Читать книгу Keeping Faith - Janice Macdonald - Страница 9

AFTER THE SHOW, there was a party at a big house on the beach. The friend of a friend of a friend. Liam stood out on the deck drinking a beer and watching the palm trees and the play of lights on the water while the festivities roared on in the lighted room behind him. The music had turned Paddywhack Irish, a great deal of whooping and diddly-diddly dooing. Mick, the Wild Rovers’ fiddler, had launched into “McNamara’s Band,” a tune he would never deign to play sober, and the accompanying clapping and foot stomping was so enthusiastic, Liam could feel the vibration under his feet.

He had a daughter. He repeated the words to himself, trying to make them seem real. A daughter. And he didn’t even know her name. Hadn’t asked her name.

“I have a daughter,” he told Brid when she came to see what he was doing out there all by himself.

“God, they’re banging saucepan lids in there.” She cupped her hand around her ear. “You have a what?”

“A daughter.”

Brid looked at him for a moment, then disappeared and returned a moment later with a plate of carrots. With a nod, she directed him down to the far end of the deck, away from the noise. “All right, what’s this about?”

“That girl I was talking to tonight.” He drank some beer. “We were married for about a year. She got pregnant, and I thought she’d had an abortion. Tonight she tells me that wasn’t so. Apparently, her mother lied to me.”

Brid leaned her elbows on the railing, staring out at the water. “So this girl,” she said after a minute, “what’s her name?”

“Hannah.” Actually, he’d always called her Hannie. Now he thought of her as Hannah. He eyed the plate of carrots. “You didn’t eat any of the barbecue stuff?”

She wrinkled her nose. “The chicken had a sweet sauce all over it, and I don’t eat beef. So Hannah didn’t know what her mother was telling you?”

“That’s what she claims.” He forced his mind away from Hannah and her news. “Brid, you’re worrying me with this food thing. There’s enough in there to feed an army. If you don’t like the chicken, find something else. Some bread or cheese or something.”

“For God’s sake, Liam.” She tossed the carrot she’d picked up onto the sand. “What’s it to you what I eat? You’re getting on my nerves, always watching me.”

“Who will, if I don’t? You’re not exactly doing much of a job yourself.”

“I’m fine. Leave off, will you? I swear, you’re like the bloody food police.”

Liam said nothing. Inside, they were singing “The Belle of Belfast City” and someone yelled for Brid to join them. She glanced over her shoulder but didn’t answer. Moments passed and then she put her arm around his shoulders, pressed him close.

“Sorry.”

He shrugged. She was a grown woman and it wasn’t his role to watch over her, but he couldn’t help how he felt.

“Do you believe that she didn’t know?” Brid asked.

“I’m not sure.” His thoughts back on Hannah’s bombshell, he picked at a bit of peeling paint on the railing. “You’d have to know her family. When one of them sneezes, the others not only know about it, they’re there with hankies and cough mixture. Hannah was always close to them. I can’t believe she didn’t know all about her mother’s conversation with me.”

“But she came to the club to see you,” Brid pointed out. “And she told you about your daughter. If she’d wanted you to think she’d had an abortion, why would she do that?”

Liam looked at her. Brid had a point. On the other hand, if Hannah wasn’t in on it, why had she never tried to communicate with him? She’d never sent so much as a single picture. Nothing. A daughter—and he had no idea what she looked like.

“It sounds to me as though the mother was trying to get rid of you,” Brid said. “Probably thought the abortion thing would do it.”

He considered. It wasn’t hard to imagine Margaret’s thinking. The family—to put it mildly—had never been particularly fond of him. Being a musician was bad enough, being an Irish musician was worse. Easy enough to imagine their thinking. He would take Hannah back to Ireland, leave her barefoot and pregnant in an unheated shack while he traipsed off around the world drinking and womanizing. Maybe they’d thought rescuing her from him was their only option.

“Did you love her?”

He shrugged.

“Come on, Liam. It’s me, Brid.”

