The minute Sarah stepped into Fiona’s cottage she knew something was wrong.
There was a feeling of quiet and finality that Sarah had never felt before. It literally made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up—almost as if someone were lying in wait for her.
“Fi?” She shut the door behind her. She was about to look in Fiona’s bedroom when she noticed someone lying on the couch in the front room. If Fiona were sick, Sarah knew she would be in her room. “Fi?”
A muffled response from the couch and a glimpse of purple ignited Sarah’s instincts to maximum anxiety. In two steps she was at the couch and on her knees, her hands reaching to push the hair out of the eyes of the face she loved so well.
“Papin? What is it? Are you sick?”
Papin gave her a weak smile and her eyes fluttered open and then shut. She licked her lips and gave every appearance of being drugged.
How was that possible? We don’t even have aspirin in camp any more.
“Papin, what’s the matter with you?”
“I was supposed to give the mushrooms to Auntie Fi to make her sick so that you were blamed for it,” Papin said, speaking slowly as if the words were hard to form. “But when she wasn’t here I got a tons better idea.” She opened her eyes to look at Sarah. “I figured if it was me that got sick you for sure wouldn’t make us go.” She laughed weakly. “I’m right, aren’t I, Mum? We’re staying now, right?”
“You…you ate poisoned mushrooms?” Sarah said, not believing the words as they came out of her mouth. “You deliberately ate poison?”
“It’s not real poison, Mum,” Papin said sleepily. “Just enough to make a person sick. Caitlin said they wouldn’t hurt but they do a little.”
Maybe if she could get her to throw up she could get the stuff out of her system. But first she needed to keep her awake.
“Why did you want to give them to Fi?” Sarah sat on the couch and pulled Papin onto her lap. Her eyes filled with tears. They had no antidote. It would take a modern hospital and a very fast ambulance to even think about trying to possibly.
“To make it look like you tried to hurt her. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Caitlin promised they’d just make you stay in your cottage for a little bit. But then you and Da would get back together.” Papin grimaced and clutched at Sarah’s arm in agony. When the moment passed, she relaxed again against the pillows on the couch.
“Papin, dearest girl, we’ve got to get those mushrooms out of your stomach. You need to sit up now.”
“No, Mum. I just want to sleep now.”
A pounding on the front door jerked Sarah’s attention away from the pale and sweating from trembling in her arms. The door flung open and John stood there.
“Mom? You okay? I saw Auntie Fi down at the jail so I wanted to make sure you…is that Papin?”
“John,” Sarah said, her throat closing up to try to keep the tears, the hysteria from pouring out of her. “You’ve got to go get Mike. Grab your pony. Don’t bother saddling him—”
“But Mom, if I leave they won’t let me back in.”
“It doesn’t matter, sweetie. Just go and hurry.”
“What’ll I do with the puppies?”
“John! Just go!”
Sarah saw the fear on his face as he looked from her to Papin’s silent form in her lap. He pulled the puppies out of the room with his leash and she heard his steps pound down the front porch steps. She looked back at Papin. She had a light sheen of perspiration on her brow and Sarah wiped it away with her hand.
“When you see Da,” Papin said, her eyes closing, “tell him I’m sorry. I know he knows I am. He always knows. I was just so mad at you for breaking up the family.” She froze for a moment and her eyes flew open as if a terrible thought had just come to her but then she relaxed and again, her rigid muscles softening in Sarah’s arms.
“Stay calm, darling,” Sarah said, hating the fear she could hear in her own voice.
“Caitlin said it would feel good to get back at you but it didn’t. It sucked to see the look on Da’s face. You never should have sent him looking for me in Wales, Sarah. I was just too messed up from the start.”
“Don’t you talk like that, young lady,” Sarah said, the tears streaking down her face. “And I’m Mum to you.”
“Don’t worry, Mum. It doesn’t hurt. I just feel real sleepy.”
“My darling girl.”
“I see now how you could give it all up—even Da, as much as you love him—for me and John. Aideen told me a good mum would lie down in front of a bus to save her child. I want to be that kind of mum.”
“You’re going to be a wonderful mother, Papin. I know you are,” Sarah said, the sobs wracking in her throat.
“I’m going to sleep a bit now,” Papin said, her eyes heavy. “I love you, Mum.”
“I love you, too, darling girl.” A lump formed in Sarah’s throat and she couldn’t swallow.
