And in that moment, as the breeze played among the bulrushes and the birds sang in the branches above us, I knew Elsie and I would become the greatest of friends. Although she’d been in my life less than a day, I knew with great certainty that Elsie Wright would be in my life, always.
That night, in the dark hush of the bedroom, I let my thoughts wander back down the cellar steps and out along the garden path, through the gate and down to the little stream where I walked over dew-wet grass, my eyes tipped toward the violet sky, somewhere between the end of night and the start of morning. I heard the sound of birdsong and laughter, bells ringing in the distance, the steady rush and tumble of the waterfall. I saw flashes of green, then blue as I felt myself being lifted, my feet dancing on air. And there, on the bough of the willow tree, sat a young child, hair like flames, her hand reaching out to offer me a single white flower. “For Mammy,” she said. “For my Mammy.”
Three
Ireland. Present day.
Lost in the words of Frances’s story, Olivia jumped at the jangle of the shop bell, the pages in her hands fluttering in the breeze that rushed through the open door.
She looked up to see a child standing on the doormat. She appeared to be entirely alone, as if blown there on the wind like a miniature Mary Poppins.
“Hello. Can I help you?” Olivia stood up and walked over to her. The child was clearly distressed. Tears fell like fat summer raindrops from pale eyelashes that glistened, heavy with more.
“I’m lost.”
Her words limped away through the dim light of the shop, the acknowledgment of her predicament triggering a fresh downpour of tears. She was a striking child, all rosy-cheeked innocence and tumbling red hair, a Pre-Raphaelite painting come to life. Her navy school uniform was at odds with the silver fairy wings sprouting from her back.
Instinctively Olivia hunkered down so that she was on a level with her. “Have you lost your mammy?”
The girl gulped in a breath of air. “I don’t have a mammy.”
Olivia’s heart crumbled at the words. She knew them too well. She wanted to say that she did have a mammy, that we all have a mammy, even if she isn’t with us anymore, but all she could do was offer the same insincere reply she’d heard so often herself.
“I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“Daddy went into a shop and I can’t find him and now I’m lost and I don’t know where he is . . .” More tears prevented her from saying anything else.
The child’s distress was unsettling and made Olivia fidgety. She took a tissue from her skirt pocket and offered it to the girl with an encouraging smile.
“It’s all right. You’re safe here. I’ll help you find your daddy. I promise.” For good measure, she said she liked her fairy wings, which produced a half smile in response as the girl took the tissue, sucking in great mouthfuls of air through her sobs as she wiped her nose.
“It was dress-up day at school. I was Titania, but I lost my wand.”
“Titania? Queen of the Fairies?”
An emphatic nod. “Daddy read me a story about her. It’s called A Midnight Dream. Or something like that.”
Olivia’s heart melted a little. As a rule, she found children noisy, unpredictable things. Whenever she was with Jack’s many nieces and nephews she felt inadequate: not funny enough, or cool enough, or interesting enough to hold their attention. She tired of their company easily, and they of hers. Perhaps that was why part of her had always suspected she would never be anyone’s mammy, and yet when she’d seen it confirmed in black and white it was all she wanted to be. She thought of the letter in the drawer of her nightstand in London, the letter she hadn’t told Jack about. Dear Miss Kavanagh, Following your recent appointment with Dr. Kent . . .
Shaking off the thought of it, she focused on the child again. Something about this little girl was different from other children she knew. Something in her eyes suggested an old soul.
“What’s your real name, then, Queen Titania?”
“Iris.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“They were Mammy’s favorite flowers.”
Were. Was. The awful vocabulary of loss. Olivia said they were her favorite flowers too. “I fell in love with them when I saw Van Gogh’s painting on a school trip.”
Unimpressed, Iris passed the sodden tissue back to Olivia. “What’s your name?”
“Olivia. I’m named after the heroine in Twelfth Night because I was born on Twelfth Night. My mammy loved Shakespeare too. She was a teacher.”
“What’s Twelfth Night? Are you a teacher? Will my daddy be here soon?”
This was something else Olivia found difficult about children: their endless questions.
She grabbed her coat and the shop key. “Come on. Let’s go and find him.” She held out her hand, then hesitated. Was hand-holding appropriate? What were the rules when you found a lost child? Thankfully, Iris showed no such hesitation, linking her fingers trustingly around Olivia’s. It was such a simple gesture, and made Olivia pause. She’d forgotten how reassuring that connection could be; how something as simple as a hand to hold could make you feel useful, or safe, or loved, or any number of things you weren’t feeling a moment before. Jack wasn’t a hand-holder. He preferred to link arms, as if they were a promenading couple from an Austen novel.
She smiled at Iris, who looked back at her with such innocence Olivia couldn’t bear it. “He can’t be far away. I bet he’s outside wondering where on earth you are.”
As she spoke, the door opened and a tall, bearded man rushed in, his panic-stricken face collapsing into folds of relief as he saw Iris.
“Iris! Thank God!”
“Daddy!” Iris wrenched her hand free from Olivia’s and ran to him, throwing her arms around him as he sank to his knees. He wrapped his arms tightly around his daughter as they released their worry and relief in a jumble of hugs and tears.
As she observed their little reunion, Olivia thought of her own childhood. Had she ever been lost? Had her mammy ever held her like this man held Iris now? She shut her eyes, willing a memory to surface, but nothing came. This was Olivia’s reality: imagined moments, always wondering. The truth was that her mother had become more like a dream to her than a real person, a story she’d once read but couldn’t fully recall. Sometimes, Olivia could hardly remember her mother at all.
Iris unpeeled herself from her father and dragged him toward Olivia, telling him all about the kind lady who had saved her life.
“It wasn’t quite that dramatic!” Olivia explained. “She just wandered in. We were coming to look for you.”
“Thank you so much.” He offered his hand. “Ross Bailey. This little monkey’s dad.” The relief poured off him like water.