“I used to.”

“Not anymore?”

“I don’t know. It’s been a long time.”

She laughed. “You should see yourself. Furiously picking the paint off the wood because this whole thing makes you squirm, doesn’t it? Talking about feelings?”

“‘Feelings,’” he sang, trying to distract her. There was nothing he hated more than rambling on about what was going on in his head. It was one of the things he and Hannah used to fight about. She was always trying to drag him into long, drawn-out talks. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she’d say. “Tell me you love me. Why is it so hard for you to say it?”

He eased off another chip of paint, realized what he was doing and stopped. Hannah. He’d spent years hating her for what she’d done, or what he thought she’d done. Seeing her tonight was…he couldn’t believe it. She looked different…great, really. Enormous green eyes and a wee little face. He used to pull her leg about looking like a kitten. Now she looked all grown-up. The way you’d expect the mother of a six-year-old to look, he supposed.

“What now, then?” Brid asked. “What will you do?”

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to get used to the idea I’m a father.”

“Does she know about you? Your daughter, I mean?”

“I’ve no idea what they’ve told her.”

Brid lit a cigarette, waved out the match and tossed it onto the sand. “Want to know what I think you should do?”

He grinned. “Have I a choice?”

“No.” She spoke through a cloud of blue smoke. “If you’ve any sense, you’ll forget tonight ever happened. Getting involved will only cause trouble. The child’s here. You’re in Ireland. Music is your life. You spend half of it on the road and you know nothing at all about being a daddy.”

“That’s your opinion, is it?”

“It is. But from the look on your face, I’ve the feeling I might as well be talking to the wind. You’ll regret it though, Liam. I’m telling you. You’re not a daddy sort of fellow.”

HANNAH STOOD OUTSIDE her mother’s bedroom, trying to tell from the sounds inside whether Margaret was sleeping. The house had been in darkness when she got home from Fiddler’s Green. A note from Margaret on the kitchen table said she’d dropped Faith off at a friend’s house for a slumber party. Hannah raised her hand to knock, then stopped. Back in her own room, she sat on the bed. Maybe she needed to sort things out in her own mind before she spoke to Margaret.

Including why seeing Liam tonight made her want to run around locking windows and doors. She got up, went down to the kitchen and microwaved a cup of chamomile tea, carried it up to her room and set it on the bedside table. Fully dressed, she lay down on the bed. Even in the familiar security of her room, she felt shaky and anxious, as though the stability of her life had been physically threatened.

Jen had advised her to move out immediately. “Your mother lied to you, Hannah. She told Liam you’d had an abortion. There’s no way you can go on living there.”

Most parents really only want to do what’s best for their children.

However misguided their motives. How many times had she had to remind herself of that when dealing with the parents of her students? But she hadn’t been a child. How was she ever supposed to trust Margaret again? She picked up the phone to call Deb. Changed her mind and set it down. Swung her legs off the bed and wandered over to the window. Stared out at the dark night.

The room overlooked the rose garden her father had started shortly after she was born. There were something like thirty or forty plants out there. He would mark special occasions with a new variety. She’d lost count of all the roses planted for her and Deb. A pink Tiffany when she graduated from high school, a yellow one whose name she could never remember when she got her degree from Cal State. Three or four, all white, to mark Faith’s various milestones.

The only occasion never commemorated with roses was her marriage to Liam. When she’d asked her dad about it, he’d said something about poor-quality roses that year, but she knew the real reason.

Liam. His music still played in her head, but the evening had already taken on a dreamlike quality. One minute he’d been there, close enough to touch. And then he was gone. Elusive as smoke.

It had always been that way with Liam. She’d met him during a trip to Ireland, a birthday present from her parents. He’d been playing in a Galway club that she’d wandered into one evening. During a break in the session, he’d come over to talk to her. He’d quoted poetry, made her laugh, hummed songs in her ear. Looking back, she knew she’d fallen in love with him that night.

