This, along with a local phone number.
Jon Jo stepped off the driveway with his two cloth bags full of market goods; he climbed three steps to the door, his legs barely noticing the six miles he’d walked today, his arms barely aware of the ten kilos he’d lugged nearly half that distance.
When his groceries were dealt with, he put the kettle on, started a fire in his fireplace to warm his three-room cottage, then changed into heavy rubber boots and exchanged his Irish cap for a knit beanie. He had somechores around the cottage he needed to tend to, so he stepped back outside to the yard, headed over to his truck, and immediately noticed that the wind had picked up even more. He zipped his coat up all the way and watched his sheep watching him, waiting to get fed.
Jon Jo had just opened the tailgate of the Ranger to get out one of his tool bags when he noticed movement over his left shoulder. A silver two-door Peugeot was just coming over the rise, sun reflecting off its windshield, and this drew his attention.
He did not recognize the car. He recognized virtually every vehicle that came down here towards the dead end.
It appeared that perhaps the driver was searching for an address. Jon Jo let go of his tool bag and rose back up, his eyes tracking the Peugeot as it neared.
The car was a beater, fifteen years old or so. There was body damage on the left rear quarter panel. The engine ran rough; he could hear it from one hundred meters away.
No one was looking at Jon Jo Sheehan at the moment, but if they had been, and if they possessed the training to discern such things, they would have detected a change in the man. In contrast to the solo churchgoer, the lonely man in the pub enjoying his meal, the pleasant solitary pedestrian moving through the market on the autumn Sunday, the man who stood on the drive just steps from the door of the stone cottage now appeared intimidating somehow: his fingers opened and closed, his shoulders came back, his eyes did not blink as they followed the unfamiliar vehicle rolling silently closer.
His breathing slowed; his jaw tightened.
The silver Peugeot arrived at the mouth of the driveway, and then it passed by; a skillful observer might have noticed Jon Jo’s shoulders coming down a fraction of an inch, the creases around his eyes relaxing, but only for an instant, because when the car came to a stop, when the transmission clanked into reverse, the shoulders flexed again, the eyes narrowed into slits, and Jon Jo Sheehan moved for the first time.
Just a single side step closer to the front door of his home, but the movement was graceful, skilled, like a ballet dancer gliding into first position in anticipation of the opening notes of the symphony.
The Peugeot reversed a few meters, shifted into drive again, then turned into Jon Jo’s driveway and began rolling slowly forward through puddles in the gravel.
Jon Jo took two more fluid sidesteps, and now he stood at the front step of his porch.
The car came to a stop two thirds up the drive, now just fifteen meters or so from where he stood.
The man in the tweed suit and the knit beanie had not averted his gaze since the Peugeot came into view.
He sensed danger, foreboding.
The hard cold wind blew into his eyes, but he ignored it.
There were forces in this world more threatening than the wind, pains deeper than dry eyes, and he knew how to prioritize.
When whatever danger he sensed presented itself, he told himself he merely had to choose the best course of action, and then he would deal with it.
The car door cracked open; Jon Jo was ready to move, either back into the home on his right, behind the grille of the Ranger to his left, or directly at whoever emerged from the car.
But a woman climbed out from behind the wheel; she was small, she seemed to be alone, and immediately her long reddish-brown hair began blowing violently in the swirling wind. She’d seen him already; this was clear, because her eyes were locked on his, even at this distance, and she took a few steps his way.
She wore a thick green anorak with dark jeans, gray boots. The coat was open; a silver cross around her neck sparkled in the sun over her black sweater.
Immediately Jon Jo’s head cocked; he recognized the young woman, and he smiled.
It was Deirdre.
His daughter-in-law.
He had not laid eyes on her for over two years.
Quickly he looked to the Peugeot; he expected to see his son climb out of the passenger side.
When he did not, he turned back to her.
Her eyes boiled with intensity. Her face was hard.
He saw unreserved hatred.
