“I’m sorry, Emma. It would’ve done both of you good to have healed this rift between you a little.”
Finn reached for Katie, so Emma handed him back.
“I wish Eimear were feeling better,” Emma said. “The last couple of nights, I haven’t been able to spend much time with her. Though she has let me read to her.”
The same look of well-hidden discomfort spread over Katie’s features that Emma had seen a few times. “Little ones sometimes feel unwell; no doubt she’ll be running us off our feet before long.”
Emma didn’t particularly want to press the matter. Being careless with what she said and didn’t say had caused her no end of difficulties already that day.
“Thank you for letting me stay a little longer,” she said.
“Emma, you’re our daughter. You mean all the world to us. There is no limit on the time you could spend here, because this is your home. It always will be.”
And yet, it didn’t feel like it. Nowhere felt like home.
“Did you have adventures when you lived here?” Eimear asked as she and Emma walked along the river road the next afternoon.
Her little sister had requested they go for a walk together, and Emma had jumped at the opportunity to spend time with her.
“I didn’t have nearly as many as Ivy. She has always been the most adventurous.”
“I like having adventures with her,” Eimear said. “But I like when you read me stories.”
Emma squeezed her hand. “And I love reading them to you.”
Eimear smiled up at her. “Sean liked when you went to school with him. When I go to school, will you visit the school then too?”
“Would you like me to?”
She nodded eagerly.
“Then I will make certain of it.”
Eimear looked out on the road ahead of them.
Emma had insisted she choose where their walk together would take them and, to Emma’s worry, she’d decided on the river road.
They hadn’t seen Finbarr, which was a relief.
And they’d actually walked past his house, which she hoped would reduce the chances of running into him.
“How much farther do we have to walk to get to Mr. Tavish’s pond?” Eimear asked.
“A little while still.”
“I like his pond. Finbarr doesn’t have a pond.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“But he has a dog,” Eimear said. “I like his dog.”
“So do I.”
“And I love Finbarr.”
More quietly than she intended, Emma said, “So do I.”
A few snowflakes landed on their coats. Emma looked up at the sky. It had turned ominous. Heavy clouds hung low. And, just in the half an instant she’d looked up, the snow picked up pace. Emma remembered Wyoming snowstorms too well to not take the situation seriously.
“I think we are about to get a lot of snow, Eimear,” she said.
“Do we have to stop our adventure?”
“Delay it. We’ll walk to the pond another day, I promise.”
Eimear sighed. “I am really tired. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to stop. But I didn’t know if I could walk all the way to the pond.”
“Do you have enough energy to walk all the way home?”
“I can try.”
Emma turned them around and began retracing their steps. The snow fell faster and the air grew more frigid by the moment. Gusts of punishing wind pelted their faces with snow. They needed to move more quickly.
She stopped for just a moment. She unpinned her scarf and pulled it off, then wrapped it around Eimear, pinning it in place so the wind wouldn’t snatch it away.
“I’m going to carry you the rest of the way, sweetie,” she said.
“Are we close?” Eimear didn’t sound nervous, which was a relief.
Emma, however, was. They weren’t close, and the weather was growing rapidly worse.
She held Eimear close and walked at a quick clip. The cold was biting at her ears and nose. Her hands had already begun to ache, even through the gloves she wore.
“I’m cold, Emma.”
“I know. We’ll be home soon enough. And it will be warm there.”
Not a half-dozen steps later, Emma knew the weather would turn her promise into a lie. She could hardly see. They likely had mere minutes before they were caught in a full blizzard. And she was too far from home to reach it in these conditions.
They were in trouble.