Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
In the time it took me to finish my tea, Eamonn had already poked around the thermostat in the house and asked Michael a series of questions.
By the time I’d helped Frances clear our dishes, Eamonn had grabbed his sweater and a toolbox from the car, and I followed him out to a utility room in a back part of the house we hadn’t gotten to before.
There was a washer and dryer for laundry, various brooms and rakes and other supplies leaning against one wall, and a door leading out to the back garden.
Eamonn flipped a switch on an electrical breaker box, and then opened the back door to let some air into the small room with the ease of someone who’d done this very thing many times.
He seemed to realize only after he’d done it that it wasn’t his house anymore.
“Is this okay?” he asked Michael.
“If you fix that boiler, I’ll dance a jig here on the spot,” Michael said. “That old thing’s nothing but trouble.”
“It was trouble for us,” Eamonn said, unscrewing the front cover of the boiler and setting it to the side, leaving all the inner workings exposed. “You said it used to cut off and on? And now it won’t turn on at all?”
He and Michael kept talking more about the boiler, while Frances came up next to me. “You’re a fortunate one,” she said, giving me a meaningful look. “Handsome and handy.”
“Oh,” I said, “it’s not…” But I realized there was no way to really explain—that we weren’t together, that I didn’t have any right to enjoy his handsomeness or his handiness, although I did admire both.
Eamonn hadn’t corrected Michael when I’d been introduced as his girl earlier, so I had to assume he wouldn’t mind me going along with it now.
“Thank you,” I said instead, and then closed my eyes against my own inanity. That made it sound like I was accepting compliments to him as reflections on me and my good taste in choosing him in the first place.
“So you’re from Florida,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward me. “Do you live here now, or are you visiting, how does it work with the distance?”
If she only knew the distance. “I’m just visiting,” I said. “It’s a beautiful country. I’ve really enjoyed my time here.”
“So are you planning to move?” Frances asked. “Or maybe he will. I thought one of Maura’s already did move out there, am I remembering right?”
These were not easy questions to answer, especially when I got the sense that Eamonn was at least partially listening, even as Michael was explaining something else about the way the heating system had been acting up in the last month.
Eamonn was methodically disconnecting a series of wires, leaving each to dangle out from the bottom before he moved on to the next one.
I refused to believe I was getting erotically charged from watching a man fix a boiler. But I also couldn’t watch his hands work without thinking about his fingers inside me only a few hours before, every way he’d touched me and every way I wanted him to touch me.
“Uh, yes,” I said finally, realizing I’d never answered Frances’ question about Eamonn’s brother. But then I realized that the question had been a two-parter, and she must’ve thought I was saying yes to the first part instead.
“Oh good,” she said. “Obviously people can do whatever they like, and you’re both young. But I always think it’s a shame when Irish people move out of Ireland. I just don’t think you’re ever quite right for being away. How did you meet, if you don’t mind a nosy one?”
It would be easier to stick to the truth—we did meet, after all, even if it didn’t set us down the path she was clearly imagining.
I tried to cast around for what version of the story made the most sense to share.
Bringing his brother into things seemed needlessly complicated.
I’d never been able to satisfactorily explain that coincidence to Eamonn, so I didn’t know how I would to a stranger.
“The bus stop,” I said finally. She leaned in, clearly not catching it, and I had to say it again but louder. If Eamonn hadn’t been listening before, there was no way he could miss that we were talking about him now.
“Ah,” Frances said. “Both waiting for the same bus. A classic romance story.”
Eamonn held up one of the dangling wires as if for inspection, and Michael leaned in closer.
“You see that?” Eamonn said, running his finger along the frayed end of the wire.
“This is what lets the boiler talk to the thermostat. Over time, it can get corroded or burnt out, and then they won’t talk anymore.
That’s why it was cutting off and on—enough of a connection to work sometimes, until one day it won’t. ”
“Oh dear,” Frances gasped, and Eamonn glanced up, seeming to realize that wasn’t a comforting thing to hear.
“I can rig it back up for you,” he said. “Get them talking again.”
“So we’ll have heat?” Michael said from over Eamonn’s shoulder.
