Immaculate Heart Read Free

permanently orange with all the self-tanner.” Brona clucked her tongue and smacked him on the wrist.
    â€œAs for Declan,” Paudie went on, “he left for Australia years ago, and I don’t know that anyone’s seen or heard much of him since.”
    â€œAnd what about Síle?”
    â€œSíle?” Paudie hesitated. “Aye, she’s still here.”
    â€œShe lives nearby?”
    â€œShe’s living in Sligo. North of town, past Rosses Point.”
    There was a silence here that felt awkward, though I didn’t see why it should have. The three exchanged a look. “She’s in a place,” Leo said. “A home, like.”
    â€œA home?”
    â€œShe’s not quite right, if you know what I mean. She’s a lovely girl, you’d never see a lovelier girl in all your life, but—”
    â€œShe’s troubled,” Brona broke in gently.
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œShe was always different, Síle.” Paudie tilted his pint so the final mouthful sloshed around the bottom of the glass. “Like some wild thing out of a fairy story.”
    Leo was nodding. “Like a selkie, aye. She didn’t belong.”
    â€œShe charmed everyone she met,” Brona went on, “and yet she hadn’t a friend in the world growing up. No one ever knew what to make of her, you see.”
    â€œShe and my sister got along very well,” I said. “I do remember that.”
    Brona regarded me sadly. “If only you hadn’t lived so far away.”
    I looked back at the newspaper article on the wall. Fourteen-year-old Síle Gallagher smiled at me out of 1988, and I felt something whisper, You let them think you came back here for a funeral, but that’s not why.
    â€œI’d like to know more about this whole thing,” I said. “Do you think I might be able to speak with the priest?”
    Paudie shot me a squinty look. “Would you be thinking of writing about the apparition?”
    I finished my Guinness and licked my lips. “Maybe.”
    Maybe meant yes, of course. Writing about the weird things that might have happened to them gave me a reason to see them again—Tess and Orla and Síle. Síle, too young to flirt, and she did it anyway.
    There was another pause around the table before Paudie said, “You might want to talk to Tess first. I’ll ring her in the morning and see can she speak to you.” He made a valiant attempt at a smile. “Sure, you’ll be wanting to see her again regardless. The two of ye were great friends that time you were here.”
    They didn’t seem disapproving, exactly, but I caught their uneasiness flickering like a subliminal message on a movie screen. Leo glanced at me as he lifted his glass, and quickly looked away.
    Then they fell into talking of other things, and I got up to buy another round. At one time the pub had done double duty as a grocery, and a shelf behind the bar was lined with tins of “coffee whitener” that looked older than Paudie and Brona and Leo put together. Napper Tandy’s was their local, through and through—I gathered they never drank anywhere else.
    I shouldn’t have ordered that last pint. Sometimes I caught an anecdote and chuckled along, and other times I almost forgot where I was. I was too tired to be good company, but they forgave me.
    *   *   *
    Brona set me up in her spare room, but even with a space heater there was a dankness and a mildewy smell clinging to the bedding and towels. I almost felt as if I were entombed in this little room where the brown floral bedspread matched the draperies, and yet I was as unencumbered by my own life as I could possibly be: the uncertainty of my position at the magazine, the certainty of Laurel. The light had never gone out of her eyes, not even on that last night when I’d left to sleep on a friend’s couch. Maybe she was still hoping I could be the man