forty-eight

Merrit squinted through successive rain curtains the sky saw fit to unfurl on them. She turned on her headlights, catching sight of flattened daffodils by the side of the road into Lisfenora. Liam dozed in the seat beside her. In the back, Zoe contemplated the drenched countryside. In repose, the loud attractiveness she emitted in all directions went dormant. She appeared girlish, a solemn girl with solemn thoughts.

“Thanks for helping us choose a marquee for the party,” Merrit said. “Where did you want to be dropped off ?”

Zoe perked up with an instant smile. “The Roadside Tavern. I’m meeting Brian for a quick pint. He’ll drop me off at home. You’re welcome to join us if you want.” Merrit pulled up outside a pub with a wagon wheel hanging on the front door. “Oh! There he is now.” Zoe rolled down her window. “Brian!”

A drenched fellow in a thick down jacket trotted over. “How’s the craic?”

Yet another suitor. Zoe needed matchmaking services like a leopard needed spots. The man ducked to nod at Merrit with a quick, penetrating squint. His smile revealed pointy canine teeth to go with boyish dimples. He opened Zoe’s door for her and led the way into the pub at a sprint, Zoe laughing behind him.

Merrit continued to the plaza and found a parking spot near Alan’s pub.

“I’m not in the mood,” Liam said. “I could use a nap.”

“We’re not going in. I’m holding you hostage until you tell me the truth.”

Liam coughed into a handkerchief. “What is it then?”

“What are you after with Zoe?”

“I’m experimenting, no more than that.” He picked up an AdSense booklet tucked into the cup holder and flipped through it.

“Don’t play the silence game with me, mister.” She grabbed the booklet from him. “Spill it.”

“Talk about the bloom going off the rose, disrespecting an elder like that. A question for you: how have I been for the last few days?”

Merrit hesitated. “Pretty good. And?”

“Improved, more energy, you’d say?”

“Stable.” Realization dawned on her. “No, you’re not.”

“I am, and I swear I’m feeling better,” he said. “Zoe might be a keeper of the cure, indeed.”

Merrit digested Liam’s statement, trying to look at it from all sides. Placebo effect. Delusion. Hope. Desperation. Whimsy.

Truth?

“You’re feeling better than what?” she said. “Your doctor said right from the start that you’d have good days and bad.” She couldn’t keep the tension out of her voice. “I understand the temptation to believe in something, anything, but the cure?”

He smiled with a knowing look, one that hinted at the undercurrents of life that she was too American—or too ignorant—to understand. “Oh, ye of little faith, and here I’m telling you that I do feel better. I’m sure of it.”

“Is that why you were holding her hand today?” Merrit said.

“Holding my hand, nothing wrong with that. Solace for the codger.”

“What about the seventh son of the seventh son? Aren’t they the ones who hold the cure? For that alone, I’d be skeptical of Zoe.”

“True, but she’s not full Irish, is she? Like you’re not full Irish, and I’ve no doubts that you have the charm for matchmaking like I do. Why can’t she be charmed for healing?”

The problem was that Merrit wasn’t Irish enough to believe in such things. Every week she heard new tales that sane people accepted as part of their everyday reality. A standing stone in a sheep field that granted a wish if you climbed to the top of it. The faery tree that brought bad luck to the construction company owner who cut it down to make room for a road. The stories never ended.

Merrit said coincidence. Everyone else said, “Ay, maybe, but then maybe not.”

She powered on her hybrid and turned on the lights. “Fine. You have every right to hold hands with Zoe. I have nothing to say about it unless she’s hurting you, but I don’t approve. Her behavior is odd—cruel, even. Maybe self-serving.” Liam snorted. “She isn’t charging you for the service, is she? True healers aren’t supposed to profit from it, right?”

“So it’s said,” he said.

Merrit glanced at him as she eased onto the noncoastal road for the drive home. The rain-muted glow from Alan’s pub caught Liam’s speculative half smile, there and gone in a swipe of the windshield wipers.