Even in her floppy boots, Sela scrambles lithely onto the stone wall, tosses her hat onto the ground. “Forgive yourself,” Sela replies.“Sister. Forgive yourself.” Arms out for balance, she places her feet like a tightrope walker and takes off in a prance.
Faye watches as her sister transforms into the child she was—barefoot, hair thick and brown, flax skirt flapping in the westerly wind. Faye hops on the wall, too, splays her arms, sets herself free. “Wait for me, Bit! Wait for me!”
The pub is full of locals who all know Jem and Sela, regulars for darts and games, good for a pint or two. Francis sits on his stool, tells familiar fishing tales. Sela and Faye arrive late, and Maeve waves them over, relief on her face. A band of brothers—one on accordion, two on guitar—performs songs everyone in the bar knows. The mood is playful and light.
When introductions were in order, before Sela and Faye even made it off the beach with their pockets full of shells, Jem had hesitated. How to retrace steps, untangle stories, dig up the dead and switch the bodies around? Wasn’t his wife his wife? Sela would not want to start being someone else now. And Faye left behind that other name long ago, a name for an Irish girl who threw herself into Dunmanus Bay to save a drowning orphan.
Who is anyone if not themselves?
“This is Maeve and Molly and Nola Wren. Long-lost family from America!”
Hats and glasses tipped, hands rested on shoulders, brown beer flowed. By the time Faye walked in with Sela, friends were waiting for her.
“You must be Faye Sullivan!”
“You must be Faye Sullivan!”
“You must be Faye Sullivan!”
And she was. Of course, she was. She was Faye Sullivan and no one else.
Now, Nola Wren, belly full of fish and chips, dances with another child in front of the band in that wild way children do, no rhythm, all joy.
“She’s been like this all day,” Molly yells to Faye over the music. “She’s so happy.”
Faye holds Molly’s face in her hands. Her little girl. William’s pixie. Thomas’s faithful one. She says each word plainly, speaks them with her eyes and touch as well. “I’m sorry for all the ways I hurt you.” It’s a start.
Molly tilts her head into her mother’s hand, rests there. “It’s all right, Mom. It is.”
Back at the house, in a bed that is too small, on an ancient and sagging mattress, after deep conversation with Jem, Sela rests her hand on his heart until he falls asleep. She slips out of bed and walks down the hall.
In the guest bedroom under a heavy crocheted quilt, its needlework exquisite, Faye dreams of green pastures and William. She stirs as the cover lifts and a warm body curls into hers. A voice in her ear.Du bist aber mutig. Ich verzeihe dir.It is her sister.You are very brave. I forgive you.
Faye exhales. Her war is over.
Down the moonlit path, the vixen carries a limp rabbit to her kits. Beyond, in the guest cottage, up the stairs in the sleeping loft, Maeve snores on her right side, and Molly curls on her left. Between them, Nola Wren is wide awake, staring out the skylight at the moon like it’s talking to her.
In the morning, Molly wakes before the alarm goes off. The spot between her and her sister is empty. She climbs out of bed, checks the cot where Nola Wren is supposed to sleep but never did. She is not there.
Molly rushes down the stairs into the empty sitting room. She runs out the door barefoot, heart racing. She thinks about her grandfather’s stories of leprechauns and faeries stealing children away to the land of heart’s desire where nobody gets old and grave and bitter of tongue or something like that. But his voice tells her all is well. The door is unlocked, the house quiet, though it smells of bread in the oven, which is heavenly. On a fringed rug near the simmering wood stove, the gray cat purrs on a pillow, and a little girl sleeps next to him, her eyelids fluttering as if she’s whisked the cat away on a magic carpet. Molly’s heart stops pounding. Outside the sliding doors, she spots Jem watering flowerpots, the sweeping spout of his brass can catching the first sunbeam.
She slides the door open, closes it gently.
“Good morning,” she says.
An hour later, Maeve comes into the cottage fully dressed, sad to leave but eager to start the journey home. She misses Dylan and Opal. She misses Wendy. She misses Sam. She misses the cove house and the farmhouse and beers in her rocker on the porch with Wendy when the sun goes down. She doesn’t miss the mosquitoes or the black flies or the way winter socks them in, but she also knows that no place is perfect. Sela and Faye assemble trays for their final breakfast together, their movements paired and fluid, an ease about them both. Molly and Jem sit on a bench outside the sliding glass door, watching Nola Wren circle the apple tree, laughing as if faeries dance with her. Sela says that the little girl has already helped feed the gray cat and that she and Jem checked on the barn swallows tucked in the rafters of the tool shed. Jem gestures off in the distance. Molly follows his glance and nods.
Maeve checks her watch, assures Faye that they’re on time as long as they leave right after breakfast. It’s a long drive back to Dublin, and Maeve doesn’t want to get stuck in traffic or darkness. Molly is the onemost likely to make them late, and Maeve doesn’t want to be late. She slides the glass door open.
“Pix,” she says, immediately regretting it. “Sorry. Molly. Ready to go after breakfast?”
The coffee in Molly’s cup has gone cold, but that doesn’t matter. She goes to Maeve, who has stepped out onto the patio, and squeezes her around the belly like she did when they were kids. Molly has been thinking about peace and reconciliation, about resilience and destruction, about the women who stuck prayers on Post-It Note Jesus, about confessionals and tribunals, and about whether a sin needs to be aired to be forgiven. She’s been thinking about her mom and dad, about silence and the Silent Generation, and about her grandfather and Yeats and the Morrigan and shapeshifting and fate and Fates.
“You’re a really good mom, Maeve. And a really good sister. I’m sorry I’ve been so ugly. I hope you’ll forgive me. I can’t imagine where I would be without you.”
“You hug like Dad,” Maeve says, and it sounds like forgiveness.
“Thanks, Maeve.” Molly lets her sister go. “Can you get Mom and Sela?”
