CHAPTER 45

Sean came to consciousness in his own bed like a man suddenly dropping through the ice of a frozen pond. The memory of the previous night hit him before he’d even opened his eyes. It was over with Rebecca. In every way. She had told him she couldn’t see him until she got herself back on solid ground. That’s how she’d put it. As if his very presence were a kind of emotional tar pit, sucking her down into some dark lifeless place.

She hadn’t blamed him. And yet she’d called their relationship “unhealthy.” It was only a whisper away from saying that he was bad for her. He had never been The Bad Guy before. Certainly he’d disappointed women occasionally. There had been one or two, prone to drama, who’d professed their love for him, demanding to know why he wouldn’t return it. And he’d felt sorry for them, despite what he’d known to be a very clear message: This is casual. It is not love.

Rebecca had demanded nothing. And he’d given her everything he had. His innermost thoughts. His worship of her body. His utter admiration and pride in her. He’d loved her and it showed. He had to admit that now. The fact that he’d never said the words seemed now to be as relevant as making a promise with your fingers crossed behind your back. A technicality that counted only among children.

And there was that guy—the old boyfriend. Maybe now that Sean was The Bad Guy, this jerk had been promoted to The Good Guy. Gainfully employed, centrally located, saying all the right things simply because he knew how. He’d been in an actual normal relationship with her, for godsake—he had the edge!

But she was too smart to go out with some loser who didn’t appreciate her, wasn’t she? He couldn’t be all that bad, because at some point Rebecca had chosen him. But why did they break up? It was hard enough to be without her, but he found it unbearable to lose her to someone who might not get how great she was. As if he had a choice.

* * *

Why he had agreed to take Kevin to meet his father at IHOP, he couldn’t for the life of him recall. Just pulling into the parking lot, remembering the dread he’d felt only a week ago when he’d faced his father the first time, compounded that drowning-in-ice-water feeling he’d been having all morning. He was grateful that Kevin was too anxious to notice.

Da was too excited to notice, at first. He reached his hand out to shake Kevin’s, grinning, studying every hair, every freckle. As Kevin slid into the booth, Da gestured surreptitiously to his eyes and murmured, “Just like . . .”

Hugh.

“Yeah.” Sean nodded and sat beside Kevin.

The older man asked his grandson about school and camp and the dog. Sean monitored this interaction as if he were sitting in a high school English composition class, struggling to focus on what he knew he would be tested on later, but unable to keep his mind from wandering out the window, across the sports fields and over the trees.

“And your Aunt Deirdre,” he heard Da say. “I understand she’s to be in a play.”

“Yeah, we’re going to see her tonight. She’s got a really big part. But not the biggest part. That has to be a guy, because the play is called Joseph and . . . something about a jacket.”

“Where is the theater?”

“In Worcester. She practically lives there.”

Sean studied his father, who was assiduously avoiding eye contact as he stirred sugar into his tea. Kevin excused himself to go to the bathroom.

“You can’t go,” Sean told Da. “Deirdre’s already freaked out enough. If you show up, she’ll blow a gasket.”

“She said she didn’t want to see me. She never said I couldn’t see her.”

Sean squinted at him, annoyed. “You’re kidding me with this. Really? You want to play semantics with the grown daughter you haven’t seen since she was in preschool?”

When Da looked up, his gaze was lit with anger. “No, I want to see her. I want to lay eyes on my baby girl before I move across the ocean and die.”

“Don’t be dramatic. You could have seen her anytime in the last twenty-eight years. And don’t pull the old man stuff on me, either. We’re all going to die.”

Da scrutinized him. “Rough night?” he said.

He thinks I’m hungover. Sean let out a bitter snort. “You could say.”

Da studied him a moment longer. “Well,” he concluded, “not from drinking. Bad news of some kind?”

Oh, what the hell, thought Sean. He could play twenty questions or he could just say it.

“I was seeing someone. She broke it off last night.”

Da nodded, his face softening slightly, but thankfully not to the point of pity. “I’m sorry.”

Sean shrugged, but he supposed that Da knew better than to believe the matter was shrug-able.

When Kevin returned, Da shifted the conversation to his upcoming trip. “It’s a beautiful place, really,” he told Kevin. “Great rolling hills and green pastures. A place that heals the soul.”

“What’s the highest point?” Kevin asked, his lips sticky from syrup.

“That would be Carrauntoohil, in County Kerry, where I was born. It’s a great one for climbing.”

Kevin’s eyes shone with interest. “What makes it so great?”

“Ah, you have to scramble up the Devil’s Ladder to get to the top.”

“Why do they call it that?”

“Well, not for being a stroll in the garden, lad, that’s for sure!”

“Have you done it?”

“Once. Just before I came to America when I was nineteen. I wanted to go to the very top of Ireland before I left it, so me and some of the lads hitchhiked down and made the climb. The weather turned sour at the peak and we very nearly froze to death—even though it was May!”

“That’s awesome,” breathed Kevin.

“You’ll have to see it yourself someday.”

As the boy’s questioning gaze turned to him, Sean realized a campaign had been waged by the wily old man. Waged and practically won.

“Could we go?” asked Kevin.

“Ah, Kev,” Sean said wearily. “It’s not exactly like going to ­Connecticut.”

“The highest point in Ireland, Uncle Sean. The Devil’s Ladder!”

Sean looked at his father, the man’s eyes wide with false innocence.

“Don’t give me that,” Sean told him. “You’re sinking pretty low, turning the kid on me.”

“I’ve done no such thing, and I resent the implication.”

Sean snorted. “Right!”

“Just think for a moment,” said his father. “Think of the boy and yourself, traveling the land of the faeries with me. It’d be grand!”

“And don’t turn on the Irish charm. I’m half Irish—it doesn’t work on me.”

Kevin watched this sparring intently, as if the outcome had significance far beyond vacation plans. Sean looked at him, at Hugh’s eyes silently hoping.

“It might do you good to get away for a bit,” Da said, his tone mild, his meaning clear.

Yes, indeed it might. In fact there was nothing Sean wanted more at the moment than to go far away. “School starts in two weeks,” he relented. “We could do one week, tops.”

Kevin and Da let out simultaneous whoops of joy that made pancake eaters at other booths turn their heads and smile.

* * *

They went straight to the Belham library, got onto a computer, and filled out the online passport forms for Kevin. Then they stopped off at the house for Kevin’s birth certificate, went to the post office, submitted the forms, and had his picture taken. For a steep fee, the passport would arrive in two days.

When Sean saw the cost of the expedited passport and then the airline tickets, he murmured to his father, “Are you sure you can cover all this? I can help, but money’s tight on our end. I’m working at a coffee shop at the moment.”

“I was never happier to pay a bill in all my life” was all he said.

Later that afternoon, after Da had gone back to his hotel and Sean and Kevin had returned to the house, the phone rang. “Is Kevin there?” asked a boy’s voice.

Sean handed it over and dawdled in the kitchen, constructing his turkey sandwich with unnecessary care. The caller apparently asked what classes Kevin would have, and the two of them determined they would have science and drama together. Then the conversation circled around to a tent full of farts, and Sean quickly determined that the kid on the other end was Ivan from Boy Scouts.

“Sure, I can hang out,” said Kevin. “But it’ll have to be in the next couple days.” He waited for the obvious question this begged, a proud little smile playing around his cheeks. “I’m leaving on Sunday for a week. Me and my uncle and my grandfather are going to Ireland.”