Still, she’d left the club never expecting to see him again. The next morning her landlady had knocked on her door to say she had a caller. Barefoot, in a red tartan robe, she’d walked out to the top of the stairs. Liam stood at the foot, smiling in the pale sunlight, a bunch of daisies in his hand.

On her last day in Ireland, the countryside had bloomed with hawthorn hedges and primrose and the air had smelled of mowed hay and turf smoke. They’d taken a boat to Clare Island and stayed until dark. On the beach, with the moon beaming down on them, they’d made love. Afterward she’d looked up at the crescent of a new moon, like a fairy tiara in the dark sky; watched the silvery light on Liam’s face. Felt the fine sand slip between her fingers.

They’d kissed goodbye at the airport and, despite all his promises to stay in touch, she’d again had the feeling that this was it. That as magical and wonderful as the whole experience had seemed, it wasn’t quite real. Like trying to hold on to the memory of a dream. But, once more, Liam had surprised her. The day she’d opened the door to see him standing there had been as mind-blowing as opening the paper to see his picture. “Come with me,” he’d said.

In a celebratory mood after a show one night, they’d driven to Las Vegas. The wedding chapel was so hideously tacky, they’d both dissolved into fits of laughter. As they walked back out into the garish night, Liam had dumped a bag of silver paper horseshoes on her head. Her father had been incensed. Margaret had cried for days, a mini nervous breakdown, according to Helen.

After Liam went back to Ireland, the family quietly and efficiently fixed up the wreckage of her life. A family friend had taken care of the divorce. Helen had arranged the job at La Petite Ecole. The nursery, where Faith had slept until she was five, had been decorated by Margaret and her sisters who, when Faith decided she was too old for rainbows and kittens, had redecorated it to look like a tree house.

Liam’s name was seldom mentioned and, except for Faith, it sometimes seemed to Hannah that she’d dreamed the whole relationship.

Until tonight. She got up from the bed, padded out into the hallway and tapped on her mother’s door. Nothing. She started to knock again, then stopped. It was nearly one. Margaret would be groggy. Better to wait.

THE NEXT MORNING, Saturday, Hannah doubled her usual three-mile run. At the bottom of Termino, she glanced both ways at the traffic then sprinted across Livingstone Drive and Ocean Boulevard, past La Petite Ecole, around the end of the pier and the new Belmont Shore Brewery with its ocean-view patio; down along the footpath that paralleled the edge of the beach.

She’d started running soon after Faith was born, and her route never varied. A sprint along the beach then up the slope that led to the art museum on Ocean Boulevard, twice around Bixby Park where, as kids, she and Debra had been taken by their parents to hear Sunday afternoon concerts on the grass, then back down the slope for the return trip.

Helen and Rose had given her an expensive headset for her last birthday so that she could listen to music while she ran. She’d used it a couple of times, but preferred the natural fugue of ocean sounds: the steady crash of the waves, the screeches and coos of gulls and pigeons and the slap of her feet on the asphalt.

These morning runs were hers alone, a time to think. Anything, from musings on what she’d eat for lunch to more profound matters such as whether she really wanted to spend the rest of her life teaching overprivileged and precocious four-year-olds.

This morning, her thoughts were dominated by Liam.

When she jogged up Termino twenty minutes later, she could see her mother outside the house, down on her knees, using a trowel to dig around the bird-of-paradise plants along the steps leading up to the front door. Margaret saw her and leaned back on her heels, trowel in hand.

“Damn nasturtiums, they run wild.” Margaret gestured with the trowel at the offending pale green tendrils. “Every year I pull them all out, and every year they come back more than before. God knows why your father ever planted them in the first place.”

Panting from her run, Hannah looked at the pile of orange calendulas and green nasturtium leaves her mother had yanked out. Neither plant, in Margaret’s opinion, was in keeping with the Spanish architectural style of the house and she waged an ongoing and futile battle to eradicate them. Hannah bent and picked half a dozen blooms. “We need to talk, Mom,” she said.

