EPILOGUE
From her aunt and uncle’s penthouse balcony on the East Side, she could look north toward the Queensboro Bridge and the gray-green expanse of the East River. To the right, the glittering tower of the United Nations Headquarters came into view.
She had been introduced to Florence and Harold’s friends—all nice and all more than willing to welcome her to New York. A world of shopping, galleries, museums, restaurants, practically anything she wanted to do day or night, opened before her.
Her bedroom was half as big as the first floor of the Dublin house. Her aunt had placed a wide desk before the window that looked out over the East River. There she could read, study, decide upon schools, think about the choices she had to make, and forget about the past. For once, the tension that had permeated her life seemed to have lifted. She no longer had to deal with her father when he was drunk, her mother’s slavish obedience to her father, the Church, or grapple with her feelings about men—Cullen and Father Mark included.
A withered rose sat in a cut-crystal vase on her desk. The yellow petals had turned brown. Cullen had given it to her when she and Florence were about to leave the house. He had unexpectedly shown up with the rose in hand and apologized for being upset on the phone. He understood her decision to leave, to sort things out, and wanted her to know he would be in Dublin if she needed a friend. She kissed him on the cheek. Florence seemed impressed and called him a “handsome young man.”
They parted with no tears.
When the runway disappeared beneath the 737 and they were thrust into the air, Florence breathed a sigh of relief. Teagan watched Dublin drop away. As they jetted west over the countryside, she thought of Lea and her Celbridge home. The last she saw of Ireland were the high cliffs jutting above the coast and the thin lines of cresting waves that crept toward the shore in slow motion.
At her desk in New York, she took pen in hand to write to Cullen. It had been several weeks since they had corresponded. She wrote a few words and then looked out the window. A fast-moving line of clouds approached from the northwest. Teagan had never seen anything like it in Ireland. The storm clouds in America were different: sharper, linear, brutal. She stepped out on the balcony to take a look. The weather reminded her of the turmoil she had left behind—Sister Anne, her parents, and Nora and Lea. The wind wrapped its cool fingers around her. The warm days of fall were vanishing. Winter approached, but she was settled and comfortable in her aunt’s New York apartment.
Several blocks away, a patch of grass grew between two high-rises. A leafy tree stood encircled by lush green. The verdant sight dimmed, obscured from the sun by flowing clouds.
That was the way of life, she thought, bright one moment and dim the next.
She left the terrace and shut the sliding doors, closing out the chill.
It was green in that little patch of New York, and still green in Ireland, despite their differences in location.
Someday she would see green Ireland again. Cullen might be waiting, and Nora needed her help. Nothing mattered more than a promise to a friend.