Page 45 of Faithless Vows

Once the loaves are in, I wash out the bowl and turn to check on Róisín, who’s gone quiet. I find her steadily workingher way through the pile of apple peels Grandmam left on the table. She catches me looking. “What?” she says, already reaching for another. “I’m helping clean up.” She winks and pops it into her mouth.

Shaking my head, I turn back to the counter and begin mixing what we need for the cake while Grandmam finishes chopping the rest of the apples.

By the time the cake batter is ready, the soda breads are done. I take them from the oven and set them on a cloth to cool while Grandmam pours the batter into two ceramic pie plates. Once the cakes are in as well and the timer is set, I sink down into the chair beside Róisín.

Grandmam has taken up hummingThe Rose of Traleeagain under her breath as she moves about the kitchen. Beside me, Róisín lets out a soft snicker, and Grandmam cuts a pointed look her way. “I’m only saying,” Róisín mutters, “there are other songs in Ireland.” That draws a small laugh out of me before I can stop it. Still humming, Grandmam goes to the range and lifts the lid from the big pot simmering there, checking the bacon joint with a fork before pushing it back down into the water. A bowl of cabbage wedges sits ready beside her. “Are you staying for your supper, then?” she asks Róisín without looking at her as she reaches for the cabbage.

“I’d love to stay for supper, Gran,” Róisín says, nudging my shoulder with hers. Grandmam tips the cabbage into the pot, then uses her spoon to tuck them down into the water around the bacon before settling the lid back on. The back door opens, and my grandda steps inside, stamping the damp from his boots before shutting it behind him. His eyes go first to Grandmam, like always, as she opens the oven to check the cakes, still humming.

Crossing the room to her, he picks up the song where she left off, singing the next line in his deep baritone. “She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer...”

Grandmam glances over at him, a smile already tugging at her mouth. “Oh, away with you.”

He reaches her, slides an arm around her waist, and draws her in close. She gives him a half-hearted swat with the dish towel before letting him pull her in, and when he goes on singing, she laughs and rests one hand lightly against his chest. His voice lowers on the next line. “Yet ‘twas not her beauty alone that won me...”

Beside me, Róisín rolls her eyes as though she has watched this all her life and is thoroughly tired of it, but there is a smile on her face all the same. I grew up watching it too, but I can’t seem to look away. They move together so easily. No show of it. No effort. Just the kind of closeness that’s been there so long neither of them has to think about it. My chest aches at how sure I’d been that one day I’d have this too.

Both my grandparents’ marriage and my parents’ were arranged. Love came later for them both, though it was never a guarantee. But I had considered myself the lucky one. Ronin hadn’t just accepted the match our fathers made and left it at that. He’d asked to date me first. He’d proposed when he didn’t need to. How was I not meant to believe that meant something?

I had felt chosen. I believed Ronin when he told me he loved me, but in the end he showed me what a fool I’d been to trust him. Whatever I thought we had, whatever I believed I meant to him, it was never love. Ronin didn’t love me the way he said he did. If he had, he could never have done what he did to me and walked away.

I see that now. I only wish I hadn’t believed so completely in something that was never real. But sitting here in my grandparents’ kitchen, watching them sway together, Grandmam resting her cheek against my grandda’s chest while he sings, I know this much: whatever I thought I had, it was not this.

Chapter Eighteen

Alannah

The lane winds down toward the shore, narrow and uneven, with puddles filling the ruts after last night’s rain. I step straight into one with a splash, water sloshing around Aunt Maeve’s boots. They’re a bit big on me. I’ve been here three months now, and I know I’ll have to bite the bullet soon and go into town for a pair of my own.

I watch my feet as I walk, trying to take wider steps to miss the worst of the puddles. I nearly go down on my arse anyway, wobbling like a newborn foal, and give up on the idea of grace altogether. At least the boots keep my feet dry.

The air smells of damp earth, the tang of salt growing stronger the closer I get to the water. Gulls call up ahead, and I can hear the waves now as they break against the shore.

Autumn has settled in. I can feel it in the way the wind finds the gaps at my wrists and sneaks right up my sleeves. It’s only going to get colder from here. I’ve made it this far on borrowed things and whatever I packed from Boston, but I can’t pretend my suitcase will keep seeing me through the season. The weather will turn soon, and I’ll need boots that fit, a coat that’s mine, and jumpers that don’t belong to my cousin Declan or Aunt Maeve or whichever relative has taken pity on me that week.

My grandmam and my aunts have been ready to haul me into town since week one. They keep slipping itinto conversation like they’re being subtle, and I keep finding reasons to put it off.

“We’ll go in Thursday and make a day of it,” Aunt Maeve said two days ago, already halfway through planning it. “Pick up what you need, grab lunch, maybe see who else is about.”

“I’ll come with you,” Grandmam chimed in from where she sat at the table, and I knew then I wasn’t wriggling out of it this time.

I don’t like the idea of spending their money. I like it even less because I know I won’t be able to avoid it forever. I have some of my own, yes, but that’s never really been the point here. Here, with my family, things have always belonged to everyone.

We all live on the same stretch of land, a loose circle of houses built to hold us, close enough that no one is ever truly on their own. Everyone pitches in where they can. That’s just how it’s always been. I’ve been trying to think of something I could do to help Grandda too, though I haven’t figured out what yet. Grandmam keeps telling me I have time.

I’m so caught up in my thoughts that I don’t hear anyone approaching until a whistle sounds behind me. I startle hard enough that I nearly step straight into a puddle the size of a small lake, my foot already sliding before I can stop myself. An arm comes around my waist and holds me there, firm and steady, keeping me upright.

My breath catches as my heart jumps, my body reacting before my brain can catch up. For one awful second, my mouth opens and I’m about to scream.

Then I look up, straight into the face of Finn Walsh.

I stare at him, my mind still a step behind what I’m seeing. Those light blue eyes are the same ones I’ve known since I was small. The rest of his face falls into place, the familiar shape of his mouth, the same blond curls.

Then I really take him in. He’s broader through the shoulders now, taller than I remember. It’s still Finn. There’s just more of him.

“Finn,” I hear myself say, the word coming out in more of a squeak, like I’m eleven again and he’s just caught me climbing the wall by the orchard.

The corner of his mouth ticks up, his familiar dimple showing in his cheek as he teases, “Slow down, Lannie, else you’ll trip on the ruts.”