Still on her knees, Margaret glanced up. “Debra called this morning. I guess you know she’s pregnant.”

Hannah nodded. Dennis had refused to put Deb on the phone when Hannah called earlier.

“Now she’s saying Dennis doesn’t want her to have the baby. She’s come back here with her suitcases.” Margaret gathered up the discarded plants and dumped them into the trash can at the side of the house. She ran her hands down the sides of her sweats, brushed the back of her arm across her face. “I don’t think she has the vaguest notion of what she really wants—”

“Mom, I don’t want to talk about Debra right now.”

Margaret eyed her warily.

“I saw Liam last night.” Arms folded across her chest, she looked at her mother. Margaret’s face was unreadable, her eyes hidden by the baseball cap she wore, but Hannah sensed that there was a battle brewing. “I don’t even know where to start,” she said.

“Then don’t, okay?” Margaret’s stance mirrored Hannah’s, arms folded, feet slightly apart. “I’ve got enough on my mind with Debra. I don’t need you giving me a hard time about something that happened years ago.”

Hannah stared at her mother, incredulous.

“I know for sure I’m not paying for her to have an abortion,” Margaret said, “but she’s so headstrong, I don’t even want to think what she might try. Rose and Helen are in there talking to her now. I had to come outside, I couldn’t listen to her anymore. This is my grandchild she’s casually talking about destroying.”

“For God’s sake, Mom. This isn’t about you. It’s about Debra and what she needs to do for herself.” Hannah took some deep breaths. Debra could fight her own battles. “You lied to Liam.”

Margaret looked at her for a moment. “You know what, Hannah? I don’t intend to discuss this with you. I’ve got enough on my mind.” She started for the house. “Helen put a coffee cake in the oven and it’s probably done now. It’s a new recipe she clipped from the Times. You mix up sour cream and—”

“Damn it.” Hannah grabbed her mother’s arm. “You are not just walking off. I want some answers.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong?” Margaret jerked her arm from Hannah’s grasp. “I’ve never seen you so worked up.”

“You told Liam I’d had an abortion, Mom. That’s what’s really wrong. Do you even realize the consequences of what you did? By lying to him—”

“Okay, Hannah, we’ve covered the lying issue. Let’s talk about the consequences of your going to see him last night. Let’s talk about the fact that he now wants to take Faith back to Ireland.”

“What?”

“He called this morning while you were running.”

“He said he was taking Faith back to Ireland?”

“Not in so many words. He said he wants to talk to you. But it’s like Rose was saying, he’s a troublemaker. If he tries to get Faith… Well, Helen gave me the name of an attorney who specializes in this sort of thing. When you’ve calmed down a bit, we need to give him a call.”

“Mom.” Hannah held her hands to her face for a moment, then took them away. “I don’t believe this, I just don’t believe it. You lied to Liam, deprived him of his daughter. Deprived Faith of her father and you’re talking about legal action?”

Rose called from the kitchen, and Margaret glanced up at the house. “I’ll be there in a minute,” she said. “Listen, Hannah…” Her voice broke, and she swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “Don’t make me the enemy, okay? Any of us. Helen, Rose—”

“So they were in on it, too?”

“Don’t say it like that. We were out of our minds with worry about you. Your father, too, to the point that it killed him. Imagine how you’d feel if Faith’s life was in danger. Wouldn’t you do whatever it took to save her?”

“Faith’s a child, Mom. I was a grown woman. It’s not quite the same thing.”

“We found you walking along the side of the freeway,” Margaret said. “Distraught, irrational, talking about killing yourself. And for what? For a fly-by-night musician, a womanizing jerk who wasn’t aware enough to recognize the state you were in.”

“That still didn’t give you the right to lie. To me, or to Liam.”

“To hell with Liam.” Margaret’s voice rose. “Liam isn’t my concern. You are. You’re my daughter and I was scared to death for you. You were clinically depressed. That’s the term the doctor used. Maybe it was wrong, maybe I should have stayed out of it and just thrown up my hands and said ‘oh well,’ but I couldn’t do it. If you’re mad at me, so be it.”

