Now You See Her

SEVEN


ADELAIDE ROAD WAS LOCATED in the southeastern section of the city about two miles from its center. It was a surprisingly wide, winding street built up the side of a steep hill. The houses were all two stories and relatively new, making up for in square footage what they lacked in design integrity. The majority of them were painted either white or gray, with black shutters framing the front windows. Occasionally a lavender house popped up, or a set of shutters in bold fire-engine red, to relieve the monotony, bringing a small smile to Marcy’s lips as she walked by. Kelly had said to look for the biggest house on the street, but so far, all the homes looked roughly the same size, the only difference being whether they had a one- or two-car garage.

A strong wind had started blowing, bringing with it the pungent scent of the harbor. Cork had the world’s second-largest natural harbor after Sydney Harbor in Australia. Before coming to Cork, Marcy hadn’t realized the city was a major seaport, but then she really hadn’t known very much about Ireland at all.

“Ireland’s the most beautiful country in the world,” she heard Devon pronounce as she followed another bend in the road. “Daddy’s been telling me all about it. He says we’re going to go there as soon as he can get some time off.”

“That’s nice.” Marcy decided not to tell her fourteen-year-old daughter that Peter had been making the same promise ever since they’d met and that any free time he had these days was pretty much spent on the golf course.

“He says it’s got everything: mountain ranges and tall cliffs and wooded river valleys and beaches,” she rattled off, as if reading from a brochure, “and that the cities are modern but the villages are quaint, and that there are huge castles and causeways made out of volcanic rock and monasteries that go all the way back to the sixth century.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“He says we’re going to go there real soon. Maybe even this summer.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, sweetie. I know Daddy means well, but …”

“But what?” Devon’s eyes narrowed, a frown creasing her brow.

“But he’s a very busy man.”

“He’s taking me. We’re going. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”

“I never said I didn’t want to come.”

“Why do you always have to ruin everything?” With that, Devon pushed herself off the kitchen chair and flounced from the room.

She’s right, Marcy thought now, feeling the muscles in the backs of her calves cramp with exertion. I do ruin everything.

That was when she saw the house.

Bigger than all the other houses on the street by at least a third, it was further distinguished by its yellow-brick exterior, its winding flower-lined walkway, and two Juliet-style balconies off the floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor. A pair of slender white columns stood to either side of the black double front doors, lending the house a vague—if misguided—Southern air. An enormous driveway led to a three-car garage, the doors of the garage a dark, highly polished wood. It was as if the architect hadn’t been able to decide between a host of competing styles and so he’d chosen all of them.

So what now? she wondered, continuing up the street, then turning around, walking back, coming at the yellow-brick house from the opposite direction. Should she take the direct approach and simply proceed up the front walk, ring the doorbell, and ask to speak to Shannon?

“Can I tell her who wants to see her?” she heard Mrs. O’Connor ask.

Probably it wouldn’t even be Mrs. O’Connor who answered the door, Marcy decided, replacing the generic young woman of her imagination with an older version. Perhaps the housekeeper, she thought, dressing the woman in a crisp gray uniform and securing her hair in a neat chignon at the back of her head. Or maybe it would be Shannon herself who opened the door. “The quiet one” was how Kelly had described her. Marcy pictured a skinny girl with fair skin and strawberry-blond hair.

In the end she settled on Mrs. O’Connor.

“She doesn’t know me,” Marcy imagined herself explaining to the curious owner of the house. “But I think she might know my daughter. This is her picture. Do you recognize her?”

“Why, yes. I believe that’s Audrey.” The imaginary Mrs. O’Connor glanced from the photograph to the interior of the house. “Shannon, can you come here a minute? There’s someone here who wants to talk to you about Audrey.”

“Do you know where I can find her?” Marcy demanded of the willowy apparition who approached.

“Oh, sure. She lives near the university,” Shannon answered easily. “I can take you to her, if you’d like.”

“I’d like that very much.”

Would it really be that easy? Marcy wondered, pushing herself up the O’Connors’ front walk. Or would the opposite happen? Would whoever opened the front door simply shut it in her face once she told them why she was there? Would they refuse to let her speak to Shannon, or would Shannon simply shake her head, as Liam had done earlier, and say, “No, that isn’t Audrey”?