“Remember Evvie?” Papin said in a faint whisper. “I’ve been thinking of her a lot lately. I miss her.”
Sarah held Papin tightly to her chest, Papin’s cold hands clasped in her own. She knew Mike would never make it in time. She had brought his poor broken waif through hell and every evil imaginable to this sanctuary. She had given her love and a family, a father, brothers, and an auntie who doted on her. For seven short months, only two hundred days, she had known love and protection and rest. She had belonged to a loving unit, been cherished and allowed to be a child again.
And it had always been too late.
Sarah bent her head to Papin’s face and kissed her cheek. She stayed there and listened to the child’s shallow breathing until Papin took in one long rasping breath…and didn’t let it out again.
This time when the door flung open, Sarah didn’t jump. There was no hurry any more. She looked up to see Mike standing there, big and blocking out all light from the outside. He was at her side in two strides and dropped to his knees, his eyes on Papin’s face, his own frozen in anguish. Slowly, he put his arms around the both of them. When Sarah felt his arms, warm and strong around her, she let the tears come, the pain, the grief, the guilt. All of it, shared and absorbed by the father who loved her, too.
***
The next morning, Mike stood between Aideen and Sarah and watched the casket as it was lowered into the ground. This time of year, bodies couldn’t remain unburied even for a few hours. Because Papin was buried in the kirkyard at Ballinagh, and not in the camp graveyard, no one accosted him for his presence, although Archie and the twins, Cedric and Colin, watched him intently throughout the brief service.
The priest still lived near Ballinagh, practically the only person who still did. When Mike was head of the community, he had seen to it that the man was supplied with as much food as they could spare. He had no idea if Gilhooley intended to keep that up.
Declan stood next to Fiona, his hand on her waist but his face battered and bruised to testify to the conditions he’d been subjected to while incarcerated. Mike knew it had been Fiona’s begging to Brian that had allowed Declan to be released. Mike had yet to tell Fi what Sarah had told him—that it had been her who was supposed to have eaten the poisoned mushrooms.
Mike’s eyes narrowed as he watched Caitlin stand by the open grave. She tossed flowers onto the casket and brought a white handkerchief to her eye to dab at nonexistent tears.
How could this have happened? Of all the people Caitlin wanted to hurt, how did it end up being poor defenseless little Papin? Mike’s anger swelled inside him to combat the growing grief he didn’t want to give in to.
His frantic gallop to camp yesterday after John delivered the news that Papin was sick had been filled with every horror Mike could imagine—including the reality when he stepped into Fi’s cottage and saw Sarah holding the body of the poor dead girl.
He squeezed his eyes shut and his arm reached down without his mind giving permission to touch Sarah’s hand. Instantly, her fingers laced with his. He didn’t care what it looked like to anyone else. But it made him sick to know that the one thing Papin wanted so badly, the one thing she died for, was the one thing he and Sarah were now doing: standing together, united.
Mike watched as Caitlin looked impatiently around at the mourners and then nodded to Jamison who promptly turned toward where Mike was standing with Sarah and Aideen. Sarah must have felt him tense because she looked up to see what he was looking at.
Jamison stood before them. “Missus Woodson,” he said, “I’ll be needing you to come back to camp with me for questioning in the death of Papin Woodson.”
Sarah just stared at him.
Mike took a step toward him, conscious of the Glock jammed into the back waistband of his jeans. Gavin had brought Mike his guns and his tools before the service.
“Back off, Jamison,” he snarled. “She had nothing to do with Papin’s death and everybody here knows it.”
Within moments, Brian and Caitlin joined Jamison. Mike felt Aideen grab his arm and he knew she was entreating him not to pull the gun, to stay calm.
Caitlin’s eyes raked him with revulsion. “She was with Papin when she died and she admitted that Papin was killed with poisoned mushrooms. There was a thermos of poisoned mushrooms in the cottage. A thermos she was seen carrying into the house.”
“You got a forensic lab up your arse, Caitlin?” Mike said. “Because unless you do, and can test the body or the thermos, you’re fucked and it’s a suicide.”
Gilhooley sucked in a harsh breath at Mike’s language and Mike knew he wanted to chastise him in some way. But they were outside the camp. He wasn’t leader of shite out here.
