Eamonn took a cautious sip of his tea, which I wasn’t brave enough to do because I assumed it wasn’t a drinkable temperature yet. “It’s delicious,” he said. “Thank you again.”
“No, no,” Frances said, giggling as if he’d been deliberately playing a joke on her. “What do you think about the house? We’ve taken care of it, haven’t we?”
“Excellent care,” Eamonn said.
“That’s an impressive collection of Garth Brooks memorabilia,” I added.
Frances lit up like I suspected she would. It was clear those items were her pride and joy, and when she wanted to talk about the house she mostly wanted to talk about Garth. “We saw him in concert a few years back,” she said. “He puts on an amazing show—but you’d know. Where in America are you from?”
“Florida.”
“So the South,” she said. “You’d know.”
I actually was only familiar with the hits, and even those not very well, but it didn’t seem like the time to mention that.
“What’s one of his most famous songs?” Eamonn said. “Jess, maybe you can sing one. To refresh my memory.”
He took a sip of his tea, like he was just making idle conversation, but I could see the mischievous look in his eyes.You owe me one, they seemed to say. To which I could protest that I’d already paid him back by accepting his invitation to dance, but he and I both knew that hadn’t been a fair trade. It wasn’t like I hadn’t enjoyed the dance.
“That’s cool that he played here,” I said, desperate to change the subject away from me having to sing anything. “Eamonn’s been telling me about some of the famous Americans who’ve come over the years. Like when Obama’s car got stuck, that kind of thing.”
“Well, it obviously wasn’thiscar,” Frances said. “Just one of his fleet.”
Now it was my turn to look at Eamonn, and he gave me a little shrug. “The punchline was funnier if I left that out.”
I thought of his statement at Dublin Castle, about how the Irish have a way of making something sound even more spectacular by the next weekend. I’d imagined then about how I might retell the story of these epic last couple of days, whatever magic had brought me here in the first place. But for the first time I wondered about how Eamonn would tell this story. Would I just be another regret, a woman he hooked up with once but it didn’t mean more than that? Would I mean anything to him at all?
I was rescued from the self-pitying turn to my thoughts when Michael came back in through the door. “I tried to get her going,” he said. “But no joy. I can run out to get some firewood for the fireplace, and we can light one of those.”
I’d had that impression from Eamonn again, like as muchas he was enjoying the tea and conversation, he already had one foot out the door. He’d barely wanted to come here in the first place, so maybe that was why, or maybe it was just that restless energy he got.
But something about what Michael said seemed to grab Eamonn’s attention. “You having trouble with the heating?” he said.
“Aye,” Michael said. “But it’s later in the season. Won’t be needing it much longer.”
It only just registered to me howcoldthe house really was, the temperature inside not that much different from outside. In some ways, it might have been colder. And if they didn’t have any firewood at the ready, they probably hadn’t had a fire in a while. I realized that some of what made Frances appear a little heavyset was in part the fact that she was clearly wearing multiple sweaters layered on top of each other.
Eamonn set his mug down on the table, and I could tell he was almost vibrating with excitement. He seemed like a boy who’d just been told it was Christmas morning.
“I can help with that,” he said. “Here, let me take a look.”
Twenty-Seven
In the time it tookme to finish my tea, Eamonn had already poked around the thermostat in the house and asked Michael a series of questions. By the time I’d helped Frances clear our dishes, Eamonn had grabbed his sweater and a toolbox from the car, and I followed him out to a utility room in a back part of the house we hadn’t gotten to before. There was a washer and dryer for laundry, various brooms and rakes and other supplies leaning against one wall, and a door leading out to the back garden. Eamonn flipped a switch on an electrical breaker box, and then opened the back door to let some air into the small room with the ease of someone who’d done this very thing many times. He seemed to realize only after he’d done it that it wasn’t his house anymore.
“Is this okay?” he asked Michael.
“If you fix that boiler, I’ll dance a jig here on the spot,” Michael said. “That old thing’s nothing but trouble.”
“It was trouble for us,” Eamonn said, unscrewing the front cover of the boiler and setting it to the side, leaving all the inner workings exposed. “You said it used to cut off and on? And now it won’t turn on at all?”
He and Michael kept talking more about the boiler, while Frances came up next to me. “You’re a fortunate one,” she said, giving me a meaningful look. “Handsomeandhandy.”
“Oh,” I said, “it’s not…” But I realized there was no way to really explain—that we weren’t together, that I didn’t have any right to enjoy his handsomeness or his handiness, although I did admire both. Eamonn hadn’t corrected Michael when I’d been introduced ashis girlearlier, so I had to assume he wouldn’t mind me going along with it now.
“Thank you,” I said instead, and then closed my eyes against my own inanity. That made it sound like I was accepting compliments to him as reflections onmeand my good taste in choosing him in the first place.
“So you’re from Florida,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward me. “Do you live here now, or are you visiting, how does it work with the distance?”
