Chapter Twenty-Two

T he walls were too goddamn thin.

They'd been singing all afternoon. Harry had to give them credit—those two little Irish girls knew a wide variety of songs, and he'd managed to block them out for the better part of the day. But when he left the club early that night and retreated to his room, frustrated and annoyed by everyone who'd crossed his path, he found he couldn't ignore the tiny voices anymore. The song wafting through the walls hit him with something tragically familiar, and he was too exhausted to stop it.

Soft and terribly mournful, the sound was like a melody from one of Harry's dreams. And it woke something deep inside him, a hopeful memory, a sparkling memory that tickled just at the border of his mind. It was the smell of green that sometimes struck him in the morning, the image of life and possibility.

Harry's feet moved before he could stop them. He left his room and walked down the corridor to stand outside the door. The singing was louder there, the words clearer. He rested his head on the wood and closed his eyes as the strong, high voice carried the song into the night.

"…your offer, sir, is very good, and I thank you, said I. But I cannot be your son-in-law, and I'll tell you the reason why…"

Emotions swelled as the words were called up inside Harry. Like a gift from a fairy at his birth, they felt like they'd been a part of him from his very beginning. They leapt off his tongue as he opened his mouth to sing along. "Although we at a distance are, and the seas between us roar, yet I'll be constant, Peggy Bawn, to thee forever more."

The door flew open, and Harry stopped himself from falling on his face just in time. Two little girls with matching dresses and distrustful expressions stared back at him.

"We weren't being too loud," the younger one said firmly. "Mam told us not to be too loud, so don't you be telling her that we were."

Harry found his first real smile in days. "You weren't too loud." He shoved his hands in his pockets, telling himself to leave, but, fool that he was, he didn't listen.

"You're the man who owns this place," the older sister said. "The one with the pretty wife."

"That's right."

"I'm Orla. This is my sister, Maeve. Our mother will be back soon, but you won't be telling her that we were too loud."

Harry couldn't tell if it was a question or a statement, but by the way Orla raised her little eyebrow at him, he guessed the latter. "No, I won't."

Orla's mouth screwed up to the side of her face. She gave her sister a look before returning to him. "Are you here to kick us out?"

Harry shook his head. "No. I just wanted to hear your singing. You have a beautiful voice."

"She knows," Maeve said, causing her older sister to hit her with an elbow.

"I like to sing," Orla told Harry. "You have a good voice too."

"Thank you. You sing a lot. I like it."

Orla hugged her chest, shy at the compliment. "Mam knows so many songs. Do you know any songs from home?"

Harry shook his head. "I didn't think so, but I remember that one. My mother used to sing it to me when I was much younger than you."

Maeve cocked her head to the side, squinting up at him. "Are you really from Kilkenny? Sometimes you sound like it, and sometimes you don't."

"I don't know where I'm from anymore. Or who I am," he replied hoarsely.

"Have you forgotten, then?"

Harry shrugged.

For some reason, that seemed to make sense to the girls, who nodded like wise old women. "Mam says one day we're probably going to forget Wexford," Maeve said. "That's why she makes us sing all her songs. She says we have to try to remember so it always stays with us. Mam worries about that a lot."

"Your mam is right," Harry said sadly. "You probably will forget one day."

"And then will we be sad like you?"

"No," he said. "You don't have to worry about that. You'll never be sad like me." He nodded at the girls. "You have each other. You have your ma and your auntie and your granny and granda. They love you, so you don't have to be sad."

"You have your wife," Maeve pointed out. "Where is Miss Ruthie? We miss her. She plays with us sometimes and braids our hair. She tells us stories about her little sister."

The reminder of his wife brought back a fresh round of pain. Why hadn't he done more to bring her sister to visit her? Why hadn't he noticed that she missed her? Because he was a selfish bastard who only thought of himself. Well, he'd remedied that. She could spend as much time with her loved ones as she wished now. In fact, at the moment she was on her way to Bath to play in her cricket exhibitions.

He'd done the right thing, letting her go. Harry hated living with himself; how could anyone else think any different?

"She's gone now. You won't be seeing her anymore."

"Why not?" Orla asked, standing on her tiptoes in alarm. "Is she dead? Did she go up to heaven like our pa?"

"No, she's not dead. Just gone."

Orla's eyes narrowed. "She left you, then? What did you do? Do you take to the bottle too much? Was she tired of you chasing other women?"

A rusty laugh escaped his chest. "No, none of those things."

"What was it, then?"

Harry bobbed a shoulder helplessly. "I'm just different."

"Different?"

"Too different," he said.

"Sometimes I cry because the other kids say we're different," Maeve replied. "But then Mam dries my eyes and tells me to yell back, ‘I'm not different, I'm Irish!'"

Harry laughed again. It was easier this time. "Your mam is a very smart woman. You're lucky to have her."

Maeve perked up. "You can marry her now. Be our pa. We don't mind that you're different."

"I'm sorry, little one," he said, pulling the girl's braid gently. "I'm still married, remember?"

"But she left you."

"She didn't leave me. I let her go. I lost her, really."

Orla planted her hands on her hips. "Then go find her."

"Is it really that easy?" Why did everything sound so reasonable coming from a child's lips?

They nodded in unison.

"And what if she doesn't want to be found?"

Orla shrugged. "You won't know unless your try. And it doesn't look like you're trying to me."

Harry scowled. "It's harder than you think."

She cocked her head. "Because you're different?"

"No," he answered slowly. "Because I'm not a good man."

Maeve shook her head. "Well, there's no helping that. But as Granda says, even black hens lay white eggs."

"And what does that mean?"

Orla started to close the door. "It means, man from Kilkenny, even bad men do good sometimes, like marrying Miss Ruthie. So go fetch your wife. It's obvious you miss her. You look like shite."

Harry stuck his hand out to stop her from shutting the door in his face. "Aren't you at least going to wish me luck? What would your granda say about that?"

Orla thought for a moment, scratching her head. Finally, she looked Harry straight in the eye, somber as a poet. "He'd probably say that you're a damn fool for taking advice from us. And then…good luck to you, sir. May you be in heaven a half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."