Page 51

“How can I? Not now with the new baby, you not sleeping. Not with—” He gestured toward her belly.

“It’s fine, Mac. Honestly. It’s very normal. So many women get C-sections nowadays and it’s been eight weeks. There’s nothing out of the ordinary going on with me or with the baby. She’s a fine strong girl.” She leaned over to kiss Annie’s nose.

He once told her that when he thought of his mother’s death he believed that maybe it wouldn’t have happened if she’d had more help. So when his own babies were born he made sure Lillie stayed off her feet as much as possible. He cooked, he cleaned, he did the laundry. He made tea and sandwiches for her and brought home things from the grocery store that Lillie looked at in wonder, never having purchased them for their family, American things that he was curious about: peanut butter, Pop-Tarts, toaster waffles, dry spaghetti. Mac read the directions on the pasta box like he was performing surgery, but it still came out wrong. One morning, he attempted to plait the hair of the older two girls but that was a disaster, so he pulled their hair back into the band with hard marbles on the ends and made a bollocks of that too.

“I can do a decent job on a horse’s tail,” he said.

“Daddy, we’re not horses,” Mary said, and giggled.

“Of all of us I knew her the least,” Mac said to Lillie. “And a last-minute ticket is very dear.”

“Macdara,” Lillie said, as she laid Annie in her little chair that sat on the table and bounced gently whenever she stirred. “It’s not for Nuala you’d be going. Go and see Cathal. See Coleman. You haven’t been back since the day you left for America. Don’t you want to go? My only request would be that you take Mary and go see my people too. Taking Mary would be the biggest help you could give me right now. Bridget will happily splash in a puddle all day, but Mary, my god. That child never stops.”

EAMON AND SEAMUS SHOULD BE the ones going since Nuala was the closest thing to a mother they’d known, but they didn’t have papers, and if they left they wouldn’t be able to get back. None of the others could go, either, except for Barry. It occurred to Mac that it would be the first time he’d be able to go home without having to sit in a room with Nuala and hear updates on his own people when she was the one who was a stranger to the Cuan. He wouldn’t have to watch her moving around his mother’s kitchen. Mary was five years old and Mac pitched the idea to her as a trip for big kids only. She’d be a great little travel partner. When Barry heard Mac was bringing Mary he decided he’d bring his middle boy, Frankie, who was the same age. They’d be the first of the American-born Joyces to go back.

“We’ll go and have a nice time for ourselves, will we?” Mac asked.

“But isn’t someone dead, Daddy?” Mary asked.

“Yes, but she’s gone to heaven and that’s a good thing. You’ll meet your grandfather.”

“And my uncle, Mama said.”

“And your uncle Coleman, yes.”

“The only uncle I never met.”

Mac hesitated. What was there to say? Mary was five years old. “You’ll meet him, and a lot of other people.”

“All right,” Mary said.

AS SOON AS THEY FOUND their seats on the plane, Mac thought about the flight he’d taken twenty-two years earlier. It felt so different this time, even just sitting in his seat before takeoff. The ocean was the same. The meal and the stewardess uniforms and safety instructions were the same. Then he realized it was him who was different. He had a small girl beside him who believed he knew everything there was to know about the world. Mary had her face pressed to the window to watch men in orange work vests inspect something on the plane’s wing. “They need your help, Daddy,” she said.

Mac laughed. “We’d be in trouble if they were looking for my help.”

“You should go out there,” Mary said, pushing his shoulder.

“Why do you think I could help them?” Mac asked. “I don’t know anything about planes, love.”

“Does your daddy know how to do everything?” Barry asked her.

“No,” Mary said bluntly. “He can’t swim.” Mac had told Mary that just recently, when he took her down to the YMCA for the swim lessons Lillie signed her up for. Mary had brought it up several times since then. The other parents got in the pool with their children, but Mary had to go with the instructor.

“How about you?” Barry asked Frankie, but Frankie just grinned and shook his head.

“I don’t know how to do everything?” Barry pushed.

“No.” Frankie laughed. Frankie had a cowlick at the back of his head like so many of his Joyce uncles.

The stewardesses brought the children rounds of cookies and milk, and they fell asleep, thank goodness, somewhere over the Atlantic. When they began the descent at Shannon it was just about dawn in Ireland, and Mac took in all the squares of green, the many fields. Mac woke Mary to see, Mary woke Frankie, and the two cousins smooshed their faces to the glass.

When they stepped off the plane, the smell hit Mac first—turf smoke, livestock, land. Next came the accents—he could identify them nearly to the village. But there were changes too. People didn’t dress the same as they had when he left. He thought the man who stamped his passport might say something to him about coming home after so much time but he just asked the nature of his visit and waved him through.

“You drive,” Barry said when they had the rental car sorted and the kids had climbed into the back seat. It was very early in the morning. Most people were still in bed. Shops wouldn’t open for several hours. “Remember to stay left.”

Mac sat at the wheel for a moment without starting the engine. He had a feeling like he’d forgotten something.

“You all right?” Barry asked.