Chapter Thirty-three

Time is veiled eternity.

John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

ONE DAY BEFORE THE PARTY . . .

Far off, a clang of metal on wood, a boat coming into the dock, startled Colleen awake in her childhood bedroom, her heart pumping fast and hard in fear. Dad—he was back. He’d known where he was going; he knew what to do and how to do it. It had all been a bad dream: the search; the hospital; his failing body.

Colleen bolted upright and a searing pain shot through her wrist; a thick weight held her arm to the bed, and when she looked she saw why: a bright blue cast.

It hadn’t been a dream at all.

A shudder of grief took her breath and she stood, steadied herself with a hand on the bedpost and shook her head free of confusion. A pain pill—Hallie had convinced her to take one when they’d finally left the hospital. They’d arrived home and her brother and sister had tucked her into bed as though she were a child. Beckett had been there, too, with soft words and a cup of chamomile tea. She’d tried to drink it, but then willingly succumbed to the cottony haze of Percocet.

Now the sunburn on her shoulders and collarbones stung like a horde of bees had set themselves on her in sleep. Her body couldn’t decide whether to cry or flop back to bed or run screaming into the living room, where she heard the rise and fall of voices—her brother, her sister, the little girls and one other voice . . . Walter’s. She didn’t glance in the mirror, she didn’t brush her teeth or hair; she bolted from the bedroom and rushed into the living room.

“Get out!” She pointed at Walter, who sat on the couch as though he belonged there. She had thought losing him was the worst thing? What a joke. It was the best thing.

He sat there in faded khaki shorts and a stained construction T-shirt, his hair curly and his sense of ownership grievous. Colleen stood in front of him before he’d even turned to her.

“Lena.”

“Don’t put my name in your mouth. Get out.”

“Are you okay? My God, you’re so sunburned.”

Colleen touched the skin on her face, felt its heat. “You need to leave right now.” She hadn’t even looked at her brother and sister, at her nieces.

“Lena, please—the girls.” That was Hallie’s voice, but Colleen didn’t acknowledge it. Instead she turned to her nieces, quiet and holding their magic wands, snuggled together in one chair, frightened and wide-eyed.

“My magic ones. Will you do Aunt Lena a favor and run to the bedroom and grab my magic wand?” She tried to smile at them, but smiling didn’t feel like something she would do for a long, long time.

“You just want us to leave so you can be mad at Daddy,” Sadie said.

“Yes, that’s true.” Colleen turned back to Walter.

“Please don’t,” Hallie interjected.

But the girls ran off, holding hands and skirting past Colleen, who kissed their cheeks.

Colleen lowered her voice. “This is family business. And you aren’t family.”

Walter stood, his true self a dark cloud. How had she only seen the charming Walter? How had she not seen what was so evident to her now—how his personality changed in a quick flash as soon as his daughters were gone from the room?

“I am their father. This is my family, too. Just because I’m not yours doesn’t mean I’m not part of the family. Someday, Lena, you will get over your anger. It’s not attractive.”

Colleen stared at him, her stomach lurching, and her grief a stone in her chest, her wrist throbbing. She lifted her other hand, the one without the cast, and slapped him hard and fast across the face. The sound, skin on skin, reverberated as Walter let out a strained grunt and raised his fists in automatic defense.

Colleen stepped back, unsure of what he was capable of doing in anger. “What you did to me—it might have been the best thing you could have done, but if I’d seen then what I know now, if I’d really known, I would never have left my sister with you but instead continued to love her, which might have allowed her to leave you a long time ago.”

Hallie burst from her chair and stood between Walter and Colleen. “Stop. Follow me now.” She motioned for Walter and Colleen to leave the living room, to follow her into the kitchen. Which they both did.

Hallie’s cheeks were as red as the sunburn on Colleen’s shoulders. “Walter, she’s right. It’s best that you’re not here right now. We can discuss this another time, but you need to leave. Okay?”

