Brian’s message caught Kaitlin off guard. He was in the area, he said. Was she free for lunch? Her first instinct was to say no. She had an important afternoon meeting. But she hadn’t seen him in the longest time, and thirty minutes couldn’t hurt. They arranged to meet in a bar and grill a few minutes from her office.
That morning, her boss had summoned her for a talk. Her work was lacking its usual finesse, he’d said. Her input wasn’t matching her ability. ‘I’m not annoyed,’ he’d added, ‘just concerned. Do you need to talk to someone?’
She’d given a mechanical answer. It was nothing, she’d insisted. She would try harder. How could she explain that she was trapped in a place where she found the job both difficult and dull? That even when information worked its way through the sludge of her brain, she lacked the motivation to do anything with it?
Brian was in the restaurant before her, sitting in a booth with a beer. He waved and smiled. Her carefree brother in shorts and a polo shirt, his face tanned from a weekend on the Cape, was another reminder of how drained she was, her eyes so heavy she could barely open them.
‘I’m off the clock,’ he said. ‘I’m tying up a few odds and ends for Mitch O’Leary. He keeps calling, and I keep saying, “I’m on it.” But I’m not really. I like being a free man.’
‘Lucky you,’ she said, shuffling into her seat. ‘I could go for some of that freedom.’
‘No offence, but you look like you could do with it. You’ve gotten too thin.’
Brian ordered the shrimp plate with fries while she asked for a chicken caprese sandwich. He tried to coax her into a beer, but she insisted she couldn’t.
Although the restaurant was close to her office, Kaitlin had never been there before. It was a masculine sort of place, the walls decorated with black-and-white prints of ball games and ball players, the clientele dressed in business suits with loosened ties. They barked about contracts and vacation plans in a way that suggested they’d be disappointed if someone wasn’t eavesdropping.
After the ritual swapping of news – Riley had found a job in a DC gym; Clay was working on an important, possibly career-changing, case – Brian asked the question she’d been fearing.
‘I don’t know if we’ve ever gone this long without seeing each other. Have you been avoiding me?’
‘No,’ she lied.
‘Maybe we’ve been avoiding each other, then.’
‘Maybe,’ she said, tearing her napkin into thin strips.
‘I’m reluctant to ask, but wasn’t the baby due around now?’
‘It’s okay. Yes. Yes, she was.’ Kaitlin put down the shredded napkin. She gripped the table, as though its solidity might provide her with more mental strength. ‘It’s . . .’ She couldn’t think how to finish the sentence, so she allowed it to slide away.
Brian leant in, like he’d done when they were children and he’d had something important to say. ‘You don’t have to talk about it. I wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten, that’s all.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’
‘I’ve been talking to Mom,’ he said.
‘Why does that worry me?’ she asked, her tone lighter than she felt.
‘She told me about your project. The family tree thing, I mean.’
‘No doubt she put her own slant on it.’
‘Wee-ll—’
‘Sorry. That came out wrong. It’s just I could live without her interference right now.’
This wasn’t how Kaitlin had planned their conversation. She needed time and space, and she needed to finish her research. She’d wanted to be able to say, ‘Look at these brilliant people. Look at what they went through. They walked away from a shipwreck, for God’s sake! And we wouldn’t be here without them.’ Instead, she was in a downtown restaurant, rock music with neither rhythm nor tune was slicing through her, and she was due back at work in twenty minutes. Oh, and once again, she’d been bounced into something by her mother. She could have stamped her foot in frustration only stamping would have required too much energy.
By the time their food arrived, she’d decided that alcohol might be a good idea after all. She could brush her teeth before the meeting. She ordered a glass of white wine. She also asked if the music could be lowered a little. Brian asked for another beer.
The waitress, who looked like she, too, was having a bad day, turned to Kaitlin. ‘And I’ll get you a fresh napkin, honey. I find the ones that come in twenty-five pieces aren’t very effective.’
