The trees near the canal had all been cleared away in its construction, so in the summer, the best place to hang clothes to dry was on the other side of Corkstown, in a clump of trees that had been pruned down for the purpose. Bytown being Bytown, it was dangerous to leave them unattended, so the act of doing laundry required an afternoon lazing around in the shade, watching the clouds go by.
Maggie lay there with her hands on her belly—a habit she couldn’t shake yet—head-to-head with Colleen, who was pulling the petals off flowers like a schoolgirl with a crush.
The grass was long and gone gold at the tips, and it hissed whenever the breeze found it. Shirts and shifts hung stiff from the low branches over their heads, and the afternoon sun came through the leaves hot enough that even lying still, Maggie could feel the sweat at her hairline. Grasshoppers clicked off somewhere in the field. From somewhere back toward the canal came the slow knock of a mallet.
“Just imagine,” she sighed, throwing the flower bits into the wind. “This time next year, we’ll be sitting on the riverbanks, drying our clothes in our own backyards, taking our shade under a weeping willow tree.”
Maggie laughed. “If the tree’s in our own backyard, we won’t need to be lazing around, will we?”
“Who said anything about lazing? We’ll be catching ourselves dinner! Fishing!”
“You know how to fish? Really?”
Colleen mimed casting a line into an imaginary river—in a wholly unconvincing way. “I’ve seen it done. Seems like a bit of a ruse, if you ask me. Gives men an excuse to go out and stare into oblivion for hours at a time. ‘Talking scares away the fish!’ Ha! Fish don’t have ears. You just don’t like my company, is all.”
Maggie twisted her head to grin at her friend. “You sound a little bitter there, Colleen.”
“I prefer crops to hunting. Potatoes don’t run away if you’ve things to say. Farmers needn’t be hermits.” She sat up, checking their surroundings like she expected spies to be lurking in the grass. “Speaking of hermits…I haven’t seen Liam around lately. Did something happen?”
Maggie took her hands off her belly, knotting them together tightly. “He’s been taking extra work, to pay for the trip. The few times he’s been by, he’s been pale as a ghost. Not quite awake. I don’t think he’s sleeping much at all.”
“Once he sets his mind to something…” sighed Colleen. “Well, I’ll need you to talk him into dinner soon. Time’s running out.”
Maggie frowned. “Running out for what?”
“For him to ask me to come to Long Island Locks,” said Colleen, like the answer was too obvious to need to be said. “I mean, there’s a wedding to arrange, and—”
“You can’t browbeat him into marrying you, Colleen.”
“Browbeat? Please. I’ll persuade him. He’s not that complicated, after all.”
“Sometimes I just don’t understand you. Some days, it’s like he annoys you to distraction, and other days you talk of love and moving away together, and I—”
“I like him well enough,” shrugged Colleen.
“But do you love him?”
“I can learn to love anyone, under the right circumstances.”
She said it lightly, to the sky, with a petal stuck to her lip. Maggie waited for the laugh that ought to come after it. It didn’t come. Colleen just blew the petal off and reached for another flower, and for a moment the only sound was the grass.
This prompted Maggie to get up off her back, and kneel in the grass before her friend, taking her hands in hers and holding them tight. “Don’t settle,” she said. “Don’t make a choice like this out of fear of something else. Marry the right man.”
Colleen got the most curious little smile on her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, she said: “Do you believe in soulmates? That there’s one someone out there you’re meant to be with, no matter who else or what else comes your way?”
Maggie’s face darkened. “I used to. But then…”
“Aye, I can imagine,” said Colleen, not unkindly. “But to me—and take no offense, please—you are my soulmate. I felt it the second I saw you, and I feel it even stronger, now. You and I need to be together, Maggie Kelly. The rest are just frivolous distractions along the way. I’ll marry whomever I need to if it means I can sit at the riverside, fishing with you.”
Something small and cold turned over under Maggie’s ribs at that. Whomever I need to. Colleen meant it as a kindness, she knew; it was written all over her face. But there was something underneath it, too, something that didn’t sound like a joke at all, and for the space of a breath, Maggie didn’t know what to do with her hands.
Then Colleen squeezed them, and the moment passed.
Maggie squeezed Colleen’s hands tighter, a joyous smile spreading across her face. “I feel like I’m getting the better half of this bargain.”
“Oh, you are, it’s true. I’m naturally selfless. Nothing to be done about it. But if you do feel like paying me back, I won’t say no to your doing my laundry for me. Fair’s fair, after all.”
