Page 23 of Whale Harbor

Rian walked along beside him for a while, kicking a stone ahead of him. He was unusually quiet and when they got to their own gate he stopped walking and turned to look at his brother.

“What?” Mac asked.

“You wouldn’t leave me here without you.”

“What are you going on about?”

“Say it. Say you wouldn’t leave me here alone.”

“Alone! Who’s alone? I don’t recall ever being alone in my entire life.”

“I’m serious, Mac. Say it. Say you won’t leave me here alone.”

“What’s gotten into you today?”

“Say it.”

“I won’t leave you here alone, Rian,” Mac said, but the words felt fragile even as he spoke them.

“DO YOU REMEMBER OUR MAM?” Rian asked Eamon one evening later that week, when Nuala went into her bedroom and closed the door, something their mother never used to do. “Do you remember her lovely hair?” he whispered, like he was accusing Eamon of something.

“I remember her,” Thomas said.

“Of course you do, you’re six. I mean to make sure the babies remember,” Rian said. “Eamon!” he said fiercely, banging the table. Eamon started to cry, so Seamus started to cry too. Nuala came hurrying in.

“What have you done?” she asked Rian as she pulled the younger boys close. “What is wrong with you? You have been hateful since I set foot in this house and it’s more hateful you get every day.”

“Don’t say that to him,” Mac said, standing up.

“Oh, he runs to you with every little thing.”

“He’s a child who barely reaches your elbow,” Mac said.

“What’s this?” Cathal asked. He’d been gone all day and was now standing in the doorway. “What did you just say to Nuala?”

“Nothing,” Mac said and looked at her.

“Nothing,” Nuala eventually agreed.

HONNIE MADE HER PROPOSAL ON a Tuesday. On Thursday Mac got on his bicycle and rode to Maam Cross to catch the bus to Galway. Once in Galway, he walked to the university, where he asked passersby which building housed the anthropology department. His plan was to ask Vincent’s colleagues how he might get in touch with him, if there was an address in Boston they’d be willing to share. He went up to a woman sitting at a desk and began to explain himself when he was interrupted by the sound of his own name being bellowed down the long hallway.

“Macdara Joyce!” Vincent approached and shook Mac’s hand, welcomed him to campus.

“Are you doing well, Mac?” Looking at him more closely, Vincent’s smile faltered. “And everyone at home?”

That squeeze came into Mac’s throat, and he found he couldn’t begin to describe all that had happened in such a short time. His mother in heaven. His brothers gone.

“Aren’t you in Boston?”

Vincent laughed. “I am but I’m here to deliver a lecture tomorrow night.”

Mac had expected to put it all in a letter once he had an address. He hadn’t prepared what he’d say and now didn’t know where to begin.

“I’ve thought of all of you,” Vincent said, bracing him by the shoulder and steering him toward his office. “I’d planned on sending my book once it—”

“It’s not that,” Mac managed.

“All right.”