Eamonn already had another tool out, kneeling down as he started to strip some of the insulation from the end of one wire.
“We’re going to need a new boiler,” Frances said, panic in her voice. “Didn’t I say that, Micky, that we’d need to buy a whole new system?”
“This one’s old,” Eamonn said, his voice gentle, like he knew it wasn’t what Frances would want to hear. I could recognize in his voice a bit of the inevitability, too, like Yeah, you definitely have to replace it. “But it did this every single winter for us, and we always got it going again.”
“Well, wasn’t your mother lucky to have a son like you,” Frances said. “Able to help around the house with this sort of thing.”
Eamonn didn’t respond to that, just continued working on the bit of wire until he seemed satisfied with how much insulation he’d stripped back. He started working the various wires back into their places, spending extra time with the one that had been the source of all the trouble.
“And technically,” he said, “she was waiting for the bus. I only came to make sure she knew how to do it properly, and good thing I did, or she might still be sitting there.”
It took me a minute to realize he was referring back to my earlier conversation with Frances, about the way he and I had met.
His tone was light, not really calling me out but just gently having a little fun at my expense.
It made me feel warm, like this really was the story of how we’d first met, like we had our roles down and had made an entire comedic bit out of it.
“You said you didn’t follow me,” I said.
He glanced back at me. He’d never bothered to put his boots back on and so he was still just in his socks, kneeling down on the hard floor.
“I didn’t,” he said. “But there’s a better sandwich place on the other side of town.”
Was he saying that he’d specifically chosen to grab lunch closer to the bus stop?
Why…to see me? I almost forget that we were just playing a game, pretending to this nice couple who’d offered us hospitality that we were together because it was easier that way.
Even if any of this was true, and he’d altered his lunch plans to see if he could catch me at the bus stop, it didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Maybe I’d struck him as that desperately in need of assistance.
He wasn’t wrong. If not for him, who knew if I’d still be sitting there.
Eamonn had gotten the wires fully reattached, but now he was messing with another part of the system, explaining something about how if certain nozzles got dirty it would also affect the hot airflow.
Sure enough, the nozzle he removed was covered in crud, and he went to start wiping it on his sweater.
I made a little sound I didn’t even know I was going to make. It was an actual cry of distress, like I’d just dropped my ice cream cone, and it had everyone turning to look at me. My face felt as hot as if the full force of the boiler had been trained on it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s just…a really nice sweater.”
“Isn’t that like a man,” Frances said. “Not even thinking.”
I was mortified. How could I possibly explain that I’d spent twenty-four hours admiring how soft that sweater looked, how much I constantly wanted to touch it, to pet Eamonn like he was a dog?
And then to watch him about to wipe grease or whatever else on its lovely cream knit, what was I supposed to do, just let it happen?
Eamonn was looking at me, his blue eyes intent on my face, and I was surprised when he lifted the sweater up over his head and held it out to me. “Here,” he said. “I’ll trade you.”
I shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to him, and he used the inside edge of one of the sleeves to start rubbing at the nozzle to clean it.
I didn’t know if he’d meant me to wear his sweater, or just hold it, but I was cold and it was tempting, so in the end I pulled it on over my head.
It was still warm from his body and smelled like him—like the inside of his car, like his throat when I’d had my face pressed up against it, with a sharp tang of pine underneath, like maybe that was the scent of his soap.
When I reached up to free my hair from under the collar of the sweater, I saw that he’d stopped rubbing at the nozzle to watch me.
Everyone was looking at me, actually, like they were waiting for my review of the sweater. Frances was beaming like she’d just watched Eamonn get down on one knee and propose. “It’s very cozy,” I said.
A small, secret smile pinched at the corner of Eamonn’s mouth, and then he blew off the nozzle in his hand. “This should do it,” he said. “See how much better it looks?”
Michael nodded and made all the affirmative noises about how he did see, but something told me they were going to be right back in this position next winter. Hopefully if they were, at least they’d know what the problem might be.
Eamonn finished putting everything back where it belonged, ending with screwing the panel covering the unit into place, and then he shut the back door to the house. “All right,” he said. “Fire her up.”