‘So,’ she said, when they were on their own again, ‘what exactly did Mom say to you?’
Between mouthfuls, Brian told her about calling around to their parents the previous day. Their father had been at work, which had given their mother an opportunity to air her frustrations.
That was how Susan worked. She was serene and long-suffering until some minor issue tipped her over the edge. A leaking faucet would be the catalyst for a diatribe about how, if it wasn’t for her, the house would fall down around them. Someone failing to call on her birthday would provoke a speech about how the entire country had forgotten their manners. Give it an hour or two, and she would regret her outburst. Not that she would ever say as much. Instead, she would put on a sheepish face and become overly solicitous.
‘She was on edge,’ said Brian, a fry in one hand, his beer in the other. ‘She’s convinced that you’ve joined forces with Orla to try to sabotage my new job.’
Kaitlin pushed her food across the plate in annoyance. ‘That’s one way of putting it. I wouldn’t choose it myself, but there you go. And why she has to drag Orla into everything, I don’t know. Well, actually I do, but she’s got to stop.’ She took a gulp of wine. ‘You know Mom has this long-running issue with Orla over something that happened before we were born? More than thirty years have gone by, and she still can’t let go.’
Immediately, she regretted her words. Drew and Orla had asked her to keep the story to herself.
Before she had the opportunity to backtrack, Brian answered. ‘As it happens, she told me about it yesterday.’
‘We’re talking about the same story here? Shay Drennan’s accident?’
‘Uh-huh. Was that the poor guy’s name? Mom went on about how shocked she’d been that the family employed undocumented workers.’
‘I don’t know what planet she was living on if she was shocked. According to Drew and Orla, the city was overflowing with young Irish people. Where did she think their green cards were coming from?’
‘You know as well as I do that she’s always had a talent for ignoring the inconvenient. Plus, I guess she put Dad’s family on a pedestal because they seemed so much more respectable than hers. Anything that suggested Wilson Brothers was less than one hundred per cent clean was going to be tricky for her. And, if you don’t mind me saying so, she doesn’t like the fact that you’re tighter with Orla than you are with her.’
Kaitlin almost challenged his final point, but how could she when it was true? She reminded herself that there was nothing spiteful about their mother. Susan liked everything to be orderly, and when it wasn’t, she lashed out.
‘I still can’t understand why Mom would tell you all that,’ she said to Brian. ‘I’d assumed she wouldn’t want you to know.’
He took a long drink of beer. ‘I reckon she thinks it paints Orla in a poor light. Anyway, why don’t we forget about Mom for a minute? I want to hear about my Irish roots.’
It struck Kaitlin that the more she found out about her family, the less she understood. She’d expected Brian to address the fact that their family business had employed undocumented immigrants. Surely he had an opinion? Instead, he seemed keen to move the conversation in another direction. Maybe their mother wasn’t alone in her ability to ignore the inconvenient.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘but please don’t be flippant. When you hear what our family survived, you’ll be – I hope you’ll be – impressed. I’d planned on having more information by now, but . . . well, the past few months have been tougher than I’d expected.’
‘I’m not being flippant, I swear. I genuinely want to hear about them.’
She looked at her phone. Her meeting was due to start in ten minutes. If she left immediately and moved quickly, she could make it. For a moment, she wavered. Then she put the phone on mute and nodded towards their waitress. ‘Could we get two more drinks, please?’
Over the next twenty minutes, she outlined what she’d discovered about the Mary and Elizabeth. She spoke about the conditions their ancestors had left behind and about the city that had become their sanctuary.
‘That means,’ she said, ‘that our American story began with people fleeing the Famine. Can you imagine what they went through?’ She took a drink. ‘But, like I say, I’m quite a distance from having the full picture. I’d love to know how Alice and Martin became a couple. Like, did they stick together because they both survived the disaster or what happened?’
Although people were drifting back to their offices, a background hum remained. There was a burst of raucous laughter. A phone jangled.
