Chapter Eleven

Where the Streets Have No Name

Monte informed her that the drive to Knockferry was approximately three hours, and that there would be more tolls. The route, M50 to M6 to M4, would take her straight across the heart of Ireland to the west coast.

She gave Monte a top-up and hit the road. She could be in Knockferry by two. Marissa realized she was looking forward to the drive. She was already sick of Dublin. It had let her down. Plus, she realized that the guy at the rental car place was right. She had become accustomed to driving on the right side. It felt natural to her now. When she got on the M50 she set the cruise control at a steady one-hundred-nineteen kilometers per hour (which was really only seventy-four miles per hour), one kilo below the speed limit, and watched the greenery fly past.

More greenery and more greenery… Marissa marveled at the beautiful landscape as she zoomed down the motorway. Copses of trees would open up to verdant green fields and rolling hills in any direction. Marissa had heard that there were thousands of different shades of green in Ireland, and now she could verify that was true. In fact, Marissa didn’t see any evidence of civilization until she was about fifteen kilometers from the city of Galway. She passed a sign that illustrated to her M6 was ending and that she was now traveling on N6.

Just a few minutes later, another sign indicated the name of the street she was traveling on was Bothnar na dTreabh, and that the City of Galway was seven kilometers away. Marissa turned off the cruise control and slowed down considerably. There were buildings now along the road, and roundabouts to navigate, plus the sky had darkened and become very overcast, threatening rain.

She wondered why she was seeing much more Gaelic language than English on the street signs and the storefronts. Did that mean this area received fewer American tourists?

Well, Marissa didn’t consider herself a tourist. She had a good reason to be in County Galway. She was on a quest for her true love! If that wasn’t Irish, she didn’t know what was. Marissa realized she was getting grumpy, and knew it was because she was hungry. She decided at her next opportunity, she would look for some food and a bathroom. It was only twenty minutes until two, and she had made good time.

Just off the N6 was Galway Shopping Centre, and Marissa drove around the perimeter of the mall looking at the names of stores within. On the west corner of the mall was something called “Supermac’s Drive Thru”, and by reading the signs that were posted she learned that it was a drive-thru that offered her choice of meals from the menus of restaurants like Papa John’s Pizza, Subway, McDonald’s, and a host of regional chains she had never heard of. Intrigued, she pulled up to the ordering window.

“Dia duit conas is féidir liom cabhrú leat?” a teenage girl appeared at the window, wearing a red and white uniform that read “Supermac’s” on the front.

“Um, I’m sorry. I don’t speak Gaelic.” Marissa said, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Sorry, ma’am. What can I get for you?” The girl switched to a heavily accented English.

“Well….do you really have all these restaurants in there?” Marissa marveled at the list on the wall next to the window.

“We do. they are all in the mall,” The girl smiled.

“Okay, then, um…. can I have a Chicken and Bacon Ranch Melt from Subway?” she asked.

“No problem. You wanna drink with that?”

“Sure, a bottled water would be fine. And a bag of chips, maybe?”

She looked thoughtful. “A bag of chips? Do you mean chips or crisps?”

Marissa realized that French fries were called chips here, and that potato chips were referred to as crisps. “Sorry, a bag of crisps, then,” Marissa emphasized the word.

“Nine euros.” The girl quipped.

Marissa handed over the money, and in return she received a blue tag. The girl instructed her to park her car in the blue section and her food would be brought out to her.

She did as she was told, and in less than ten minutes a different girl in a matching uniform approached her car carrying a subway bag. Marissa rolled down the window.

“Here you are, Miss,” the girl said, handing her the food, “Enjoy your meal!”

“Oh, thank you so much,” Marissa smiled at her and handed her three euros as a tip.

Marissa moved the car to the other end of the parking lot and parked out near the road so she could watch the traffic flow while she ate her sandwich.

She looked on her navigation map to see where she was headed next. She was on Headford Road, and according to Monte, she could take the N59 and be in Knockferry in thirty-five minutes. The N59 would take her right next to the Moycullen Bogs, the site of Jack’s alleged UFO sighting. She wondered what the Bogs would look like.