“Only one way to find out.” Marcy rang the bell, then lifted the brass, leprechaun-shaped knocker and smacked it several times against the black wood, holding her breath and listening for the sound of footsteps approaching on the other side. When none were immediately forthcoming, she rang the bell again. Still nothing. “Damn it.”

No one was home.

Why was it always the one thing you didn’t picture, the one outcome you hadn’t anticipated, that was the one you got? Marcy wondered. So now what? “I wait.” What else could she do?

She looked around for a place to sit down, but there was nothing, not even a tree trunk for her to lean against. Like many new subdivisions, this one was pretty much void of trees. In modern-day Ireland, it seemed gray was the new green. Marcy glanced up at the cloud-filled sky. As long as it doesn’t start raining, she thought.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, she heard her mother sing, her soft voice snaking up the hillside. The deceptively soothing voice continued, swirling around Marcy like a gust of autumn leaves. The old man is snoring.

Marcy began striding back down the hill, taking larger steps than necessary, her arms swinging purposefully at her sides, as if warning her mother to keep her distance. Bumped his head, and he went to bed. Her mother’s stubborn voice followed after her, carried by the wind.

“It’s starting again,” Marcy remembered whispering to Judith. She was, what … all of twelve at the time?

“What’s starting?”

“With Mom. It’s starting again.”

“How do you know?” Judith had asked. Although she was older than Marcy by two years, she was slower than her sister at sensing when disaster was imminent.

“Because I can feel it.”

Judith had argued. “She’s just depressed because it’s raining. You know how personally she takes the weather.”

“I’m telling you,” Marcy said. “It’s starting.”

“Shit,” she said now, stopping when she reached the bottom of the street. What was she doing all the way down here again? Now she’d have to climb all the way back up. She checked her watch. Almost four o’clock. Maybe she should head back into the main part of the city, grab a bite to eat, come back later.

Except it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner and she had no appetite anyway.

“You have to eat something,” Judith had told her in the aftermath of Devon’s accident. And then again after Peter had walked out. “You have to keep up your strength,” she’d insisted, pushing a heaping spoonful of peanut butter toward Marcy’s tightly pursed lips.

Marcy closed her eyes, trying to block out the myriad unpleasant memories that were flooding her brain. “Enough,” she said out loud, her voice disappearing under the wheels of a passing car. A Rolls or a Bentley, she thought, opening her eyes in time to see the big black sedan disappear around the bend in the road and knowing instinctively it belonged to the O’Connors. She raced back up the street, stopping at the top of the hill to catch her breath and watching the car pull to a tentative stop in the driveway of the yellow-brick house.

From a distance of maybe fifty yards she saw a woman exit the passenger side of the car with shopping bags in each hand. As she reached the front door, she turned and called to the driver as he was about to proceed into the garage: “Don’t forget the groceries in the trunk.”

The woman was young, early thirties, and very pretty, with shoulder-length auburn hair and shapely, if sturdy, legs. She was wearing a navy blue skirt that covered her knees and a loose blue cardigan over a conservative print blouse. Marcy guessed from the woman’s easy familiarity with her companion that this must be Mrs. O’Connor and not the nanny.

Now’s your chance, she thought as the woman fished inside her designer bag for her keys. Marcy commanded herself to move, forcing one foot in front of the other, then stopping abruptly when the man emerged from the garage seconds later, his arms loaded with groceries. She saw that he was older than the woman by at least a decade and that he managed to look quite distinguished even as he struggled to keep the groceries from spilling out of the bags.

“Can you manage?” the woman asked from the doorway.

“Out of my way, woman,” her husband responded with a laugh. Seconds later, still laughing, they disappeared inside the house, the door closing after them.

“Mr. and Mrs. O’Connor, I presume,” Marcy said, marveling at their easy camaraderie and trying to remember the last time she and Peter had laughed that way together. About anything. Maybe in the beginning, she thought now. Before Devon. “Stop it. You’re not being fair.” Tempting though it was, she couldn’t blame Devon for all the problems in her marriage.

