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They walked down to the whale instead. It was near dusk. The stench of the carcass had lessened quite a bit, or else they’d gotten used to it, and it had been so picked over by the birds that the enormous coil of its guts, a rope as thick as Macdara’s head and who knew how long, was exposed for all to see. “Disgusting,” Rian said in complete awe. The villagers worried about keeping the dogs and sheep and cows away, but as Mary predicted, the animals were wiser than the humans and they left the body alone. Mac tried to hold it in his head, how big this animal had been, how many harbors all over the world it had seen in its life, whether it had known it was dying. The flesh would eventually disappear but the bones would be there for a generation or longer—depending on the tides, depending on what storms lay ahead. These bones will be here in the Cuan when I’m making my way around Manchester or Liverpool or London, or wherever I end up, Mac thought. Around the carcass, where the water licked it, sea algae bloomed a rich, inky green.

After looking at the whale for a while they waded into the water to their knees. Rian used a stick to rake through the sand and find oysters. They tented their shirts to take a few home, happy to have something for their mother. Only their mother was brave enough to pry them open and slip the raw creature down her throat. She promised they tasted delicious, like cold salt and summer, but she was an island girl and her mainland sons preferred them fried in butter. Once, she chomped down and discovered a tiny pearl. She fished it from her mouth with her finger. “The shell is its house,” she explained, “and it makes this pearl as a defense against an intruder.” She let each of them hold it in their cupped hands for a moment. They lined up as if waiting for the Holy Eucharist.

“Imagine! That such an ugly creature makes this beautiful thing!” she marveled.

“Are you listening?” Rian asked, and Mac realized he’d been daydreaming. They began the walk back home. Rian said it was time they went back up to the booley to have another adventure.

THE MORNING AFTER CATHAL RETURNED, Mary made a feast of eggs and rashers. The day was clear and bright so she opened the door and both windows to let fresh air inside.

The open door made the house feel bigger, and so what if the occasional fly came in? Mac woke to the smack of the swatter. He could also hear that his mother was breathing heavily, so he went down to help her. She must have gotten up in the dark because there were buns that hadn’t been there the night before, and fresh butter. Seamus and Eamon were already up, their faces messed with jam.

“You might help your grandfather today,” she said to Mac. The van that took food to the islands was due, but his grandfather’s hips were too painful to walk all the way across the rocks and then all the way back with the sack of flour over his shoulder. The island people were sturdy, but his grandfather was a big age.

“Are you feeling well?” Mac asked her. Mary sat by the fire to rest. She didn’t ever sit except to feed the baby or in the evening time. She’d gotten Vincent out of her body and the usual women had come to help her with that, but since then, if there were female things that happened as her belly got used to being empty of a baby, she kept them entirely private. Honnie had come up the lane a few times to hold the baby while his mother washed, but that was all the help she’d gotten.

“Just tired,” she said. He wanted to say he was glad his father was back home, but it wasn’t his place.

“That water is ready,” she said, beginning to rise, but Mac told her to stay, he’d get it. He took the thick rag from her lap to grab the kettle and with his free hand he reached for the teapot.

“You want a cup now?” he asked. “Before the rest of them get up?” Vincent was sleeping. Seamus and Eamon were occupied. She could have ten minutes of peace. When she didn’t respond, he turned to repeat himself and saw that she’d slumped over in the chair, her face slack, her pale hands in her lap. He felt surprised, like she was playing a game that he didn’t understand. She hadn’t made a single sound.

“Mam,” he said.

He set down the kettle with a clatter. He hauled her upright. “Mam!” he said louder. “What’s wrong?”

Cathal appeared at the bedroom door, his long underwear loose on his wiry body.

“Mary,” he said sternly. He knelt beside the chair and shook her more roughly than Mac had. But she didn’t even stir.

Behind him, the rest of the Joyces had gotten out of bed to find out what was happening. In his cradle, Vincent began to mewl and chew his fist.

“What’s wrong with her?” Rian asked, but Mac couldn’t answer.

“Fly,” Cathal said to Macdara. “Fly as fast as you can.”

