“I’ve a bit of a leak in the roof near m’stove.”
“You have a stove?” They’d not boasted such a thing in New York, only a fire to cook over.
Biddy smiled, a laugh in her eyes. “We’re living quite high off the hog here. Best accustom yourself to how fine and fancy we’ve become.”
“Fine and fancy doesn’t usually have a leaky roof.”
She motioned him a bit to the side. He followed all the way through a doorless threshold and in to a built-on kitchen. That alone was fancier than what they’d known in the past. He moved to the stove and set his eyes on the ceiling above it. There was, indeed, a water stain. Not a large one, or one actively dripping, but evidence enough to know the roofwasleaking.
“Has this been a trouble for you long?” If so, they had reason to worry about the roof rotting.
“Long enough that I’m beginning to fret over the state of things up there.” Biddy had always been smart. Her quiet manner may have changed a bit, but her mind had only grown sharper.
“Have you not told Ian about the leak?” He couldn’t imagine his always-responsible, hardworking brother neglecting anything about his family’s home or his wife’s comfort.
“I have, but he can’t fix it.”
That made no sense. Ian had always been very good with his hands. He and Patrick had been employed at a textile mill in New York, maintaining and repairing the machines and equipment, and they’d been blasted good at it. “It must be something significant to have flummoxed him.”
“’Tisn’t a matter of the repair being too complicated.” A heaviness settled on her.
Patrick didn’t at all like seeing her this way. He motioned her closer, and she obliged, sighing as she reached him.
“Talk to me, Biddy. What’s the difficulty?”
She spoke more quietly, more strained. “He gets dizzy so easily ever since his head took that beating. We can’t risk him slipping off the roof. He’d not recover from another blow to the head. I know he wouldn’t.Heknows he wouldn’t.”
Patrick’s heart sat firmly in his boots. “What beating?”
She met his eye, and the pain he saw there stole his breath. It echoed in terrible ways the ache he’d seen on Maura’s face. “We nearly lost him, Patrick. About three years ago. ’Twas a terrible, awful beating. His face and head were bloodied and bruised almost beyond recognition. The banshee filled every wail of the wind for days and days. In some ways, he’s not the same man he used to be. He’s in pain all the time. He can’t do all the things he used to be able to.”
Patrick put an arm around her, hugging her to his side. This was one of the few times over the past years that he had initiated contact with someone he cared about. Keeping a distance was almost always better, and always easier. But he couldn’t resist in that moment. He loved Biddy. She was as much a sister to him as Mary and Ciara. And she loved Ian so deeply and so entirely. That bonded them.
“The family does their best to help him with his load. But he struggles with needing them to.” Biddy wrapped her arms round herself, leaning into his one-armed embrace. “I can’t tell you how often these past three years I’ve wished you were here. You’d’ve known what to do. You’d’ve known how to help him without injuring his pride.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I truly am.”
She pulled back enough to look into his eyes once more. “Then why is it you’re still running away from us?”
That was more complicated a question than she likely realized. “I’m no saint, but I’ve a conscience enough not to make things worse.”
“And being part of our family would be worse?”
“Aye.” The longer he was among them, the more likely he was to cause them greater pain than he could allow. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t expect you to tell me anything and everything you need help with.” He slipped away to eye the ceiling again, then take a quick inventory of the room. “Any repair, any job around the place, anything I can do. You simply tell me, Biddy. Anything at all.”
She took a deep breath. “There’s a lot,” she said quietly. “He struggles so much, Patrick.”
He could hear tears in her voice.
“I wish I’d been here.” It was the first time he’d really meant that, and truly regretted staying so far away. “I’m sorry for that.”
She used the corner of her apron to dab a tear from her eyes at the same moment Ian stepped into the threshold. His eyes darted from Patrick to Biddy and back again a few times. His expression, already fierce, hardened further.
“Are you making m’wife cry?” He all but growled the question.
The accusation hurt. No matter the tension created by Patrick’s long absence, how could Ian think he would’ve become the sort of man who would knowingly cause Biddy pain?
“Happy tears, Ian,” Biddy said. “Patrick said he’d repair the roof in here.”
