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“Oh,” Sam says, sounding surprised. “Congratulations. I hope you and your husband will be able to make it over. I’d really like to get to know you better. You’re absolutely welcome to come stay with my family. My wife and I have extra space, though our children can make quite a ruckus. My mother lives in an enormous house all alone, so either way, we’ll be able to put you up for as long as you need.”
I look down at Cocoa, who is curled up on top of my feet, as if she knows what’s happening, of what I’m considering. Then I glance up the stairs in the direction of Hunter’s office.
I don’t want to leave. These past weeks have been the most wonderful I’ve had in so long.
But Sam sounds kind, and not at all like my mother described the rest of her family. In fact, it seems as if all the people she was trying to avoid have died. If she knew Sam at all, he must’ve only been a baby at the time.
I could return home to Ireland, to be trained to co-run a billion dollar exporting business. I know nothing about corporations or perfumes for that matter, but they’d teach me, and I could learn. In the meantime, I could get to know a cousin, a blood relative, and his wife and mother and children. Have the money to live where I’m from, to be near the people I know, and be surrounded by the sorts of people I’ve always dreamed existed, but long ago gave up imagining could be real.
The whole thing would sound too good to be true if it didn’t mean I’d have to leave Hunter.
Though he only wanted a wedding for his mother, didn’t he? He’s already fulfilled his end of the bargain, and if he didn’t have to share his space with me, while I wander around twiddling my thumb
s…but I know our relationship is more than that. My heart aches, and I’m torn.
“Can I think about it?” I ask.
“Oh, absolutely,” Sam says. “It’s taken me a year just to track you down. If I haven’t heard from you, I’ll check back with you in a few weeks. Stay in touch, if you would?”
“Of course. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”
Sam and I exchange pleasantries, and then we hang up. I sit in the chair, staring at the dirty dishes on the table, knowing I should clear and wash them and go about my day as if nothing’s happened.
I’m married, for goodness sake. Hunter and I made a commitment, and what’s more, we’re really in love. I came here looking for something, and I found it—a beautiful life in the arms of a man I adore.
But I’d been running from a reality I didn’t know how to escape from, from poverty and eviction and the fear of being alone.
If I had known about this inheritance before I came to America, would I have made the same choice? My heart sinks because I know the answer. Of course, I wouldn’t have. I would’ve remained in Ireland and learned to run a company, gotten to know my family and seen where that life could take me. It was an adventure waiting to happen if I’d just been patient enough for it.
Moving to America did happen, but that doesn’t change that there’s a family—my blood relatives, something I didn’t realize mattered to me as much as it apparently does—in Ireland, that wants to welcome me into their lives.
I know I need to discuss this with Hunter. That’s what married couples do, or at least, I think it is, not that I’ve ever known any great examples. I realize now that I have no idea what a marriage should be like, what Hunter wants it to be like. We haven’t talked much past the present—only that we’d both like children someday.
When we talked about it, late at night, bodies pressed together, I could almost see them. A dark-haired girl and a red-headed boy, running through the woods outside the house. Cocoa sleeping in the shade of the trees, too old to run with kids, and a new puppy alternating between bouncing along after the kids and annoying Cocoa while she’s trying to nap.
If I go back to Ireland, that future won’t happen. But I can’t help but wonder if Hunter will really still love me a year from now. If that future could be real outside of my dreams.
Hunter comes down for lunch at noon, on the dot. I’m pretty sure he’s set alarms to remind him, as he’s worked straight through lunch a couple of times in the first week I was here. He whistles his way down the stairs. The dishes are done, and I’ve made a stew the way my mother used to, with plenty of onions and potatoes and a hearty amount of meat. This is something I’ve been promising I’d do and now seems like as good a time as any.
Especially since, depending on how this conversation goes, I’m not sure how much time we have left. My gut twists—we should have forever, shouldn’t we? That’s what we promised each other, but we’d done so quickly, rashly even. Hunter dishes up the stew, and I twist my wedding ring—a simple band of gold in the shape of a braid—around and around on my finger.
I don’t want to leave, I realize. Yes, it’s true I would never have come here if Sam had found me earlier, but it feels like a happy accident, not an unfortunate one.
“I hope you don’t mind, I made a call to Ireland,” I say.
Hunter smiles. “Of course not. Who did you call? Your friend who has your things?”
I’d been meaning to contact Anna, but hadn’t been able to figure out how to word an email to communicate that I’m now married and not coming back without it sounding like…well, like precisely what it is.
“No. It was someone who emailed me. A cousin I never knew I had.” I keep my tone light though I’m nervous as hell.
Hunter raises his eyebrows. “A cousin. I thought you didn’t have any family.”
“So did I,” I say, though that’s not entirely true. “I mean, I suppose I knew there were probably living people who were related to me, but my mother never wanted to have anything to do with her family, and I guess I never thought to question her.”
Hunter sets the bowls down on the table, but he doesn’t touch his. “What did this cousin have to say?”
“That my grandmother left me an inheritance,” I explain.
