Where Old Ghosts Meet - Kate Evans [78]
He turned and came back to where she was standing, tapping at her chest with a closed fist.
“It’s no good, Matt. I can’t keep up.” Out of sheer necessity she stepped in closer and took his arm. Feeling the closeness of his body, she realized with a start what she had done but to her surprise, she felt no resistance in him. Glad of the support, she drew closer into the comfort and warmth of his big coat. “You had every right to be angry,” she said reassuringly. He made no reply but she thought she felt his arm tighten momentarily around hers but she couldn’t be sure.
“It seems, Nora, that after that he turned right against his wife: couldn’t even bear to look at her and her swollen belly. When, eventually, the child was born, she, in turn, shut him out. Never let him near his son. That was his punishment. He went and reclaimed his books from the doctor who had kept them safe for him. The books were his refuge. For the next few years there was nothin’ but bad feelings and bitter words between them. Now, when his mother died and they had the place to themselves, things eased up a bit. But, you know how it is. In time, we must reap what we sow.
“Matt.” She began to play with the thin gold ring on her finger. “I want you to listen to what I have to say, just this once, listen, and don’t walk away.” His wife took the seat across from him and placed her hands lightly, one on top of the other, on her lap.
He shifted, sensing danger.
She sat very still, waiting for him to acknowledge her but he keep his eyes glued to the book in his hand as if he hadn’t heard her. She drew in a deep breath. “All my life,” she began, “I … I’ve been pushed around doin’ everyone’s biddin’.” She looked around as if by some miracle help would come from the walls or the ceiling or seep out of the cracks in the floor. “In my father’s house I owned nothin’.” She threw her hands in the air in despair. “Nothin’,” she repeated, her voice rising. “Nothin’, but the few clothes on my back. Sadie had no needs or wants. What could I be in need of? Where would I be goin’? I was just there to tend to the needs of a crooked, complainin’ old man and his miserable son, my brother. I was just a skivvy, twenty-eight years old and not a single offer. I knew I was no great catch and they never let me forget it.”
She leaned over and poked her husband in the arm. “You know somethin’, Matt Molloy? It was my brother sentme to the shop that day to get him a new shirt. He had his eye on a girl in the next town and wanted ‘to put his best foot forward,’ so he said. I heard talk that you were home and that you were workin’ at Dowd’s shop.” She opened and closed her hands as they lay in her lap, as if they were the gateway to someplace deep inside of her.
She lifted her head and looked at the man across from her. “I caught your eye over the counter and in that minute I thought I saw something there. Maybe twas only pity, but it came to me that maybe, just maybe, you might understand what it’s like to be cast aside to be lonely and… well, maybe, maybe, you’d know what I mean when I’d say that, sometimes, in the quiet of evening, I can hear the grass whisper to me below in the meadow or that sometimes in the early mornin’ when–”
The book snapped shut and made her jump.
“My God, Matt! You frightened me, you did.”
“Did she know? Tell me now, did my mother know?”
“Know what? Blessed God, can’t we forget about her, Matt? She’s dead and gone!”
“Tell me.” He still hadn’t raised his head.
“Can’t we just make a life for ourselves and Eamon, and not have her, like a crazed old magpie, forever between us? Forget her.”
“Tell me now.”
“Gentle Redeemer.” Hands flew from her lap. “Wasn’t she abroad lookin’ for a wife for you, soon as you set foot back in the town? Sadie Dolan wasn’t exactly what she had in mind to help her save face, not good enough for Matt Molloy, no, but just the same she had to get you out of the bars and settled down where she could keep an eye on you now, didn’t she? So when she heard I’d been walkin’ out with you and, Lord preserve