The Emerald Isle (4 page)

The shrill ringing of my bedside phone woke me at 1:00 A.M. Still enveloped in the thick haze of sleep, I reached out and fumbled with the receiver. The sound of Taylor’s voice brought me awake.

“I win,” he said simply. “Apply for your passport right away. The wedding is set for October 16.”

Awareness hit me like a punch in the stomach. “She said yes?”

“Of course she did. Maddie’s anxious to get home to her family, so I’m going down to the passport office Monday morning. I’d like you to go with me, if you can get some time off.”

I sat up and dug my fingernails into my scalp. “Taylor, you can’t be serious. I told you—I have a dog, a job, and classes.”

“You can find someone to keep the dog, and you can take a leave of absence from your job. Maddie and I talked it all out. Her parents run a farmhouse bed-and-breakfast, and her mother has agreed to let you and me have two of the bedrooms. We can stay free until after the wedding—and best of all, Maddie says there’s a little house on the property that you can use as a workroom. The farm is only a couple of hours from the ancient home of the O’Connors, and there are museums and libraries in all the major cities.”

I stared into the darkness, thinking that my future looked as vague and shadowy as my room at that moment. “You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you?”

“Of course.” His confidence poured over the telephone lines. “Now go back to sleep and dream of emerald hills. I’ll call again Sunday night, and we’ll set up a time to go to the passport office.”

“Taylor, I can’t—” The phone clicked, and I found myself talking to empty air.

I dropped the phone back into its cradle, then rested my elbows on my bent knees. The man had absolutely flipped. Taylor Morgan was the last person on earth I would have described as flighty or irresponsible, but his behavior in the past two weeks had shattered every opinion I’d ever held about him.

What happened to the quiet, aloof, objective man I knew? Taylor Morgan was positively the least sentimental man I knew. Yet in the
last twenty-four hours something had reduced my rock of objectivity to a wavering mass of emotional gelatin.

Lying down, I turned onto my side and curled into a ball. Oblivious to my pain and confusion, Barkley snored from his place on the rug beside my bed.

Taylor knew how much I loved my dog, yet he wanted me to leave Barkley behind for August, September, and October—three months is
forever
in dog years. You just don’t do that with a beloved pet, especially one that eats two quarts of kibble for breakfast.

And how could I skip another semester of school? Taylor kept forgetting that I had postponed my education once before, when my parents died. Already I was the oldest student in my classes, a twenty-seven-year-old junior, the grande dame of English majors. I suspected my professors were placing bets on whether or not I’d graduate by my thirtieth birthday. But if I took another semester off, I’d never finish. Taylor never had to work his way through school; he had no idea how stretching a four-year program into eight could tax a person’s resources.

Taylor was living in a fog; he didn’t realize
anything.
Though by now he certainly grasped the fact that I wasn’t exactly turning cartwheels over his plans to marry Maddie, he still didn’t understand women. No matter what Taylor said to the contrary, I knew Maddie would
not
be thrilled to have me along on the Ireland trip. She wouldn’t want me living under her mother’s roof, and she
definitely
wouldn’t want me to be the “best man” at her wedding. Oh no. The Irish were staunchly traditional, even
I
knew that much, and she’d have to be as thick as a plank not to realize that I didn’t approve of this marriage.

How could I possibly go to Ireland? I might as well buy a black dress and hat because I’d certainly be painted as a scheming witch before October 16 arrived. No woman wanted to share her fiancé with another woman, especially if the other woman claimed to be the man’s best friend. No—Maddie would not want me in Ireland or in her wedding. Ditto for Maddie’s mother, father, brother, cousins, and cows. I’d be the outsider, the interloper, the odd guest that must be endured.

I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear watching Taylor make a mistake. And most of all, I couldn’t bear watching him slip away from me. These last two weeks, as hard as they had been, would pale in comparison as time trudged on and dragged me with it. Taylor would spend more and more time with Maddie, falling more deeply into love or lust or whatever he called this indefinable emotional state, and I would be increasingly relegated to the sidelines. By the time October rolled around, he’d probably forget why he’d invited me.

My best friend would slip away, inch by inch, moment by moment, as he prepared to become someone else’s husband.

I sat up, pounded my pillow, and yelled into the darkness. “I can’t go.”

Like the faithful guardian he is, Barkley lifted his head and woofed a warning bark at whatever had dared disturb his mistress. I managed a wobbly smile, cheered by the fact that at least someone loved me, but fresh tears sprang to my eyes when I remembered that Taylor wanted me to put Barkley away too.

He wanted me to sacrifice everything…for
his
happiness.

I lay in the dark for a long time before I finally fell asleep.

I spent Sunday in a muddle of confusion, but Taylor’s phone message jarred me back to reality. “I’ll pick you up at the bookstore tomorrow around eleven-thirty,” he said, his voice chipper and enthusiastic. “We’ll go together to the passport office, okay? Don’t forget your birth certificate and your driver’s license. You’ll need them both.”

“I’d like to forget,” I snapped, my stare burning through the answering machine as if Taylor could see me on the other side. “I’d like to forget we ever met Maddie O’Neil.”

But I couldn’t forget. In obedience to that still small Voice, I had hesitated on that blasted curb and met Maddie. Instead of saving my life through a miracle, God chose to ruin it through a mishap.

Sinking into the chair by my small kitchen desk, I pulled out my address book and searched for Aunt Kizzie’s phone number. Kizzie claimed to be Irish, and though I doubted she had ever traveled out
of Boston, she still spoke with a bit of her mother’s brogue. As a teenager, I thought her old and odd. Now I just thought of her as odd. But since my parents’ deaths, she was the closest relative I had left.

