Kelly’s, or Finn’s shipyard as she thought of it, was at the end of Saratoga Street. Today, Sunday, it was deserted since Mr. Kelly was Irish Catholic as were most of his workers. Finn, had been an anomaly amongst them, a French Canadian, whom they’d apparently accepted. He’d spoken fondly of his fellow builders and their after-hourshenanigansat the many pubs in the neighborhood.
Rose shivered. Jovial times for Finn and his shipmates were far in the past. She tied up her horse at the main entrance to the shipyard’s docks. It was achingly familiar. For months after he’d died, she’d haunted these docks, senselessly looking for him. On this side of Boston’s harbor, they’d all known she was Finn’s woman. Thus the other men, those left behind at the yard, had allowed her to stay, as close as was safe — though she’d spoken to none of them.
Purposefully, she hadn’t gone anywhere near Finn’s old workplace for years.
So what was she doing there at that moment? Not merely an idle walk by the water to clear her head. She could have done that without riding all the way to Eastie.
PerhapsFinnwas the one now haunting her.
She walked the same path she’d first taken with Claire and found herself pausing to look up at the closest ship, a large cargo clipper whose steel sides were being repaired. She glanced up at the three masts towering above her.
In her mind’s eye, there he was, exactly as before. Strong, handsome, capable, catching her eye and holding it. She smiled at the memory, but the vision disappeared as quickly as it had come, along with her good humor.
Of course Finn wasn’t up the rigging. He was at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Rose wandered farther along, breathing the ocean air and listening to the sounds of the gulls and of the seawater lapping against the wooden pilings.
Up ahead, at the very end of Kelly’s dock, a lone figure sat on a bench and was looking out to sea — a black knitted hat pulled down over his hair despite the sunshine and barely discernible warm morning breeze. He wore well-worn dungarees and a blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves to reveal muscular arms.
Rose hesitated. These imaginings were becoming tedious. This man’s body reminded her of Finn’s with his broad shoulders and the way he held his head. Even the way he lifted his arm to shade his eyes with his palm as he looked at the shimmering, sun-dappled horizon, was exactly as Finn would have done.
She was inexorably drawn to the silent figure. No matter the impropriety. No matter the danger. Rose walked closer, then closer still. Eventually, she drew up level with the end of the bench.
Precisely when she would have either spoken to him or turned away, a white and gray gull cried loudly and swooped into the water in front of them, making her jump.
The man watched as the bird dove for a fish, and then, quite casually, he turned to her. His familiar eyes, a stormy gray blue, locked onto her startled gaze.
Everything fell silent, even the waves and the gulls — silent compared to the roaring in her ears.
The gasp that escaped her lips, though, that sounded overly loud.
He stood up, facing her, and she stopped breathing completely for an instant.
Taking a small step back, frowning at him, shaking her head in disbelief, she uttered only, “Finn?”
It came out as a whisper and a question.
Would he vanish? Was he a ghost? Or perhaps he was merely a man who looked like her dead husband, a man who would scorn her as a bedlamite ready for the asylum.
She realized that she was reaching out a shaking hand toward him.
Then he spoke.
“Rose.” Not a question, more like an affirmation that he knew who she was. Spoken in a familiar voice.
With every part of her being, she knew that it was indeed him.
She snatched her hand back. Her knees started to tremble and her heart pounded in her chest. She fought against the buzzing in her head that warned of fainting. She would not give in to it, she was determined, sucking in great inhales of air until her head cleared. Then her feet carried her toward him at a lightning fast pace, and she struck her fists against his solid chest, while hot tears coursed down her cheeks.
She continued to beat her hands against him, unable to stop herself as rage and fear, sadness and confusion coursed through her.
How dare he? How dare he stand there, alive and calm, and as if they’d only parted company that morning?
She became aware of the feeling of his shirt fabric under her palms and, below that, the warmth of him. His pounding heart, his blood coursing, his lungs working. He was very much alive!
