“I’m glad you’re home, Mum. I have so much to tell you,” Rose says. She stands back and sleeves her tears.

Her mother has a look that Rose can’t quite interpret. It’s happy and sad at the same time.

Iris waits a moment, then she says, “Me, too, honey. Me, too.”

Seventeen

Rowan drove westward from Dublin under an iron-gray sky. It was a Friday in the middle of June. The countryside was oddly lit, as if all the forty shades of green Johnny Cash sang about were rolled into one long expanse of vegetation. Asparagus green, Hooker’s green, lime green, Dartmouth green. He tried to pick the colors, like crayons from a box, and remembered Burdy withdrawing his hand from his overcoat pocket one Christmas and presenting a pack of Crayolas. “And it’s okay to draw outside the lines,” Burdy whispered.

County Laois brought a sudden release of rain. The weighty sky darkened swiftly and the wipers slashed back and forth in a blind flash. And then, just as suddenly, in the afterrain, sparkling sunlight glimmered on the road. That’s how it must be in this country, Rowan thought, light and dark in dramatic play between sunshine and shadow. He drove on, past the city of Limerick and over the Shannon into the west of Ireland. Swans clustered under the bridge. The radio didn’t hold stations and so he drove in silence and fell in and out of memory. And hope. And doubt.

Passing a craggy field he heard Burdy’s voice in his head, “When you hit a wild shot you know it right away. You swing through and connect with the ball but it flies off, and you know. You know the shot is hooked or sliced and the ball disappears into the rough. You know that you’ll never find it. You know it’s lost. But you still look. You still drag your bag up there into the long grass and you start hacking around with your club at the place you last lost sight of the ball. That’s it. That’s what you do.”

Before Rowan had left Dublin he’d met briefly again with Sonia McGowan and signed the official Register for Adoption Contact. He’d filled in the form, giving his address. He’d ticked the box: Natural Father, and farther down: Willing to Meet.

“I hope at least you know you’ve done all you can—to open the door from your side—by stating your preference for contact. Your birth daughter will have the information … if she ever comes looking for it.”

Rowan took her offered hand and shook it, warmly, and thanked her. “I just want to do the right thing.”

She seemed more at ease with herself. Lighter somehow, her dark eyes restful, he thought. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Blake, this has all come as quite a shock to you.”

“If she ever comes looking for me, please tell her she has nothing to fear. I will be glad of whatever level of contact she requests.”

“And if she never requests it? How will you feel?”

“It’s still hard to lose something, or someone, you never had.”

*   *   *

Rowan arrived in the town of Ennis, half an hour after crossing the Shannon, and booked into a hotel. The hotel’s owner, a man named Allen, bright blue eyes and an easy smile, greeted him, and after remarking on the hotel’s garden, Rowan was enthusiastically shown into a room that overlooked it, and beyond which, across the street, stood the town’s cathedral.

Tracking down Iris and Luke Bowen on the Internet had been easy, although the manner in which he’d discovered them was still troubling him. Any person with even the skimpiest of profiles could be traced these days. He’d found out that all Irish birth records (adoptions included) were open to the public, and with just a few facts (a name and a date of birth) and a little detective work, he’d been able to apply for Rose’s birth certificate, which arrived at the Merrion Hotel through the Irish postal system two days later. If it wasn’t in his own interests, he’d have objected. It was too easy. Her adoptive parents were named on Rose’s birth certificate. Iris and Luke. (Not as adoptive parents.) Rowan searched for a “Luke Bowen,” and from a link to the Irish Times archives learned that Luke Bowen, solicitor, beloved father of Rose and husband of Iris, had died after a short illness two years previously. Sad. Uncomfortable and all as it was, Rowan forced himself to take it in: beloved father. Poor Rose.

He had Googled “Iris Bowen” and within seconds her garden blog came up. The few photos showed a cottage-style garden and some quirky entries that had made him smile. (He’d posted a message telling her so.) The fact that she was a gardener somehow comforted him.

*   *   *

That night at the hotel in Ennis, he spoke with his brother on the phone.

“I’ve got to tell you, buddy,” Pierce said, “I’m afraid you’ve got no rights.”

“I know, I know. The lady in Dublin told me that.”

“So what are you doing, then?”

“I don’t know. I’m … I’m … I’m just following the line of the ball.”

“Huh?”

“Listen, Pierce, I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m not going to butt in where I don’t belong.”

“That would be a wise choice. This isn’t some Hollywood movie, Ro. This is real.”

“I know that. I just … shit. I don’t know.” There was a long pause. Rowan stood at the window of his room. Through ancient birch trees in the garden, he saw a sculpture of a pair of giant hands holding nothing but free air in the soft, gray limestone of its open palms. He thought of the statue of Robert Emmet. Although not a religious man, Rowan thought he’d stop into the church on his way out and say a prayer. There was always a first time for everything.

“I just want to see she’s all right. Nothing more.” He paused. “Trust me. I’ll do the right thing.”

“For whom?”

“Pierce … I said I’ll do the right thing.”

Rowan hadn’t presumed to have any rights as a birth father, not this many years after the fact, but that didn’t stop him from wanting—something. It was as if a hungering had slowly been growing in him for years and only now had he recognized it. He longed for some part of him to be … what? Unspoiled? To know he’d done something good in his life? Something he could be proud of? That whatever goodness was in him, passed down from Burdy, survived? Natural fathers have rights only within the marital family in Ireland, so Pierce said. As far as Irish law was concerned, if the parents aren’t married the child has no father. Beloved father—it stuck into Rowan’s heart like a thorn. But he needed to know. Something. He wouldn’t just show up and say, “I’m your birth father. I’m your natural father.” No. That wasn’t how it was going to go. He would do the right thing.

From Ennis the road led west to the Atlantic Ocean about thirty kilometers away. Allen at the hotel had explained that West Clare was rather isolated, but suggested he go to Doonbeg where a golf course, built alongside the sand dunes, had one of the finest views in the west and its hotel was a nice spot to have lunch. (Rowan had Burdy’s ashes and planned to drop them casually on one of the greens. He and Burdy would make the golf trip, after all.) He drove westward from the old market town, with its narrow streets and pubs and coffee shops, into an uneven landscape of whitethorn and fuchsia and black-and-white cattle. Twenty minutes later, just shy of Kilrush, there was a turn to the right. According to the directions, it would take him across the western part of the county to the sea.

If he’d had an address for the Bowens he still wouldn’t have knocked on their door. He had checked the phone book. There was no listing. As he drove he noticed there were no street names, no road signs.

Point was, he’d lectured himself that he had no real intention of finding where Iris Bowen and Rose actually lived. He just wanted to see that somewhere place in the world, the whereabouts, of their home. Where Iris made her garden. Where Rose grew up. That was all.