He was angry for a while, after we split up, but now he’s forgiven me for my together life, my career success, the nice house, inherited from my parents, which was half his before the divorce, the fact that I stopped loving him before he stopped loving me, the fact that maybe I never loved him at all. I flash back to an afternoon in the counselor’s office, Brian spitting out the words: I never had a chance. You loved someone else the whole time. I don’t even know who it is.
He wasn’t wrong. But that’s a long time ago now.
“Thanks, Bri.”
“’Course.”
After we eat, Lilly asks if we can go down to the beach. She’s hesitant, not sure what we’ll say, but Brian nods and I say, “Great idea!” a little too enthusiastically. The three of us walk down and stand on the sand. The beach is busy tonight; everyone in the neighborhood can feel spring on the air, the new sweetness of the days.
We watch the sun coming down over Long Island Sound. The gulls are calling overhead. A clam boat’s coming in. We watch a lone fisherman against the horizon.
We’re about to head back to the house when Jessica and Chris Fallon and their twins come down the beach, their dog running circles around the boys. Jessica and Chris were in Brian and Erin’s high school class; I was a year behind them all. They wave and Lilly runs to say hi to the twins.
“Hey, guys,” Jessica says. When she leans in to hug me, I can smell her perfume, too strong, even in the fresh air. Jessica was always thin, but middle age has rounded her out and like me, she’s suddenly got a lot of wrinkles around her eyes and across her forehead. I saw her once on Main Street and thought, That’s an old lady, before I realized it was her. But now, looking at her small nose and greenish eyes and the high cheekbones she always put too much bronzer on, I can see the sixteen-year-old she was. Chris has thickened, too, his football player’s body gone to fat. I feel a sudden surge of affection for them, for Brian, for all of us. We’re the parents now. We’re the middle-aged fogies.
We watch the three kids throwing rocks into the water for the dog.
Something on my face makes Jessica turn serious, searching my eyes. “Is everything okay, you guys?”
I glance at Brian. “Yeah, we just … Uncle Danny got a call from Ireland last night. They found something they think belonged to Erin. I’m flying over tomorrow.” Brian rubs my shoulder again. I think about how we must look to someone coming down the beach. Two couples, talking, watching their kids.
“Oh.” Jessica’s eyes go wide. She was Erin’s best friend in high school, but it’s been so many years. I can see it’s completely out of the blue, that she’d stopped thinking we’d find anything. “I’m so sorry, Maggie. Do they think that … Do they think it’s her?”
“They just don’t know. I’m heading over. Brian’s going to stay with Lilly.” I nod toward the house.
Her breath catches. Her eyes fill with tears. “I just keep thinking about the last time we saw her. When we were all Eurailing over there and stopped in Dublin. She seemed different, but good. Like she was happy there.” She looks up, meets my eyes. “Settled, I guess. And you know, for Erin … that was … I guess even once they found those other women, I always wondered if she might not just walk in someday and have some crazy explanation. I’m sorry, Maggie. This must be awful.”
“No. I think probably I always thought that, too,” I tell her. “Hopefully we’ll get some closure. For Uncle Danny.” The dog barks and we all watch it run down the beach, back toward Jess and Chris’s house. Chris calls to the boys to head back.
“Bri, let us know if we can help with Lilly this week,” Jess says. She hugs me again, too tight. I can feel her tears on my cheek.
“Nice time of year,” Brian says once they’re gone, his voice heavy with sadness.
“Yeah. It’ll be summer before we know it.”
He nods.
A gull calls somewhere over the water. The sound tosses me back—a low, gray skyline, the air damp and touched with peat smoke, gulls wheeling over the Liffey, Mespil Road, Raglan Road, Sandymount Strand, Leeson Street, Sutton, The Four Courts, Delgany, Roundwood, Glenmalure. I walk the maps in my mind.
Brian coughs. We watch our daughter walk toward us.
“She looked so old to me tonight,” he says. “I mean, I just saw her last week. But when she came out to the car after school, she looked up and she was just … older.”
“I know. It’s crazy. That’s been happening to me all the time lately.”
“She’s a good kid. We’re lucky. She’s got her head on straight.” I know what he means. Not like Erin.
The sun hovers for a moment and then it’s gone. We stay there, watching the empty stretch of sky as it changes color, purple, then pink, then orange.
6
THURSDAY, MAY 26,
2016
The Aer Lingus nonstop to Dublin runs overnight. I sleep a little and when I wake up they’re serving tea and coffee. The coffee is strong and dark, and I’m awake and on edge, teeth brushed and face washed in the airplane restroom by the time we land. Ready. I get through immigration and customs quickly, with a wink and a “Don’t work too hard now, love,” from the officer when I say I’m here on business.
This time, I arrive on a perfect day. Blue skies. White clouds. Sun shining. One in a million. The airport seems completely new, shiny silver and glass, a chic restaurant with pale wood décor just outside the passenger arrivals area. There are huge black-and-white pictures of Irish men and women lining the hall, some pale-skinned, red-haired, freckled, but not everyone, not anymore. There are little stories below the photos. I grew up in Lagos and came here for medical school. My family is from Enniscorthy. Not a psychedelic carpet to be seen.
I’ve read the stories. In the twenty-three years since I was last here, Ireland’s been up and then down and now, maybe, from the looks of things, up again.
Roly Byrne is waiting for me. I catch a glimpse of him through the crowd. He’s craning his neck, looking around, and when he sees me, his face breaks into a huge grin.
He surprises me by wrapping me in a tight hug. He smells good, lemony, like expensive soap and aftershave.
“You’re looking great, D’arcy,” he tells me, taking my carry-on without asking and leading the way through the waiting crowds. “Getting on agrees with you. Myself, on the other hand…” He runs a hand through thinning blond hair, cropped short, and makes a funny face that emphasizes the lines fanning out from his eyes. He’s fit, still wiry, a greyhound of a person.
“You’re no worse than you always were,” I tell him.
He puts a hand on my arm and says, “What do you want to do? I need to head down to Glenmalure. I can take you to your hotel, you can have a shower and then I can tell you what we’ve got once you’ve had a sleep.”
I think for a moment. “Let’s head to the scene and you can brief me on the way.”
“I won’t be able to take you up to the site,” he says, giving me a sidelong glance. “You know that. At best you’ll be able to see the staging area for the search.”
“I know. But it’s been so long. I just want to remind myself of the place, see how far it is from where I found her necklace, that kind of thing.” I force myself to make it sound breezy.