Brigadier brings me to the cold room. He pets my hair and says I’m hislisichka.After, he drives Breagha and me back to our house in Baltimore. Da is there, and Mam, and Granny.
That night, when Mam turns out the light, I scream and I scream and I scream. I wet myself like I’m a little baby. Mam tells me I’m a bad girl, keeping Breagha from falling asleep. I’ve given Mam a headache. She doesn’t know why she’s been cursed with a child like me. She tells me a Lynch woman offers up her pain to the clan.
The next day, Granny takes me to Ireland. We fly all night over the ocean. She lets me leave the light on above my seat, even when the rest of the plane is dark. We arrive in Ireland, and we drive to County Donegal, with its dozens of cousins, Lynches and Malloys. Athgarven, where Rosie Lynch teaches me to bake soda bread and Mad Robbie Malloy runs rings around thegarda.
Ireland. It saved me when I was eight. Granny and I went back many times, until I went to uni in Dublin. Just last year, Da sent me to Athgarven, in Donegal, as punishment.
Ireland’s not a punishment. Ireland is the one place I can breathe. The one place I can be free. Before I go, though, I need to chance one phone call.
I’m standing on the Metro platform outside Arlington Cemetery. This is one of the above-ground stations. The sunis shining and a fresh breeze blows. It’s a perfect spring morning.
I check the monitor hanging over the platform. The next train is due in five minutes. That’s enough time for me to say goodbye. I’ll be long gone from the station before Wolf traces my call.
I fish my burner out of my pocket.
Granny answers on the third ring. Her voice sounds strained, hoarse, as if she’s been coughing.
“It’s me,” I say.
“A chroí.” My heart. That’s what Granny’s always called me. I’ve known the words forever, years before she took me to Ireland.
I force my lips into a smile, hoping I can push the lie into my tone of voice. “What’s the craic?” I ask because the easy Irish greeting is something else I’ve known all my life.
“Where are you,a chroí? Everyone is worried.”
Everyone? Not Mam and Da—they must be grateful their troublesome older daughter hasn’t rung with more requests. Not Breagha—she’ll be too busy with beaus and courting. Not Wolf. Never, ever Wolf.
Grannyis worried, which was never my intention. Instead of answering, I ask, “Do you remember the ruined castle in Donegal?”
“Outside of Athgarven?” Granny asks. “I remember taking a picnic to a pile of moss-covered rocks. And I remember you chasing after a family of squirrels for the better part of an afternoon.” A cough interrupts her. My fingers tighten around the burner until she goes on, her voice thicker than it had been. “And I remember you eating three fairy cakes after you finally came back to our blanket. You were so full you slept the rest of the afternoon.”
“That was the first time I slept without nightmares, after…”After the Bad Men.
“I remember,” Granny rasps.
“I’m going back,” I tell her. “Ireland is where I need to be.”
There’s a moment where I think Granny’s dropped her phone, but I realize she’s only biting back another cough before she says, “He misses you.”
“Who?”
“Your husband. He regrets what happened. He wants you back.”
“Wolf told you that.” My sneer is harsher than my grandmother deserves.
“He didn’t have to.” She clears her throat. “Nilsson and Anna are worried. Three times in the past week, they’ve interrupted Mrs. Watson and me at breakfast.”
“Oh, please,” I snort.
“Nilsson wants to call Dr. Patel.” Another throat clearing. “Anna begged me to talk to you, to ask you to come home. I don’t think she believed me when I said I had no way of reaching you.”
Lies. All of it lies, or Nilsson and Anna are misreading the signs. They want to believe they work for a man instead of a machine. “I can’t come home, Granny.”
“I know,a chroí,” she says softly.
“He really, truly hurt me.”
“I understand.”