She was back on the road by two-thirty. The N59 was a tiny two-lane road, and the bogs looked like any other pasture. A light rain started to fall, and the temperature dropped at least ten degrees. Every ten kilometers or so she would pass a stone cottage, or a gate leading to a private driveway. One thing Ireland had plenty of was trees. And bushes. Wild, un-manicured flora that choked the roadsides, so that you couldn’t see in any direction other than forward or behind. Another feature was the low stone walls that inevitably lined the sides of the road.

She drove through a tiny village called Ballyquirke, and then the larger town of Moycullen. It was interesting to her to imagine the people who lived here. To whom all of this was their natural world, and then to imagine those people driving through her hometown in River City, Florida. Would they find her neighborhoods as different as she viewed theirs?

Monte announced, “Turn right in one hundred meters.”

“Are you sure Monte?” she asked after she made the turn. She found herself on a one lane road. It was cracked and full of potholes, and it made her very nervous. She looked at the map on the screen, and indeed, the road was marked in blue, meaning it was part of the route. “So, this is rural Ireland,” she said out loud. Really, really rural, she thought.

The no-named road stretched for seven kilometers, which was only about four miles, but it seemed to go on forever. When Monte told her to “Turn right,” again, she was grateful, but the new road was only slightly wider than the one she had left. There were more buildings though, and Monte informed her that she was in the village of Carrowmoreknock. At least the road was more open, and there were more buildings on the side of the street, rather than private homes.

Her relief quickly dissipated when the road shrunk back to one lane and the low grey stone wall reappeared.

She kept driving. Finally, she came to a real honest to goodness four-way intersection, the first one she’d seen since leaving the shopping centre, and Monte advised her to turn left. The left-hand turn put her on another small one-lane road, but “road” was a generous word.

Finn had once said that he was a country boy, born and raised, and now she knew what he meant. Jack had told her that Knockferry was a “one-horse, three-cow town,” and now she understood completely.

Marissa was hit with the realization that she would never find Finn in this remote backwater village. She also knew that she could probably knock on any of these doors and ask (if she wasn’t shot first) where Gran lived, and the occupant of the house would know. But she didn’t even know Gran’s real name. She only knew her as “Gran.” Doesn’t matter, she thought, I could just say ‘Where does Finn’s Gran live’ and they’d probably know exactly who I was talking about. But she also knew that she was not going to be knocking on any of these doors.

With a heavy heart, she drove on.

The small lane became a bumpy dirt road, and the foliage became thicker and wilder, if that were even possible. Turning around was not a possibility, her only option was to keep driving forwards, or back all the way down the road in reverse. The light rain had stopped falling by this point, but the sky was still heavy with thick black clouds.

* * *

After a few long minutes driving at the slowest speed possible over the deep ruts and ridges of the scarred road, she came to a dead end on the shore of Lough Corrib. There was a wide concrete parking lot, big enough for probably four or five cars, and a small boat ramp. She pulled up to the concrete stations and parked the car. There were two short but wide piers, also made of concrete.

Happy to stretch her legs a bit, Marissa got out of the car and locked the door. She opted to leave the cement and walk a ways along the edge of the shore on the grass. After a few hundred feet, she came upon a large flat rock and sat down.

At first she welcomed the silence, but then noticed that it wasn’t silent at all. She could hear the soft “whoosh” of the wind blowing off the water and through the trees, and the songs of several small birds giving thanks for the rain. It was a peaceful place.

She was at a narrow point of the lake, she could see the woods on the other side, but to the left and right, it stretched on to the horizon. Just as Finn had described it, she could see dozens of small islands dotting the portion of the lake within her view. Tall trees surrounded her, and from her vantage point she could barely see the car park or concrete. She felt surrounded by nature, and she loved it. She inhaled a lungful of fresh country air. It smelled clean, and she could smell the scent of rain mixed with a hint of evergreen. It was a healing place.