“Margaret,” Rose yelled from the doorway. “Hannie. Come and have some coffee cake. Debra has something to tell you.” She winked at Margaret. “Good news.”

“Come on, sweetie.” Margaret touched Hannah’s arm. “Please understand that this worked out for the best. You’re happy now. You’ve got your life back together. Faith’s happy. All of this other stuff is in the past. Just let it go. It’s not important.”

Hannah shook her head. What was the point? Her mother absolutely couldn’t see the enormity of what she’d done.

“Hannie.” Margaret peered into her eyes. “Please tell me you’re not going to see him again. What possible good can come out of that?”

“Liam deserves a chance to know his daughter, that’s all I know. And I’m going to see that he gets it.”

THE DOCTOR IN THE E.R. had a high forehead and a pinched-looking mouth and he wanted to know if Brid was Liam’s wife. Dazed and groggy from too little sleep and God knows how many black coffees, Liam shook his head.

“No, but I’m her best friend.”

The doctor raised a brow. “Then you should have gotten treatment for her long before this.”

Liam swallowed the words he’d been about to say. He didn’t like this doctor with his condescending attitude. He was in a foul enough mood that it was all he could do not to pick up the little prat by the lapels of his starched white coat. He’d been on the phone with Hannah’s mother when someone yelled out that Brid had collapsed. In an instant he’d dropped the phone and, ignoring Brid’s protests, had driven her to the emergency room.

“What are you?” the doctor asked. “Some kind of band?”

“That’s right,” Liam said. “Some kind of band.”

“She said you’re on tour.”

“She’s right,” Liam said. “How is she?”

“She needs treatment,” the doctor said. “She has an eating disorder. I’d suggest you get her into some kind of program or she won’t be doing much touring anymore.”

“AH, THAT’S A LOAD OF COD,” Brid said when Liam told her what the doctor had said. “I’ve let myself get a bit run-down, that’s all. I’ll start taking my vitamins again.” She sat up on the narrow cot, reached for the tie at the neck of the cotton hospital robe. “Now, clear out of here, Liam, while I find my clothes. We’ve got a show tonight.”

“The show’s canceled tonight,” he told her. “Probably the next few nights, too. No more shows until you’re well enough.”

“CANCELED?” Hannah stared at the bartender, who was polishing glasses in the dimly lit main room of Fiddler’s Green. A couple of guys sitting at the bar looked her way then returned their attention to the televised basketball game. “But I thought they were supposed to be here for three nights.”

“They were.” The bartender picked up another glass. “One of them called a while ago to say the girl singer was sick. Strung out on drugs, or something, would be my guess. Anyway, tonight’s going to be karaoke.”

Hannah bit her lip. Okay, this was a sign. A warning that maybe her mother was right. Maybe nothing good could come from seeing him again. Margaret had been crying when Hannah left the house. “Think of what’s best for Faith,” Margaret had begged her. “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” she’d replied.

Now she wasn’t so sure. What was the point of having Liam breeze in and out of Faith’s life? And why risk all the rebuilding she’d done of her own life? Why upset everyone and everything? Because she owed it to him. Simple as that. He’d been lied to and the least she could do was try to make some kind of amends.

“Do you have any idea where I can find him?” she asked the bartender.

“Him?” The bartender grinned. “The singer? Liam something or other?”

She nodded and felt her face heat up. God, this was embarrassing. “Look, it’s not what you’re thinking…”

“Hey.” He flicked the towel across the top of the bar. “I’m not paid to think. All I can tell you is what I told the other girls who came in asking about him. I think the band’s staying at some place in Huntington Harbor.

Hannah checked the urge to ask, What other girls? How many other girls? Liam had always drawn girls. Well, so what? He could bed a different girl every night, and she wouldn’t care.

“Do you have the address?” she asked.

