She liked to think her mom would have been proud of the path she’d chosen. Siobhan’s mother, Iona, had planned to be a nun from when she was little. The Sisters of Mercy didn’t require their members go through a convent, though most were nuns, but they required a three-year commitment and a devout lifestyle. It was at the end of the three years that Iona had met Andrew Walsh … but she didn’t want to leave her work.
Siobhan’s dad loved them, he wanted to marry Siobhan’s mother, but Iona didn’t want to settle in the States. She wanted to continue doing what she felt God called her to do. She never once called Siobhan’s birth a mistake, though considering Iona and Andrew weren’t married until Siobhan was five, the pregnancy was certainly unplanned. It was that year, when Siobhan was five, that Iona took a year off from the sisters and brought Siobhan to the States. She’d met her half sister Andie, her half brother Bobby—who was already in the Marines—and they lived on a horse farm in Virginia. Siobhan loved it. The house, her family, the horses, that she had her own room! She’d didn’t want to leave, but she didn’t want her mother to leave, either.
Siobhan didn’t know exactly what happened between her parents, but they got married that summer and then Iona took Siobhan back to Mexico to work with the sisters. Her father visited for two weeks each year, wherever Iona was working, and Siobhan spent a month every summer in the States—but Iona never joined her. Her dad wrote to her often, and Siobhan took photos of everything that interested her and sent them to him. When Siobhan turned fourteen her mother said that she could choose—to go to school in the States or stay with the sisters.
Siobhan chose the States. She missed her father. She liked living a missionary life—she knew how to grow crops, deliver a baby, treat almost any injury, and she was the best fisherman among the sisters, much to the frustration of Sister Bernadette who had taught her. Her mother taught her English and even some Gaelic; she learned Spanish from the sisters and the locals; she taught English to the younger kids. Sister Gretchen, from Germany, had been a physicist before she got her calling. Siobhan learned math up to calculus by the time she was fourteen because Sister Gretchen was such a great teacher.
But Siobhan missed her dad. She wanted to experience more—the States, movie theaters, limitless books. She wanted to talk to people and see what they were like. She wanted to go to museums and see a big city and not be scared anymore.
Because for all the joy the missionary life gave her, there was fear. Great fear. Of men with guns, of the cartels, of corrupt police and executions.
She’d learned that fear came in all shapes and sizes; that the grass was always greener on the other side of the border, but in the dark of night you had to know in your heart that you were on your path, not the path forged for you by someone else. It wasn’t until her father died, joining her mother in Heaven, that she searched her soul, searched her heart, and knew what she should do. And the last ten years—through violence, through illness, through heartbreak—she had a deep inner peace because she was on the journey she was meant to be. It wasn’t the path of her mother, or her father; it was her own.
When the digital clock changed to five o’clock, Siobhan got out of the warm, soft bed and dressed in layers as she habitually did. Lucy had been kind enough to let her use her laundry room, so she pulled all her things out of the dryer and repacked her lone backpack. It was durable, military grade, and could hold far more than it appeared from the size.
But she felt naked and lost without her camera.
It wasn’t just the cost of the equipment. It was state of the art, for certain, and it would be difficult and costly to replace, but without her camera she felt incomplete. She’d had a camera since she was five years old; she itched to hold one right now.
She walked down the hall to the light in the kitchen. Lucy was there, pouring herself coffee. Siobhan had been thrilled to finally meet the girl who’d won Sean’s heart, but she wished it could have been under better circumstances.
“Coffee?” Lucy offered.
“Thank you. Black.” She used to drink it with cream and sugar, but when she was on the road with the sisters, she couldn’t be guaranteed either, so she grew used to drinking it black. Fresh-brewed coffee itself was a luxury—she really despised the instant kind. “Well, maybe just a sprinkle of sugar.”
She sat down and looked around the kitchen. “This is really a terrific house. And the neighborhood is so quiet. I get itchy when I’m in a city after living so many years in the middle of nowhere, but this doesn’t feel like San Antonio.”
“It’s an established neighborhood. Sean picked it out.” Lucy put the coffee in front of Siobhan and sat across from her. “I thought it’d be too big, but we’ve had a lot of company. Kane stayed here for three weeks after his surgery.”
“I’m glad he took time off—I was afraid he’d go right back into the trenches. He’s not getting any younger.”
“I think he realized that.”