As you might remember, I’ve been posting something that would never be published. It’s too… melancholic. However, I’ve been mining it for some of the short stories that I’ve written and then submitted. In submitting these stories, you cannot have them published anywhere else. Granted, the stories are highly polished, edited, with additional details. However, this part will never be a short story.
The idea of the book is that of a man searching for love, battling against and then for the redemption of the self. Throughout this internal war, he would come to discover that his heart had been in communion with someone else. Someone unnamed, someone unseen. He could feel her. The close of the book is from the woman’s point of view.
Fair warning to ye, it is unedited. My writing style has gotten better from the time I believed the bigger the paragraph, the better the story. I changed some of the names because, well, if you know, you know. This came about because a friend who established a writing school demanded a satisfying conclusion or a happy ending. I’m still not sure life gives us that. But stories can.
And maybe, just maybe, we can make our own story.
He was right. Standing here at Farren’s is like an island, except that old homes and cottages surround it, guarding it from the ravages of time or maybe enshrouding it as if it were a religious relic. I could smell the sea air, and I think I could even smell the sand on the beach. The rain didn’t dampen the peat in the air, a smell I had come to love for its smokey bacon scent, with centuries upon centuries of life stored in its neat little turfed blocks hand-hewn by Irish farmers.
Even over the dull drum of the rain beating on my head, I could hear the tide and surf pounding against the rocks that he must have stood at so many nights, hoping someone would come to him. The lights at the pier, even on a night like this with the mist hanging in the air, could be seen; I imagine the sailors who still use the docks are more than thankful for that.
The night is so clear and pure here, unlike Dublin, unlike it was back home. Something here reminds me of all the good things of Inisheer, and yet there is more, as if all Ireland could be best summed up standing at this spot. There is something else here. Maybe it’s just me reading his book too often these last few weeks, a copy I hold in my hands, but I could feel his words come alive as I stood before that door. Am I here to get it signed? Am I here because I actually feel like he is talking to me? All of this is crazy to me, and yet, here I am, at the pub at the end of the world, walking in the Irish rain.
I had better go in, I think to myself. But I don’t want to, I know that. These past seven days (or is it eight now?) I had refused to come to this spot. I didn’t want to read his book, but Mom was insistent. I’m glad I did, but that did not make me want to come and see this man. He didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him, no more than what he had written about himself in this book that had taken on a life of its own. The French blogger who found the bottle and blogged it didn’t know what it would do, and when it was finally published, I don’t think anyone could have foreseen how many people would read it and come here. And I have to believe that Landon didn’t know that the people he had met – and I have met them; Michael in Dunloe Gap, Two-Pony Tony, all of them – would take such joy in reading it and finding themselves in the pages as people who had saved this man. But still, I haven’t met the most important people, the people in this little village, in the story yet and for some reason, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
When Derrick had called and told me he was at the airport, ready to spend this last week with me, I didn’t know what to think. My first thought on the drive from Sligo back to Dublin was something that just made my heart skip a beat, like, “Finally, he sees me.” For the last seven months, he had all but ignored me as we separated our lives after ten years of being together.
After all, he had called off the wedding, but I was in no rush to lose contact with him. I just couldn’t. I needed to hold on to him in any way I could. He was the love of my life. But I was too “boring” for him, he had said just two days before we were supposed to be married. He had taken me to our favorite restaurant, where we had our first date. I could tell he was struggling to say something, but silly me, I thought he was just nervous. No. Instead, he let it all out; how I had weighed him down for the past few years. He wanted to do things, go out more, and see the world. He wanted to live, he said, just not with me because he didn’t believe I could be there with him like he wanted.
I had been there with him for ten years. Ten years while he built his business, we built our lives. No, I don’t like to go out and party, but that’s just me. I enjoy time together, quiet time.
He always wanted people over, and it was somehow my fault when they didn’t come over. “You just sit there,” he said, “and I want us to be a team. It just… well, it just feels like I’m carrying all the weight in the relationship, and that’s all it will ever be.” It hurt to be told that you were deadweight, dragging down the love of your life. A few years before, when we decided to get married, he had told me he was in love with exactly who I was and to “never change.” “You can’t change perfect,” he told me that night when he proposed.
And now? Now, I was just another thing to throw away for him. Because I wasn’t adventurous. I wasn’t “lively.” I didn’t “have a lot of friends.” It’s damned hard to make real friends at this age when you’ve been hurt before and when all the other adults are busy doing adult things like building families. He was the center of my world, and I lived to make him happy while hoping he would do the same for me. He made it clear that that wasn’t enough. He couldn’t see me changing, so he was leaving two days before the wedding.
