Stony River Read Free Page A

says, “Jeez, it’s stifling in here. How can you breathe?” His shoes squeak behind her as he goes to the window and pulls back the drapes. He grunts with the effort of hoisting a sash that’s not been lifted since the lad was born for fear his cries would be heard. Panic rises in her throat, a reflex. She tenses, ready to flee upstairs with Cian, until she remembers it’s too late to avoid detection.
    â€œOkay if I take a seat?” He’s at the chair on her left.
    She nods and he sits, his face in profile, his gaze averted. She runs an imaginary finger over the small bump on his long nose as he hangs his hat on one knee. World scents cling to him, as they do to James when he’s been out. She likes to guess at them, surprising James with her accuracy. Nolan smells of leather and smoke.
    â€œSeveral passengers witnessed him collapse and die. The coroner determined it was a heart attack. He won’t order an autopsy unless the family insists.”
    Miranda focuses on the far wall near the fireplace where the floral wallpaper is peeling. She envisions an angry heart with arms and legs leaping from James’s chest and stabbing him with a fork. Her own chest begins to ache. Pain is an illusion, James says; float above it. She stares at the dangling wallpaper strip and floats as far as the anchor of Cian’s rhythmic sucking on her nipple allows.
    Nolan glances at her then quickly looks down. “You okay?”
    â€œAye.”
    It will storm tonight. She can tell from the weight of the air pressing in through the open window. Thunder will prowl the sky and Nicholas, the house. Lightning will crackle outside the room she shares with Cian and they’ll both cry out for James.
    Later, Bill Nolan will tell his wife that the girl’s composure was unnerving. No sign of grief as she sat brazenly nursing that naked,emaciated, shrunken-headed child on a couch with lion-clawed feet. He will file a report that says Miranda Haggerty is disturbingly detached and possibly slow-witted.
    â€œHas he started walking yet?”
    â€œOh, aye.”
    â€œI ask because he seems weak.”
    She unhooks Cian from her breast and sits him up on the couch. “Will you walk for the man, then?” The lad widens his hazel eyes at the officer then hides his face in Miranda’s shoulder. “He’s not seen the likes of you before,” she says.
    â€œThe uniform, I suppose. You take him out, right? The park, the doctor’s?”
    Why doesn’t the officer leave, now that he’s delivered his news? She pulls the strap back over her shoulder, tucks in her breast and lifts her hair from her perspiring neck. She doesn’t lie but she’s learned to remain silent when it suits her.
    Nolan stares at her straight on, his cheeks flushing, his Nicholasbrown eyes intense. “I’ve got a three-year-old daughter and my wife’s expecting again. We’re hoping for a boy.”
    â€œWhy is that, now?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He laughs self-consciously and rubs the back of his neck. “Don’t most men want sons to carry on their names?” He clears his throat and straightens his spine. “Who’s your boy’s father?”
    Some mysteries cannot be expressed in words to the unready, James says, for they will not be understood. She is sworn to secrecy for the child’s sake. She peers down at Cian clinging to her and softly sings his favorite song: “There was an old man called Michael Finnigan, he grew whiskers on his chinnigan.”
    Cian lays a finger on her mouth and says, “Mandy.”
    She sucks in the finger and he laughs, a deep chuckle that threatens to loosen her fragile hold on the tears pooling behind hereyes. Without James, who will guide Cian to his calling? Who will brush her hair?
    Nolan pulls his notepad from his shirt pocket. “That your name? Mandy?”
    â€œOnly to the lad.”
    He slaps the