She imagined a young Finn with skinned knees pulling a small rowboat to the shore with his friends, saw him rowing out to one of the islands, weighted down with sacks of sandwiches Gran had prepared for them. She smiled. It was a magical place.

She thought of Gran. A woman she had never met, but through Finn’s stories Gran had become as dear to her as her own grandmother. “She knows the personal name of every wee fae in the bog and the lough,” Finn had said. Where were the wee fae now? Were they there with her? Hiding in the trees? Wading on the shoreline, to see what Marissa would do? She had never spoken to fairies before, but she knew a little about the superstitions from her research on mythology.

“Your lake is beautiful,” she said out loud. There was no response. Feeling emboldened, and little touched by the serenity of the moment and the influence of Gran, she continued. “I know I am a stranger to this place, but my name is Marissa. I have been all over the country, trying to find Finn. You’ll know Finn, I’m sure. He has this lake in his blood. If you care at all about true love, and the affairs of humans, please help guide me to him. I don’t know what else to do.”

She knew she needed to leave a gift for the fairies, anyone who studied folklore knew that, but she wasn’t sure what she had that she could give. Something sweet would have been the perfect choice, lore said they loved honey, but something shiny or sparkly would work as well. She remembered the barrette she had bought yesterday in Dún Laoghaire. It was shiny and sparkly. It would have to do. She took the barrette out of her hair and laid it on the rock as she stood up. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said, and returned to the car.

She and Monte braved the dirt road again, this time going in the opposite direction. It didn’t seem as bad this time, since she knew what to expect. Albeit unwillingly, a decision had been made. She would drive back to Dún Laoghaire tonight, and then Sunday she would go back home. That still gave her Friday and Saturday. Maybe Finn would return to his house during that time. If not, he would find her note eventually. Maybe she would write another one, with more detail before she left for good. Maybe he would call her. Maybe not. She just didn’t want to think about it right at the moment. She didn’t want to lose the peace she had gained on her rock at the Lough.

She finally made it back to the intersection at Carrowmoreknock, and just as she was about to turn left, she heard a loud “clunk” from somewhere within Monte’s engine. Large plumes of smoke spewed from under the hood. “Oh crap!” she wailed, and in her upset, she went straight through the intersection rather than making her turn. The engine was still running, but she didn’t know for how long. She coasted for a few meters, blinded by the smoke in front of the windshield, but she managed to pull into a parking lot and cut off the car engine.

* * *

Marissa sat in the driver’s seat, not moving, and Monte continued to hiss. Eventually the smoke thinned and cleared out, and she could see a small white building with The Boar and Stag painted in red on the side. Another Irish pub, but this one was not the polished type like the one in Dún Laoghaire. This was a rural pub, existing solely for the citizens of the small surrounding villages. There were a few pick-up trucks and motorcycles (and two tractors) parked on the side of the building.

The weight of Marissa’s disappointment and heartbreak overtook her. “Et Tu, Monte?” she wailed and began to cry. She had been such a fool. She had a great man and threw him away because of her stupid fears and doubts. Then, with optimism borne of foolish naiveté, she flew five thousand miles and spent thousands of dollars she really didn’t have, to try and win him back. Finn was gone. Disappeared back into the green hills and Irish loughs of his own life. He wasn’t worrying about her. She had been up since four a.m., driven across the entire breadth of the country, and now she was stranded two hundred miles away from her hotel room. This is where my second nervous breakdown finally happens, she thought to herself. “Monte, we had a deal,” she sniffed, and laid her head on the steering wheel and cried.

After about ten minutes, her sobs subsided to sniffles, and she began to think more clearly. She would go into the bar and call the auto club. She had no idea how far away the closest Enterprise Rent-a-car was, but they could send someone to pick her up, and she could get a replacement car by tomorrow at the latest. Maybe even tonight, if she was lucky. The thought of a replacement car depressed her. Monte had turned his back on her, given up on their solemn mission, but still — he was her car.

She checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were a little puffy and red, but who cared? She grabbed her purse and went onto the Boar and Stag.

It was a very tiny bar with about a dozen or so tables. The floor was cracked linoleum, the walls held unframed posters showing vintage beer and liquor labels.

“Hi ya, dearie! You can have a seat anywhere, I’ll be right with ya,” a tall red-haired waitress was wiping down one of the tables. There were only three other people in the room, and they were eating sandwiches and drinking draft beers. A television sat on the bar, replaying an old horserace.

Marissa sat down at a table for two by the window. The rain had started again. From a distance, she could hear raucous voices and laughter. She saw across the room there was an entry to another part of the bar.

“Oh, don’t mind them,” the waitress nodded her head toward the noise, “It’s just some of the old codgers playing their weekly game of darts. What can I get ya, hon?” she said holding her pencil poised over a notepad.

“Umm… can I just have whatever they are having?” she nodded toward the others in the room. Apparently, menus weren't necessary in this place because everyone knew what they had to offer.

“They are having barbecue sandwiches. Is that what you want? Are you alright, you look a might frazzled,” she held true concern in her voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Marissa smiled at her weakly, “My car just broke down in your parking lot, so I guess I’m a little distracted.”

“Oh no! You don’t say? Well, we can call Clem over to take a look at it if you want. He is the town mechanic.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to bother him. It’s a rental, so I’ll just call them, and they can come get it,” Marissa reasoned.

"Well, suit yourself. You know best. I'll go get you a barbecue plate. You'll feel better with some food in your gullet." She started to go.

"Oh, wait, do you have a bathroom?" Marissa asked.

"Sure thing, sweetie, right through there," she pointed to an alcove next to the entrance to the other room.

Talking with another human being made her feel a little better, and she felt guilty for misjudging the place. Sure, it wasn't as ritzy as McLoughlin's Pub had been, but it had no pretenses either, and the waitress was genuinely nice. She went into the bathroom to splash some water on her face.

The tiny bathroom shared a wall with the other room because she could hear the voices of the locals much more clearly once she closed the bathroom door.

There was some good-natured ribbing and quite a bit of profanity being thrown around. It sounded like a bunch of older men.

Then, as she was patting her face dry with a paper towel, she heard "Och...and did you leave yer good throwing arm in America, too, along with yer celler phone, young Finnian? You've already lost two games in a row."

Marissa's heart stopped.

"He is still mooning over the lass,” Jack's voice filtered through the paper-thin wall. JACK!

"And would that be yer youngwan in America you told us about, Jack?" A different voice teased.

Marissa grabbed onto the sink for support. She felt faint.

"Aye. The self-same one." Jack said innocently.

Marissa leaned against the bathroom wall, her head spinning, her heart a jackhammer about to leap from her chest.

"That'll be enough of that, Grandda," Finn's deep lilting voice admonished.

OHMYGOD that beautiful voice!

Finn continued, "You're just trying to throw me off me game."

"Well, it seems to be working," a fourth voice intoned, and then all-around laughter.

Marissa quietly opened the bathroom door, and on shaking legs, walked to the archway that separated the two halves of the bar. It was another small room, with chairs all around the walls and an ancient dartboard hanging on the far wall. There were about six or seven men, most of them beyond sixty, sitting along the wall smoking pipes, cigars, or cigarettes.

Finn stood in the center of the room with his back toward her. He was aiming his next throw. He wore relaxed fit faded jeans, worn and tattered around the seams, that looked like they were cut especially for him, and a cream-colored Aran turtleneck sweater. He had on old high-top sneakers. This was country Finn.

One by one, the old men noticed her standing there, and quieted. Each elbowed the other, until they got to Jack. Jack looked at her with a welcoming smile and a nod. He didn't seem at all surprised to see her standing there.

"Well, that's better, now I can concentrate," Finn said regarding the new hush that settled over the crowd. "What are you all gawking at—” He turned and saw her.

When their eyes met, time stood still, and there was no one else in the room. All the things she had wanted to say flew right out of her head. She watched his face. Shock. Disbelief. Uncertainty. The darts he was holding fell to the floor.