“Yeah…” The bartender grabbed a napkin and drew a map of Huntington Harbor. “There’s a party there tomorrow, that’s how I know where they are. Huge house on the water with a yacht the size of the Queen Mary on the dock outside. Some big cheese from L.A. owns the place. A record promoter, or something.” He winked. “Told me to invite hot-looking chicks.”

Go home, Hannah thought. You don’t need this.

“Hell…” With a sigh, he threw down the pen he’d been using and reached for another one. “I should probably photocopy these damn directions.” He handed her the napkin. “You’ll probably have to take a number.”

“BRID WILL BE FINE, Liam.” Miranda Payton, the record producer’s wife, sat next to him, feet dangling in a pool that had been built to look like a tropical lagoon. “I sent my own daughter to Casa Pacifica when I realized she was spending half her life in the bathroom with her finger stuck down her throat. They straightened her out in no time. Quit worrying about her and enjoy yourself.” She brought a frosted glass to her lips, eyed him over the rim and smiled. “You could be in a lot worse places.”

Liam laughed. An understatement if he’d ever heard one. Beyond the purple bougainvillea-covered wall that separated the property from the private beach, he could see the Pacific Ocean. The sun was hot on his back, and Miranda had brought out a jug of something icy that tasted like rum and bananas. The exotic scent of it mingled with the suntan lotion she was massaging into her legs. If he had to take a week off in the middle of a tour, this definitely wasn’t a bad place to while away the time. Certainly none of the band had complained. A couple of them were off taking surfing lessons, the others had gone to see the sights.

He’d thought about calling Hannah again. Thought constantly about his daughter, whose name he still didn’t know. Off on a trip, Hannah’s mother had said. Another lie?

“You’re soooo serious.” Miranda trailed one perfectly manicured fingernail down his arm. “Are you always this way?”

“Always,” Liam said. “A right wet blanket, that’s me. I cast a pall on any party I go to.”

Miranda laughed with disproportionate enthusiasm. “I don’t believe you. I think you’re just deep.”

“Wrong,” Liam said. “Shallow as a puddle. Ask anyone who knows me.” He reached for his shirt. Miranda was making him uneasy. She was about forty, thin, tan and attractive in what Brid would call a high-maintenance way. Lots of curly hair streaked in different shades of blond, plum-colored lips and nails. She was Bert Payton’s third wife, considerably younger and obviously bored. Which definitely wasn’t his problem. He got up and started for the house.

Miranda followed him. Her hand at the small of his back, they made their way through the open French doors into the blue-and-white living room just as a housekeeper was leading Hannah into the room through a door off the hallway.

Startled, they all eyed each other. Hannah’s focus went from Miranda, who was clutching her bikini top as though she’d been caught in risqué underwear, to Liam’s opened shirt and bathing trunks.

Hannah had on a short, sleeveless cotton dress patterned with small pink and orange flowers. Her hair was pulled back in a band and she looked young and a little uncertain. He wanted to tell her the thing with Miranda wasn’t what she thought it was, which was a bit stupid because he had no idea what she thought and what difference did it make anyway?

He started to speak just as Hannah did, and then Miranda chimed in and there was a flurry of introductions. Hannah, he noticed, was avoiding eye contact with him.

“I wanted to talk to you.” She addressed his left shoulder. “If this isn’t a good time…”

“It’s fine.” He looked at Miranda, who fluttered her fingers at him and disappeared. “So…” He waved at the cluster of wicker armchairs upholstered in blue canvas. “Pick a seat.” She did and he sat down opposite her. Music drifted in from somewhere in the house. Hannah sat with her knees close together, her hands in her lap. A silence hung in the air between them, thick with ghosts and recriminations. Hannah. Hannie. Hannah. Formal as a stranger now.

She cleared her throat. “Look, I just want to explain—”

“What’s her name?” he asked. “What’s my daughter’s name?”

“Faith.”

Faith. He said it again to himself. Then he looked at Hannah. “Why? Where did that come from?”