“Come, my dear,” Gilhooley said, taking her arm. “As much as it pains me to say it, he’s right. Everyone believes it to be suicide and there’s no way to prove it’s anything else. Besides, she was the girl’s adopted mother. She had no motive to harm the poor creature.” Gilhooley nodded at Sarah. “I am sorry for your loss, Mrs. Woodson.”
Mike stepped away from the group and, because he was still holding hands with Sarah, pulled her back with him. He didn’t know if she would speak or react, but he was pretty sure it would be better for everyone if she didn’t. He realized too late when he moved, that Aideen could see his physical connection with Sarah.
When Brian dragged his wife away toward their waiting pony cart, Jamison turned to Mike. “I know you think you’re off the hook, Donovan, what with your boy giving testimony the little gypsy said you didn’t shag ‘er after all, but nobody believes it. You’re still not welcome in Daoineville.”
When Mike didn’t respond, Jamison gave Sarah a nasty look, then followed to where the Gilhooleys were waiting for him by the pony cart. Mike noticed Aideen had moved a step away from him. He was sorry to have upset her, there just wasn’t anything for it.
Fiona and Declan walked over to them and Fi instantly put her arms around Sarah. Mike thought Declan looked to be in pretty bad shape. His face was battered and he limped. He held his arm against his chest at a funny angle too. John and Gavin came from where they had been standing and John slipped his hand into his mother’s.
Sarah kissed him and stroked his face. “I can’t help but think if I’d have just told her that we were staying after all…none of this would have happened.”
“Don’t think like that, Sarah,” Fiona said. “Therein lies madness.”
“You were staying?” Mike was thunderstruck.
Sarah nodded. “I was going to make a formal announcement at dinner last night and tell everyone we were staying. If only I’d told Papin first…”
“Was it because of Papin?” John asked. “The reason we were going to stay?”
Sarah hesitated, glancing briefly at Mike and Aideen, and then nodded.
“So now there’s no more reason to,” he said.
“No,” she said softly, staring at the grave that the men were filling. The priest still stood by the rim, supervising. “No reason at all.”
“I’ll take you,” Mike said gruffly. “Today, if you like.”
He had dropped her hand when Fiona hugged her. Now he watched her rub her hand against her slacks. The breeze had picked up.
Already he could feel the coming autumn in his bones. It was going to be a hard winter.
That much he knew.
The goodbye was worse than Sarah could ever have imagined. She literally clung to Fiona until John had to remind her by patting her on the back that Mike was waiting at the entrance to the camp. Declan had moved back into the cabin but his injuries kept him on the front sofa most of the day.
Whatever fight he’d had in him was gone.
Leaving the two of them like this was nearly worse than burying Papin, Sarah thought.
Nearly.
Her farewell to Siobhan had been brisk and efficient but the old woman actually broken down and wept.
Nobody else came out to say goodbye. Sarah thought that was a pretty fair illustration of how the community had become divided since Brian Gilhooly came. While she hadn’t been close to many of the camp women, she had been friendly with them, easily sharing a laugh or lightening the workload of some chore made easier with more hands.
John climbed into the driver’s seat of the pony cart to wait for her. Gavin leaned over John’s knee and the two spoke in low voices. Sarah realized she was ripping John away from the only brother he’d ever known.
“Mom, come on, Uncle Mike will be waiting,” John said, not looking at her. She gave Fiona one more last hug.
“This isn’t the end, Fi,” she said. “I promise you that. I’ll be back to see that little one. This isn’t the end.”
Although they both knew it was.
“I love you, Sarah Woodson,” Fiona said, smiling past her tears. “I’ve never met a female MacGyver before, eh? And I’ll never forget you.”
“Nor me you, Fi. I love you, too.”
Sarah ran around the front end of the cart and threw her arms around Gavin. “Take care of yourself, Gavin,” she said, tears pouring down her face. “And take care of your da, please.”
“I will,” Gavin said solemnly.
She gave him one last squeeze then pulled herself up onto the cart to sit next to John. She gave a limp half wave to Fiona, standing alone on her porch, her hand on her stomach, her broken husband inside. John drove the trap down the main walkway of the camp. Several gypsies stood and waved to John, a few called to him. Nobody else showed themselves.
John drove through the front gate and brought the little pony to a halt when he saw Mike standing by the first clutch of elm trees. Seeing him standing there, so familiar to her, his hair blowing lightly in the cool breeze, Sarah had to force herself to look at John and remind herself why she was doing all this.
