Maeve gets out of the car, presses Nola Wren between her body and Wendy’s as if she’s preserving a plucked flower. She puts her head on Wendy’s shoulder, her arm around her waist. “Let’s go inside.”
It’s only noon, but Maeve feels she has been awake for days. When was the last time she was this tired? Probably when Nola Wren was a baby, in those horrible days after Molly left when they all realized she wasn’t coming back. She sinks into the couch, throws her head back. “I don’t know where to begin. This family. I swear.”
“You okay? Where did you go? I saw that your mom was here, but then you all took off.”
While Nola Wren eats peanut butter and jelly and grapes cut in two, Maeve tells Wendy about her mother and Conor O’Kane, about Germany and Ireland and refugee children and lost sisters and drowned friends and how crazy families are with their secrets, how they try to fool each other into thinking they are the best versions of themselves. She tells her about Molly and the picture she’d kept hidden all those years.
“I don’t know how I was so blind to what she was going through. And before you say it, I know ... you tried to tell me. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts I didn’t give her a second one. My mom.” Maeve shakes her head. “That night, she said that Dad would be so disappointed if he knew I had been with you. But really it was her. Jesus, Wen! The guy died in our house! I mean, I must have noticed Molly acting weird after, but I was busy trying to be the perfect straight girl to make up for the fact that, you know, mydepravityor whatever, was the reason he was in the house in the first place. But it wasn’t because of me at all! It was because of Mom.” The kitchen goes dark as rain pelts the windows, disappearing the lawn and rocks in fog. “God, it’s gloomy!” Maeve says, her elbows on the table. She takes a bite of Nola Wren’s sandwich. “This rain!” She groans. “I don’t know what to do.”
Wendy sits gobsmacked as Maeve recalls how their whole lives have been wrapped around her mother’s deception, though she hesitates on that word. “Or was Mom kidnapped? I have no idea how to even think about this,” Maeve says.
“Whew! That’s a lot,” Wendy says. “Talk about mayhem! And your dad never knew.”
“He kept all those newspapers in the truck in case he needed them for his antiquing. I can only imagine him seeing that picture, thinking in that way of his—he was always so thoughtful—thatMom would want to see it. Of course, she would. I wish I knew what he would have done if he’d found out. She says she was protecting him.”
“Your dad? Protecting him from what?”
The rain stops, and a god ray of sunshine blazes through the kitchen window. Maeve lets it hit her full on, gathering herself in the sudden light. She laughs, wiping her eyes.
“What?” Wendy asks.
“My dad. He said I was like Scout fromTo Kill a Mockingbird. A ray of sunshine in pants. He was the empathetic one, like Atticus. I can just hear him. ‘Imagine what it was like for her.’ Blah, blah, blah. But it’s true. Mom’s kind of been in her own closet in a way.”
Maybe her father knew something about Maeve after all. Maybe she tried too hard to be a sunbeam all these years, as if baking cookies and keeping house was what was expected of her. Even after Sam left and Wendy moved in, wasn’t she still trying to fit into some accepted version of normal? Putting on a show for Dylan and Opal or her parents or neighbors and bosses, pretending like she and Wendy were some plain old married couple? If this was a house of cards, how could she continue to live in it while it collapsed around her?
Wendy wipes Nola Wren’s mouth and hands. “NoNo, go play in the other room.”
Maeve watches her run, free of grown-up problems and noise. They had tried clever monikers to distinguish each other—Mommy, Mama, Mom, Ma—but it had felt too contrived. They’re just Wendy and Maeve, or “WindyMay” when she clumps them together. And now Molly is just Molly. Did Nola Wren have too many mothers or none at all? “Molly says she’s ready to take Nola Wren to the farmhouse,” Maeve whispers.
Wendy slams her soda can on the table. “Oh, come on!”
“No, she’s determined. I saw it.” Maeve pauses, tries to quiet her busy mind. Her head is peppered with thoughts and schemes and possibilities. Her eyes flick from side to side. “Remember how we stumbled down that path away from the kegger? We couldn’t see our own hands in front of our faces. That’s how I feel now. Completely blind. I have no idea what’s next.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
1996: Dublin, Ireland
From the back seat with Nola Wren, Faye listens to Maeve and Molly argue over the best route to Dublin from the airport. It has been push and pull for months.