“But I want us to be friends,” he had said as he kissed me goodbye on the forehead outside the restaurant. “Because I know you don’t have a lot, and I want to be that for you.”
We already paid for the Ireland honeymoon. We had planned to get married and then wait for his off-season and my vacation days to align. Plus, mid-autumn in Ireland wasn’t a tourist season. That meant we could save money and have more space for ourselves. It made sense to get married in March with a pretty spring wedding and then come to Ireland in October. He had always wanted to go, but I would have been happy anywhere with him as long as it was with him. That’s what he never got. I didn’t need trips or fancy things, no grand gestures; I just wanted to be with him. When Derrick left, something inside of me broke. A month later, when the book came out, Mom started to insist I read it – and insist I still go to Ireland. I held her off until I got on the plane for what would have been our honeymoon.
He had called two days ago to say he was coming to Ireland. He realized he loved me, and I had shown that I could do things on my own. “I just can’t believe it when your mom told me that you were there all by yourself.” Mom did that for a reason, but probably not for the reason he thought. “I’m just… so proud of you… I love you, and I want to be with you. This is the life I want to lead together, honey.” I had earned his love, finally. Not because of the home I had built for us, or my fidelity (even when he had strayed), or my helping him every step of the way. No, he was proud because I had left the country and proved I could somehow be adventurous. He was “proud” of me as if somehow that had earned me that one final gold star and meant I could graduate to be his wife.
I catch my reflection in the door’s glass. I never really considered myself beautiful. I’m attractive, I guess, but not beautiful. I’m a plain Jane from the south, with a tinge of an accent muted by years of living away from home but nothing else remarkable. My hair can’t even decide if it is brown, blonde, or blonde with a hint of strawberry. My eyes are dark, not emerald green. Beautiful is when a man loses his breath when he glimpses you, even in an overcrowded bar late at night when the room is teeming with excitement. Beautiful is if you are wearing a beige jumpsuit – which has to be the most boring color – and all he can do is mumble, having lost his train of thought when he glimpses you. Beautiful is when he ignores you because he is too afraid to say anything that might ruin the moment. My friends were the ones that always got the good-looking guys, even if the relationships didn’t last, that was until I met Derrick. He was the most handsome man. But enough about him. I have to stop thinking about him. Let him stay at the airport, thinking I will come at his call.
I get so lost in my thoughts sometimes. No less tonight, but tonight is different. This time, getting lost means I am in my beige-turned-brown-because-it-is-soaked-jumpsuit – because that is the last thing I have clean since the last Airbnb didn’t have a washer and dryer. I wasn’t prepared for this. The bus ride from Dublin – the “The Writer’s Tour to Malin Head” of all things (talk about either ego or money-making) – left me even more unprepared. It was a tour group that came to Malin Head about once a week or every other week, depending on the season, with each visit lasting three nights, filled with sightseers and those who believed they would find the love of their life. Sometimes, the driver told me, “People just want to go and talk to him because they don’t know who else to talk to.”
“Have you ever talked to him?” I asked.
“Once or twice. He’s a good lad, but I think he’s getting a bit quieter. All these women and none stay. He is looking for someone, just like he said, but he really doesn’t want one, I think.” He continued, “Oh he will sit there and have the craic, but that’s about it. I bought him a pint once, and we just went on for about an hour. He had people – I mean women, you understand – wanting to see him, but he just sat there talking with me like we hadn’t seen each other in years.”
Today’s bus ride was full of old and young women who had read the book and wanted to meet him and only a few older men who sat quietly, saying nothing to each other or the people on the bus. Some just wanted to meet their favorite author, and since he had told the world where he was, they knew exactly where to find him. Others, well, they had made their intention clear. A few laughed at me when I told them I didn’t know why I was going except that my mom was making me. “Your mum can’t make you!” the beautiful blond had shouted over the laughing friends, her English accent coming through plainly enough. She was drop-dead gorgeous, and I was sure she would be the one to take him away from me. Not me, I mean, not me – I mean, to take him away and love him. Not from me. I still do not know why I took the bus ride, but here I am. I must be recounting all of this to catch a cold standing here in the rain or because I am still unsure why I want to go in.
There is a sign at the door saying, “Home of The Writer. No pictures, please.” He had remained something hidden from view, and from everything I had devoured over the last few days, he didn’t want to be seen. How could he expect to find his mystery woman if she didn’t know who she was looking for? I didn’t need to take a picture. I just wanted the book autographed. “Get it signed for me; that’s all I’m asking,” Mom had demanded. She was pushing me from day one to get on that plane, to read the book, to see the things he had written about. I didn’t want to. My heart was broken, and I didn’t want to do anything except stay in bed. Yet here I was. Standing in the rain, getting soaked because I was being stubborn.
