Page 60 of A New World for the Irish Daughter

“And now you feel like you fit in, in this rugged place?” he asked with a small smile.

“I feel like I know why I came here,” Maggie told him honestly. “For Sheetka. For having my family around me, all of them, at long last, the way it should have been all along. The way I’ve always wanted it to be.”

Brendan was silent, staring off into the distance for a moment, before he nodded. “Then I’m happy for you,” he said, and Maggie thought he sounded resigned.

She hadn’t said half or even a quarter of the things she wanted to,neededto, she realized with a flutter of panic, but Brendan’s tone made it sound as if their conversation was already over.

“That’s not what I wanted to talk about,” she said hurriedly. “At least not all of it. Brendan—I wanted… I wanted to talk about you. About…us.”

Already, he was shaking his head. “Maggie,” Brendan said in a low voice. “We don’t have to talk about… allthatagain. It would just be painful and… and pointless, for both of us.”

“No, I need to,” Maggie replied, her voice rising in her anxiety to say what she needed to say before Brendan cut her off. “There are things I want to say, Brendan, because I never got the chance to say them before, and that’s my own fault, because I didn’t even realize what Ineededto say, or what I felt, until recently, and then when I saw you in the schoolhouse and I knew I’d been looking for you all along, I always have…” She swallowed hard. “Well, then, I knew I needed to say them to you tonight.”

She scanned his face, looking for clues as to how he felt, but Brendan’s closed, watchful expression gave no indication tohis feelings. It didn’t give her much hope, either, but still she persevered. No matter what Brendan might feel, Maggie knew she needed to say whatshedid.

“I fought against what I felt for you for so long,” she confessed in a low voice. She couldn’t bear to look at him, and so she dropped her gaze to her plate, and her almost untouched supper. “I had such silly notions of what I wanted out of life. Dreams of dresses and hats and fortune and fame that were all so childish?—”

“They weren’t childish,” Brendan interjected quietly. “You did amazing things, Maggie, and I’ve always admired your ambition. I’ve always told you that.”

“I know.” She made herself look up at him, and when she did, she feared the look in his eyes might be pity. “And maybe they weren’t childish dreams, butIwas childish about them. I didn’t know my own heart, or what was important in life?—”

“Maggie…” Brendan was shaking his head, and Maggie felt tears start in her eyes. It was too late. Of course it was too late; it had beenyears. Years of them missing each other, just as she’d once said, so why on earth did she think they’d be able to find each other now, even if they were sitting right across from each other?

“Maybe it’s too late,” she burst out in a rush. “Maybe you’ve found someone and you’re happy and I…” She trailed off, swallowing again, finding her courage. “But I need you to know, Brendan, that I love you. I know I’ve said before that I’ve cared, but even that I think I said reluctantly, like I was afraid to feel it, or anything at all. But the truth I now know is that I’ve loved you for a long time, even if… even if I didn’t want to.” She let out a shaky laugh, her heart racing so fast she could feel the blood thrumming in her ears. “And it’s never been thatyouweren’t what I wanted, it’s just that for so long I didn’t even know what that was.”

She stared at him, willing him to soften, but his expression remained inscrutable.

“And sometimes,” she continued hesitantly, “I wonder if it wasn’t even that I thought you weren’t what I wanted, but thatyoudidn’t believe it.” His eyes widened a fraction then, and he pressed his lips together but said nothing. “After Chicago, I mean,” she continued stiltedly. “What happened with Holmes?—”

“Don’t,” Brendan said, his voice quiet yet sharp.

“You know he’s been executed?” Maggie asked. “Back in May. I read it in the paper.”

“I know.” Brendan stared down at his plate. “They said he might have killed as many as twenty-seven people, most of them young women, all in that terrible castle of his.”

She heard the ache of regret in his voice, and she wanted to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, but they’d had that conversation already, and she didn’t know if she’d ever convince him. He’d have to learn it, believe it, for himself, if he could.

“But with all of that,” she explained slowly, painfully, “I’ve wondered if it made you feel like you weren’t… if you weren’t goodenough for me somehow, when… when I’ve felt likeIwasn’t good enough for you…”

Still he said nothing, and worse, she didn’t know what he would say if he spoke.

“I was so silly back then,” she burst out. “So vain and… and selfish, in my own way, so determined to have my dreams that nothing could?—”

“Everyone,” Brendan cut her off quietly, “should be able to have their dreams.”

“Yes, but…” Maggie trailed off uncertainly, taking in the hard, stubborn look on Brendan’s face. With a flash of despairing understanding, she realized there was nothing more she could say. She didn’t want to have to beg for him to love her; she wanted him to realize that he did, and that it didn’t haveto be something to run away from, to fight or to dread, the way she once had. “Well,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster, “I suppose then… that’s all I wanted to say.”

Brendan nodded slowly. “And now you have,” he said evenly, and Maggie had to fight not to flinch at such a cool reaction to what had amounted to a declaration of love, clumsy as it might have been.

They ate the rest of the meal in a silence that felt more miserable every moment it went on, and by the time they finished, Maggie was desperate to get away.

“I suppose I’ll see you around,” she said stiltedly, in farewell. It was well past midnight, the sky finally dark. “Even if I haven’t before.”

“I’ll walk you back,” Brendan told her brusquely. “Where are you staying now?”

“We’re renting a cabin on 7thStreet, on the edge of town.”

They walked in a silence that felt as miserable to Maggie as the one over supper had, and it wasn’t until they’d reached the door of the cabin that Brendan turned to her and said abruptly, his face hidden by the shadows, “Maggie, I… I heard what you said. And I hope, after all this time, that we can be friends.”