Chapter Twenty-two
Eimear sat on Finbarr’s lap, just as she had all day. She wanted to be held and reassured. He hoped he was managing to offer her some comfort.
“Have another nibble of toast, sweetie,” Emma said.
“My mouth hurts when I eat.” Eimear had started mumbling in the past hour, sounding like she was barely moving her jaw. “And my stomach hurts too.”
Finbarr rubbed at her arms, tucked under the blanket she was wrapped in. “Are you cold, mo mhilis?” She was shivering a little.
“No. But I’m shaky.”
Chills. He checked her forehead. She was more feverish than she had been.
“I’ll get her tucked under the blankets on the bed,” Emma said. “That should help with the shivering.”
She took Eimear and walked away from the table, where they’d been trying to get Eimear to eat. Emma hadn’t said overly much to him. He wished he could see her face, could gain some insight into what had her quiet and pensive.
“I’ll build up the fire again,” he said loudly enough that she ought to have been able to hear him from his room.
He made his way to the fireplace. The wood he’d brought in that morning was getting low. He added one of the remaining logs. After a moment to study the brightness and warmth coming off the fire, he picked up the canvas bag he carried logs in and crossed to the front door. Madra kept pace with him.
Finbarr pulled open the door, letting in a rush of frigid air. He stepped out under the overhang. Wind blew bits of snow at his face, but without the ferocity of a storm. Perhaps the weather was beginning to turn.
He reached up for Madra’s rope, but stopped at what sounded like footsteps in the snow.
“Someone there?” he called out.
“Finbarr!” That was Joseph. “Please tell me Emma and Eimear are here.”
“They are.”
Joseph’s vague shape drew near enough to be made out. “Thank heavens.”
“They were caught in the storm and knocked at my door looking for shelter.”
“Ivy said she was certain that’s what happened. We’ve all hoped she was correct.”
Joseph was at the door. “The sky still looks ominous, but there was just enough of a break in the weather for me to brave the trek.”
His silhouette bent, and something creaked a little.
“Snowshoes?” Finbarr guessed.
“Yes, and every bit of winter clothing I could get on.” Joseph straightened again. “We couldn’t bear not knowing if they were safe.”
“Eimear’s in a bad way, Joseph. Her fever is high. The rash is bad. She’s aching and not eating. Emma says the girl’s eyes are swollen shut.”
“I came with all her medicines,” Joseph said. “If her fever was truly returning again, then we knew she would need them.”
“Come inside. Emma’s tucking Eimear under blankets. The little one’s been shaking.”
Joseph stepped past him. Finbarr and Madra followed behind.
“Emma?” Joseph called out.
A rush of distant footsteps was followed by Emma’s voice. “Papa.” Bone-deep relief filled those two syllables. “Eimear is so ill. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m here now.” Joseph continued crossing the room, his voice trailing off as he, and Emma most likely, stepped into the bedroom.
“Papa’s come, Eimear,” Emma said, her voice distant.
“Papa!” Tears clogged Eimear’s raspy voice. “I hoped in my heart you would come.”
“As soon as the snow eased up enough, I came here looking for you. I would have searched the whole valley if I’d had to.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get her home,” Emma said. “The snow started so suddenly.”
“I’m just grateful you thought to come here.”
“Finbarr wouldn’t abandon—I knew he wouldn’t turn us away.”
That declaration should have been comforting, but instead his heart dropped. Why was it Emma couldn’t finish saying that he wouldn’t abandon them? And why was there such an ache in her voice?
Madra brushed up against his legs.
“You didn’t get to go outside,” Finbarr acknowledged.
He turned back to the door and opened it again. The air was still frigid, but the snow wasn’t as unrelenting against his face.
He tied Madra’s rope to her collar, then she ran off. He tied himself to his system of ropes and hooks and set off into the cold as well.
“You won’t leave me?” Eimear had asked him with such faith, such dependence on him.
He carefully removed logs from the woodpile, another thing Cecily, with Tavish’s help, had taught him to do safely. He’d been nothing short of annoyed at the time. How grateful he was that they hadn’t given up on him.