Brian was quiet. Without making it obvious, Kaitlin searched for a reaction. She hoped for a sign, no matter how slight, that he’d been moved by what he’d heard. Moved or embarrassed or intrigued or something.
There was nothing.
She checked her phone. Four missed calls.
She’d always feared that, as far as Brian was concerned, this was a hopeless mission. Some days, she didn’t know why she’d embarked on it. No, scratch that. Of course she knew. Like Orla had said, this was more personal than political. She had difficulty, would always have difficulty, with someone so close to her disagreeing about something that felt so fundamental. She’d accepted that she couldn’t change his mind, but she’d wanted, at the very least, to give him pause for thought.
Brian wasn’t just part of her childhood memories. He was her memories. They’d been as close as twins. A conspiracy of two. Now, she had to admit that, in important ways, they weren’t alike at all. Perhaps they never had been. Her brain, her straightforward logical brain, couldn’t accept that. No matter how often she said, Listen to me, see it my way, he wouldn’t.
He ran a finger down the side of his glass. ‘It’s fascinating, and they all . . . Well, “brave” doesn’t begin to describe them.’
‘You don’t think they should have been locked up and sent back to Ireland, then?’
‘Come on, Kaitlin. That’s not fair.’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s not. But you know what? Nothing feels fair at the moment.’
Her voice must have been too loud because a woman in a perfect white linen blazer swivelled around and frowned. Kaitlin gave her a broad smile, and the woman turned away again.
‘I don’t want to lose your friendship,’ she said. ‘And I don’t want us to feel we have to vet every word we say.’ Because I get enough of that with Clay, she could have added.
‘That’s not going to happen,’ said Brian, his denial unconvincing.
‘But you’re not really interested in Alice and Martin, are you?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not saying I don’t feel any obligation to the past. I do. I get that. But I feel more of an obligation to now.’
‘Please don’t give me the spiel. I’ve read the Frequently Asked Questions page on the IRAA’s website. Believe me, I could do a master’s on that site.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I understand why you don’t agree with my decision. And listen,’ he sighed as though needing more time to compose his answer, ‘it’s not like I support everything the Alliance stands for. I’m not that wild about family separation or kids in cages either.’
She looked down at the sandwich she hadn’t been able to eat. ‘Why work for them, then?’
‘Because I do share some of their aims . . . which, if you ask me, are more nuanced than you’re willing to admit.’
‘That,’ started Kaitlin, ‘isn’t exactly—’
Brian refused to give way. ‘But the main reason I’m taking the job is because I can’t stay with Mitch for the rest of my days. I don’t want to spend my life writing speeches for the official opening of Pat O’Donnell’s new grocery store and making sure Mitch remembers to wish Connie O’Brien a happy birthday and Joanie Fallon a contented retirement. And if I stay in Boston, that’s what’s going to happen.’
Despite herself, Kaitlin smiled at his job description. It was bitingly accurate.
‘It’s all right for you,’ he continued. ‘Everything’s on track for you. It always has been. But I’ve got to move on, and this is an entry to Washington for me. Is it everything I’ve ever dreamt of? No. But it’s a start. I’ll get the chance to meet people and to hear about vacancies. And then I’ll look for other opportunities. It’s politics, Kaitlin. That’s how things work. You’ve got to compromise.’ He paused and sank the rest of his beer. ‘One more?’
By now, the lunchtime crowd had thinned to a sprinkling of customers. She risked another look at her phone. Six missed calls. ‘Why not?’ she said. She couldn’t recall when she’d last had three glasses of wine in the middle of the day. Already, she was feeling blurred.
While Brian took a call from Mitch O’Leary about a row on the health finance committee, she considered what he’d told her. She’d assumed he was working for the Immigration Reform Alliance because he was the truest of true believers. It turned out that he saw it as a stepping-stone. She didn’t know whether this cynicism made his decision easier to accept. On balance, she thought not.