“When I was in the hospital having her…everything seemed so hopeless. You’d walked out—well, I thought you had—and my world was falling apart. And then I saw her and…” Her face colored. “I know it sounds kind of hokey, but she gave me the faith to believe in myself again.”

He leaned his head against the high back of the wicker chair and stared up at the white-painted ceiling beams. So many questions were rattling around in his brain. Where to start? Finally he looked back at Hannah.

“Do you have any pictures with you?”

She pulled an envelope from her bag and handed it to him.

“She looks like me,” he said after he’d studied the first one. “A right little terror, I bet.” He looked to Hannah for confirmation.

She smiled. “She can be pretty strong willed.”

Slowly he leafed through the stack. Pictures of a baby Faith in a cradle, on a rug gazing wide-eyed at a Christmas tree. School pictures of a little girl, smiling obediently for the camera. A snapshot—recent, he guessed—of Faith riding a red bike. Laughing, the wind in her hair. Unable not to, he smiled at the image. God, how incredible to look at this child and see his own face reflected in hers. And yet, beneath the wonder, an old anger, smoldering now with new intensity. She’d been stolen from him.

He should have been there. He should have been the one teaching her to ride the bloody bike, not sitting here now looking at pictures. They’d stolen her from him, robbed him of her childhood. And then a voice in his head spoke up. Ah, catch yourself, it scoffed. Can you really see yourself playing the suburban daddy? Bikes and kiddies and lawn mowers. Telly and slippers and “keep the music down, love, you’re waking the baby.” That’s not you and it never will be. Without a word, he returned the pictures to the envelope and held it out to Hannah.

“They’re yours,” she said. “I brought them for you.”

He stuffed the envelope into the pocket of his shirt and felt her watching him as he did. In the first few weeks of their marriage, he’d come home one day and found her ironing his shirts. He’d started laughing. Never in his life had he worn an ironed shirt, and the sight of her carefully pressing the creases in the sleeves struck him as so touchingly funny, he couldn’t help himself. Now he had an urge to apologize for hurting her feelings.

“What does she know about me?” he asked. “What have you told her?”

Hannah looked at him for such a long time that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “She thinks you’re in heaven,” she finally said.

“In heaven?”

“See, we didn’t think she’d ever see you and—”

“No…” He shook his head, no explanation needed. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the scenario. Given the lie he’d been told, he could well imagine that her family had believed they’d seen the last of him. Certainly his parting shot to Hannah’s father would guarantee he’d never be welcome in their home again. And truth was, it was probably kinder than letting Faith think she had a father who had no interest in her. But heaven. Of all the places to pack him off to. He felt a grin spread across his face. “My God, Hannah. Wouldn’t it have been more like them to tell her I was in hell?”

“Yeah, well…” She smiled back at him, clearly relieved by his reaction.

“That’s no doubt where your da would consign me.”

“My father died,” she said. “A few months after you left. A heart attack. Needless to say, my mom was pretty devastated. The family were all there for her, of course, but she still gets lonely.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I had no idea.” He recalled meeting her father for the first time, the look of clear disapproval on the man’s face. A tall, imposing man, obviously accustomed to having control over most things, including his family. Which must have made it pretty tough when his daughter ran off and married a ne’er-do-well Irish musician.

“You never tried to contact me,” she said.

“I was too furious with you. I thought you’d had an abortion. Why didn’t you ever try to reach me?”

“Because…” She shrugged. “I just figured it was over. I didn’t especially want to hear you confirm it. I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “For everything.”

So am I, he thought. For everything. They sat in silence for a while. The memories were all coming back to her, he guessed, just as they were for him. The cheap apartment, the car that spent more time up on blocks than on the road, tins of beans and fried-egg sandwiches for supper. Happy enough until those last few weeks, or so he’d thought. One night he’d woken from a dream about Ireland, starving for the sort of lamb stew he remembered his gran making. He’d roused Hannah out of sleep, and at two in the morning they’d found an all-night market and spent all the money they had on the stuff to make it. By the time they’d got everything home, he was no longer in the mood for stew, and they’d made love on the kitchen floor instead.

