Mrs. Joyce played with the wedding band on her finger. “Well, there’s a question. I do remember Martha showing me an old photograph once. A young girl watching some fairies. There was something on the television about it, except the girl was an old woman by then. I remember your mam being especially interested in the photograph.”
“She was. She kept it in her jewelry box, in a silver frame. I’d love to know how Nana knew Frances, and why she never spoke about her life in Yorkshire.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“I tried yesterday, but she gets so confused. I hate to think I’m upsetting her by stirring up the past.”
“Don’t give up on her, dear. Keep asking. Keep encouraging her to remember. There are some things we can’t forget. Even if we want to.” Mrs. Joyce stood up and tied her headscarf under her chin. “I’d best be getting back. Joe’ll be looking for his dinner and God love him but he’s a grumpy auld bugger when he’s hungry.”
She kissed Olivia good-bye and shuffled off down the garden path.
The grandmother clock ticked away the minutes in the hall. Olivia closed the door and turned the radio up.
She spent the rest of the morning clearing out drawers and wardrobes and bookshelves, always hoping to find the photo in the silver frame, but it was nowhere to be found. Apparently, it was as lost as Nana’s memories.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, when Olivia arrived at the bookshop, she was surprised to find an envelope pushed through the letterbox, her name written on the front in child’s handwriting. Beside it, on the doormat, was a single white flower. Inside the envelope was a sheet of pink writing paper. “Dear Olivia, Thank you for looking after me. I hope you like this picture. Did you find out about the fairies? From Iris Bailey.” At the bottom of the note, Iris had drawn a picture of Alice and the fairies.
Tearing a blank page from a notebook, Olivia wrote a quick reply. “Dear Iris, Thank you for your letter. Your drawing is lovely. I’ve put it in the window so people can see it. I hope you found your wand. Olivia.” She placed Iris’s letter and picture, and her own reply, in the window, where she hoped Iris would see them. The white flower she placed in the coffee cup with fresh water. She smiled again at the inscription in black marker. Live.
Switching on the radio for company, she settled herself at the desk, took a deep breath, and read the solicitor’s letter again, Nora Plunkett’s sniping words nagging at her as she did. “Should have given it up when Martha went doolally. Bit off more than he could chew if you ask me.” Olivia’s skin bristled. More than ever, she was determined to prove Nora bloody Plunkett wrong.
A phone call confirmed Olivia’s worst fears. The letter she’d opened was the last in a long line of correspondence that, for some reason, Pappy had ignored. She arranged a meeting for the following afternoon, even though she would rather have stuck her head in a bucket of bees.
Her second phone call was to the V&A to explain that she needed to stay in Ireland a little longer than expected to sort things out. Her manager was very understanding and since Olivia was on a rolling weekly contract, agreed that they would talk again when she was ready to return to London. The temporary nature of her job was, for once, a blessing, even if the financial nature of it wasn’t.
Her final call wasn’t so easy.
Her final call was to Jack.
Before ringing him, she walked to the harbor, drawing strength from the breeze and the view and the certainty she’d felt at the top of Howth Head the previous day. She walked for hours, searching for clarity of thought as she watched the waves lap at the harbor wall. She ran her married name over and over in her mind—Olivia Oliver, Olivia Oliver, Olivia Oliver—the words tripping her up, like a tongue twister. No matter how often she said it, or practiced her signature, it didn’t sound, or look, right. But Jack was a traditionalist. He wanted her to take his name. Less complicated for the children, he said.
And there it was again. The unavoidable facts of the letter hidden in the drawer of her nightstand.
Olivia could still remember the smell of the paper it was typed on: expensive perfume and antibacterial hand wash—the smell of the endocrinologist’s office. It had turned her stomach at every appointment.
She’d first heard the words in the consultant’s soft Derry accent. “Premature ovarian failure.” She’d made it sound almost glamorous; something all the cool kids would want. Then Olivia had read it in stark Times New Roman font, confirming, in confusing medical terminology, that her biological clock had stopped. What had started out as a routine trip to the local GP about anxiety and unusual fatigue had led her to this.
It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to tell Jack, or that she worried about his reaction. She knew exactly how he would react: he would treat it like a business transaction, throw money at it and call in the experts. He would do what Jack always did. He would make her feel inadequate, as if it was her fault that she was lacking in the most fundamental part of being a woman. And that was why, when she should have needed him the most, her future husband was the last person she wanted to confide in. Her “future” husband, she’d realized, was not the husband she wanted in her future.
As the sun began to set, Olivia pressed the speed dial on her phone and took a deep breath. Her heart raced as the phone rang at the other end. Her cheeks flushed with adrenaline as the dial tone clicked into voice mail. His sure, steady voice. The same Jack. The same message she’d heard so often. Nothing had changed as far as he was concerned. And yet everything was different as she explained, as calmly and casually as she could, that she needed to stay in Ireland another week to sort things out with Nana and the bookshop. She could hear the crack in her voice: the pretense, the fake, breezy nonchalance.
After she hung up, she flicked through her e-mails and listened to her voice mails. Could she come back with a decision on the buttonholes? Would she mind if a friend brought a plus one? Was there another option on the bridesmaids’ dresses because the ink blue might not suit everyone? The tightness in her chest intensified. Her breathing came fast and shallow. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes, telling herself to relax, to calm down. The last e-mail was from the wedding planner, sending on the information she’d promised about preserving the wedding flowers. There was no information about how Olivia might preserve herself.
She looked once at the engagement photo she’d set as her phone’s wallpaper, and without planning to or thinking about it for more than a second, threw the phone into the harbor. It hardly made a splash. A feeble half protest at best before it was swallowed by the amber sea.
Olivia felt as if she’d thrown herself one of the orange life rings positioned along the harbor wall. For the first time in months, she could breathe properly, long deep breaths, in and out in time with the waves.