I walk in, only to see it as he had described. There was the bar with the whiskey shelf behind it. A large open room led to the smaller bar – a wee bar, he had called it – and a little room to the right of the door with the fireplace going. This must have been the source of the peat that I had smelled just outside. The crowd was more than I thought. This was supposed to be the off-season, but instead of the 5 or 6 regulars, there was the tour bus crowd that I had just spent 5 hours with. I noticed the blond pointing at me and giggling to her friends.
“That’s right,” I thought, “Plain Jane is here to get an autograph for my mom. You can have the man. I just want the ink.” I scanned the crowd for anyone who could fit his self-description or those I had seen posted online. The wee bar was quiet, with everyone talking to the bartender or sitting alone. The main room was the tour bus crowd, which looked like they were waiting for someone to enter. The little room off from the main bar, the kitchen I would call it, had the few men from the bus all sitting, sipping a pint or whiskey, talking to each other and a few of the locals.
Wait. That’s not a local. These men, who had spent 5 hours in total silence, weren’t talking to themselves. They were talking to someone. That’s not a local. His red beard, with splashes of gray, and his short-cropped haircut might have suggested he was either a local from here or maybe from the other island, but he was wearing brown cowboy boots, faded Levi’s, and a black long-sleeve pearl snap. Cowboys are from Colorado or Texas, not from here. That’s him. I knew it the moment I saw him. The woman from the bus, who had made her intentions known, must have missed him.
I didn’t know what to do, and I was still dripping from the rain, so I went to the bar. The name tag said, “Liam.” Liam… I remember him—the Elvis impersonator. I smiled. “Is he here?” I asked.
Liam smiled back and said, “Can’t say for sure.”
“Is that him over there,” I suggested, cocking my head back a little.
“Really can’t say for sure. I’m sure he’s around or will be. What are you having?”
I ordered an Irish coffee. I was cold and needed to be warmed up. Plus, it might settle my nerves a little. He hadn’t seen me. I doubt he could see anyone at the bar, given that he was seated by the fireplace and almost intentionally out of view. I sat there for a few minutes, enjoying my whiskey and coffee, watching as tourist after tourist came to Paul to ask when Landon would be there. “Can’t say for sure,” he always said. For some reason, whenever he would say that, he would look at me and smile. I got the sense Paul wasn’t just a bartender.
Maybe the book was right.
I decided to go to the wee bar to get a better view. Instead of walking across the room, I ducked back out the front door, and walked through the now pelting rain and wind around to the other side, to the other door that led to the small bar that had been the original place this village had met to talk about life. The closeness of the bar meant it smelled more of the beverages being handed out, a mixture of beer and whiskey. But here, it was homey – comfortable, almost like… no. That’s stupid. I’ve not been here before. I should really go to my Airbnb, I thought. Oddly enough, I had gotten Bryan’s Cottage, which was only a few steps away. A few steps out of this bar, out of the possibility of meeting him, of … just everything.
Maybe I should call Derrick and at least tell him where I am. Maybe he should come here. Or maybe I shouldn’t think about Derrick at all.
I sit with my back to the western wall, in full view through the door separating the rooms to the fireplace. I think he noticed me. He did. He just looked back at me, and I swear I think he smiled. That’s it. I’m going home to sleep. I can’t do this. This is stupid. I’m smart. And this is stupid. Let the English woman have him. I just need the autograph so my mom will leave me alone.
The next day, I stayed in to do laundry. In between, I would talk to the pier. There, standing on the edge of the world, I thought about Derrick and the life I had wanted with him. I wanted one child, just one. I had always loved kids, but Derrick was opposed. He was too busy, he said, to have a child. I get that. So, I never pressed and always made sure to take birth control. We were always careful. I did get pregnant once but miscarried. I couldn’t help but notice that he was relieved, mainly because he was pretty adamant that he was relieved even while I sat crying, but I shouldn’t have expected anything else because he had always told me he didn’t want children. But here, children – wains, I think he said they were called – were everywhere, and I wanted one. Well, not one of them, although there is something about little Irish children with their accents that made me think about stealing one for myself. Almost too late now to have children, I thought. Maybe I could adopt. Well, once I figure out what my life looks like alone.
I avoided lunch at Farren’s, mainly because I knew he would be there. I wanted to meet Jennie and hear her daughter’s foreign adventure was going. I don’t know why, but meeting everyone he had mentioned was part of the entire experience. I felt like I knew some of these people and wanted life updates. From my window that looked at the front door of the pub, I could see some of the silent men now laughing, going in and out. He had gone in a short time before. The women seemed to want to wait until the night. Did they not even read the book?