I punched in the number and waited as the phone buzzed in my ear. On the fourth ring, a breathless woman answered. “Yes?”

I didn’t recognize the voice. “Kizzie Ledbetter, please.”

“This is she, child.”

I’m not sure where they originated, but tears welled up within me, wetting my cheeks and shaking my voice. My fingers trembled around the phone. “Aunt Kizzie?”

“Kathleen, darlin’, is that you?”

“Uh-huh.”

She listened to my hiccuping sobs for a moment, then filled the phone with quiet shushings. “Whist now, don’t cry. Gather your thoughts and tell me what’s wrong.”

And so I began. I told the story as well as I could, sticking to the facts of the matter. My best friend had met a pretty Irish girl and wanted to marry her. In Ireland. In four months. And he wanted me to leave my life, my dog, my job, and my school, and go applaud him while he ruined his life.

I sniffled and drew a deep breath. Telling the story had calmed me; the bald facts seemed even balder in the retelling. The answer was so obvious; she couldn’t help but agree. “Isn’t that the most unfair thing you’ve ever heard?” I asked, moving the phone from one ear to the other. “I ought to just wish him good riddance and watch him go.”

“Ah, darlin’.” Her voice broke with huskiness. “’Tis a terrible heartbreak to lose a friend, I know, for friends are the face of God in everyday life. But you’re not losin’ him. He sounds like a good fellow, so he’ll always care for you.”

“But he wants me to leave everything. He keeps talking about Cahira O’Connor and my so-called legacy—”

“Don’t be belittling what you cannot understand, child. I’ve
read those stories of yours, and I’m apt to think the man has a point. You ought to finish, for there’s Cahira herself to be heard from. And how do we know you won’t find your future over on the Emerald Isle?”

I bit my lip, wishing it were polite to tell one’s elderly aunt to shake her head and clear out the cobwebs. “I don’t have a future, Aunt Kizzie.”

“Then tell me this, child—what will happen if you
don’t
go to Ireland?”

I blinked at the unexpected question. “Well, I’ll just stay here and work, I guess. In the fall I’ll register for classes again, and I should finish college in eighteen months or so. Of course, Taylor and Maddie will be back in New York by then, but they’ll be married, so I don’t expect I’ll see much of them. But I’ll have new friends, I suppose—maybe I’ll meet someone else at school, or at work.”

“So you’d prefer this bunch of supposings and guesses to an adventure in Ireland? Ah, Kathleen, when did the blinders fall over your eyes? You’ve a chance to go to
Ireland
, the land of magic and wee people and great writers. I’d give my right arm to spend a week there, yet someone is handing you the opportunity to spend
months!
“

My mind reeled with confusion. “I have responsibilities, Aunt Kizzie. There’s my job and my dog.”

“I’ll take the wee dog; you can drive him over one weekend before you go. And you can always find another job when you come back. You’re a hard worker. Anyone would be happy to hire you.”

Sighing, I rested my head on my hand. This conversation was not going at all the way I had expected. I wanted support and reinforcement, but my ally had gone over to the enemy’s camp.

I faltered in the silence that engulfed us, then took a deep breath and decided I had nothing to lose by being completely honest. “I just don’t know if I can handle seeing Taylor with Maddie,” I confessed. “My heart will break every time I look at them together.”

Aunt Kizzie’s voice softened. “Are you in love with him then?”

“No, nothing like that. But we’re friends. Very close. And that will all end soon, I know it will.”

Aunt Kizzie’s deep, warm, and rich laughter floated into my ear. “Kathleen, lass, ’tis lonely you are. You need to find a love of your own.”

I snorted into the phone. “Love is for teenagers and romance novels, Aunt Kizzie. I’ll be happy if I can just find a nice man to marry. Someone who would be like me, someone with whom I could share a cute little house and a couple of kids—”

“’Tis love you need, Kathleen, and I’ll be prayin’ you find it. Now before you make up your mind, answer me this—you said you heard a wee voice right before you met this Maddie. Do you believe what you heard was the voice of God whispering in your ear?”

I considered the question. “Yes. I do.”

“Then meeting Maddie was neither accident nor mistake. ’Twas meant to be, and what follows was meant to be as well. Listen for God’s Voice, Maddie, and consider this—when you’re an old woman like me and yearning to see Ireland and the emerald hills, will you be sorry for not going when you had the chance? Don’t think for a moment that only Taylor or Maddie is inviting you, for Ireland herself is calling your name. If I were you, child, I’d go, even if I had only the wings of the morning under my feet.”

Tightening my grip on the phone, I swam through a haze of desires and feelings. Aunt Kizzie certainly had the gift of gab; she could probably talk the IRS out of an audit. But all the sweet words in the world couldn’t change the fact that I’d be setting myself up for a major heartbreak if I went with Taylor to Ireland.

I thanked her for her counsel, replied “You, too,” to her “I love you,” then hung up.

Pulling my calendar out of the desk drawer, I stared at the empty box for tomorrow’s activities. I had no plans but work for any day this week, no plans for this year besides work and school. My life was an endless succession of blank boxes, and though that was true in some
sense for everyone, my boxes were blanker than most because I no longer had parents or family to help me fill in the empty spaces.

Perhaps Aunt Kizzie was right, and Ireland herself was calling my name.

I picked up a pen, then filled tomorrow’s box:
11:30. Meet Taylor at work—go to passport office
.