Faye hears William in her voice.
They enter the city park through black iron gates beneath a stone arch. The sounds of Dublin fall away in the green space, ducks and geese and swans lazing on the lagoon before them, gulls careening overhead. Friends sit on the grass together, couples push carriages. Nola Wren scrambles out of her stroller to scatter a flock of pigeons into a flurried whirl.
Maeve throws her arms up, dodges a stream of excrement. “Ew. Just what we need, to get shat on by a bunch of birds.”
“Supposed to be good luck,” Molly says.
“People only say that to make themselves feel special because a bird shit on them.”
Despite the worry hanging over her, Faye recognizes that traveling with her daughters and granddaughter, sharing this space with them, is an adventure. The Irish accents remind her of Thomas and of William, sounds from the only sense of home she has ever known. She has been Irish most of her life. To be here now, in Ireland, preparing to relinquish her identity, feels like another betrayal. She hooks her arm into Maeve’s, taking comfort there, as they follow Molly and Nola Wren along the winding path edged with low iron fencing. They pass through the open center, a Victorian garden of fountains and flower beds.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Faye says to Maeve. They watch Molly bend with Nola Wren to feed the ducks.
“Yeah,” Maeve says. Faye hears that catch in her voice and stops.
“C’mon, let’s sit down. What’s wrong?” She wants to add “now” or “this time” but stops herself. Maeve doesn’t need her judgment.
“My heart,” Maeve says. “It feels like it’s wrapped in thorns.” She gestures with a nod. “After this trip is over, Molly will take her away somewhere. She can’t stand being around us. I know I’ve made it hard on her. I got so used to feeling like I had to be the best mother and the best wife. To prove myself all the time. I didn’t mean to make it into a competition with Nola Wren as the prize. I let myself think of her as mine. But she never was.” Maeve rests her head on Faye’s shoulder.
Faye touches Maeve’s cheek. She knows it’s all true. Molly chases after Nola Wren, who heads away from the open field toward a stand of trees and a fountain. “I don’t know how to keep us together anymore,” Faye says. That word.Together.It was so important to Elisabeth, it’s one of the few German words Faye remembers.Zusammen.But it felt impossible to Faye even then, as if her old soul knew better.Things fall apart,she thinks.
“I was thinking about Grandpa, after you told us about, well, all of this,” Maeve says. “Him and his Yeats. Things fall apart.”
Faye smiles, stunned by the shared thought.The ghosts are with us.
“Maybe I’ve been kind of playing house, like make-believe. Same old, same old.” Maeve says, touching her mother’s sleeve. “If Molly hadn’t come back ...”
“But she did, Maeve.”
“No. I know. What I’m trying to say is that this thing with Wendy is different. I’m different with her. When we go home, I want to do my life differently from here on out. I’m gay, Mom. I want to say that out loud so I can be that everywhere. I feel like I’ve been tiptoeing around, careful of revealing too much. Or maybe I’m just tired of trying to prove that I’m worthy even though I’m gay. It’s not a flaw. It’s who I am.”
“I know I’ve made you feel that way. I’m really sorry, honey. I put my own worry about being outed—Is that the right word? Of being outed on you.”
“Yeah, that’s the right word, Mom. You’re very cool now.”
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘The barn’s burned down, and now I can see the moon’?” Faye asks.
“No. But speaking of barns—” Maeve says, though Faye doesn’t seem to register it.
“Basically, it means sometimes something wondrous is revealed after a catastrophe. We can only hope.”
“I want to talk to you about an idea,” Maeve says. “Wendy and I were thinking—”
“You guys!” Molly shouts, waving them toward her.
“Let’s catch up with them,” Faye says, pulling a reluctant Maeve to standing.
Molly points at a bronze statue of three women in a circular fountain where Nola Wren dips her hands. “Check it out. Maiden, mother, crone,” Molly says.
“What?”
“Maiden, mother, crone,” Molly repeats. “The three Fates? Spin, measure, cut?”
Maeve gives her a perplexed look.
“The three Fates. It’s like, in all mythology. Women determine man’s fate, the length of his life. The young girl unwinds the thread to spin it, the middle-aged woman measures it out, the old woman cuts the thread.”
“It’s us,” Maeve says. “Nola Wren is youth, we’re in the middle, and Mom’s the crone.”