Lunchtime would have been perfect. It would have been too, just to slip in, get the autograph and go back to bed. I thought about it. I wanted to. But couldn’t bring myself to do it. Besides, I thought – or gave myself the excuse – he should have some time to himself and the silent men who needed to talk to him.
That night, I finally had clean clothes, well, more than the beige jumpsuit. This time, I was wearing my jeans and turtleneck. Unlike last night, I went directly to the wee bar, facing the wind seemingly coming from every direction. What is up with the wind up here? The tour crowd had returned. The silent men weren’t silent anymore; some had started mingling with the crowd, talking with the women or the clear locals.
Jim, his name tag said, was there talking with a few. They were laughing now. What is it about this place that had suddenly changed them? Someone brought in a guitar – two people, a man and a woman. Was this Aisling and Sean? No matter, what I heard was just as beautiful as he had described. He still sat in the kitchen, near the fireplace. This time, only two of the five silent men joined him, along with several of the older women. For the life of me, it looked like he was holding court. There would be moments of laughter, punctuated by sudden silence, as each looked at their drink like the wind – maybe that was where all the wind outside was coming from, from all the hurt people brought to this village – had suddenly been knocked out of them. I sat with my back to the wall, watching.
I watched as the younger women on the tour went to Jim and asked where he was. “Not sure. He might be in later. Maybe. Never can tell.”
How hard was it to see who he was? I asked Jim the same question because while I knew, I wanted to make sure I knew. Does that make sense?
He smiled at me, “I bet he’s around here somewhere.” It almost looked like he nodded to me, but Jim was just being friendly. I ordered a Guinness, the same that I could see him drinking. I had one in Tralee and one at Friel’s, but I wanted one here. I sat there watching him; I got the sense that he was watching me, but that was impossible. I tried to move out of his view so that he would not see me, but I could see him.
For some reason, in my head, I whispered his name.
I don’t know why I did that. I just did.
“Rose.” I swear I heard my name back. It wasn’t my voice. But I heard my name said back to me. It startled me and I left the half-finished Guinness on the table.
I dreamed of him that night. I hadn’t had a dream like that, well, since before Derrick, and never about him. We made love in the same bed he had slept in when he came back to Malin Head, the same bed I slept in now. He knocked on my door, and we just looked at each other, him seeing me, and me seeing him. We kissed there in that blue-framed doorway. I led him to the bed, where we took our time undressing each other, exploring what we have always known about each other. He was gentle; I was gentle. We wanted to consume each other like a fire that threatened a dry forest. As the wind picked up, the sparks carried. I could smell his cologne – a sandalwood, I think. He took his time to take everything in of me as if I was not an end to be had but a slow journey to be walked. I could feel his hands on me as I slept. I could feel his body beneath me as we moved in rhythm. I tried desperately to stay asleep to finish the dream, but my racing heart would not let me. I don’t remember the rest of the night’s dreams, only that I suddenly missed him.
The next day, I couldn’t shake the dream. I had one night left in Malin Head, only a few left in Ireland, and I considered not going back to the pub. Maybe Mom could get her own autograph, I thought. I had to clear my head, so I walked up around the bend to Banba’s crown. I didn’t have a car, but I needed to get out anyway. When Derrick left, I had turned to spinning or running or whatever I could to make myself hurt to avoid the pain. I had come actually to enjoy long meandering walks, and here I could so with the coast on my right as I walked up the long, winding road to the top of the head. After the weather station, I saw a house on my left that had an Irish flag whipping in the wind. For some reason, I just had to stand and look, remembering what he had said about that flag. There was such a peaceful presence at this house, like somehow the occupants had beaten their troubles to find some peace accord. There were so many rabbits in the driveway. I could see the lighthouse on Inishtrahull off to the north. I walked past the house, to Banba’s Crown, to where he was supposedly calling to his lost love. I made sure to go early in the afternoon just in case he was there. No need to run into him.
Of course, it was a stop on the tour. How could I not foresee that? When I bought my ticket, I was given a packet, but I didn’t read it. I guess the tour guides would take the sightseers around to various points on Inishowen he had mentioned in the book, no doubt, with hopes of someone finding him. There were the promised sunset tours of the crown, but I did not – I would not – go. Today, given that it was the last day of the tour, they had come early to spend some time walking to Hell’s Hole and around the head. When I saw them, I turned around. I didn’t need any more gawkers taking aim at me.
