Running Back Read online

  The idea of remaining in one place for a marked period of time gave rise to a fluttering anxiety. I pulled my hand out of his warm one as we walked on. Staying put seemed synonymous with being weighed down. Trapped. Suffocated. “No. That idea terrifies me.”

  “What’s the longest you’ve ever spent in one place?”

  I smiled grimly, picturing the silent, echoing halls of my parents’ house. “Eighteen years.”

  “And since then?”

  I shrugged. “Nine months, tops? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere longer than that.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged, staring ahead. The land turned back in on itself, the coast curving and forming small coves. Yellow gorse carpeted the fields to the left. A hedgerow wound closer, enough that I could see the fuchsia flowers tangled in the green. “I don’t know. I just get such wanderlust, and if I can’t go I feel empty and constrained and whenever I move I feel like I can breathe easier. Don’t you feel...exhilarated when you make the perfect drive, and you didn’t think you were going to but you do, and everything is just perfect for a moment?”

  I glanced sideways to see if he thought that was silly and mad and impractical, like most people did, but a small, crooked smile lifted the corner of Mike’s mouth. He stopped walking and regarded me with those warm brown eyes. “Yeah.”

  I took a step closer to him. I could smell his aftershave, a scent already becoming familiar to me. “That’s how I feel when I’m in a new place. When I excavate a new site.” I hesitated. “That’s how I feel about Ivernis.”

  His throat and jaw worked, his brows tensing, but he didn’t look away. “Why can’t you just go back to Ecuador? Why does it have to be here?”

  I smiled a little wistfully. “Don’t get me wrong. The Inka were badass. I mean, they conquered most of South America. They had an advanced road system and they drafted soldiers intelligently and they had the most gorgeous ashlar masonry you’ve ever seen.

  “But it’s not the same. I know that’s silly, and part of it is just me...anthropomorphizing the site, but it doesn’t get to me the same way Ivernis does. It doesn’t sing. Sure, I would be happy working there—I was happy, it was amazing—but Ivernis— This is the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life.”

  “I understand that.”

  I glanced over at him. Most people I knew cared about what they were studying, maybe even loved it to a degree, love mixed with irritated and aggravation—but they didn’t obsess. But Mike O’Connor... “You do, don’t you?” I looked out over the endless fields. “What would you do, if you couldn’t play football? How would you feel? Like a musician with broken fingers? Like a runner who’s lost her legs?”

  He pressed his lips together. “You’re not being fair.”

  I sighed. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  We were silent until the hill crested and the land fell away before us. To the west, the water stretched out, a flat blue under bright sky, while a mile in the distance a tiny village lay nestled between two hills, a patchwork of pastel houses with slate-gray roofs. Beyond it, the hills climbed again, brushed with green grasses and black stone dotted with purple.

  Before the village, midway down the hill, a church rose up, the Gothic steeple perfectly piercing the sky. Moss covered the roof of an ancillary building. It looked so surreally perfect that my heart ached and my feet stopped.

  Mike must have been paying attention, because he turned impatiently. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  He grinned. “Kind of like the fields were beautiful? You’d probably find something good to say about the subway.”

  I made a face at him. “And you’d probably say Rome is just a pile of rocks.”

  He laughed. “I’m not that bad.”

  We reached the church. Cypress trees stood before it, their branches curved tightly up toward the sky like they had been cultivated, while apple trees formed looser circles, blue peeking in between the leaves. Everything felt still and quiet as we curved around the old building. A tidy graveyard spread down the hill, while manicured grasses framed plots and placards.

  “Oh, look.” At the back of the cemetery, by swooping, draping trees, a Celtic cross stood alone. I cut through the graves, fixed on the marker. Beneath the dark green moss, the stone was worn and dark, smoothed by age and pitted by weather.

  “Natalie, I don’t think—”

  I crouched down and tried to make out the year. 1158. I reached out and then hesitated, my fingertips centimeters from the stone. The instruction not to touch art hovered between me and the cross.

  But with living history, maybe it was meant to be part of our world. My fingers landed on the stone, cold even after an afternoon soaking up the sun. I could feel the aerated bubbles of rock as I brushed my fingers over the surface. “Look at this. Eight hundred years old. Eight hundred years old. And just sitting in a village graveyard, of no note, no record, just...here.” I shook my head. “It’s amazing.”

  My fingers traced the carvings, the Celtic knots, etchings that had been chipped out eight centuries before I was born. This was the direct work of some nameless artisan. That’s what always got me. How very close I was with this unknown person. How very far away.

  So many people, lost to obscurity. So many stories I could bring back.

  It took me a while to notice the silence. I got lost easily, tangled in thoughts and time and other worlds. Usually someone called my name or touched my shoulder to get my attention, but this time Mike’s silence outgrew my own, and I turned to see him standing across the small graveyard, silent as the stone saint behind him.

  He didn’t move as I came up by his side. I followed his gaze to the stones he studied so carefully.