“If I come back to visit Hope Springs again, you won’t be here?” Emma had posed the question calmly and almost neutrally, but there’d been hurt in it.
He hadn’t decided to accept the job. But he also hadn’t decided not to. Living in a place designed for the blind, where everyone knew how that felt and what a person needed . . . he would be able to relax for the first time in a decade. He would be able to breathe.
But he’d be far away from the people he loved. Emma knew how that felt. But the sorrow of that wasn’t enough for her to not leave again. She was returning to Baltimore. The peace of leaving Hope Springs must have been worth the loneliness.
He and Madra were soon inside once more, and he had more logs stacked in the log basket. Then he crossed to the door of his bedroom.
“How’s my little Eimear?” he asked, softly in case she was sleeping.
The bed creaked. Footsteps approached, but without the sound of a swishing dress. Joseph, then.
He set a hand on Finbarr’s arm. “May I talk with you a moment?”
“Of course.”
They stepped back into the parlor and moved to the opposite side.
Joseph pitched his voice low and quiet. “She’s fast approaching the worst of this. I don’t dare take her out into the weather while she’s this fragile.”
“Joseph, your family is my family. Stay here with Eimear as long as you need to. All of you will always have safe harbor here. Always.”
“Thank you.” Joseph took a step, but Finbarr stopped him.
“Not being told about Eimear’s illness has dealt Emma a blow. She not only didn’t know what to do when the fever began in earnest, she’s also been left wondering why, in her own words, she’s no longer part of her family.”
“We didn’t tell her about Eimear because we wanted to save her the worry. But we managed to hurt her just the same.”
“She’s spoken a little about the things that are hurting her still, and there are a lot, Joseph—more than any of us expected after five years away.”
“Emma talks to you about those things?”
Finbarr nodded. “A little.”
“She has opened up some to Katie, but she still keeps so much tucked away. I don’t know how to convince her to trust us with more of her worries.”
“Maybe you could begin by trusting her with yours.”
“Her eyes already look better, Papa.” Emma brushed strands of Eimear’s hair away from her face.
“The doctor in St. Louis who treated Finbarr’s eyes after the fire sent Dr. Jones the recipe for the eye wash. It has helped.”
She set the back of her hand against Eimear’s feverish forehead. “Does the doctor in St. Louis think Eimear’s vision is at risk?”
Papa didn’t answer immediately.
She looked over at him. “Please, Papa. I want to know.”
“He does.”
Emma breathed through the ache in her heart. “What else has Dr. Jones learned about this?”
“Only a lot of guesses. No one knows the cause of it, but many doctors have offered their thoughts on the impact of it. High fevers are dangerous; we all know that. But the achiness in her joints with these fevers increases her chances of developing rheumatism. Her pulse is very odd when the fever is at its peak, which a colleague of Dr. Jones’s in New York believes puts her at risk of damage to her heart. ”
She adjusted Eimear’s blankets, grateful the girl was sleeping through this conversation, but also grateful her papa was finally talking to her about it.
“Do they think it is likely she will die?” Emma asked quietly.
“No one has offered any guesses about the likelihood of that, but they all agree it is a possibility.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve told us that you’re more at peace in Baltimore. We didn’t want you to feel like you had to give that up to rush back because of this.”
“But I should have been given the option.”
“Yes, you should have.” Papa took her hand in his. “I forget sometimes that you aren’t my little girl any longer.”
“It sometimes feels like you forget that I’m your daughter at all.” Her voice broke on the admission. She could hardly believe she was making it.
Pain flashed over his face, wrapping her with guilt.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she whispered, dropping her gaze.
“Don’t ever feel like you can’t talk to me, Emma. Even if the things you need to say are difficult to hear, I want to hear them.”
She wanted to believe it, but she’d not had anyone nearby in years who she felt she could talk with candidly about difficult things. Grandmother listened. Finbarr had the last few days. But there was so much she didn’t feel like she could tell anyone.
Papa put his arms around her. “I love you, Emma. I care about you. I care about your happiness. I care about the things that get in the way of that happiness.”
“There are a lot of those things.”
“I promise I want to hear about them. And everything else. The good, the difficult, the complicated.”
“And I promise I am trying to believe that.”