That night, it wasn’t raining, which everyone seemed to be thankful for. The crowd was still there, but instead of two silent men remaining, all of them, including several of the older autograph seekers, were again holding court with smiles on their faces. By this time, the younger women had taken note and figured it out, and what was oblivious before had become very clear now. They had missed so much. He had been there all along and only a few had recognized him. They all gathered around him. It looked… well, it made me a little sick. No. That’s not the word. Jealous. It made me jealous. Why in the world would that make me jealous? That is what they had come for, after all. That is what he had asked for, wasn’t it? I was there because my mom had made me.
I hadn’t noticed the music playing on the speakers before, but tonight, U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” was playing. I took that as a sign. This was not what I was looking for. This was an author, not a love interest. Besides, they had come to answer the letter at the end of the book, not me. I didn’t even want to talk to him about life and loss. I just was there to get him to sign a page in the book to make my mom happy. So, no, I still didn’t find what I was looking for. I took that as a sign from the universe and went home.
I got up to leave, heading to the bar where Jim stood. I needed to pay for my two pints. “You know, he’s probably here tonight,” he said.
I smiled, took out my money, saying, “But he looks busy.” I turned to get one final look at him and saw him staring at me until he darted his eyes away. I thought I could see a sadness there, but I’m so confused about all this now. How could he be sad when those people surrounded him?
The bus was due to leave at 8 am, which meant closer to 8:30. No matter. I was up at six and ready to go when it finally arrived. I wanted out. I had three days left in Ireland and planned to spend them in Dublin, a city he didn’t care for. That would help, I thought. He doesn’t know everything about Ireland, and besides, why do I care what he likes and doesn’t like? My time in these last few days on this island – not of his, not of his – showed me more about myself than I had cared to realize before, or maybe just kept hidden.
I did talk to Patrick on Inisheer. I got to hear him play his music – Landon never did. He told me all about his near 30 years on the island, and how he had experienced healing. “Not the same thing as redemption,” he told me. He had read the book too. “That’s what the lad gets wrong. He wants to be redeemed, but from what? Making a few mistakes? No, what he wants is to be loved. He just can’t love himself because he believes redemption has to come first. Love is always redemption; redemption is not always love.” He paused, taking a drag off the rolled cigarette he held in his hand. “Joyce said that mistakes are portals of discovery. That poor lad took all of his mistakes and turned them into guilt.” When he told me that, I sat there.
Was that me, I thought? I sat there as Patrick went back to playing his guitar and signing for the crowds, including Two-Pony Tony, who had on the carriage ride we took, told me, “I remember that lad. He had a good laugh, good soul. Shame he didn’t stay, but I think he was trying to hide from something anyway and looking for something else, and you can’t find what you refuse to see Now, I guess we all know. He should have stayed and fought through that. I guess he has a second chance now, and good for him. If you see him, tell him to come back.”
Those conversations kept rolling through my head as I boarded the bus. We passed Mullins Shop, and I thought about the smile he said he saw there when he came back alive. I thought about all the people he had written about and the healing he seemed to have received there. Was it all fiction, or maybe something else? Was it just a good story, or was it true? So many people believed it and had come to Malin Head to see him, or that healing magic he said lingered in the air. Yet, I felt more confused than when I had first arrived. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill overlooking the bay that had pushed its way into the heart of Inishowen, right about Malin town, I decided to get out.
“No,” I said out loud, standing on the square to no one in particular, although a few passersby looked at me wearily, “I’m not done.” Here I was, essentially stranded without a way to get back to Dublin, and only three days to do so, or a place to stay that night. I figured I might as well call Willie, the bartender and the somewhat manager of Bryan’s Cottage. “Sure, it’s open this week. I’ll be down in a wee minute to fetch ya,” he said with too much enthusiasm. Made sense, though. The cottage often sat abandoned this time of year except for the once-a-week tourists.
“What’s he like?” I asked Willie on the way back.
He smiled, “Oh, he’s good craic.” Not much, as expected. I don’t know why they all kept it a secret. I was starting to complain in my head when he offered, “When he first came back, we were all pretty happy. Did you see that review he left? Good craic, good man.”
“Does he…” I didn’t know how to say this, “ever go home with anyone?” I knew that was over the line, but I had a captive audience.
“Nah, not once. He hasn’t said much, but we’ve all read the book. You know he had a book opening party when it first came out. But we still don’t talk much about it. We all guess it is his story.” He let it sit there as if I was more interested in the book opening event than in whether or not he ever decided to go home with anyone. “But he’s out fishing today. He is always there for the craic or scandal when the buses come, and he goes back on the boat when they leave.” I didn’t care about his schedule. I wasn’t there for him. I was coming back because I wasn’t done. I think I am healing. I think maybe Ireland, just like it had done for him even if he had missed all of those signs in May, was healing me from things I didn’t know I needed to be healed; I was coming back for myself, not for him. “But, he’ll be there tonight, don’t you worry.”