  Martin O’Connor. Ellen O’Connor. Kathleen O’Connor. Mary O’Connor. Sean O’Connor.

  I swallowed over the sudden lump. “You okay?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not like they were real to me. I mean—”

  “I know.”

  He nodded. “But it’s sort of funny—all of their names written out. And—” He nodded at the newest-looking stone, still sharp cornered and smooth.

  Patrick O’Connor.

  The bottom of my stomach fell out. “Ah.”

  “And then—it’s like no one else ever left. I feel— Would my dad have wanted to be here? Should he have been?”

  I didn’t know what to say or do. I wanted to comfort him, but wasn’t sure how. I reached down and laced my fingers through his, and stepped sideways until our arms lined up against each other.

  He squeezed my hand, and we stood there, staring at the O’Connors.

  “What happened to your dad?”

  The tension seemed to drain out of Mike’s body, and he leaned slightly into me. “Car crash. The other driver was drunk.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “What can you do? You can be the best driver in the world, and it doesn’t matter if someone smashes into you.” His fingers squeezed mine. “My mother sat down on the kitchen floor and just started crying when they told her. I’d only heard her cry once before. I waited until everyone was asleep and then I broke into his whiskey collection.” He took a deep breath. “On the third night I found Lauren there, and then I poured out all of them.”

  I leaned into him. “You were a good brother.”

  He shook his head. “I left them six months later for college.”

  I turned
my head up so I could see him, staring stony-eyed across the graves. I reached up to touch his cheek, so he turned to look at me. “And do you still feel guilty?”

  His eyes tore through me, wide with remembered pain. “I feel guilty about how happy I was to leave.”

  We heard the clearing of a throat and looked up, our hands falling apart. In the still, silent cemetery, it seemed only right that the only person was a thin man with thinner white hair, dressed in a well-worn brown tweed suit. He nodded at both of us, but it was clear his attention latched onto Mike. “You’ll be Brian’s son.”

  Mike looked swiftly at me, and then gave the older man a bright smile. Back to normal, friendly Mike O’Connor, without any trace of sadness or discomfort. “Yeah. I’m Mike O’Connor.”

  “Darrell MacCarthy. Used to give your da lifts to school.” He glanced my way. “And this young lady is...?”

  “Natalie Sullivan.” I extended my hand to grip his firmly.

  “Ah, you also have family here?”

  “Oh, no, I’m Irish in name only.” That didn’t sound as eloquent out loud as it had in my head, so I grimaced and then wished I had some capability to keep my emotions off my face, and that the older man didn’t think I was grimacing at him.

  But Mr. MacCarthy had already returned his attention to Mike, whose smile looked a little fixed to me. He wasn’t asking, as I would have, for every last hopefully rapscallion recollection Mr. MacCarthy could whip up about his father. I remembered Mike saying I don’t talk about Kilkarten when we first met, and I wondered if he didn’t talk about his father, either.

  Except that he just had, with me.

  In any case, the silence kept stretching, so I hurried to fill it, because who liked silences? Silences were for black holes. “I do specialize in Irish history, though. I’m an archaeologist.”

  At my overly bright tone, MacCarthy focused on me. “The one Patrick hired? I thought you’d be a bit older.”

  Well. Patrick hadn’t hired me. The brightness corroded. “Well, I’m not.”

  Beside me, Mike’s smile eased into a slightly more natural version, and he nodded to Mr. MacCarthy. “We should get going but—it was nice to meet you.”

  Mr. MacCarthy wasn’t done, even though Mike had already turned away. “Where are you off to?”

  I hesitated, unwilling to walk off on this old man. “Um...”

  Mike’s hand reached back and wrapped around my mine, tugging me gently after him. “To pay a call,” he said over his shoulder as I stumbled to catch up, “on my dear Aunt Maggie.”

  * * *

  A pair of main streets cut through the village, lined with two story buildings painted pale yellows and blues and greens. Ivy climbed up the level walls and low peaked slate roofs. All the signs were written in Gaelic as well as English, a language of curlicues and accents.

  Maggie O’Connor lived at the far side of the village, so we walked past O’Malley’s Restaurant, the village pub and a café with outside seating. Several patrons looked up with curiosity as we passed, and Mike’s hand tightened on mine.

  And then we were before a lavender house nestled between two off-white ones. Window boxes filled with white flowers hung beneath long, thin panes of glass, and the door itself was painted blue. I sighed happily before knocking.

  The door opened immediately.

  Maggie O’Connor stood five-feet tall, with thick black hair gathered at the nape and streaked through with silver. I put her somewhere in her fifties, and she gave me the same puzzled look most women her age gave me, like some dusty corner of their mind recognized my face from when they’d been seventeen and poured over fashion magazines.

  “Mrs. O’Connor.” I let loose my brightest smile. “I’m Natalie Sullivan. Thank you so much for seeing me today.”