Judith’s unwanted and uninvited voice once again asserted itself. “You’re sure you want to do this?” she’d asked when Marcy first informed her she was expecting. “You’ll never have another peaceful moment, you know. You’ll always be waiting, watching.…”

“Shut up, Judith,” Marcy had said.

“Shut up, Judith,” she said again now, rubbing her forehead and wondering where Shannon was. Probably with the O’Connor children, she decided. Maybe she’d taken them out for a walk. Or maybe they were playing in a nearby park. Or maybe it was the nanny’s day off and the children were spending the afternoon with their grandparents.

So many maybes.

Marcy decided to give the O’Connors a few minutes to put their groceries away before ambushing them. “You can do this,” she told herself, removing Devon’s picture from her purse and wondering what she was so afraid of. That the O’Connors wouldn’t recognize the girl in the photograph?

Or that they would?

Moments later a baby’s loud wail filled the air as a young woman pushing a carriage rounded the curve at the top of the street.

Marcy found herself holding her breath as the girl came into sharper focus. She’s exactly as I imagined her, Marcy thought. She marveled at the skinny girl, taking in her fair complexion and long, strawberry-blond hair. Pretty in an understated way. Not the type to draw attention to her looks with too much artifice. She was dressed in blue jeans and a light jacket, her shoulders hunched slightly forward as she pushed the carriage.

“Go on. What are you waiting for?” Marcy asked herself, speaking into the collar of her trench coat. Still, her feet refused to budge. What if this wasn’t Shannon? She couldn’t just go accosting every woman who walked by wheeling a baby carriage.

But the girl turned into the O’Connors’ driveway, proceeding up the flower-lined walkway toward the front door. If she’d noticed Marcy standing by the side of the road, she gave no sign.

“Now,” Marcy said, almost tripping over her own feet as she vaulted forward. “Excuse me, but could I talk to you for a minute?” She rehearsed it, her voice a whisper. “Excuse me,” she said again, louder this time.

But the front door was already opening, Mr. O’Connor filling its frame.

“Well, hello there, my little angel,” he said, lifting the crying baby into his arms. “Daddy’s missed his little princess. Yes, he has. He has indeed. How was she this afternoon?” he asked Shannon. “Still colicky, I see.”

Marcy couldn’t hear Shannon’s response. The young woman’s voice was too quiet to carry the distance between them, especially since the breeze had picked up, bringing with it the renewed promise of rain. Marcy took another step forward as Mr. O’Connor carried the crying baby inside, shutting the door after him as Shannon wheeled the carriage around to the side of the house.

Marcy quickly traversed the driveway, hoping to intercept Shannon on her way back to the front door. But after several minutes passed with no sign of her, Marcy concluded that she must have used a side entrance. A glance at the side of the house confirmed a second door.

So, you ring the bell, you ask to speak to Shannon, you show her Devon’s picture, Marcy instructed herself silently. How many times had she gone over this already? Shannon would either confirm the picture was her friend Audrey or she wouldn’t.

Or what if she recognized the picture but refused to divulge Audrey’s whereabouts? Suppose Devon had already told her all about her mother, how she’d failed her in every way possible and how she’d actually faked her own death in order to get as far away from her as she could? What then?

Would Shannon be on the phone as soon as Marcy left, calling to warn Devon that her mother was here in Cork, that she’d somehow been able to ascertain that the two of them were friends, that she was even now canvassing the city, stopping strangers on the street, showing them her picture, and that it was only a matter of time before she’d encounter someone who would point her right to Devon?

What would happen then?

Would Devon take off without a word to anyone, fly off to Spain or South America or Australia? Somewhere her mother would never be able to find her? Would she do that?

Marcy felt her shoulders slump and her knees weaken. Her daughter would do exactly that, she understood. Which was why she’d been hesitating, why she’d instinctively held back, why she couldn’t confront Shannon and risk losing her daughter all over again. She had to be patient. She had to wait. Wait and watch.

You’ll always be waiting, watching …, Judith had said.

A light rain was starting to fall. In a few more minutes, it would get stronger, heavier. She had to find a taxi, get back to the flat of the city before she was soaked to the skin. She’d return here tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. Eventually, Marcy told herself as she hurried down the hill, Shannon would lead her to Devon.


