Page 85 of Valley of Dreams

“Eliza.” He cupped her hand between his.

“Marrying me was the reason he was in that bar, and he wasn’t happy there.” She emptied her lungs once more before pushing ahead. “There. I shared the biggest secret I carry around with me. You owe me something equally heavy.”

He looked away, his gaze on the low-burning fire. “You are a stiff bargainer, Eliza Porter.”

“And I’m as unmovable as the snowcapped mountains.” She wouldn’t have pressed him if she didn’t know that unburdening his mind would help him heal.

Lydia had fallen asleep with her head on his leg. He gently shifted her onto the blanket, her arm still draped over her beloved doll. Eliza waited patiently, knowing he would speak when he was ready.

After a moment, he faced her once more. His expression had turned nearly blank, except for the determined angle of his eyebrows. “Grady and I both fought with the Irish Regiment of New York. You can ask anyone in the O’Connor family, and they’ll tell you the story they all know well. He and I stayed behind when the family went west. I did because, as they see it, I loved being in the city more than I loved being with my family. Grady stayed behind because he loved Maura too much to even consider talking her into leaving behind her parents and sister.”

“Neither of which is entirely true,” she said. He’d told her that much already.

“Right. After a time, war broke out, and the Irish in New York began signing up to fight and defend this new home of ours. I was so hotheaded and impulsive that I signed up immediately. Grady, being the loving soul he was, signed up as well to protectme. He put himself in harm’s way for his brother, the act of a true hero and near-saint. Then he died in a battle he was fighting in only because of me. And I, the one who’d recruited the danger in the first place, survived. An act of cruel fate. He lives on in their memories as the saintly brother he was, and I am the one they loveanyway, the one they loveeven though.”

He didn’t speak with bitterness, but with undeniable pain.

“How much of that family lore is true?” she asked

In a quiet voice, he said, “Only some.”

He’d released her hand when he’d tended to Lydia. She took hold of his again. “I’m listening.”

“I debated enlisting once the fighting began. I kept hesitating, going back to how much I wanted to be able to join my family out West. Fighting in a war meant, assuming I survived, it’d be years before that was even a possibility. One day while I was trying to decide what to do, Grady came home—I was living with him and Maura at the time—and he told me in confidence that he’d enlisted. He felt strongly about the cause, knew this was a country worth saving, but he also knew he had to get out of the city for a time. He felt as if it were closing in on him.”

“That was an awful risk, going to war to escape New York.”

“It wasn’t his primary reason, but, yes, it was a little foolhardy. I think he realized that fairly quickly, but he was a man of his word and wouldn’t go back on it. And he really did want to defend the country he’d come to love.”

Patrick was growing stiffer, more distant. Eliza wrapped her arm around his, as she’d done weeks before in his parents’ loft. She rested her head against his shoulder, hoping the silent show of support would bolster him.

“I wanted to defend the country, too. I’d wanted to from the first rumblings of war, but I’d hesitated. Grady taking that leap was what finally pushed me past my reluctance. I figured we’d fight together and look out for each other.”

Eliza was beginning to piece together the rest of his confession, and her heart ached all the more for him. Still, she said nothing.

“So I went and signed up as well, vowing silently to the family that I’d keep him safe. He had a wife and child who needed him to return safe and whole.”

“You followed him to battle, not the other way around,” Eliza whispered.

“I hadn’t realized until returning to Maura’s house after the war, after Grady was killed, that she’d assumed the opposite. She thought, and so did all of the family, that I was the one who put Grady in danger, that my rash decision had cost his little family their husband and father. They believed Grady had sacrificed everything to protect me, and though I don’t know that they’d ever say it, there’s a feeling of his death being my fault.”

“Oh, Patrick.”

“He is the hero who gave all, and in a very real way that is true. He was the bravest of the soldiers I fought alongside. He gave everything he had to the very end.”

“Which is likely part of why you are so reluctant to tell the family how things actually came to be, though doing so would likely heal some of the resentment between your family and yourself.”

He didn’t answer for a moment. She could feel his breathing grow shakier. “I can’t tell them anything about those years of fighting. What if something I say makes them think less of him? I don’t want them to. They shouldn’t. But I feel like no one knows me, no one knows the burden I carry, or the weight that’s crushing me.”

She looked up at him. “Iknow.”

A soft, subtle hint of a smile touched his face. “You do. And you were right: it helps to speak of it.”

“Why did you leave New York for Canada? No one seems to have an answer for that.”

He adjusted his position and, to her delight and comfort, set his arms around her, holding her in a warm and tender embrace. “Aidan talked a lot about how his father was extra brave because he fought to protect me even though he didn’t want to go to war. He didn’t remember anything about Grady, but that . . . that version of things gave him something of his father to cling to. I couldn’t risk taking that away from him. I still can’t.” He breathed deeply, the way she often did when feeling burdened. “It’s easier being the villain at a distance.”

“But you aren’t the villain.”

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