Walter spun around to face Colleen, his lips almost drawn back from his teeth in rage. My God, had she really wasted all these years wanting and missing this man? What a waste of time and energy.

“It would have never worked with us, Lena. You know that.” He glanced at Hallie, weighing the words he might not want her to hear. “She is a better fit. We get each other. You would have wanted more than I could ever give to you. Look at you traveling the world, always doing something new. You wouldn’t have been happy here with me. Couldn’t you have just left us to be happy?”

“That should have been my choice, Walter. Mine.” She glanced at Hallie, who had tears running down her face, her hand held over her chest in a protective move.

“What?” Hallie asked. “You chose me because I don’t want as much as Lena does? You think I’m . . . easier to handle, to deal with? What the hell, Walter?”

“No. No.” He took a step toward Hallie as she took two back. “I love you. You know that.”

Colleen slammed her hand on the kitchen table. “Look what you’ve done to her. What you’ve done to us. Now leave.”

Walter looked at Hallie, holding his hand on the growing red mark on his cheek. “Hallie, I’m their father. I’m your husband. I will not just disappear.”

Hallie stepped closer to Walter, holding her hands in a tight knot in front of her. “Right now you will leave. Our dad, our precious dad, is lying in a morgue and all you can think about is defending your rights as a family member. All you can think about is telling my sister why it was better that you married me and cheated on me instead of her. You have no empathy. No heart. Right now you will disappear.”

Walter passed his gaze from one sibling to another and yet did exactly as they’d told him to do. He left.

Hallie and Colleen looked at each other, but neither spoke a word. There was altogether too much and too little left to be said. They returned to the living room, where Colleen collapsed into a chair and brought her cast to her lap as Shane brought her a glass of orange juice and another pain pill. “I’m sorry.” She spoke the words robotically, speaking to both siblings but looking at neither. “I couldn’t have him in this room with this grief.”

“Thank you,” Hallie said. “Honestly, thank you.”

“Lena,” Shane said very quietly, “Mr. Lister dropped off the will a couple hours ago.”

“Dad’s lawyer. The one who does all the pub business?”

“Yes. It seems he also did the will and estate for Dad.”

“And?”

“There’s nothing stunning in it. Everything he owns is split between the three of us, and the pub is mine to manage. We can figure that out later, but the one thing that is urgent is this—he asks for cremation and that his ashes be scattered in the river. Our river.” Shane motioned to the back window where they could each see the water. “I’d never heard him state this belief out loud, but he wrote that the Irish believe that where you are buried, that is where you will one day resurrect again. And he wants to be in the river.”

“Not with Mother in the cemetery?” Hallie’s voice was low and quiet.

“I don’t think it’s about not being with her,” Colleen said and paused to guzzle large gulps of the orange juice, brush her hand across her face, clearing her thoughts. “He spent his life with her. It seems obvious that the water is where he forever wants to be.”

Hallie shook her head, her hair falling across her face. “It’s too awful to understand. I can’t understand.” She looked between her brother and sister as the girls reentered the room, Sadie holding out the wand and handing it to Colleen. “Do you think he took his life?” Hallie asked in a quiet whisper.

“What does that mean?” Rosie asked, and her eyes scanned the faces of the adults.

Shane held out his hand. “Not now, Hallie. We have to fulfill his wishes, notify the rest of the family and organize a memorial. We have to get through this together.”

“Together,” Colleen said and twirled the wand. “Well, sadly, because there is a party already planned, it can now be his memorial.”

Hallie shuddered. “So many people will show up for that, and I won’t have enough food or drink . . .” She trailed off. “I need to hire more people.”

Shane rested his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to tell Hank to take it from here. He will find servers and bartenders, food and drink. You stop now, Hallie. Just stop.”

Rosie moved next to Colleen, slipped under her arm and rested her head against her chest. “I miss Grandy.”

“Yes, love, we all do.” Colleen drew her niece closer and felt warm wet tears sear across her sunburned cheeks.