Allison Parr - Running Back

But with living history, maybe it was meant to be part of our world. My fingers landed on the stone, cold even after an afternoon soaking up the sun. I could feel the aerated bubbles of rock as I brushed my fingers over the surface. “Look at this. Eight hundred years old. Eight hundred years old. And just sitting in a village graveyard, of no note, no record, just...here.” I shook my head. “It’s amazing.”

My fingers traced the carvings, the Celtic knots, etchings that had been chipped out eight centuries before I was born. This was the direct work of some nameless artisan. That’s what always got me. How very close I was with this unknown person. How very far away.

So many people, lost to obscurity. So many stories I could bring back.

It took me a while to notice the silence. I got lost easily, tangled in thoughts and time and other worlds. Usually someone called my name or touched my shoulder to get my attention, but this time Mike’s silence outgrew my own, and I turned to see him standing across the small graveyard, silent as the stone saint behind him.

He didn’t move as I came up by his side. I followed his gaze to the stones he studied so carefully.

Martin O’Connor. Ellen O’Connor. Kathleen O’Connor. Mary O’Connor. Sean O’Connor.

I swallowed over the sudden lump. “You okay?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like they were real to me. I mean—”

“I know.”

He nodded. “But it’s sort of funny—all of their names written out. And—” He nodded at the newest-looking stone, still sharp cornered and smooth.

Patrick O’Connor.

The bottom of my stomach fell out. “Ah.”

“And then—it’s like no one else ever left. I feel— Would my dad have wanted to be here? Should he have been?”

I didn’t know what to say or do. I wanted to comfort him, but wasn’t sure how. I reached down and laced my fingers through his, and stepped sideways until our arms lined up against each other.

He squeezed my hand, and we stood there, staring at the O’Connors.

“What happened to your dad?”

The tension seemed to drain out of Mike’s body, and he leaned slightly into me. “Car crash. The other driver was drunk.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “What can you do? You can be the best driver in the world, and it doesn’t matter if someone smashes into you.” His fingers squeezed mine. “My mother sat down on the kitchen floor and just started crying when they told her. I’d only heard her cry once before. I waited until everyone was asleep and then I broke into his whiskey collection.” He took a deep breath. “On the third night I found Lauren there, and then I poured out all of them.”

I leaned into him. “You were a good brother.”

He shook his head. “I left them six months later for college.”

I turned my head up so I could see him, staring stony-eyed across the graves. I reached up to touch his cheek, so he turned to look at me. “And do you still feel guilty?”

His eyes tore through me, wide with remembered pain. “I feel guilty about how happy I was to leave.”

We heard the clearing of a throat and looked up, our hands falling apart. In the still, silent cemetery, it seemed only right that the only person was a thin man with thinner white hair, dressed in a well-worn brown tweed suit. He nodded at both of us, but it was clear his attention latched onto Mike. “You’ll be Brian’s son.”

Mike looked swiftly at me, and then gave the older man a bright smile. Back to normal, friendly Mike O’Connor, without any trace of sadness or discomfort. “Yeah. I’m Mike O’Connor.”

“Darrell MacCarthy. Used to give your da lifts to school.” He glanced my way. “And this young lady is...?”

“Natalie Sullivan.” I extended my hand to grip his firmly.

“Ah, you also have family here?”

“Oh, no, I’m Irish in name only.” That didn’t sound as eloquent out loud as it had in my head, so I grimaced and then wished I had some capability to keep my emotions off my face, and that the older man didn’t think I was grimacing at him.

But Mr. MacCarthy had already returned his attention to Mike, whose smile looked a little fixed to me. He wasn’t asking, as I would have, for every last hopefully rapscallion recollection Mr. MacCarthy could whip up about his father. I remembered Mike saying I don’t talk about Kilkarten when we first met, and I wondered if he didn’t talk about his father, either.

Except that he just had, with me.

In any case, the silence kept stretching, so I hurried to fill it, because who liked silences? Silences were for black holes. “I do specialize in Irish history, though. I’m an archaeologist.”

At my overly bright tone, MacCarthy focused on me. “The one Patrick hired? I thought you’d be a bit older.”

Well. Patrick hadn’t hired me. The brightness corroded. “Well, I’m not.”

Beside me, Mike’s smile eased into a slightly more natural version, and he nodded to Mr. MacCarthy. “We should get going but—it was nice to meet you.”

Mr. MacCarthy wasn’t done, even though Mike had already turned away. “Where are you off to?”

I hesitated, unwilling to walk off on this old man. “Um...”

Mike’s hand reached back and wrapped around my mine, tugging me gently after him. “To pay a call,” he said over his shoulder as I stumbled to catch up, “on my dear Aunt Maggie.”

A pair of main streets cut through the village, lined with two story buildings painted pale yellows and blues and greens. Ivy climbed up the level walls and low peaked slate roofs. All the signs were written in Gaelic as well as English, a language of curlicues and accents.

Maggie O’Connor lived at the far side of the village, so we walked past O’Malley’s Restaurant, the village pub and a café with outside seating. Several patrons looked up with curiosity as we passed, and Mike’s hand tightened on mine.

And then we were before a lavender house nestled between two off-white ones. Window boxes filled with white flowers hung beneath long, thin panes of glass, and the door itself was painted blue. I sighed happily before knocking.

The door opened immediately.

Maggie O’Connor stood five-feet tall, with thick black hair gathered at the nape and streaked through with silver. I put her somewhere in her fifties, and she gave me the same puzzled look most women her age gave me, like some dusty corner of their mind recognized my face from when they’d been seventeen and poured over fashion magazines.

“Mrs. O’Connor.” I let loose my brightest smile. “I’m Natalie Sullivan. Thank you so much for seeing me today.”

Her expression cleared of confusion and settled into polite curiosity. “Ah, the archaeologist. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Yes, thanks.” I entered, and then hesitated. Mike stood stiffly on the doorstep, arms crossed against his chest. “And, um, this is...”

Maggie turned back and paled. She ran her blue stare unblinkingly over Mike. Her lips moved for a moment before any sound made it out. “Brian’s son.”

I saw him do it. Just like flicking on a switch. One moment, his posture indicated discomfort, and the next warmth suffused his face. He aimed such a charming grin at Maggie that I almost smiled, too, and his voice dropped to low, confidential registers, like he was speaking to his best friend or his beloved grandmother. “My family and I just arrived—I think my mother sent a note. But I thought I’d come around with Natalie.”

She flicked her eyes up and down. “Ah, yes.” She turned sharply and vanished into the house.

The entry hall was low and dark, the striped green wallpaper hung with old portraits, but the sitting room had plenty of light from the street and a brass chandelier. Mike and I settled on an old, striped sofa. The single bookcase held mostly trinkets and only one shelf of books, but white cracks lined their spines and made me think well of Maggie O’Connor.