“WELL, WELL. CAN’T keep away, can you?” Liam said as Marcy walked through the front door of Grogan’s House. His smile said he’d been expecting her. “Sit down, luv. I’ll get you some tea.” His hand waved toward an empty table in the far corner of the crowded room.

Barely five o’clock and already the place was almost full, Marcy observed. Did nobody ever go home?

“So, did you find Audrey?” Kelly asked, suddenly appearing at her side.

“No, but I found Shannon.”

“Was she able to help you?”

“I didn’t speak to her.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated,” Marcy said after a pause.

“What’s complicated?” Liam asked, lowering a steaming pot of tea to the table along with two mugs, then plopping into the chair across from her. “You don’t mind if I join you, do you? I’m on my break, and you look in need of some company. Do you know you’re soaking wet?”

Marcy quickly pulled off her coat, began patting at her hair. “I couldn’t find a taxi.…”

“Leave your hair alone,” he said. “It’s quite sexy like that, you know.”

Marcy laughed, flattered in spite of herself.

“That’s better. So, what’s complicated?”

“What isn’t?”

Liam’s turn to laugh. “Hunger isn’t complicated,” he said. “I bet you could use something to eat.”

“Anything you recommend?”

“I’d try the special. Kelly, can you get the lady a special? My treat,” he added.

“No, don’t be silly. I can’t let you do that.”

“Consider it done. My way of apologizing for my rudeness earlier.”

“You weren’t rude.”

“I was a bit abrupt. You know, about Audrey.”

“Are you saying you did recognize her picture?”

He poured them each a mug full of tea. “Well, I might have been a little hasty in my assessment.”

“Would you like to see the picture again?” Marcy was already digging inside her purse.

“Drink your tea,” he instructed, taking Devon’s photograph from Marcy’s hand.

Marcy did as she was told, lifting the mug to her lips and taking a long sip, her eyes never leaving his. “Well?”

“I suppose it could be Audrey.”

Marcy tried to swallow her growing excitement with another sip of tea. “Do you know her last name?”

Liam shook his head.

“What do you know about her?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid. I’ve only talked to her a couple of times. She moved here about a year ago. From some small town west of London, I think she said.”

“She has an English accent?” Devon had always had a good ear for accents, Marcy recalled, remembering her performances in various high school plays.

“I suppose. Definitely not Irish, but I wasn’t paying that strict attention. She’s not really my type. I like ’em a little older myself.” A playful smile teased his lips.

Is he flirting with me? Marcy wondered, dismissing the thought as she sank back in her chair. “Can you do me a favor? Can you call me the next time you see her? I mean, immediately. And can you not say anything to her about my trying to find her?”

“Can you tell me why I should do either of those things?”

“It’s complicated,” Marcy said again. Could she trust him not to give her away?

“Can you at least tell me your name?”

“Marcy,” she said after a pause of several seconds, deciding she had to trust someone. “Marcy Taggart. I believe the girl you know as Audrey is really my daughter, Devon.”

Liam’s eyes revealed a long list of questions, none of which he voiced. Instead he removed a pen from the pocket of his white shirt and slid it across the table. “Write your cell phone number on that napkin.”

Marcy started to print her number along the surface of the small paper napkin, then stopped. “Oh, God, I can’t. I threw it away.”

“You threw away your phone?”

“I threw it in the river.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“It’s …”

“Complicated,” Liam said, finishing for her. “Figured as much. So, just how do you propose I get in touch with you?”

“I’m staying at the Doyle Cork Inn over on Western Road,” Marcy told him.

Liam nodded, retrieving his pen and scribbling his own number across the top of the napkin. “Suppose you check in with me periodically. That might be easier.”

Marcy almost burst into tears. “That’s really very kind of you.”

“Sometimes we have to rely on the kindness of strangers,” he said with a twinkle in his deep green eyes.

Marcy recognized the familiar quote from Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire. She lifted her mug into the air, clicked it against his. “To the kindness of strangers.”

Liam’s smile was unexpectedly shy. “To finding your daughter,” he said.