Chapter Thirty-Seven
Marianne Johnson was buried on a clear Sunday morning. The frozen earth seemed as unable to accept the child’s death as the townspeople were. Every able-bodied man, Irish and Red Road alike, took it in turns to pound into the icy ground. Hands bled with the effort. Hearts broke. Tears were shed in abundance. In that moment of such acute sadness, an odd sort of healing began.
The fire had not cared about nationality. Everyone in town felt the tragedy.
Finbarr sat by the graveside throughout the service, his eyes heavily bandaged. Tavish didn’t know what would become of his brother. The lad had always spoken of working his own land someday. Could a blind man live on his own in such an unforgiving land? And what of the boy’s heart? Finbarr had spoken very little since awakening after the fire, even less after he’d finally been told of Marianne’s fate. What he did say lacked the joy and lightness that was so much a part of him. He didn’t smile. He didn’t wish to talk to anyone.
The only person who seemed able to get through to Finbarr was Emma Archer. She sat next to him at her dearest friend’s graveside service, holding his hand as if he were the only one of the two of them needing comfort, though her fragile heart must have also been breaking.
Tavish’s eyes turned toward the road. He could just make out the distant shape of Joseph Archer’s home. Katie was still there, just as she’d been the past two days, lying in the dark in Joseph’s bedroom. The last he’d seen her, she was resting more peacefully than she had before the operation. Her breathing was less strained.
She pricked at his heart. She likely always would.
He was letting her go. He would still do all he could to help with her recovery, but he was stepping back, giving Joseph the room he needed to fill the role that was rightly his.
Jeremiah Johnson stood beside his daughter’s grave, the very picture of a broken and grieving father. “I asked Reverend Ford if I might say a word or two.” He took a moment, clearly attempting to get himself under control. “I need to thank Finbarr O’Connor for—for risking his own life for my daughter.”
Tavish watched his youngest brother sit in stoic silence. With the top half of his face bandaged, his emotions weren’t readable. But his mouth was pulled tight, as still as stone.
“There is some small comfort in knowing Marianne was not alone when she died.” Mr. Johnson blinked a few times, his Adam’s apple making several trips up and down as he swallowed his emotions. “And I need to say that I have been moved by the outpouring of support and kindness we’ve received, from both the Red Road and the Irish Road. I’ve not always treated my Irish neighbors with fairness or kindness, and I am . . . humbled to be receiving their comfort now.” Mr. Johnson’s voice broke. “I wish I could say, had the situation been reversed, had it been an Irish barn burning with Irish inside, that the Reds in this town would have rushed in as quickly and selflessly as this Irish man and woman did.”
Such a speech would have been unimaginable only a few short weeks ago, even a few days ago. If only Katie were there to hear it.
“Miss Macauley was always kind to Marianne in the time she spent working in my shop, even though I was often cruel. Marianne, herself, scolded me for my uncharitable heart.” His pained whispers brought fresh tears to every eye. He wiped at his eyes with a white handkerchief. “I’ve paid a terrible price for my pride and my hatred. Though I can’t promise to be perfect, I mean to be better.” His shoulders squared. His eyes met Da’s. “I’d like the chance to start again and make things right.”
Da gave Mr. Johnson a nod of acceptance.
Mrs. Johnson wept openly. Tavish’s heart broke to see it. No mother should have to bury a child.
Reverend Ford read the remainder of the graveside rite, declaring ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Each person tossed a handful of dirt into the painfully small hole.
Tavish waited until everyone had left except the Johnsons and Reverend Ford and Finbarr. Emma had only abandoned her post at her father’s insistence.
The Johnsons’ oldest son, Joshua, a young man not many years older than Finbarr, approached. The sight of his red-rimmed eyes cut Tavish deeply. He was grieving a sister, something Tavish could comprehend, if not fully understand. He had sisters. The loss of any one of them would hurt terribly. He’d lost two brothers and a fiancée and that pain had never fully left him.
“My pa says to tell you that he’ll see to it Finbarr reaches the Archer place so you don’t need to wait for him.”
Tavish looked uncertainly at his brother. Would Finbarr resent being left to these people who, only a few days earlier, were considered enemies?
“He’s in a difficult place just now,” Tavish said. “He blames himself, hates himself for what happened. I don’t know that I can leave him.”
“Pa understands that,” Joshua said. “He blames himself as well, and his heart is torn to pieces. What your brother did for my sister—” He took a quick breath, blinking fiercely. “He is safe with our family, I promise you that.”
The sincerity of his declaration couldn’t be doubted. “Thank you,” Tavish said.
The walk back to the Archers’ house, where the rest of his family would be waiting, was a contemplative one. Finbarr was facing a future nearly as uncertain as the one their family had faced during The Famine, and Tavish could do little to help. He’d lost Katie—not to death, thank the heavens, but to a man he might one day be willing to admit was better suited to her. He knew letting her go was right, but it didn’t stop the loneliness.
Finbarr will need me, whether he likes the idea or not. Helping him get through the coming days and months, maybe years, will help me do the same. He’d have a purpose, a distraction.
Katie would be happy; that was critically important.
He would learn to be happy, too.