“I am not worried,” I said to myself. Instead, I said to Willie, “I have to be back in Dublin in three days. How do I get there without a car?” I wasn’t staying any longer, but three nights hadn’t been enough. This was my way of telling Stephen that I was not there for that man.
“Oh, there is a bus that’ll take you to Derry and from there, you can get a bus to Dublin.”
That night, he was indeed back. This time, he sat at the bar with the six locals, the crowds having dried up for the week. He wore a t-shirt, some Harley Davidson one, and was smiling more than I had seen him smile the previous three nights. He was on the Jameson this time. I could recognize the locals by his descriptions. Greg sat next to him. Saoirse was behind the bar. All were talking about the crowd that had just left and how nice and peaceful the bar was now. They also asked him about his day on the boat. Greg was talking about his next trip to England. All missed the card game. I got the sense that maybe they didn’t always like being disturbed mid-week but were tolerating it for a variety of reasons. Was it because of him?
Surely not. I watched as the tourist crowd had mingled with the locals, all sharing stories of their lives, their travels, and their loves. I sit in the wee bar, but this time, I am at the bar itself to get a bare glimpse. I don’t know why I did this, except maybe it was my curiosity. He had seemed dour, sullen, and put upon for the three previous nights. Tonight, however, he appeared a hundred pounds lighter, and the beard was redder for some reason.
Saoirse walked over to see if I needed a drink. “It’s quieter tonight, isn’t it?” I asked.
She nodded, “Always is once they leave, but they’ll be back.” She paused, handing me over the Guinness that had been poured a few moments before. “Now is the best time to meet him, if you want.”
“No,” I protested, “I’m just here for a few nights for…” I stammered, not sure what to say, “A holiday, I think y’all say. Besides, I don’t want to disturb anyone. Looks like everyone is just happy to have their bar and their friend back.”
Saoirse smiled and left it at that.
I had to go to the toilet and there was no way I was walking through that bar to it. Instead, I walked outside and around. The toilet is closed off, hidden between the outside door and the door proper into the bar. That way, he couldn’t see me. When I returned, I walked in and noticed he had changed seats. If you stand at the bar, facing north, you’ll see the whiskey shelf on the far wall. To the left, the bar wraps around to the wall, giving some space for glasses between the shelf and the bar. This is where he had moved to. And I was now sitting not just out of sight but in plain view. He could see me, and I could see him without trying. I swear he looked at me, which was enough for me to finish my pint – no more unfinished pints – and leave. I decided that would be the last time I was at Farren’s. This was silly. Stupid.
The next day, I arranged for the bus and a hotel back in Dublin for the following morning. I spent the rest of the day doing laundry, packing, re-packing, and occasionally checking my phone to see if Derrick had called and for no other reason. I left him at the airport with him, expecting me to come and get him. He had tried calling a few times, but eventually, I blocked his number. I was on the way to get him, leaving Sligo early that morning to do so when I could not. When I saw the sign for the tour, that was my escape. That was what I wanted to do. Not go to Derrick, but instead go to the end of the world. I wondered if I should call him to see if he had figured out either a place to stay or if he had gone back home. But why should I? He has other friends and certainly doesn’t need a boring one like me.
That night, the sun was already down by 8. I thought about going to Farren’s but could not bring myself to go. Instead, sadly, I watched through the window every time a set of headlights pulled up to see if it was him. Maybe, I thought, I would go if he wasn’t there. When he hadn’t shown up by 9, I decided it was too late. I had to be up at 6 to take the bus at 7.
Besides, I needed a night by myself. Rather than watch TV or re-read that stupid book again, I decided to walk down one more time to the pier. Even then, I changed my mind. Why not just go to the beach? I hadn’t walked on the shoreline yet; this would be my last time here. I never intended to return. Next vacation, I would go somewhere else, like just the town over from where I lived in the States. I wore the heavy white wool dress I had picked up in Killarney. Its turtleneck seemed to stretch to my ankles, so it should keep me warm enough. No need for makeup or earrings. I just wanted to see the moon tonight.
To get there, I had to walk past Farren’s, down to the caravan park, and finally to the beach. The beach has to be made by us humans, because it does not seem to fit the rugged coastline of the area. To the east are rocks reaching out from under the surf and to the northwest, the long concrete pier with just a few boats tied to it. There is gravel, which hurts my feet even with the sandals I have on. These rocks sit silently in the moonlight, lonesome until next summer. They are all shapes, all smoothed out by years of erosion. The sand is coarser than the beaches I’ve been to back home. The water, although still under the gaze of the moon, had enough movement to give me the peaceful slap of the waves I needed.
