Made With Love

Chapter 11

My brain has seized upon the name CLARE, imprinting it like a ghastly memory behind my eyes. I don’t know how I manage to make my way up the road and back to the cottage; all I can see are those five letters, the way they’d looked in my mother’s left slanting hand.

‘It was Clare. Clare had driven them away. Clare had kept them away. Clare and not my grandmother,’ I grumble as I crest the hill. I don’t care what Mum had done. She hadn’t deserved to be exiled!

I stomp up the drive and onto the front stoop, ready to charge in, guns blazing. My body feels charged with a bitter feeling, three decades’ worth, as I blast into the kitchen.

‘Julie, hello,’ Dermot says, his hand flying to his heart. ‘Cup of tea?’

I fix my eyes hard on Clare’s. ‘It was you,’ I snarl.

‘Sorry?’ Dermot says.

I keep my eyes on Clare’s, and she stares back at me blankly. ‘They wanted to come home.’

Clare turns to Dermot, eyebrows arched. ‘What is she on about?’

Oh, like you don’t know what I’m talking about!

‘Mum and Dad!’ I growl. ‘They wanted to come back, but they couldn’t. Because of you!’

An ugly red blotch creeps up Clare’s neck and into her cheeks. She takes the three steps toward me, fuming.

‘How dare you come into my house and accuse me of fouling Maeve’s life! SHE was the one who left!’

‘I don’t blame her!’

‘You know where the door is! Don’t let it hit you on the way out,’ Clare sneers.

‘Now, ladies!’ Dermot wriggles between us, hands raised like a rooky cop. ‘This is no way to be talking.’ He pulls out a chair for each of us. ‘Let’s have a nice sit down and get this aired once and for all.’

Clare glances at the chair, then back at me.

You want a stand-off, I can do this all night.

‘C’mon now,’ Dermot says, placing a hand on his wife’s shoulder.

The doorbell rings.

‘Ah jayzus,’ Dermot huffs and slips out to answer it. Clare watches him go, body racked with a tremorous fury. She lets out an almost silent breath. It’s hard to tell, by the stony look on her face, if it’s a sigh of relief or exasperation.

‘Michael! How ya keeping?’ Dermot’s voice rings cheerily.

Michael!

‘Come in, come in.’

‘Thanks. I’ll only stay a minute.’

‘Did you see the news? Dreadful!’

Dermot ushers Michael into the kitchen. He looks back and forth between Clare and me, registering, I’m sure, the prickly static on the air.

‘Mrs. O’Mahony,’ he says. ‘Lovely to see you.’ Then he turns to me. ‘You ready?’

‘Yes,’ I say a tad too sharply, my eyes trained on Clare.

This isn’t over, Auntie.

I set my laptop on the sideboard and follow Michael outside into a clear, balmy night, making sure to give the door a good slam behind me.

‘Sorry, I’d forgotten you were coming. But thank you.’

He jerks his head toward the cottage. ‘She giving you a hard time?’