“No.”
The relief through the phone call is tangible.
“What then? Has something happened with your employers? Do you need me to speak to?—”
“No, Mom, I don’t need you to speak to anyone. I just … want to come home.”
“Oh, baby girl.” I can hear the tears in her voice. “Your room is ready for you. I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t stop you from leaving because I knew how important this trip was to you with finding your heritage, but… We’ll celebrate when you get back.”
“Thanks, Mom. Love you.”
I end the call, take one final glance around the guest room, and shoulder my bag. The diamond in my engagement ring catches daylight and sends a rainbow pattern dancing around the walls, making the breath catch in my throat.
I can’t take them. There is no love or good intentions in them now. Only heartache and a one-sided arrangement keeping me trapped inside this beautiful cage. If I stay it would be for all the wrong reasons, and I won’t bring a baby into a world where love is conditional upon good behavior and a blemish-free past.
I thought that Declan loved me for who I am.
How blind can love be?
I slide them off my finger and leave them on the nightstand.
Then, I slip out of the house without bumping into Declan or Orla. No one waves goodbye as I trek along the winding driveway with my bag thumping against my back. No one watches me from behind a window. And I don’t look back.
When one door closes, leave it shut. It’s one of Carol’s favorite mottos. I haven’t called her since the morning after the wedding; she’d have been on the first flight to Dublin with a pair of boxing gloves in her bag and a whole load of home truths to hand over to my husband.
My husband.
One foot in front of the other, I keep moving, blurring the driveway with my tears, until I reach the road. Then I call a local taxi company; I got the number from a card that Orla keeps in her tattered address book held together with elastic bands.
I sit inside a covered bus shelter on the side of the road and wait for the cab. My chest is aching. My limbs feel heavy. But I focus on what lies ahead, and the baby growing inside my belly, instead of what’s behind me. We’ll be alright. My mom raised me on her own, and I learned from the best.
I can do this. I have to believe it because the alternative is curling up into a ball and handing my life over to a man who doesn’t love me enough to forgive me for my mistakes.
In the back of the taxi, I check the schedule for flights from Dublin to New York. The next flight with availability isn’t until late this afternoon. I buy a ticket online and check in so that I don’t have to interact with anyone in the airport.
Then I sit back and close my eyes.
My mom’s voice plays inside my head. “You found your father.”
My whole reason for coming to Ireland took a back seat to my relationship with Declan, and then the funeral, and the secret that was eating me up. I’d forgotten that I enlisted Orla’s help in finding my father. We narrowed it down to two men called Michael Morran before she retired to her room for a nap.
I call up the information on my phone then run a Google search on both men. One of them has businesses listed to an address close to Dublin. I have time to waste. Time enough to finish what I started and bring some closure to my heritage search before I leave the country.
Once I board that flight, I won’t be coming back.
I give the driver the new address and peer out of the window, my pulse racing. I’ve no idea what I’ll say to my father when I meet him, but maybe this is the best way. Rock up. Hit him with the I’m-your-daughter bombshell. Then leave the ball in his court.
I even manage a small smile—I will have forever changed the lives of at least two Irishmen when I board that plane.
And that’s the York women legacy.
The address is for a warehouse on an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere. I pay the taxi driver and ask him to wait around for me in case this is the wrong Michael Morran.
I thought I would be nervous about meeting my father. But with everything else that has happened, this feels like a pleasant interlude. Drawing a line under my history so that I know what to tell my child when they grow up.
The reception is empty when I go inside. There’s no computer on the front desk. No files. No posters on the wall aimed at the employees. No bell to ring for customer service. Perhaps the business folded, and the information on the internet hasn’t been updated.
I’m about to turn around and go back to the waiting taxi when an internal door marked STAFF opens and a man enters the reception. He’s wearing a gray suit that clearly has a designer label inside the jacket. He’s clean-shaven, dark hair slicked back from a high forehead, his jawline strong and defined.
