Page 59 of Valley of Dreams

“He knows,” Biddy said. “He’s just afraid to believe it.”

“Then what am I even doing here? If Ian, of all people, won’t ever think anything but poorly of me, maybe there really is nothing in me worth thinking highly of. Maybe I’m just fooling myself.”

“He just doesn’t understand. None of us does. If you’d tell us why you’ve kept away, why you didn’t tell us you were alive.”

Patrick’s lungs tightened. He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Don’t you think we deserve to know? Don’t you think he does?”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “The explanation isn’t mine to give. Large bits of it—” He swallowed. “Secrets are heavy things, Biddy, but when a fellow agrees to carry them, he doesn’t toss ’em out just because he’s tired.”

“Are you tired, then, Patrick?”

He’d been tired for ten years.

He snatched up the crate under his chair. “I’m gonna put these things away. Enjoy thecéilí.”

She likely said something more, but he moved too quickly for conversation. He needed quiet and space and the comfort of being alone. Keeping his secrets distanced him from one brother, but spilling those secrets would tear the family away from another brother. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t.

He hung his coat on its nail in the loft, then slid the crate of Finbarr’s things and his spanner under his bed. His bottles of whiskey were under there as well, the open one emptier than it had been but fuller than he’d expected it to be by now. He pulled Lydia’s doll from the pocket of his coat and sat on the bed.

“Can’t drink in front of a dolly,” he said aloud like a Bedlamite.

He set the little thing on the small table beside the bed. It’d make a decent reminder.

He lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. This was going to be a long night, listening to music and laughter outside, fighting the promise of numbness in the brown bottle beneath him and facing the very real possibility that his family would never forgive him.

And if they never forgave him, how could he possibly forgive himself?

Chapter Fourteen

Eliza had far too muchto do. She’d missed thecéilí.The week after that, she was late with the laundry. And on the day she intended to drop in on Jeremiah Johnson to propose investing in her inn, she found herself, instead, rushing up the road to Maura’s house, hoping Dr. Jones was in the soddie.

Maura answered the door, a broad smile on her face. Behind her, a bevy of Irish voices filled the air. All women, if Eliza didn’t miss her mark.

“Sorry to interrupt, but Dr. Jones said he lives in your soddie, and I need to see him.”

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