In the aftermath of Faye’s revelation, Molly had returned to that bar, the Salty Siren, in search of Glenda, determined to confess the truth about what happened the night Conor O’Kane died. But the bartender claimed he’d never heard of a Glenda and said people come and go. After that, the only solution for Molly was to go with Faye to Ireland so she could confess directly to any O’Kane at all. No one had been able to talk her out of it. That plan started rounds of bickering and negotiating and tears, battles over who would go with Faye and who would stay behind until the only solution was for Maeve and Molly to both go to Ireland and Nola Wren too. Their fates would be sealed or unsealed together.
Thankfully, there’s no argument about who should drive. Molly knows she is a frantic driver—too close to the wheel, too many nervous glances over her shoulder, on and off the gas like she’s playing a pedal organ. Maeve, though, is a natural, and it is when she looks most like William as far as Faye is concerned. Even here in Ireland, on the wrongside of the road, her right arm extends from the shoulder and drapes over the steering wheel, while her left hand rests easily on the stick shift. Nola Wren, glued to the window, watches cars and buildings and trees on the motorway. Faye watches with the same wonder.
Over decades of witnessing a changing America, Faye somehow believed that Ireland was only a rural place of hills and sheep and stone walls and craggy shores. The modern buildings and roadways, cars and lorries zipping around, shock her. Had she thought that time stood still here? Her only sense of an Irish city is the Belfast of news reports. She knows from William’s clipping that she and Elisabeth got off the mail boat at the docks in Dublin, a memory so innate in her it is like a memory of sun on one’s face. Dublin, though. It’s a postcard, a colorized photo. She has no memory of this or any Dublin at all.
In the tiny hotel room, they stash their bags and wash up in the bathroom. The mattresses sag and the wallpaper is worn, but it’s clean, which is all Faye hoped for. Molly stakes out the bed she will share with Nola Wren, leaving the one closest to the door for Maeve and Faye. Tight quarters to be sure. Nola Wren bounces on the bed now in her stocking feet, trying to touch the low ceiling out of her toddling reach.
It’s not even noon, Dublin time. The idea of taking a quick nap is considered and rejected—there’s no way they’ll be able to sleep with Nola Wren awake. “We have to rally,” Maeve says. “Get on local time.” She takes out the guidebook. “Here. Let’s walk to Saint Stephen’s Green, stretch our legs, then grab lunch. Maybe afterward this little monster will be ready for a nap.” She sweeps up Nola Wren, swings her around until giggles erupt.
Molly takes the child from Maeve. “Let’s change your diaper, sweet girl.” With that, chins drop, and Maeve and Faye set about fussing with their suitcases, knowing looks flickering between them as Molly struggles with the diaper bag. “You two can stop with the glances. I don’t need you scrutinizing every move I make. Honestly, the judging! I’ve got this.”
This terrible tug-of-war. Neither Maeve nor Molly seems able to let go—Molly trying to prove to everyone, herself included, that she is a capable mother, and Maeve, rubbing it in that Nola Wren still seeks her out despite the fact that the child lives full-time at the farmhouse with Molly and Faye now. “I wish ...” Faye can’t finish her thought. She doesn’t know what she wishes for anymore. So many conversations, so many battles to get to where they are. They agreed they would start in Wicklow, at the center in Glencree. There they would look for information about Faye’s sister. Maeve had suggested calling or writing ahead, but Faye said no. She wanted to go there in person even if they weren’t able to find Elisabeth. Bad news would only keep her away. She wanted to retrace the last steps she took as a German girl. “Come what may,” she told her daughters. From Glencree, they would head west to the village on Dunmanus Bay. She would know the fields and walls. She would know the sea. Then they would seek news of Hannie and Hugh and of the O’Kane family and their whereabouts.
“You wish what, Mom?” Maeve asks.
Faye shakes her head. “I wish I knew it was all going to be okay.”
“It will be, Mom. Whatever happens. We’ll get through this,” Maeve says.