  Her expression cleared of confusion and settled into polite curiosity. “Ah, the archaeologist. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, thanks.” I entered, and then hesitated. Mike stood stiffly on the doorstep, arms crossed against his chest. “And, um, this is...”

  Maggie turned back and paled. She ran her blue stare unblinkingly over Mike. Her lips moved for a moment before any sound made it out. “Brian’s son.”

  I saw him do it. Just like flicking on a switch. One moment, his posture indicated discomfort, and the next warmth suffused his face. He aimed such a charming grin at Maggie that I almost smiled, too, and his voice dropped to low, confidential registers, like he was speaking to his best friend or his beloved grandmother. “My family and I just arrived—I think my mother sent a note. But I thought I’d come around with Natalie.”

  She flicked her eyes up and down. “Ah, yes.” She turned sharply and vanished into the house.

  The entry hall was low and dark, the striped green wallpaper hung with old portraits, but the sitting room had plenty of light from the street and a brass chandelier. Mike and I settled on an old, striped sofa. The single bookcase held mostly trinkets and only one shelf of books, but white cracks lined their spines and made me think well of Maggie O’Connor.

  Maggie obviously did not feel the same way toward Mike, because when she returned after placing a kettle on, she said, “Eileen O’Rourke said your family arrived yesterday, yet they haven’t called.”

  Mike’s smile didn’t waver. “It’s my teenage sister, Anna. Didn’t bring a thing she could wear, so she dragged the rest off shopping.”

  Maggie’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’re twenty-six?” At Mike’s nod, she continued. “You have two sisters, is that right?”

  “Lauren’s twenty-three. Anna’s seventeen.”

  Maggie raised her brows. “An accident, the last one?”

  Mike didn’t look thrilled under his smile. I jumped in, trying to smooth the tension. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. O’Connor. While I never met you husband, he was always very kind to me when we spoke on the phone.”

  Maggie regarded us scornfully. “Patrick hasn’t been kind to anyone for the last ten years. And I certainly don’t expect Brian’s son to miss him.” Her lips tightened and she seemed to drift off into her thoughts for a moment, and then she shook herself and rose to fetch the tea.

  I leaned in close to Mike so there’d be no chance of her overhearing from the kitchen. “I’m sorry, but did your father try to poison your uncle? What is going on?”

  His head almost touched mine as he answered. “Did I mention my dad and uncle had been estranged for twenty years? And that Maggie and Patrick didn’t come to my dad’s funeral or anything?”

  Gee, I was so glad I’d been dragged into a family feud. Because there weren’t enough feuds in my life. “Why, no. No, you did not.”

  Maggie returned with a tray of mugs and, to my endless joy, shortbread. She placed everything on the coffee table. “And how did the two of you come together?”

  Mike took a sip of the boiling tea. Despite the likely loss of taste buds, he didn’t flinch. He just set the mug down and smiled at his aunt. “Natalie tells me Patrick had signed on for an excavation at Kilkarten.”

  “That’s right.” Maggie stirred her tea. “Your excavation’s stirred up a lot of excitement.”

  I tossed a look at Mike, wondering if he’d told this estranged aunt the excavation was no longer happening. “Do the people here care a lot about it?”

  Maggie looked amused. “It’s all anyone’s talked about for the last six months.”

  That was unexpected. “But Patrick only signed the final paper work t
hree months ago.”

  “It took the village three months to convince him.”

  “Um...” I looked again at Mike. I didn’t want to be the one who broke the news that all that work went out the window.

  Mike frowned. “Why did the village want the dig?”

  Maggie took a slow tip of tea. “A site would boost the local economy. There would be more tourists spending money at the shops and restaurants, more jobs—Ms. Sullivan said she would probably hire a good dozen people to help her excavate this summer.”

  Mike turned his frown to me.

  I shrugged. “It’s easier to hire and train locals than bring workers over, especially for Phase 1 excavations where not a lot of detailed digging happens.”

  “Mrs. O’Connor.” Mike leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. I wondered if it tasted strange, his mother’s name applied to a woman he’d never met before. “Why was Patrick was okay with the excavation? I wouldn’t have thought he’d want strangers all over his property.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Her sharp eyes peered over the brim of her cup. Beside me, Mike tensed. I couldn’t pick out the thickest tension between them—accusation, unease, challenge.

  “Patrick was a big proponent of rediscovering Ireland’s early history,” I said quickly and a little too loudly, trying to dispel whatever strange sentiment the O’Connors had stirred up.

  It worked. Both of them scoffed. “The money had a large part to do with it,” Maggie said. “And if you’d ever met Patrick, you would have known that once he’d made up his mind, nothing would change it.”

  Mike nodded slowly. “I’ve heard stories.”

  “’Course you have.” Maggie stirred her small silver spoon through her tea.

  Mike cleared his throat. “Is there a bus out to the farm? I wanted to look around.”

  His aunt shook her head. “It’s only accessible by car. I’m busy this afternoon, but could give you a lift tomorrow. Or my nephew Paul’s in town. I’m sure he can bring you over.”