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As Barry spooned the leaves and poured the water, Mac asked where the Griffiths lived exactly, what would they do if they needed Vincent suddenly, if she could please write down her husband’s full name and landmarks near her home in case Mac needed to collect him. Then he turned to Honnie. “She’s taking Vincent,” he said. “She says Cathal asked her to.”

Both women laughed—it sounded as if he was accusing her of lying—but Mac didn’t care.

“What would you need him for?” Rose smiled. “He won’t be footing turf for a few more years.” As she lifted Vincent out of his cradle he grabbed a handful of her hair.

“He’s too young to make strange,” she continued, and Mac could see that was true by the way he settled into her arms. “He won’t miss you. If he were a few months older, yes, but not yet. And I have my own, you know. Three girls. I’m well used to babies. Don’t worry.”

“She’s right,” Honnie said.

They had the tea, and then it was time for them to go. Mac looked at Barry, but Barry only shrugged.

“It’s all right,” Honnie said. “It’s a good plan. It’s one problem solved at least.”

“You’re sure?” Mac asked.

“I am,” Honnie said. So Mac packed Vincent’s few things and walked him out to the car. Rose sat in the passenger seat and he handed over his brother. Tom looked stern with his hat back on his head and his hands on the wheel. Maybe he wouldn’t be so nice about Vincent’s cries in the middle of the night.

“Don’t worry about him,” Rose said again. Once he lost sight of their car, how would he ever know which way they’d turned. “Tell Cathal I can mind him as long as he needs.”

Once they’d gone, Honnie said to Mac and Barry, “Wait till you see what I have.” She went to the lumpy sack, which turned out to be full of shoes she’d collected from other houses and would have to be returned after the funeral. Honnie matched shoes with boys until everyone had a pair. Eamon and Seamus had never worn shoes before and kept tipping forward to look at their feet and then falling. Mrs. Mannion came in to see if they needed help with anything, and Honnie had them model. “You are a credit to her,” the women said in hushed voices when the boys were all lined up. Mac told Mrs. Mannion about Rose taking Vincent, just to see what she thought about it, and she said that was a great help.

Vincent gone, Cathal still not home, they kept the candle lit beside their mother as they’d been told. Fearghal marveled that he wasn’t scared to be alone with a dead person because it was only their mother, and if she came back as a ghost that would be wonderful. Still, Cathal didn’t return and the funeral was to be early the next morning. Darkness fell and the last of the neighbors left. Mac imagined them talking about Cathal as they walked home, that his disappearing the way he did was the cross his mother had carried. Just when Mac and Barry were discussing whether they should go looking for him, their grandfather knocked so loudly that everyone jumped and the youngests rushed to stand behind Macdara.

“Is your father in?” Grandfather asked, even though he could see the answer for himself. He looked toward the bedroom where his daughter lay but he didn’t go in. Instead, he set his bag on the table and stretched himself on the floor by the fire to rest his sore hips. From there, with his eyes closed, he told them to put the potatoes from his bag into the pot, fill it with water, and put it on the fire. He told them to wake him once the water had been rolling for a while and the potatoes started to burst their jackets. When they did, he told them to unwrap and drop into the water fresh pieces of cadóg he’d carried from the island. When the food was cooked he got up slowly, unfolded a piece of newspaper on the table, set everything in a steaming heap in the middle and covered it with plenty of salt. As they ate—picking with their hands—he went into the room and stared at his daughter for a while. When he returned to the table his eyes were rimmed red, and none of them knew what to say. Rian tossed a piece of potato back and forth between his hands until it was cool enough to bite into.

Grandfather told them they needed a good sleep, and he sank into the chair next to his daughter for the night. The boys were all in bed, but Mac knew he was not the only one still awake. Around midnight, Cathal came home. Mac heard him clear his throat on the road, the squeal of the gate. Once inside, there was low talking between Cathal and his father-in-law, murmurs, but then the murmurs sounded angry and chairs scraped the floor. Mac bellied to the edge of the loft to hear better but Cathal had already left again. Mac climbed down from the loft and looked at the door. He had a feeling that he’d never had before. It filled his chest and rose up his throat. He’d been feeling it all day long, even when he slept. Since his mother died he woke up many times a night drawing deep gulps of air and wondering what had awoken him.

“Will he come back in time for the Mass?” he asked his grandfather.

“He will, I’m sure,” he said.

“Will he be let into the church? Father Damien won’t bar him?”

“I did wonder that myself but I believe it’ll all be fine.”

“Coleman will sing her favorite hymn. Honnie thought of it.”

“That’s good. That’s very good.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“He can’t do this anymore. Come and go. And he can’t be—”

They both knew but neither said.

“Maybe the priest that time was right about the poitín,” Mac ventured.

“Maybe so.”

“Five weeks he was gone this time. Fearghal and Noel saw him fall off his bicycle on the high road and they ran to help him but he couldn’t get on so they ended up walking it behind him back to the pier. And he still didn’t come home. Me and Barry and Fearghal and even Noel, we’ve delivered the post for him. Even Thomas helped once and he still sleeps in the baby room.”

Grandfather nodded gravely.

“He makes like he’s working when he goes off like that but he isn’t always. She’d not have had to work so hard if he’d been here.”

“C’mere to me now, Macdara,” Grandfather said.

Macdara waited for his grandfather to speak. Many different expressions moved across the old man’s face, but in the end he just pressed each of his rough hands to the sides of Macdara’s head. “You’re a good lad. A good, good lad. Your mother was fierce proud of you.”