“What happened?” he asked her now.

Hannah traced a bit of the wicker weave on the arm of the chair. “Short version?”

“Let’s begin with that.”

“I fell apart, and my family had me hospitalized. That’s where I was when you came to look for me.”

“Let’s hear the longer version,” he said.

She covered her face with her hands, took a deep breath then took her hands away. “Oh God, Liam, I don’t know. I was such a mess. I hated your being gone all the time. I hated the clubs and the girls always hanging around. I was miserable, lonely. I missed having my family around me. Mostly I was terrified of going back to Ireland where I didn’t know anyone. My life would have been tagging around after you, or staying home by myself.”

He looked at her, wanting to argue but resisting. He knew his version of what went wrong; he wanted to hear hers.

“Not that we didn’t have some good times,” she said. “I don’t mean that. It was just…I felt like I was disappearing. That last tour you had in San Francisco, I stayed home, remember? In our apartment, I mean. Anyway, I started going through the drawers in your dresser, and I found these letters from some girl…”

“God, Hannah—”

“No, let me finish. It’s a chapter in my life that I’d just as soon never think about again, but I want you to know so you understand…about Faith and everything. I just went to pieces. Everything is a kind of blur. I guess I called my mom and she was on her way over to pick me up, but I’d already left. I don’t even know what I was thinking. She found me walking along the freeway. At that point, she decided to take matters into her own hands.”

He thought of those last couple of months with her. He’d come home late from a gig to find her sleeping. She’d be sleeping still when he went off again the next day. When she wasn’t sleeping, she was crying. For days on end it seemed she’d do nothing but sleep or cry. He’d alternate between racking his brain to figure out why she was unhappy and losing patience with her for doing nothing to help herself. “For God’s sake, snap out of it,” he’d say. “Stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself.” And then he’d blow money they didn’t have on hothouse roses.

Her expression clouded, and she picked at the fabric on her dress. “The thing is, my family still worries about me and Faith. My mom especially. Although lately, the tables have kind of turned and it seems I’m always worrying about her…” She smiled slightly. “Another story. Anyway, they all know how bad things were after we split. I mean if it hadn’t been for them…”

If it hadn’t been for them, he’d know his daughter today. On the other hand, he hadn’t recognized the severity of her depression and they had, so maybe he didn’t deserve to know his daughter. He stood, restless, fighting a barrage of competing emotions.

“I was a real mess,” she said again. “I couldn’t even take care of Faith. So now, every time I feel smothered by my family, I remind myself of that.” She laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Or they do.”

“But you’re all right now?” He turned to face her again, studied her for a moment. There was a confidence and strength about her that she hadn’t had before. “You look great,” he said. She smiled and he was reminded again of all the good times they’d shared. “No, I mean it. Back then, a good wind would have blown you away. You’ve…filled out.”

Her grin widened. “Are you saying I’m fat?”

“No, not at all. And I like your hair the way you have it now. It suits you.”

“You used to like waist-length, white-blond hair.”

“Ah, well, we all change.”

“Listen, Liam…” She leaned forward in her chair. “About Faith. It’s her birthday next Saturday, a week from today. We’re having a party for her. If there’s some way you can make it…”

He looked at her for a moment, tried to imagine himself in a room full of six-year-olds, one of them his daughter. Tried to imagine what he would say to her. Happy birthday! You don’t know me, but I’m your daddy. Thought I was in heaven, didn’t you? Well, surprise! Sorry I can’t stick around to see you grow up. Nice meeting you though. Drop by if ever you’re in Ireland.

Hannah was watching him. He felt the tension, hers and his own, as she waited for his response. “Listen, I um…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s better we leave things as they are.”

“You don’t want to see her?” A moment passed. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“Right.” He hardened himself against the look in her eyes. “Thanks for inviting me, though.”