After handing over the reins to Sarah, John settled himself in the back of the cart. When Mike took his place, he leaned back and ruffled John’s hair briefly.
“Morning,” he said to Sarah.
Not trusting her voice, she merely nodded. Her hands were in her lap, but they were shaking. As Mike drove the little pony cart away from the camp, she shut her eyes against the temptation of turning around to look.
Nothing good could come from that.
After a moment, she let the sounds of the pony’s hooves on the hard packed dirt road and the jangle of his harness lull and relax her.
“How long do you think it will take us by cart?” she asked softly.
Mike scanned the clouds as if looking for the answer in the heavens. “Not much longer than on horseback,” he said. “Last time you and I went, we stayed mostly on the road anyway.”
“Eight hours?”
“Something like that. Did you bring a lunch?”
She nodded. “In the back with John. Are you hungry?”
He shook his head.
She cleared her throat. “Aideen and little Taffy staying with you at our old place, I guess?”
Mike clucked to the pony to increase his trot. “We called it off,” he said. “The engagement.”
Sarah felt her hands tingle at his words. Now there was nothing standing between her and Mike…but her.
“Mom? Can I have one of these sandwiches back here? I’m starving.”
“Sure, sweetie,” she said. She turned to Mike and looked at him for the first time since he’d climbed into the driver’s seat. His face was implacable, giving away nothing. He kept his eyes on the road between the pony’s ears.
What was there to say? That this changes everything? Stop the cart?
Sarah looked out over the Irish countryside. The road they were on was bordered by a long and low stonewall on both sides. It was broken in several sections but that could easily have happened before The Crisis.
How in the world was she going to ride like this for eight hours without sobbing her heart out?
She took a long breath and tightened her fists to give her strength. “It might mean nothing,” she said, slowly, “but I was thinking about the thing that started the whole disaster with Declan getting thrown in jail and Papin’s little speech.”
Mike frowned. “You mean Jamison pawing you?”
“It was so out of the blue. Like he was waiting for me.”
“You think he and Caitlin are having it on.”
“I don’t know, but my read is that Brian is clueless about Caitlin’s real agenda.”
“So she’s taken an accomplice.”
“However much knowing it helps.”
“All knowledge helps.”
“Will you stay in the area?”
“That’s just what Aideen asked me. You mean, like start a new community?”
“No, but with Gavin living in the camp…”
“He’ll move in with me and Aideen tomorrow.”
“So you and Aideen will still live together?”
“Until I can find another place for her.”
Sarah nodded and let the information sink in. “What about Fi?”
“Fi has to decide what she and Declan want,” Mike said. “If they decide to leave, they’re welcome to come to my place, too.”
“Seamus and Deirdre’s cabin is a little small for seven people.”
“Seven?”
“Well, there’s the baby soon.”
Mike sighed. “Right. Funny how something we were all celebrating just last week now seems like such a complication.”
Sarah didn’t answer.
“I’ll probably leave,” he said. “Head back to the coast.”
Sarah didn’t know why she found that information upsetting. “For the fishing?”
He shrugged. “It’s what I know. Makes a hell of a lot more sense than running an inland agricultural community.”
“You did a great job running that community.”
“Yeah, I believe you,” he said dryly. “Millions wouldn’t.”
“I’m sure everyone is having second thoughts now that Caitlin’s there. Did you hear that she’s having stocks erected next to the camp center? For public humiliation?”
Mike grimaced. “She’ll probably just rotate all the poor gypsy bastards through it on a weekly basis.”
“Plus, there’s a rumor that one of her grotty twin brothers raped a gypsy girl over the weekend. But the gypsies are too afraid to report it now that Declan’s out of the picture.”
“Welcome to Daoineville.”
“It’s a nightmare.”
“That it is.”
They were silent for several minutes before Sarah spoke again. “I can’t help but think Papin was all my fault.” Her voice cracked and she struggled not to cry.
Mike put a hand on her knee. “I know you do. But isn’t it enough to mourn her without feeling responsible for her death, too?”
“That makes sense but I can’t help it.”
“Try harder.”
“I really wanted us to be the family she never had.”
“And we were. Why not think of it this way: she died because she loved us so much she didn’t want to lose us. And that’s because we showed her what love is.”
“Do you think she was doomed from the start?”
