Page 85 of Whale Harbor

“You’ve changed a lot more, I’d say. You were so small when I saw you last. It’s only that you look so much like the rest of us.”

“I was nine when you saw me last,” he said.

“Nine. That’s right,” Mac said.

They were silent. Rian didn’t seem to know anyone at the diner or at least he didn’t say hello to anyone, and yet he knew the menu inside out.

Mac still had that breathless adrenaline feeling. Imagine being so nervous with his own brother. “Look. I’m sorry I didn’t bring you with me. That’s the main thing I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time. I’ve been thinking about it for—what?—almost forty years. I’m sorry I didn’t bring you with me when I left. I shouldn’t have said I would.”

“Let’s not talk about that, Macdara. It’s ancient history. I’m not talking about things that are over and done with.”

When he first saw Mac, and recognized him, Mac saw happiness on Rian’s face. Shock, yes, but happiness too. He would swear on his life. Now he saw retreat. He’d been thrown, but now, bit by bit, he was recovering.

“Of course. Why would we? Water under the bridge. All right, so let’s stick to the present. Martin says you have a daughter. Mary. I have a Mary too. In fact, she’s in Bozeman right now. Tell you the truth she reminds me of you. She—”

“Ah,” Rian said, standing up. “You know what?”

Mac looked up at him, waiting for him to say whatever was next.

“I have to go.”

“You have to go?” Mac repeated stupidly. It had only been five minutes.

“I’m sorry,” Rian said, putting a ten on the table.

“No, wait,” Mac said, standing too. “Just wait a second. I know this must be a shock. Here you are thinking you’re about to have a normal day and I show up. You don’t want to talk to me, it’s been too long, that’s fine. I understand. I honestly do. But Cathal won’t be here much longer and he came a very long way.”

“I didn’t ask him to do that.”

“I know. But he did. You won’t see him?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“If you’re angry with him, I can understand that. Of course! I mean, Jesus. When you think about it all. He can understand that, too, believe it or not. Maybe just—”

“I’m not angry with him. I’m not angry with anyone.”

“Rian, wait. You know once the others find out your address, they’ll show up too. They’re already talking about it. You might as well sit a minute.”

Rian sighed but did not sit. “I just— Mac, I’ve no hard feelings,” he said. “It’s not that at all. You understand? Tell them. I was very sorry to hear about Eamon. What an awful thing. I just don’t believe in going over everything. We all knew one another as children but now we’re long grown. We have the same parents, but otherwise? What’s the point? All they’ll want to do is talk about things that don’t matter anymore.”

“They don’t see it that way. That you’re just a person we knew as kids. And neither do I.”

Rian shrugged as if to say he couldn’t help how other people saw things.

“You’re here in Montana. You’re here because you remembered Larkspur and carried it through all the places you were in the meantime. That’s going back into the past, isn’t it? To that night at the Lees’ place?”

Rian frowned.

“By the way, have you gotten your heart checked?”

Rian looked out the window at the parking lot and Mac knew he had not.

“Let me ask you one thing. Just one thing. Then you can head to the Pit and I’ll head back to Bozeman.”

Rian waited with an expression of trepidation.

“Do you remember the whale?”