“Oh, come on! That one we know by heart.”
O’Kane started singing, really singing, not slurring or shouting. His voice was crystalline, the key higher than might be expected, given the looks of him. He closed his eyes, but the corner of his lip on the left side drew up on certain notes, like a conductor had it on a string. The effect was almost spectral.’Tis you must go, and I must bide.Faye pulled her sleeves down to cover her shivered gooseflesh. He drew out the notes, and William sang along with him to the end of the verse. “Oh, Danny boy, I love you so.”
“That was lovely,” Faye said, clapping politely.
“Oh, but of course there’s more, Faye,” O’Kane said.
“You sing it yourself,” William said. “I’ll mess up the words.”
Conor sat on the arm of the sofa. This time he kept his eyes open, singing to Faye, singing to that question she still held.
“But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying. If I am dead—” He dropped the word like a stone and spoke the next line. “As dead, I may well be ...”
He held her gaze for an eternity, toying with her. Then his voice soared. “You’ll come and find the place where I am lying and kneel and say an Ave there for me.”
Faye bent and buried her face in her hands. She could not bear the thought of Elisabeth in a grave, coldly waiting for her return. It had seemed so obvious. If only one of them was bound for America, it should be her and not Elisabeth. A child’s logic, but still. Whatever Elisabeth’s fate, it was Faye who’d condemned her sister to it.
“Ah, my singing has broken your bride, Will,” O’Kane said. “Best to stop now. To tell you the truth,” he added, “it usually ends better than this for me.”
William put his arm around Faye. “I have never loved you more.”
She paused in the darkness she created by covering her eyes, in the life she created by denying another. She sat up, wiped her cheeks, smiled at her husband.
“There’s my girl!” William said. “A testament to our new president! Who wouldn’t weep at that one, I ask. And Jesus, Con. That voice of yours! Like a choir boy!”
O’Kane scratched at his face, lifted his brow, a sadness about him. “My mam said that. ‘Angel voice, demon heart.’” He shrugged largely, twisted his neck as if wresting away a burden.
Faye spotted an opening. “Yes, it’s all so emotional! And I’m a little drunk, I’m afraid. I think I need to call it a night.”
“No worries. I can take a hint.” Conor slung his black leather coat over his shoulder. “And the night is young!”
“You’re welcome to stay here,” William said, though Faye detected that the offer was less than heartfelt.
“Oh, let him go,” Faye said, hooking his arm. “He’s had enough of us.”
“Yes,” Conor said. “Think I’ll try my luck in town. Plus, seems the fox ought to go on into the hen house, if you know what I mean. Your wife is a wee bit sauced.”
William’s back straightened. “Watch yourself. My wife’s none of your business.”
O’Kane held up his hands in surrender. “She is not. That’s true.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door, his face half in darkness. “Grand evening. Really grand.” He winked, then disappeared into the November night.
Upstairs, Faye washed her face, put on her nightgown in the bathroom as was her practice. She brushed her hair with her right hand, smoothed with her left, examining her reflection. She and Elisabeth had looked so much alike as children. Years she’d spent remembering her sister only as a girl, never imagining her as a woman. Maybe something inside her feared Elisabeth would never live to comb gray hair, as the poem went. She yanked at her hair, wishing she could brush out the knots in her stomach. Conor O’Kane and Fiadh. Conor O’Kane and that voice of his. She didn’t know what he was trying to pull, singing the way he had, talking in riddles, touching her that way. She could have wrung his neck for toying with her, for stirring her up and making her restless. She leaned in closer and wet her lip with her pinkie finger.Him and his whiskey.
The lamp was lit when she entered the bedroom, William on his side, his back to her. She turned out the light and slipped in behind him, resting her forehead to his bare shoulder blades.
“Are you awake?” she whispered.
“Mm.” He rolled over, concern wrinkling his brow. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes. Anything. Of course.”
“Conor didn’t ... he didn’t make a pass at you, did he?”
Her stomach flipped, the feeling of Conor O’Kane’s hands sliding down her ass. She did not want the man here in her bed. “No. No! Nothing like that.”
“I felt I interrupted something when I walked in. He gets under my skin.”
“No, he was reminiscing is all, talking about when we were children.”