Kaitlin switched off her phone. She would have to think about all of this, but not now.
After the restaurant, they ambled towards the harbour. It was another violently hot day, and as they crossed Atlantic Avenue, the sky opened out and they entered a different city. People stood in untidy lines for lobster rolls and bus tours. They spilt out of Legal Sea Foods and the aquarium, all wearing the tourists’ uniform: shorts and tanks, backpacks and baseball caps. Here was a bachelorette party in cerise T-shirts and too-short shorts. There was a group of baseball supporters, telling everyone within earshot that they’d travelled from LA. The holidaymakers chattered and laughed and squabbled, and Kaitlin envied them with a ferocity bordering on resentment.
Perhaps it was the alcohol, but she talked more than she had in weeks. Their conversation careened from childhood adventures to their mother’s eccentricities to anecdotes about work. They remembered vacations and punishments, parties and mishaps, as though their shared history was enough to override their differences. Without acknowledging it, they were trying to re-establish connection.
Finally, she opened up about the miscarriage.
‘I’m not the same person I was a year ago,’ she said. ‘I wish I could be, but I’m not. And, I don’t care what Mom thinks, finding out about the generations before us helps a little. It gives me a chance to care about another world.’ She lifted her sunglasses. ‘That probably sounds crazy to you, but it’s how I feel.’
They found a free bench and sat down. On the other side of the harbour, they could see Logan Airport, its planes scoring lines through the blue sky.
‘You’re not the first person to show interest in our family tree, you know,’ said Brian, as he searched through his backpack.
‘Really?’
‘Uh-huh.’ He pulled out a notebook. ‘Do you remember Gina Queally?’ He stretched out an arm and placed his hand about three feet from the ground. ‘About this high? White spiky hair? Slightly gravelly voice?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘She’s a second or third cousin of Dad’s. Don’t ask me which. There are so many of them, even I lose track. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’s keen on this stuff. In fact, I know she is because I was talking to her at one of Mom’s parties.’ He tore a page from the notebook. ‘That’s her number. She gave it to me because she wanted Mitch to fix the sidewalk in front of her house.’
‘I think I know who you’re talking about. Isn’t she married to a great big wall of a guy?’
‘That’s right. Greg Queally’s his name. Mom doesn’t like putting them together in photos because she says the height difference makes the pictures untidy.’
‘And you’re sure she was doing the same work? Like, looking for the same people?’
‘I’m not one hundred per cent. She didn’t give me names or anything . . . or if she did they’ve slipped my mind. If I recall correctly, she was talking about letters that had been passed on to her when another relative died.’
‘That sounds promising.’
‘You should give her a call. Even if she can’t answer all your questions, she might be able to point you in the right direction.’
Kaitlin watched two planes land, the air shimmering around them. She thought of the stories the harbour and the airport had heard. Of the nervous newcomers and the optimistic ones. Of the people who’d fled persecution and those who’d wanted an adventure. She thought too of all the people, from whatever part of the world, who still arrived in hope.
Then she took her brother’s peace offering and tucked it into her purse.
When he’d left, she checked her phone again. It was late in the evening in Ireland, and she was convinced that an email from Jessie would be waiting. She was wrong. Apart from a handful of news alerts and a series of emails about ‘Summer’s Defining Looks’ and ‘Fall’s Fresh Offerings’, her personal inbox contained nothing new.
Had she said something to offend Jessie?
The tally of missed work calls had risen to eleven. She promised herself that she would listen to the messages, and then, when the wine had started to clear her system, she’d call to apologise. She assumed that some sort of disciplinary process would kick in. The thought made her feel ill.
For a few moments, Kaitlin sat with her head in her hands. She pressed her fingers hard against her eyes so that stars and spirals popped up against the black. Now that Brian was gone, her despondency had returned. She was adrift, unhappy but incapable of tackling the root causes of her unhappiness.
Once again, she checked her inbox. Once again, there was nothing new. She decided to send one more email to Jessie.