I don’t know why it happened; I don’t know what caused it. But a dam within me suddenly burst. It wasn’t a crack; it was a damned natural disaster. Maybe it was because of Derrick, or perhaps because I was tired. Maybe it was because I thought I was adventurous, yet I couldn’t even get an autograph from someone who seemed easy to approach. Maybe it was all of it. Maybe it was my entire time on this island and all the people I spoke with. I talked to a few that he had met. But I had talked to so many more. And each one, somehow, gave me something I needed even though I didn’t think I needed it. I heard music for the first time in ages, real music that touched my soul. I have laughed. I cried. Yes, Mom had made me come, but she couldn’t live my life, and she certainly wasn’t there telling me what to do every moment. Sure, I read his book and saw some of the places he had written about, but I had my own journey to see different places and to walk different paths. I did this for – no, I did this by myself. I had guides, but I was my own master.
I sat under the moon, full now, the pier’s lights to my left. The stars were out, and I could see Polaris. I could see some of the constellations I had known as a child, and I assumed that many of them were known only here. I can’t help but shut my eyes and see – see the life that I no longer wanted with Derrick, that never really was; see the life I did want, with someone who knew me, knew what I wanted to hear, to feel, to see and yet didn’t do it for me. I wanted to be loved, not used; loved, not led. And I wanted to love, to love for the person he was before me, not for some vision of potential or to love because he loved me. What he had written about unconditional love was what I wanted. Not to be told I was boring or called a friend. I wanted someone who wanted me for me. I just wanted…
I screamed. Nothing in particular, but something inside of me rose up and I just screamed into the night as if someone could hear me.
I sat and cried until the tears ran out. All of my experiences on this island seemed to have prepared me for this – to have pushed me to this moment. There was no doubt in my mind that I could not have done this in Dublin, not tonight. Tonight, my soul was here in Malin Head, and I let it all out. My fear of disappointment, of failure. My feelings of not being accepted, or somehow ruining my life… of not living my life. I knew in that moment what I wanted, what I wanted to hear, and it wasn’t I love you. It was something more. Three words, but more powerful than “I love you.” I somehow knew it was possible, but it would never come from Derrick, who only saw himself. I didn’t know from who I would hear it, but I knew that I would hear them, and I knew that I would find peace in the person who said it. Laying on the beach, Ireland became real to me. She became real and somehow Eire stood with me, holding my hand.
I decided that I would not pass this chance up since I had not yet swum in the ocean, and this was most likely my last time here – and for sure, my last night in Malin Head. Even in my wool dress, I was going to wade into the water as cold as it was. I kicked off my sandals like I had shed weight I did not know I was carrying. I felt lighter and freer. It suddenly made sense why, after the crowds had gone last night, and only the locals remained, Landon seemed so weightless. Everything seemed to make sense. Except for why the water was not as cold as it should have been in October at the end of the world.
I stood there for what seemed like hours, inching my way in, trying to feel my way through the sand hidden under the dark green of the ocean. I wanted to get further and further out, to be truly weightless under the full moon, floating in the water. Water is like love; it cannot be held tightly to but is the most powerful force for change. It can bring life, and it can bring death. It hews away at our edges, softening us, rounding us out. We can drown in it or float on above it. If you hit it too hard, it will break you. But if you slide in, it becomes a welcoming embrace. I only got to my waist before I could feel the weight of the dress, now soaked with water, become too heavy to go any further. I decided to go back to the shore, the cottage alone to get warm, and then to Dublin. As I moved closer, the water receding behind me, it got colder and colder, as if the Merrow were singing, “Don’t go. Stay.” But I couldn’t, and for some reason, I said out loud, “I can’t stay; I don’t have any reason to stay. Give me a reason, Eire.”
I saw a man. I could see that he was walking towards me out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew who it was. I could feel him coming to me, the one I had only watched from afar. I could feel him like a heat blast moving across the desert, even when he was far away. He warmed me, not from the outside; he warmed something buried deep. As he came into view, with the light of the moon finally showing his face, I could see those blue-green eyes of his, the ones I had seen from across the bar. He was intent, walking closer and closer. I half expected to hear spurs, but the only sounds were the slow whipping of the wind, which was answered by the increasing thunder of the incoming tide and the crunch of the sand under his boots as he neared.
He stood still, silent. He was breathless, not out of breath, but breathless.
I didn’t know what to say. I heard my heart beating. I wasn’t scared; I was frightened. I wasn’t frightened of him; I was afraid that the only sound I could now hear was the beating of my heart. Of a heart. Was it mine, or was it his? What do I say? Why was he here?
