Page 79 of Whale Harbor

“We can’t, though, actually,” Mary said finally. “I have to fly back to New York a week from today.”

“Your grandfather told me. I booked you a return from Bozeman to New York.”

“And who’ll go with him? He’ll travel alone back to Ireland?”

“You’ll be together for his first leg. Then when you reach New York you could help him find his flight to Paris, or better still you could order him a wheelchair. Anyone who needs assistance can get wheeled directly to their gate by an airline employee. There’s no fee. From Paris he’ll come to Dublin. And someone could meet him there.”

“Wheelchair for who?” Cathal asked. “Not me.”

“Do you realize how old he is?” Mary asked.

Josie looked at Cathal’s passport. “He’s eighty-four,” she said, as Cathal straightened himself and smoothed the creases of his pants.

“He needs clearance from his doctor. He might have an underlying medical condition.”

“I most certainly do not,” Cathal said.

Mary looked at the woman for help. But Josie returned the look with professional blankness. And—it dawned on Mary—with a clear sense of kinship. Though Josie and Cathal were not family she was not going to side with this young New Yorker over a man from the Cuan.

“What about the route there?” Mary asked. “You mentioned Paris on the way back. Is the route there more direct?” What was she even asking?

“Shannon to Amsterdam to Minneapolis to Bozeman.”

“Oh my god,” Mary said. “No. No way! This is ridiculous. He’s never even left Ireland.”

“Excuse me, miss, but I’ve been to England twice,” Cathal said.

“Then I can’t do it.”

“Why not?” Cathal asked.

“They’ll kill me. You know they will.”

“Who will?”

“My father. My uncles. It’ll cause a lot of problems.”

“Them?” Cathal laughed. “I’ll handle them.”

FOURTEEN

Cathal made his way through the airport as if written in a different font from every person around him. He looked like a time traveler, a person lifted from the pages of a history book and placed inside a modern building, like a man who’d never stood under fluorescent lights before. But his age brought perks. People stepped aside for him. They let him cut the line. He insisted on carrying his own bag, which made Mary feel like a criminal. He didn’t seem to have packed much, and if he’d forgotten anything Mary prayed it was his passport, so they wouldn’t be allowed to leave.

But he had his passport, his ticket, and he presented both to the agent as if she held the key to all his future hopes and dreams. He’d lost the boyish mischievousness he’d had sitting in the travel agent’s office and instead walked with a sense of great urgency. He very carefully set his bag on the belt behind Mary’s at security. He took out his eyeglasses and studied the paper that asked if he was bringing any meats or produce aboard, if he’d spent any time with livestock. He read every question slowly, deliberately, making black marks in the correct boxes. He hesitated to walk through the scanner, so the agent asked—“Pacemaker?”—and before he could say no the agent passed a wand around his body instead. Seeing him hold his arms out, looking completely at sea, brought on a wave of affection for him.

“Your bag will come down the belt,” Mary said when they ushered him through. “We just have to wait a sec.”

“I know that,” he said.

“They’re just checking you didn’t put a bomb in there,” she said. “Did you?”

“It’s not a place for joking, Mary,” he said.

He’d gotten a haircut and a shave but something of his essential wild look shone through. Mary felt the other people speculating as to what this young American in wedge sandals was doing with an elderly Gaeilgeoir with a pipe poking out of his pocket.

“You left the note?” Cathal asked once they found their gate.

“On the table.”