THREE

Rian, his pale face drawn into a scowl, slipped out of the cottage to wait for Macdara to return. Feet bare, Rian stepped onto the cold bottom bar of the iron gate and slowly swung forward and back, pushing off with his hand when he got near the wall. He expected some of his brothers to follow him—they always fought over swinging on the gate—but they didn’t even seem to notice him go out. After a while, neighbors started arriving in twos and threes, many laying a hand on Rian’s head as they passed. Father Damien arrived. Cathal always said that Father Damien would never pull his fancy car to the side to let bicycles pass. Oh no, he’d rather run you into the ditch. A short time after that the doctor’s Morris Minor pulled up and the man climbed out holding his black leather bag.

Rian was curious about what his brothers were doing in there. The priest would have them praying while the doctor did his work, he supposed, but he never paid attention when he prayed anyway. He had a trick where he could say all the words perfectly and at the same time send his mind somewhere else. He focused on the point in the distance where Macdara’s blondish head would no doubt appear any minute. As the gate squealed back and forth on its rusted hinges, he expected someone to tell him to stop. He leaned his weight in a way that made the squeal louder but no one even looked.

Macdara returned not on foot but in a pony and cart driven by a woman Rian didn’t recognize. Rian hopped off the gate and ran down the road to meet him, to fill him in on the priest’s arrival, and then the doctor’s, but Mac and the woman just sped right past. He knew from eavesdropping that the neighbors considered it an omen that the priest got there before the doctor. Everything was an omen to the old ones.

When Mac rushed inside, Rian ran around back to look through the window. The small garden was empty except for a smear of blood on the killing stump, except for all the fishing hooks and line heaped by the gable, except for all the broken crockery and rusted pails that the tinkers might mend when they next passed through. There were two broken bicycles that needed soldering, and a huge piece of sailcloth that Cathal always said he’d find a use for, but he hadn’t yet, so it just collected bird shit and flapped in the wind. Rian stood on a pile of stones and watched the goings-on inside, as if he were watching a play. Macdara had cycled him to a neighboring village once and let him sit on his shoulders to watch an American film through the window. Rian couldn’t follow the story but Macdara told him that was James Dean and Natalie Wood and they were famous throughout the entire world.

Through the window, Rian could only see part of his mother’s profile, her face dipped toward her chest as if she’d nodded off to sleep. Her small hands were still resting on her lap.

WHEN MAC ARRIVED HOME IT was to a crowd. He took in a few of the Lees standing outside. A few Coynes. The Fahertys. All the neighbors up the hill were there. They nodded to him as he passed, as if he were a grown man. When he went inside, Barry and Fearghal were up in the loft but the rest of them except for Rian were standing around. The fire had burned out.

It was as if the baby knew something big had happened and decided not to cry until Mac returned. Once Mac walked in he started whinging until Eamon, only three, went over to his newest brother, stood on his highest tiptoes and with all his might pulled him out of the cradle. He wasn’t tall enough to lift him so he ended up dragging him over the side, and in doing so, off came the blanket Mary had wrapped around him before she started frying rashers. The baby’s fat legs kicked in the chilly room.

“Hush now,” Eamon said to his brother, trying to sway him like the grown-ups did.

The doctor asked what age Mary was and Cathal said she was forty-four. That was the first time Macdara thought of his mother as having an age. He wished the younger boys would go outside like Rian, but he didn’t have the energy to make them. He looked up and saw the top half of Rian’s head framed in the window. Someone would have to go out to the island to tell his grandfather and the rest of the Walshes. Someone would have to telegram Sean. Macdara felt more confused than sad, as if his mind could not quite keep up with what was happening.

When his father had told him to fly, Mac had flown to the post office first, to tell them to ring the doctor, and then he took off in a run to the doctor’s house to pound on the door himself. It was two miles to the doctor’s door from the post office but he felt as if his feet barely brushed the road. The doctor was out on a call, his wife said when she opened the main door, the part of the house where the family lived. The postmistress had already rung and she’d told the postmistress where to try to find him. In the meantime she’d been trying the doctor in Carna, to see if he might get there sooner.

One look at Macdara and she’d put her hand to her heart. “Ah, love,” she said.