Read Chapter 11: EVELYN WALKS IN

Evelyn Keane came to Bellwether on a Monday at 11:17 in the morning.

Maeve knew her immediately.

Age had thinned her hair to silver and softened the sharpness of the old photograph, but the eyes were the same. She wore a navy raincoat and stood inside the door with one hand still on the handle.

The brass bell settled above her.

“Maeve Kavanagh?”

Maeve’s mouth went dry.

“Yes.”

“I’m Evelyn Keane.”

For a moment neither spoke.

Maeve thought of Nora’s note. If she ever becomes ready, she knows where Bellwether is.

Evelyn looked around slowly.

“I nearly came to the funeral,” she said. “I stood across the road and went home.”

Maeve heard Thomas in the sentence.

“You do that too,” she said before she could stop herself.

Evelyn gave a startled laugh.

“Apparently.”

Maeve locked the front door and turned the sign to CLOSED.

They sat at the counter. Evelyn declined tea. Her hands remained folded tightly in her lap.

“Nora told me last year that Tom had left something here.”

“Yes.”

“I knew they were letters.”

Maeve blinked. “She told you?”

“Not directly. Nora was constitutionally opposed to directness when it might be useful.”

Maeve almost smiled.

“I asked if he had written to me. She said, ‘What else would a printer leave?’”

Maeve went to the desk.

Before unlocking the drawer, she turned. “There are forty-three letters. They were never posted. Tom asked Nora to give them to you if you came. If you didn’t, he asked her to burn them.”

Evelyn closed her eyes.

“He would.”

“Nora didn’t.”

“No.”

“Do you want them?”

The question seemed to require physical effort.

“I don’t know.”

Maeve left the key in the drawer.

“That’s allowed.”

Evelyn looked at her sharply.

Something in Maeve’s chest shifted. Perhaps because she was saying the words to herself as much as to Evelyn.

They sat quietly.

Finally Evelyn asked, “Did you read them?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“God.”

“I’m sorry.”

Evelyn rubbed her forehead. “No. I’m not sure I mind. I thought I would, but perhaps I’m too old to be embarrassed by the person I was.”

Maeve said, “He loved you.”

Evelyn’s face tightened.

“That was never the problem.”

She began to speak.

She had met Thomas in 1985. She was twenty-seven, engaged in all but name to Liam Keane, whose family knew hers. Liam was kind, dependable, Catholic in the habitual rather than fervent sense. Thomas was none of the things her family understood. He read poems at pub nights, earned little, argued about politics, and believed every emotional truth improved when spoken.

For eighteen months, Evelyn lived two lives.

“I did not sleep with Tom while I was with Liam,” she said. “People always want that detail because it lets them decide who was wrong.”

Maeve did not interrupt.

“But I loved him. Which was worse in some ways.”

Why marry Liam?

Because her father was ill. Because her mother begged. Because Liam loved her and offered stability. Because Ireland in 1987 was smaller than it looked from the present. Because Evelyn wanted children and believed Thomas did not. Because fear often arrived dressed as common sense.

“And then?” Maeve asked.

“I told Tom it was finished. He said he would wait. I told him not to. He wrote anyway, at first. I returned the letters unopened.”

Maeve stared. “There were earlier letters.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to them?”

“I burned them.”

There were the missing years.

Evelyn looked toward the locked drawer.

“Liam knew, eventually. Not everything. Enough.”

“Was he angry?”

“Yes. Then he forgave me more generously than I deserved.”

She smiled sadly. “We had a good marriage, Maeve. I need you to understand that. Loving Tom did not make my life with Liam false.”

Maeve thought of her categories: intact or failed.

Evelyn continued. “After Liam died, Nora told Tom where I lived. I know because Nora told me she had. I waited.”

“For him to come?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you go to him?”

Evelyn laughed, but there was no humour in it. “Because I had spent fourteen years being the one who chose. I wanted him to choose once.”

Two people standing on opposite sides of the same silence.

Maeve felt suddenly furious with both of them and heartbreakingly sorry for them.

“Did you ever see him again?”

“Once. 2007. Across Grafton Street. He saw me. I saw him. Neither of us crossed.”

Maeve closed her eyes.

“Idiots,” Evelyn said.

“Yes.”

“Absolute idiots.”

They both began to laugh.

Then Evelyn cried.

Maeve remained seated, uncertain whether to move.

After a moment, she pushed the tissue box across the counter.

It felt insufficient.

She stood, walked around, and very carefully put a hand on Evelyn’s shoulder.

Evelyn covered Maeve’s hand with hers.

They stayed that way until the crying passed.

At last Evelyn said, “Give me the letters.”

Maeve unlocked the drawer.