Chapter 38 #2
Brid appeared at the garden door then, a tray balanced in her hands.
She approached with calm efficiency, setting out cups and saucers on the small table between them.
‘Something to warm you both,’ she said, pouring steaming tea from a blue willow teapot.
Her sharp eyes moved between them, clearly burning with curiosity, but she retreated without comment after ensuring they were supplied with sugar and milk.
Patrick waited until she’d disappeared back into the hotel before speaking again.
‘I don’t tell you this story for pity, mind,’ he said, wrapping his hands around his teacup as if drawing strength from its warmth.
‘I’ve had a good life, a fortunate one in many ways.
Goldenridge has been my constant companion through it all. ’
‘Then why tell me now?’ Molly asked, though a suspicion was forming in her mind, a sense that Patrick knew more than he was letting on.
‘Because,’ he said, his eyes finding hers with startling directness, ‘when I see you standing by the lake, or hear you humming that old song, or watch you arrange wildflowers with such familiar care—’ he paused, his gaze steady and knowing ‘—I see it. I see her.’
The implication hung in the air between them, unspoken yet unmistakable. Molly’s heart hammered against her ribs, her hands suddenly unsteady around her teacup. The garden seemed to close around them, the stone walls holding this moment of truth separate from the festival revelry beyond.
Her hands trembled slightly, rattling the fine china against its saucer. The secret she’d carried across an ocean pressed against her lips, demanding release after all these years of silence.
‘You know who I am,’ she said softly, not a question but a realization.
Patrick’s expression remained gentle, his eyes never leaving her face. ‘I’ve had my suspicions for a while. Harris … that was her married name?’
She nodded, her throat tight with emotion. ‘Yes.’
‘And when you hummed that song, and were so keen to see the oak …’ His voice trailed off, years of wonder condensed into that unfinished thought.
Molly set her teacup on the table, afraid her unsteady hands might drop it.
The moment of decision had arrived – whether to confirm what Patrick already suspected, or to maintain the fiction of being just another American tourist with Irish roots.
But sitting across from this man who had loved her grandmother, who had carved their initials into a tree that still stood, truth felt like the only possible choice.
‘Aoife Brennan … was my grandmother, yes,’ she said, her voice stronger now with certainty. ‘She died last year.’
Though Patrick had clearly suspected this, the confirmation still registered on his face with a physical impact. His eyes closed briefly, a small flinch betraying the emotion beneath his composed exterior. When he opened them again, they glistened in the lamplight.
‘I knew it,’ he said, his voice rougher than before. ‘I knew it from the very first time I saw you at the farm shop. There’s something in the way you tilt your head when you’re thinking, the very same gesture she had.’ His gaze traveled over Molly’s features as if cataloging resemblances.
‘I had no idea,’ she said, leaning forward slightly. ‘About you, I mean. She told stories about Ireland, about Golden Valley and the oak tree, and why she left, but she never mentioned anyone specific …’ She hesitated, searching for the right words.
Patrick’s weathered hands tightened slightly against his knees. ‘I suppose that’s not surprising. If she wanted a clean break, a fresh start.’
‘It wasn’t that simple though,’ Molly said, the words tumbling out now that she’d begun. ‘Aoife left Golden Valley because she had to. Because she was pregnant.’
The garden fell utterly silent, suspended in the wake of this revelation.
Patrick’s face went completely still, his expression frozen between one heartbeat and the next as the implications registered. ‘Pregnant,’ he repeated, the word barely audible.
Molly nodded, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘With my mother, Tara. Your daughter.’
Patrick’s breathing changed, becoming shallow and rapid. One hand moved unconsciously to his chest, pressing against his sweater as if to contain the emotions surging beneath. ‘My … daughter,’ he echoed, the words seeming foreign on his tongue.
‘In those days, as you know …’ Molly continued gently, ‘Nan said her father would have disowned her. That the shame would have destroyed the family. So she ran. To New York, where she had a distant cousin willing to take her in.’
The copper lantern between them flickered, sending shadows dancing across Patrick’s face as he absorbed this information.
‘I guess she never knew how to reach out afterward,’ Molly reckoned.
‘Didn’t know how to bridge that gap once it had formed.
Then years passed and she met my grandfather, Eddie, in Brooklyn.
He adopted my mom when they married. They built a good life together.
’ Molly paused, watching Patrick carefully.
‘But she never forgot Ireland. Never forgot Golden Valley or the oak tree. Or you, it seemed.’
Patrick’s hand moved from his chest to cover his mouth, as if physically containing the words that threatened to spill out. When he finally spoke, his voice emerged thick with emotion. ‘I have a child,’ he said, wonder and grief mingled in the statement. ‘A daughter I never knew existed.’
‘Had,’ Molly confirmed gently, her voice cracking a little. How awful to have to snatch this away from him so quickly. ‘My mother died when I was very young.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear it,’ Patrick said automatically, genuine sympathy cutting through his own shock. Then something shifted in his expression as a new realization dawned. ‘So that makes you my …’
‘Granddaughter,’ Molly finished, her voice barely above a whisper as the realization struck her too. ‘Yes.’
Patrick’s eyes widened, his gaze traveling over her features with new intensity, as if seeing her properly for the first time – not just as a reminder of Aoife, but as part of himself, his own blood.
‘Granddaughter,’ he repeated, the word soft with wonder. Then his hand reached across the table, trembling slightly, fingers outstretched.
Molly met him halfway, her smaller hand enveloped in his weathered palm. Much like Jack’s, his skin was warm and calloused, bearing the marks of decades working the orchard – an entire life lived, all the while unknown to her.
‘Is that why you came to Golden Valley?’ he asked, his voice uneven. ‘To find me?’
Molly shook her head apologetically. ‘Like I said, I didn’t know about you specifically. Nan just spoke of her first love, and the reason she had to leave Ireland.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘No. I came because she asked me to do something for her. In her final days.’
Something in her tone made Patrick tilt his head, a question in his eyes. ‘Asked you to do what, exactly?’
Molly took a deep breath. ‘Maybe I should show you,’ she said, reluctantly withdrawing her hand from his. ‘Wait here a moment?’
At Patrick’s nod, Molly rose and hurried back through the garden door into the hotel.