That earned another laugh, and a light embrace. “I’ll find a way to swing Liam your way,” she said.
“Just be careful how you phrase it,” said Colleen. “Don’t need to get his hopes up.”
“Hopes up how?” asked Maggie, but then Rían’s voice rang out from the road beyond:
“Good afternoon, ladies!” he called, making his way over. “Need any help with the clothes?”
He came wading through the grass with his coat slung over one shoulder and his sleeves rolled to the elbow, dust up to his knees from the road, grinning like a boy let out of school.
The laundry had long since dried, but they’d stayed anyway. Maggie started to get to her feet to greet her husband, but he waved her down with a: “No, no, darlin’. Don’t get up on my account. I’m just teasing.”
Colleen raised an eyebrow at Rían. “This is women’s work, boyo. You want to brood in silence, best move along.”
“I’ll move my tongue, I promise,” he said, with a tip of his hat. “What’s the subject?”
“As a matter of fact, your brother.”
Rían gave a mock sigh. “What’s he done now?”
Colleen leaned back, propped up on her elbows. “It’s more what he hasn’t done. He’s working so much, I haven’t seen him in ages. You’ve got to invite us both for dinner someday soon.”
“And why’s that?” laughed Rían.
“I’ve some projects in mind,” said Colleen, cryptically.
“She’s going to convince Liam to marry her,” said Maggie, with a mischievous grin.
Colleen’s mouth dropped open. “Real subtle, Mrs Kelly. And totally untrue.” She changed her expression to business-as-usual and said to Rían: “Mr Kelly here is going to do the convincing for me.”
Rían burst out laughing. “Am I now?”
“Aye, you are, because one way or another, I’m moving to Long Island Locks. Either in a cabin with Liam, or snuggled into bed with you two. Your choice. But fair warning: I snore.”
“It’s true,” nodded Maggie. “Like a pig in heat.”
Colleen gave her a sideways glare. “Thanks, I think?”
Rían finished laughing, nodding heartily. “Alright, alright, I’ll do what I can. But no guarantees. Especially once he hears about the pig issue…”
Maggie and Rían laughed even harder as Colleen’s glare intensified. “You two are terrible people. It’s a wonder I grace you with my presence at all.”
She got to her feet, dusting her hands off and holding one out to help Maggie back to her feet. Rían offered the other, and together they hoisted her up off the ground, straight into his arms. He gave her a kiss, which she returned for a little longer than was entirely proper, given Colleen’s presence.
“Ah, you two are going to make me retch,” she said happily. “You keep this up, you’ll be expecting again before you know it.”
Maggie’s heart stopped in her chest as Rían’s smile changed. “Again?” he asked.
It didn’t fall, not at first. It just stayed where it was while the rest of his face went still around it, his eyes moving from Colleen to Maggie and back, like a man who’d heard his name called in a crowd and couldn’t find who’d said it. His arm was still around her waist. She felt every one of his fingers.
Before Maggie could think of a way to stop her, Colleen said: “Not every babe is meant to live. And I know you doubt this, Maggie, but if you have enough love between you, there’ll always be more to follow.”
She said it so gently. Weeks ago, on the floor of her father’s dining room, Colleen had told her to go home and tell him that very night—and plainly, she’d believed Maggie had.
Rían blinked back his confusion. Maggie tried to avoid looking him in the eye, but it only made things worse. “Wait,” he said. “Wait, what are you—?”
Colleen suddenly realized what she’d done. “You didn’t tell him…” she gasped.
“Tell me what?” he asked. “Tell me what? What don’t I know? Maggie, what don’t I know?”
He stepped away from her, leaving her horribly exposed, horribly alone. “I…” she whispered. “I didn’t know how…”
Rían knelt down before her, taking her hands in his, and looked up into her tearing eyes. “Maggie…what happened? What—”
She couldn’t look at him. She looked at the grass, at the burrs caught in the hem of her skirt, at his thumbs moving over her knuckles the way they did when he was trying to warm her hands in winter. Her throat had closed up so tight it hurt to swallow.
“I…I lost the baby,” she said, voice so quiet it was almost imperceptible.