“Sarah, we loved her, we did our best by her. It ending like this doesn’t alter those facts.”
“I just can’t believe she’s gone.” She buried her face in her hands and felt Mike’s arm go around her shoulders. From behind her, she felt John’s hand on her back.
“We all miss her, Mom,” John said. “It’s nobody’s fault she’s gone except maybe Caitlin’s.”
“And the minute Caitlin came into camp,” Mike said, patting Sarah’s shoulder, “we, none of us, had any control over what was going to happen next. You said yourself, it was supposed to be Fiona dead this morning, and you in handcuffs for murder.”
“Is that true?” John said. “Caitlin wanted to frame you for killing Auntie Fi?”
Sarah gave Mike a worried look. “Did you ever tell Fi the truth? She needs to know she’s not safe there.”
“I told her and Dec both,” he said, his eyes on the road, his voice grim. “As I said, they’ll make their decision soon enough.”
“Well, maybe not soon enough.”
“In any case,” Mike said, glancing meaningfully at her, “it’s out of your hands whatever they do.”
“I just can’t believe it’s all over,” she said, her eyes reverting again to the vibrant green of the Irish countryside. “Donovan’s Lot, Papin, our lives, our friends…just a little over month ago we were all so happy.”
The memory of the man coming into their camp on the night of Fiona’s wedding came unbidden to Sarah as she remembered hearing his news, not imagining then how it would change all of their lives forever.
Mike removed his arm from her shoulders and they drove in silence for the next several hours.
Limerick was very much the same bustling metropolis as the last time Sarah had seen it. Mike drove the cart straight to the forecourt of the American consulate. It was still early afternoon. Sarah knew they had missed the flight they were originally scheduled for but had to assume there would be others.
Although they had stopped several times for everyone to stretch their legs, Sarah still descended the cart with difficulty, her muscles sore and resistant to movement. She left Mike and John with the pony cart and went inside to announce their arrival. Within thirty minutes she was back.
“Well?” Mike asked. “Everything okay?”
She nodded. “They have another transport flight first thing in the morning. We’re scheduled to be on it.”
She looked at Mike, but in the half shadows of the waning afternoon was unable to decipher his expression. He went to the back of the cart and took out the single small suitcase that held their belongings. He set it down on the pavement next to Sarah.
“Mike, surely you’re not going back today? You won’t be half way home when it gets dark.”
He turned to John and opened his arms to him. Sarah watched her son go to him. She heard Mike’s low murmured voice to him and saw John, looking down, nod. Her heart caught in her throat and she turned away from the sight. It had been Mike, without having to be asked, who had made the detour to stop by David’s grave at the beginning of their journey. For one last goodbye.
When she felt John rush past her toward the consulate where they would spend the night, she knew the time for the very last goodbye had finally come.
Mike stood by the pony cart watching her, his head cocked to one side as if trying to understand her or read her, his face a mask of such deep sadness, she wanted to look away.
Instead, she steadied her shoulders and walked straight into it. Before she even knew what she was doing, she was in his arms, her hands wrapped around his waist, her face pressed to his chest. She felt him envelop her and for just a moment all pain seemed to seep away.
When she lifted her face to him, he touched her jaw with his fingers and tilted her face towards him. The kiss was urgent and fierce and complete. It was the one to make up for all the others they hadn’t had, and for all nights they would never have. Sarah abandoned herself in the feel of his full lips, the roughness of his beard against her cheek. His scent was of leather and the outdoors and she was lost in it.
When he pulled a way, she was breathless.
“Because that’ll have to last us awhile,” he said, his eyes glittering meaningfully at her.
“I love you, Mike.”
“I love you, too, Sarah.”
“Meet me in Dublin in five years at the Grand Cafe,” she said, not knowing she was going to say it before the words were tumbling out of her mouth. “Unless…you know, you’re married with kiddies by then. Then don’t worry about it. But I’ll be there.”
She watched his slow grin reach his eyes and rejoiced that either of them could still feel pleasure on such a day.
“I have no idea what to make of you. And why would we meet in five years?”
“So that this isn’t really goodbye.”
“Ahhhh.” His smile faltered then, but he brushed a lock of hair from her face and kissed her again, this time gently. “That’s fine. So long then, sweet Sarah. Until Dublin.”
When he released her, she was smart enough not to hesitate but to turn, pick up her bag and walk away.
And not look back.