Page 79 of Faithless Vows

He still writes every week. I’ve read each letter so many times that I know most of them by heart. I don’t bother making excuses anymore for wanting to read them. I read them because I want to. Because I miss him. Because his words are all I have of him now.

One of his most recent letters left me with an uneasy hope I haven’t known what to do with. I’ve been meaning to ask Grandda about it, and with him sitting across from me now, I finally do. “Grandda… you haven’t seen any letters come from Mam and Da, have you?”

Grandda lifts his mug and takes a sip. “Letters?” he murmurs distractedly.

I glance down at the bread on my plate and start picking at the crust. “Yes. Ronin mentioned it in one of his letters. He said my da asked if, while he was in Ireland, I’d said anythingabout receiving letters from him and Mam.” I pull off another small piece, watching the crumbs fall onto my plate before I look back at him. “But that’s the thing, Grandda. I haven’t received any letters from them.”

That gets his attention. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“I mean I haven’t heard from them since I left Boston,” I say. “I thought about writing not long after I got here, but Grandmam said I ought to leave it to them because of what they did. That if they had something to say to me, it should be them reaching out first.”

His face hardens as he sets his cup down. “Did she now?” he says quietly, and I suddenly feel like I’ve said something wrong. I open my mouth to ask what’s the matter—

The door opens and Grandmam steps inside, shaking the rain from her coat. “Lord above, it’s coming down out there now,” she says as she hangs it on the hook. “Poor Maeve looked worn out, but she was thankful for the soup.” When she turns, she sees the look on Grandda’s face and stops. Her eyes move to me. “What is it?”

Grandda answers before I can. “Alannah’s just told me Ronin mentioned in one of his letters that Seamus and Siobhán asked after her,” he says. “Asked him if, while he was in Ireland, she’d said anything about getting letters from them.”

She gives a small huff and waves a hand as if to brush the whole thing aside. “That boy would say anything,” she says. “I wouldn’t put much stock in what he says.”

I look between them. Grandmam stands there staring Grandda down, and he leans back in his chair, looking right back at her. “Maura,” he says quietly.

Grandmam narrows her eyes at Grandda, then lifts her chin when she looks at me. “Fine,” she says. “I didn’t give them to you.”

For a second, I think I must have misheard her. “What?”

Grandmam lets out a slow breath and turns away, bending to pull off her boots. She takes longer than she needs to set them on the mat. When she finally turns back, her shoulders are stiff and her mouth is tight. “You didn’t need to read what they had to say,” she says. “Not after everything they did. I was protecting you.”

I just stare at her, trying to make sense of what she’s telling me. “You mean my parents did write to me?”

Grandmam shifts her gaze away. “A few times,” she says.

“A few—do you still have them?” I trip over the words.

Instead of answering, Grandmam comes closer. “Listen to me, pet,” she says gently, reaching for me. I flinch back in my seat, and she freezes, her hand hanging between us. Hurt flashes across her face before she swallows and lets it fall to her side. “No,” she says at last. “I threw them out.”

“But… why?” My voice comes out small. I’m not even sure I want the answer, but I can’t seem to stop myself from asking.

“Because you didn’t need that put on you,” Grandmam says, her voice softening like she’s trying to make me understand. “You’d been through enough and you were only just starting to come back to yourself. I wasn’t about to let them come along after all of it and upset you more.”

I stare at her, but the longer she talks, the less I hear. She knew my parents had written. She had their letters in her hands and decided I would never see them.I can’t believe she did this.I push back from the table so suddenly the chair scrapes against the floor. “I think I need some air.”

Behind me, Grandmam’s voice rises as I head for the door. “Alannah, listen to me. I was only doing what I thought was right.” Her footsteps follow me across the kitchen.

“That’s enough, Maura,” Grandda says, his voice low and hard.

I don’t turn around. I pull on the first coat my hand touches. It’s too big on me, but I don’t care. My hands are shaking so badly that I fumble with the buttons and give up. Then I force my feet into a pair of boots. A crash behind memakes me look back. One of the cups lies broken on the floor, and Grandda has hold of Grandmam, keeping her from following me. Her eyes remain fixed on me, wild and pleading, as she keeps trying to make me listen. But I’m done listening. I pull open the back door and hurry outside into the rain.

And then I’m running.

I tear across the yard and down the lane, my boots slipping in the mud and splashing through puddles. The rain lashes my face, cold and stinging. My half-buttoned coat flaps in the wind, and the shirt beneath it is already soaked through, the wet fabric clinging to my skin. My skirt grows heavier with every step, but I don’t slow down. I can’t.

I don’t stop until I’m standing with the sea in front of me. My breath comes in ragged gasps, and I bend over, bracing my hands on my knees as I try to draw enough air into my lungs. The wind howls around me, and the waves crash violently against the rocks below. My heart is hammering and my whole body is shaking. Rain runs down my face, and I wait for tears to come, but they don’t. My chest aches with everything trapped inside, too much to hold and nowhere for it to go. My parents wrote to me. Grandmam knew. She threw their letters away.What am I supposed to do with that?

I can still hear her voice.I was protecting you.The words sharpen the ache in my chest.Protecting me?She watched me fall apart over their silence and let me believe they had turned their backs on me for good. All that time, she knew they had tried to reach me. She decided I didn’t need to know what they had said, then threw away my only chance to find out. How could she do that to me? How could she not understand that this would hurt me too?

I don’t know how long I stand there staring at the water. Eventually, the rain stops, and the waves begin to lose some of their force. My breathing slows with them. My soaked clothes cling cold and heavy against me, but Ibarely feel them. The ache is still there, deep in my chest, but the rest of me has gone numb.

A hand touches my shoulder, and I spin around. “Whoa—sorry, Lannie,” Finn says, lifting his hands. Relief hits me the instant I see him. I go to him and wrap my arms around his waist, pressing my face to the warmth of his chest. The moment his arms close around me, something in my chest cracks open. The tears that wouldn’t come before finally spill, and a sob breaks from me. Finn holds me tighter, rubbing slow circles over my back. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs into my hair. I clutch at his coat as the sobs keep coming. Once they start, I can’t seem to stop. I cry for every month I believed my parents had chosen not to write, for the hope Ronin’s letter gave me, and for all the words Grandmam threw away before I ever had the chance to read them.