Michael disappeared inside the house, and we all watched the boiler with bated breath, waiting to see if it would switch on properly.
The suspense was palpable until Eamonn muttered, “Christ, it’s like watching Rovers with a penalty kick,” which got Frances to laugh so heartily we were still laughing when the boiler did click on, and then we all started to cheer.
Frances gave Eamonn a hug, and then me a hug, and then hugged her husband when he came back into the room.
Maybe we got caught up in the moment, all that hugging, but suddenly Eamonn’s arms were around my waist and his hands were on the small of my back, underneath the sweater.
“I like cozy on you,” he said into my ear, pressing a kiss there, and then he was gone.
I never really had the opportunity to hug him back, my arms hanging uselessly at my sides.
After the Great Boiler Miracle, the Leahys were insistent that we stay for a full Irish breakfast, and unlike with the tea, this time when Eamonn capitulated I could tell he really meant it.
It seemed important to the Leahys that they repay Eamonn’s kindness with food, and he ate two plates of eggs and beans and bread while I tried a few nibbles of everything.
It was only when I realized he wasn’t touching any of the meat that something occurred to me.
“Are you vegetarian?” I asked.
If I sounded shocked, it wasn’t because I’d never met a vegetarian before, and more because I was surprised I hadn’t noticed that fact about him until now. There’d been that burger at dinner, but I supposed it could’ve been a veggie burger and I’d just assumed.
He nodded, still chewing. Once he’d swallowed, he said, as if his only explanation, “Bridget the cow.”
“Ah.” That did make sense. Even from the short time I’d known him, Eamonn seemed to love animals.
We pulled the two dining room chairs out into the living room so that there would be enough space for everyone to sit, and the conversation got lively, with Eamonn telling a few more stories of growing up in the house and the Leahys sharing various gossip about neighbors and people they mutually knew.
Eamonn glanced at me a few times, tried to open up the conversation to include me more in it, but I shook my head and smiled.
I liked watching him as he listened, intent, and I liked watching him even more as he talked, his face lit up.
By the time we were leaving, it was already well into the afternoon, and Eamonn seemed to think of one last thing as he rummaged through his toolbox. “The clock on the mantel,” he said. “I might have the right kind of batteries for it, if not in here then in the car…”
Frances picked up the clock, holding it out to me. “Take it,” she said. “It was your family’s, you should have it.”
“I’m pretty sure my mother ordered it from a catalog,” Eamonn said. “It’s not an heirloom.”
But I remembered his expression when he’d been trying to wind it back up in the first place, and so I gave Frances a smile as I accepted the gift from her. “Thank you,” I said.
“Of course,” she said, pulling me in to kiss my cheek. “Consider it an early wedding present.”
I was still blushing when Eamonn leaned over to kiss her cheek the way she’d done to mine. “Thank you, Mrs. Leahy. For your hospitality and for…taking care of the place, I suppose. It holds a lot of happy memories. Some sad ones, too.”
She laid her hand over her heart, then her other hand on top of that one as though she were comforting her own self. “Your mother, god rest her soul,” she said. “She’d be proud of you, she really would. Such a handsome, kind lad, with his own lovely lady.”
Eamonn laughed, but I could tell there was something a little ragged about it. “She’s lovely,” he said. “You have that part right. But we really should be getting on the road so we can get back before dark.”
They stood at the end of the road to wave us off, and I didn’t know why I felt actually emotional at the prospect of leaving these two people we’d only just met, but I did. Those few hours in their house had felt so secure and comforting and warm—once the heating had been fixed.
Maybe Eamonn felt the same way, because we’d been on the road for a few minutes before he cleared his throat and spoke. “Nice people,” he said.
“The best,” I said.
There were so many things I wanted to ask him.
If any of that had been true, about him coming back to the bus stop for me.
If when he’d said he wouldn’t be able to so much as look at the Statue of Liberty with his record, he’d known that for sure, that there was no way of him coming to America even for a visit.
If his body was still humming from earlier this morning, if he could still feel every place where we’d touched the way I could.
Where he was taking us now, if we were going home.
But instead I just stared out the window at the passing scenery, and wondered when I’d started to think of his place as home, when it was somewhere I’d never even been.