Chapter Thirty-Two
Alannah
The last of the snowdrops are going over along the edge of the beds, while the daffodils are just starting to push up behind them.
I’m on my knees in the dirt with a basket beside me and a pair of shears in my gloved hand, working my way through the garden, dropping dead stems and old leaves into the basket as I clear space for what’s coming in.
Catríona is kneeling beside me with her own basket, doing the same work at half the speed and looking far more put out by it than I am. Every so often, she yanks up a clump of dead stems or weeds and drops it into the basket with a face like she can’t believe she’s been made to do this at all.
As I work, my mind drifts to the last of the arrangements Father Galvin asked me to help with for Holy Week.
The altar linens still need checking, and I have to speak with Mrs. Kelleher about the flowers for Palm Sunday.
Grandmam said the candles were already sorted, but I should probably make sure before Mass tomorrow.
At Catríona’s startled gasp, I look over and find her holding a fistful of dead leaves out and away from herself, a worm dangling from the roots. I bite back a laugh. “Catríona,” I say, “why are you even here if you’re going to hate every minute of it?”
She makes a face and drops the handful into the basket beside her. “Because I wanted to be with you,” she says, like that ought to be obvious. “And you said you were doing this, so here I am.”
Her answer catches me off guard. I look down at the stems in my hand, then back at her, and despite myself I smile. “You’re making a poor case for yourself,” I say.
Catríona only sniffs in reply and reaches for another handful of dead stems. I turn back to the bed in front of me, still smiling to myself.
Nearly an hour later, I’m crouched beside one of the shrubs, clearing out the old growth caught beneath it, when I hear the garden gate click. I straighten and look up. Finn is crossing the yard with his hands in his pockets. When he sees me looking, he smiles.
“You’re late,” Catríona says at once, like she’s been expecting him.
Finn only gives her a look. “I’m here now.”
She straightens and dusts off her gloves, making a production of it even though they’re barely dirty. Then her eyes flick between us, and the corner of her mouth lifts. “Well,” she says, “I’ve just remembered Mam is expecting me.”
I stare at her. “You only remembered that now?”
“Aye,” she says easily. “Funny how that happens.”
Finn huffs a laugh under his breath, and I look between the two of them, suddenly wondering what exactly they’re up to.
Catríona gives me a quick, knowing grin, then turns for the gate. “I’ll see you later, Lannie,” she says lightly, and keeps walking before I can answer.
I watch her go, then look back at Finn. “What am I missing?” I ask.
Finn gives a careless shrug. “You know what my sister’s like. Once she gets a notion in her head, there’s no stopping her.”
That pulls a small smile from me. His eyes meet mine, and his voice softens. “Well, now that it’s just the two of us, I was wondering if you might want to come into town with me. Tea’s on me.”
“All right,” I say. “That sounds nice. Let me go and wash up a bit, and then we can go.” He gives a small nod, and I leave him in the garden before heading inside.
When I step back outside a little while later, I find Finn waiting by his car.
“That was quick,” he says as I walk over.
He opens the passenger door for me, and once I’m inside, he goes round to the driver’s side, and we set off for town.
On the drive, Finn fills me in on work and what he’s been up to since I last saw him, and before I know it, we’re parking outside the café.
He guides me toward the door with a hand lightly at my lower back and opens it for me.
The café is warm and busy, filled with the low hum of conversation and the smell of fresh coffee.
I look around for an empty table, and Finn nods toward a booth by the window.
“There.” A waitress is clearing a few cups from the table, and when she sees us, she waves us over.
We take our seats while she finishes wiping it down, and she takes our order before heading back to the counter.
A few minutes later, she’s back with our drinks.
“Tea for you, love,” she says, setting my cup in front of me and sliding Finn’s coffee toward him.
Before either of us can thank her, she’s off to another table.
I add milk and sugar to my cup and watch as Finn picks up his own.
When he takes a drink, his hair shifts enough that I can see the thin red line near his hairline, all that’s left from where Ronin hit him.
Guilt tightens in my chest. I hate that he got hurt because of me, and before I can stop myself, I’m asking the same question I seem to ask every time I see him. “How are you feeling?”
He sighs and sets his cup down. “I’m fine, Lannie.”
I keep looking at the mark. “But Finn…”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “It’s been over a month, Lannie. I promise I’m all right.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, frustrated that I can’t seem to let this go. “I just hate that you got hurt.”
Finn reaches across the table and covers my hand with his. “That wasn’t on you.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“Maybe not,” he says. “But it’s still true.”
I frown and look down at where Finn’s hand still covers mine.
I know he’s right. I know what happened wasn’t my fault.
But every time I see that scar, I’m right back there.
I hear the crack of the rock hitting his skull.
I see him crumpled in the snow, bleeding, while Ronin drags me away before I can reach him.
“Alannah,” Finn says softly, and I lift my head, pulling my focus back to him. “I was hoping I could talk to you about something.”
“Of course,” I say.
Finn lets out a slow breath, steeling himself. “I like you, Lannie.”
My pulse stutters at his admission.
“I always have,” he continues. “And now that you’re home… I’d like the chance to court you proper, if you’ll let me.”
“Finn,” I say quietly. “You know I’m still married.”