"Finn," she whispered, and took two tentative steps toward him.

"Mó stor," he replied, and closed the rest of the distance, sweeping her up in an embrace that both took her breath away and restored life to her at the same time. He kissed her with the desperate passion of a man given a new chance at life. And she kissed him back with the frenzy of a woman who had been offered her saving grace.

When their lips finally parted, she was sobbing. "Finn, oh my God Finn, I am so sorry, I have been all over this damn country trying to find you to tell you how sorry I am. I went to Jack's and you were gone. I flew to Dublin and I went to your house and you were gone, and I..."

"Shhh, shhh Mó stor, quiet now, I am here." He crushed her to him, tears streaking his cheeks as well. He stroked her face and her hair.

"I love you, Finn McKenna," she said into his sweater. "I love you so much, and I always have, ever since that damn owl stole my cinnamon roll..."

He held her shoulders and pulled her back so he could look at her face. "Do ye mean what ye say?" he asked.

"Yes. Yes, from the bottom of my heart," she looked him square in the eyes. "I love you," she whispered.

"And I love you, Marissa Byrne," he replied. "And I will never leave your side again." He kissed her again, gently this time, but deeply.

"Well, now. This is worth the price of admission,” one of the locals murmured.

There was a shush from one of the corners of the room.

Remembering they had an audience, Finn took Marissa's hand and pulled her outside through a side door, to a chorus of disappointed groans from the others.

"I just can't believe you're here," he said.

"Well, I can’t believe you're here," she replied. "I had given up looking for you..." She told him the highlights of her adventure. He especially liked the early morning stake-out, and then the mad rush cross-country. "...and if the car hadn't blown up, I never would have stopped here."

"It just started smoking?" he asked. "Why don’t you pop the hood and let's take a look." He was a typical man, trying to solve any problem you put in front of him.

"Finn, you don't have to. I'll just call the rental place..."

"Well, you have to at least look, Marissa. It may be something really simple," he told her, already walking towards Monte.

She gave in easily, and pushed the button under the dashboard to open the "bonnet" of the car, and then joined Finn.

"Well, here's the problem," he said, reaching toward the engine, "It looks like someone loosened the radiator cap. You just need to add more water. Wait, what the heck is this thing under here?" He picked up something from under the hood and showed it to her.

It was her shiny and sparkly hair barrette.

* * *

Two hours later they were laying in each other's arms in a hotel room in Galway, and Finn confessed his side of the story.

“…And Fiona called and told me that Gran was in the hospital with pneumonia, so I had to come back earlier than I had planned,” he said.

“Is she better now?” Marissa asked.

“Aye. She came home from hospital on Monday, but we are staying with her for a while longer, to make sure she gets her rest. You can meet her tomorrow, and Fi as well.”

“I am looking forward to meeting both of them.”

He looked at her. “After Fi’s call, I wanted so badly to call you and tell you what was going on. I started to, a couple of times, but then I would remember what ye said to me, and I would stop myself. Then I smashed my phone into the wall so I wouldn’t be tempted.”

“God, I am so sorry Finn, for everything I said. I swear to you, I only said those things because at the time I thought I was doing what was best for you. I convinced myself I was being strong and noble. I was so stupid,” she whimpered, and looked away.

“Sometimes love makes us act foolishly,” he said and kissed her forehead, “And we are both guilty of that.”

“If I would have just told you what I was thinking, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble,” she admitted.

“Well, I could have been more honest with you about the infertility situation.” His voice trembled.

She pulled his face closer to hers. “Finn, I’m sorry. For everything. We have to promise not to let our fears or insecurities get in the way ever again.”

“Agreed,” he whispered.

He kissed her. “And now fate has set everything a’right again, I won’t let anything tear us apart. No more living in the past, and no more regrets or apologies. We have found our way back to each other. I love you, and you love me. That is all that matters now.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “That is all that matters.” And maybe fate isn’t so bad after all.