He slowly, steadily, and with intent – that’s the only word I can think of – opened his mouth to speak. He closed it. He closed his eyes. What in the world was going on, I thought. He looked at me again, piercing my innermost soul.
“I see you,” he said.
I… That… those were the words I wanted to hear. I wanted to be seen. To be seen for who I was, maybe even more clearly than who I could see myself as… to be seen. I breathed it all in. I breathed in the moment as if somehow the crisp sea air was itself the memories I sought to treasure. I breathed it all in. The experiences of the last 11 days in Ireland, from Wexford to Cork, Inisheer, and even Malin Head. In came all the people I have spoken to, the places I had visited, and the stars I had seen overhead. Out came my pain. I exhaled slowly the last seven months with only heartache as my constant companion, the last ten years of being a byword of Derrick, of everything.
“Tell me about your day.” I knew those were the words he had wanted to hear. He smiled, holding back something. I knew it the first time I read his book. Why no one had said it, I don’t know. But I said it. We stood there. Quietly. The Irish rain, as if to cleanse our soul, began to fall once more as we stepped closer ashore.
“Unexpected,” he seemed to whisper, “I followed a banshee…,” he mumbled, “I thought… death.”
“I have never been in love,” I said. I haven’t. Not real love – not love where I can hear the person say my name without ever having told him and know it is him, without ever having heard his voice. What I have had before was love, but not this, not what I experienced at that moment. In this moment of truth, I had been made a liar.
“I was in love once, in another lifetime,” he said. His tears reflected the moon’s pale gaze, his eyes watering so that they overflowed.
“Can you ever be again?” I asked, somehow with confidence in the answer one can only have if they already know the answer.
He paused and inhaled again, more deeply this time. “I am and have been with you.”
I don’t know how we had come to stand so close to one another. I thought we were further apart, but somehow, we were not even an arm’s length apart at this moment. He reached for me, and I let him. Something about the way he cocked his head seemed to ask if it was okay, and I hope the smile I returned said yes. Because I wanted him to hold me. I wanted him. I wanted us. I wanted to hold him. None of this made sense, but for the first time in my life, nothing had to. We were one soul standing in two separate bodies on the beach after sunset at the end of the world. I think our shared soul had always been at that spot, but it had taken us lifetimes for our bodies to arrive.
We started walking back to Bryan’s Cottage but veered back into Farren’s. He didn’t say anything, nor did I. He already knew my name, and I certainly knew his. We sat at the bar, with the other patrons attempting to do their best not to stare. He ordered his Guinness and another Irish coffee for me. The fireplace was already lit, so we huddled in that little room for extra warmth. I must have looked strange with a half-soaked white dress. But no one said anything. Instead, the conversation carried on as if we had always been there. After our second round, when I was warm enough to move, we moved to the bar, where all our friends waited. Hugh, the bar owner, was working that night.
“Hugh,” he said said, and I could detect a tremble in his voice, but not from the cold, “This is the woman I was telling you about. This is Rose.”
Hugh smiled – he was right, a little like Colin Ferrell – and stuck out his hand, telling me it was nice to meet me finally. Then, as he usually does with his many guests, he wrote my name on the top of a Guinness. “What do you call a sheep who can sing and dance?” he asked as he handed me the pint. He paused, “Lady Ba Ba.”
“You’ve been here before, right?” Hugh asked. I nodded. “Then you’re family already.” We stayed for a few more rounds while the friends I had not met came to introduce themselves. Over the years, I would come to know each of them, and they know me. We would make new friends, those who had come to see what life was like at the world’s end. At some point, the love seekers stopped coming for him, but even much later in life, you would have people walk through the door to talk to someone who seemed to want to listen, to have faced life and death, only to find hope again. You would know who they are, those that had come to Farren’s seeking that which they knew not, by their faces hiding pain, sorrow, grief, or guilt. We would talk to them for hours, telling them our stories of healing. Somehow, the power of a story can heal a heart. I still do not know how, but it does. It really does.
I held him that night, and he held me. He lit a fire, the same fire he had lit while he stayed there. We didn’t talk much. We couldn’t. That is what the unexplained does to people, I think. It removes from us any attempt to codify what we have just experienced because it cannot be put into words as if some unknown law had legislated against putting into words what we had just lived. Instead, we looked at each other, we looked at the fire, and we looked back at each other. We would hold hands. We communicated everything that needed to be said, but through our eyes, through our hands, and through the ether that had long connected us. Sometimes, we would stretch our legs across to intertwine our feet. We had to make sure this was real.
Was it? Could it be?
Yes. It was. It is all true—all of it.
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