“I can’t—”
“I lost the baby,” she said again, louder this time—though still only a whisper. Her hands had started shaking inside his, and she couldn’t make them stop. “I was so afraid, I—”
He pulled her close, holding her tight around the waist, face pressed into her empty belly, and cried. For her, for them, for the baby they’d never meet. She wrapped her arms around him, too, and let her grief pour out until they were unified in their sorrow. She could feel his tears soaking hot through the cotton of her dress, and his shoulders heaving under her hands, and she bent over him with her cheek against his hair and held on. It was incredible, and nothing like she’d expected: all this time, she’d been fighting this trauma alone, afraid it would tear them apart. But by feeling it together…somehow, the pain hurt less.
Colleen was backing away, giving them the privacy they needed. Maggie leaned her head down until her lips touched the top of Rían’s head, and whispered: “I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”
“How long have you known?” he asked. “Was it—”
“A month,” she said, and he froze. His arms were still around her, but they’d gone hard as fence rails. “A month.”
“I was so afraid you might—”
“A month,” he repeated, and let go of her. He moved back a little, like he’d been burned and was wary of getting too close again. “But we…you never…”
Maggie reached for him, but he recoiled. Not violently, but enough to sting.
“You said you felt him kick,” he said, voice hollow. “You told me you felt him kick, and you let me put my hand there and feel and—”
“I know,” she said. “I know. I didn’t know what else to do. I was afraid if you—”
“Afraid of what?” he boomed, and she gasped at the sudden twist of his anger. She’d never seen him like this before. There’d been passion, yes, but always anchored by a focused resolve. A civility and calm. But this? This was terrifying. His voice went out across the open field like a shot, and a pair of crows lifted out of the trees, complaining. His face had gone a dark, mottled red, and his hands had closed into fists at his sides without his seeming to know it. “Of me? When have I ever given you cause to—”
“You haven’t,” she said. “You haven’t and I should have known you wouldn’t, but I—”
“But you what?” he snarled. “You thought you could outrun the truth? That I wouldn’t notice that your belly never grew bigger? That I wouldn’t realize the babe was never really coming? How daft do you think I am, Maggie?”
He wasn’t daft, and that was the worst of it. She’d let her skirts out a little anyway, and told him first babes always carried small, and every night for a month she’d lain awake waiting for him to see through it.
“It’s not—”
“No?”
“It’s not—”
“So tell me! What is it?” he yelled, and she shrank back like she was afraid he might strike her.
She didn’t decide to do it. Her body did it for her: her shoulders came up, and her chin went down, and one arm lifted halfway between them before she knew it had moved. It was only a heartbeat, and she couldn’t take it back.
He saw it, saw the fear in her face, and it was like he’d been slapped. He caught his breath, blinking himself back to reality, hands trembling at his sides as his wife cowered, half-turned away from him, like he was a threat. A danger to her survival instead of the one protecting her from harm. He looked down at his own hands like they belonged to someone else, and slowly opened them.
“Maggie…” he said, voice gone low and careful, every bit of the fury knocked out of it. “Maggie, I’m—”
“I was afraid you’d leave me,” she whispered. She was still too scared to meet his gaze, but when she spoke, he listened without interruption. “I know how much you wanted this. I wanted it too. More than you can possibly…” She sniffled, wiped tears from her face. “I thought if I told you what happened, you’d change your mind about loving me. This isn’t what you chose. You wanted a family, and I…I just…I failed you.”
The silence between them stung, in both directions. The wind blew through the tall grass, and the laundry on the branches nearby swayed this way and that, like they were itching to go. Like the tension was too much to bear.
“I won’t lie, I wanted a son,” said Rían, quietly. “I’ve thought of nothing else since you told me you were…that we were going to be a family. And it hurts. It does. But why would you ever think you’d failed me, Maggie? You didn’t choose this. You couldn’t have known you’d—”
“I did,” she said, and he froze.
“You what?”
“I knew. I knew it was impossible.”
He frowned, unable to comprehend. “How could you—”
“My…past…” she said delicately. “There are things in my past that I can’t—”
“So wait,” he said, taking another step back. His voice was harder, but not angry. Hurt, but not dangerous. “You knew, all this time? You knew it wouldn’t work? That he wouldn’t survive?”
“I…” she said, and pleaded for forgiveness with her eyes. “Rían, I’d hoped—”
“He was never real…” he said, taking another step back. “None of it was ever real…”
She reached for him, but he turned and staggered away, back toward Corkstown, shoulders slumped as the weight of her secrets crushed him.
She stood there with the bone-dry laundry, in the wreckage of her own deceit, watching another husband disappear—and she didn’t know how to stop it.