“I know,” he says at once. “And we’ll take it slow. I’m only asking for a chance.”
I hold his gaze, unsure what to say. This is Finn.
My closest friend when we were children.
The boy who knew me before Boston, and the man who has been there for me ever since I came home.
And now he’s looking at me with so much hope in his eyes that it makes my chest ache. “I think I’d like that,” I tell him.
A relieved smile breaks across his face, bringing out the dimple in his cheek. “Really?”
I nod, and his smile only grows. “There’s a dance on at the hall this week,” he says. “I could take you, if you’d like.”
“That sounds nice,” I say.
We stay a little while longer, and when the waitress checks on us, Finn orders a currant bun. We pick at it while we finish our drinks, and after that, he drives me home.
At the front door, he pauses. “So I’ll pick you up Thursday, then? For the dance?”
I nod. “Thursday.”
For a second, neither of us seems to know what to do. Then he pulls me in for an awkward hug before stepping back. “I’ll see you then, Lannie.” Before I can say anything else, he turns and heads back to his car.
I let myself into the house and close the door behind me. As I take off my shoes and coat, I hear my grandparents talking in the kitchen, but instead of going in, I head quietly upstairs to my bedroom, needing some time alone.
Once inside my room, I close the door and sit on the edge of the bed.
For a moment, all I can think about is Finn.
The nervous look on his face before he asked to court me.
The way he’d lit up when I said yes. How easy it had been to just talk and spend time together.
For the first time in a long while, I feel a little lighter.
But the longer I sit there, the harder it is to keep thoughts of Ronin at bay. And once they come, so does the awful feeling that by saying yes to Finn, I’ve betrayed my husband.
I know it’s foolish to feel this way after everything Ronin’s done to me, but knowing that doesn’t make it go away. He still feels as much a part of me as he ever did, and every letter he sends makes it that much harder to let him go.
There are a handful of them now, hidden in the bottom drawer of my dresser along with the broken half of his wedding band.
I tell myself I should leave them there, unread and untouched, but on the nights I can’t sleep, I take them out and sit on the floor with my back against the bed, tucked out of sight from the door, reading his words again and again.
There’s no begging in them. No grand declarations.
He doesn’t ask me to come home. Some are harder to read than others, especially the ones where he tells me the truth about the other women he was with while we were together.
Those rip my heart out every time. He never offers excuses.
He only tells me the truth, and then he tells me he’s sorry.
Sorry for lying. Sorry for hurting me. Sorry for ruining us.
Mostly, though, he writes about ordinary things.
The house we bought that he’s been living in without me.
Work. Little bits about my parents when he sees them.
Things we might have once talked about over dinner, or during a drive through the city.
Sometimes he tells me he misses me, and he always signs them, Love, Ronin.
And I don’t know what to do with any of it.
The letters. The feelings that come with them.
The way reading them leaves me angry and aching and missing him all at once.
Each time I take them out, I tell myself it will be the last time.
Then a few nights go by, and I’m back on the floor, reading them all over again, full of what-ifs I try not to look at too closely.
Like what if Grandda hadn’t put a gun to Ronin’s head in the shed and demanded he sign papers to annul our marriage, papers I hadn’t even known existed before then?
What if Ronin hadn’t looked at me and said he wouldn’t sign them unless I asked him to, insisting he wouldn’t take that choice from me?
But what kind of choice was that? Ask him to sign, or stand there and watch Grandda put a bullet in his head?
And I knew he would. I could see it in his eyes.
He wasn’t making an empty threat. He would have pulled the trigger, and I couldn’t let Ronin die for trying to give me a choice I never truly had.
So I did what I felt I had to do. I asked him to sign. Then I told him to go home.
And later, when Grandda came back from the shed, he called me to the kitchen, where the papers were already waiting for me on the table with a pen laid on top.
He showed me where to sign, then assured me I didn’t have to worry.
He would take care of everything for his Alannah girl, and with his connections, soon enough it would be as though my marriage to Ronin had never happened at all.
Then he kissed the top of my head, collected the papers, and left me sitting there.
But all I could think was that it had happened, and I didn’t want it to be like it never had.
Because even though I hadn’t chosen the match between Ronin and me, I had chosen him.
I had wanted to marry him. And I had looked forward to spending my life with him.
And I was having a hard time not feeling bitter over the fact that my grandda had chosen how my marriage would end, just as surely as my da had chosen that it would happen in the first place.
So I tried instead to think about how my grandparents had given me somewhere safe to come home to when everything fell apart in Boston, reminding myself that they had taken care of me, that they loved me, and that they only wanted what was best for me.
A soft knock at my door pulls me from my thoughts, and then it opens. Grandmam stands in the doorway, one hand still on the handle. “I saw your coat on the hook downstairs,” she says. “I wondered if you felt up to coming down and helping me get dinner ready.”
I manage a small smile and push myself to my feet.
“Aye, Grandmam,” I say. “I’ll come help.
” She nods and leaves the door open behind her.
I follow her downstairs, but I keep seeing those papers waiting on the kitchen table, the pen Grandda had already laid on top.
I try to think of it as one more way he was taking care of me.
He had made sure all I had to do was sign.