“Of course.”
He hesitated for the length of a drawn-out breath before indicating she should go ahead.
“When I was five years old, I stole a peppermint from the sweetshop in our town.”
He gasped theatrically. “I didn’t know you were a criminal!”
She swatted at him. “Your turn.”
“During the passage from Ireland, I snuck up to the first-class dining room and swiped a pastry.”
“I assume they threw you overboard as punishment,” she said.
With an amused smirk, he said, “They never caught me.”
It was again her turn to share something. “I once told my mum that she looked beautiful in a yellow dress, but she looked awful.”
He chuckled. “When I was twelve years old, I kissed two girls in one day and felt so horribly guilty that I ran—literally ran—to the chapel to confess to the priest.”
She didn’t bother hiding her amusement. “Was he horrified?”
“I am absolutely certain he was struggling not to laugh.”
What else could she share with him? She wanted to maintain their lighter tone, but also hoped he would touch on the heavier things that weighed on him. “When I worked in the factory in New York the first time, I used to pray every morning that the men who repaired the machines when they broke down wouldn’t show up to work so that there was a chance we’d be done for the day before lunch.”
“I can do better than that.” He leaned close. “I was one of the men who repaired the machines.”
She laughed out loud. His eyes twinkled back at her. Their exchange of “secrets” was doing her burdened heart good, and it seemed to be offering the same to him.
“Lydia cried so constantly when she was an infant that, though I loved her even before she was born, I struggled a little tolikeher. That made me feel rather like a horrible mother. But Maura told me it was nothing to be ashamed of. ‘Difficult babies make life difficult,’ she would say.”
He didn’t look the least shocked or disgusted. He took her hand in his. “You and Maura were good friends.”
“We became like sisters. I don’t know what I would have done without her.”
He rubbed her hand between his. The movement warmed more than her fingers. “She took me in after the war,” he said, “and never made me feel like a burden. She was family to me when I had no one. I don’t know whatIwould have done without her.”
Surely that history and connection could give him some hope that Maura, if no one else, wouldn’t cut him off. “So what is it you’re still not telling her?”
He stiffened a little but didn’t release her hand. “That’s a far more complicated thing than what we’ve been tossing around tonight, Eliza. Far bigger.”
“You need a bigger confession in exchange for it?”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
But she knew in her heart it would help. She had only one unspoken truth kept inside that was as big as the enormity of weight in his expression. She swallowed, breathed, and let the words fall from her mouth, words she never thought she’d say. “My husband told me he regretted marrying me.”
Patrick’s eyes pulled wide. His mouth hung a tad open. “What?”
All the ache of that long-ago moment returned, but amplified. “He was working in a bar, which he hated. We were struggling to house and feed and clothe ourselves, and had only just realized I was going to have a baby. He saw no light ahead. He missed his family and the life he’d lost. In a heated moment, he admitted that he regrettedus.That his family had been right, that our origins created a chasm between him and me that was too wide to ever cross.”
“Saints above,” he whispered. His mouth hung a bit agape, shock pulling his features.
“When things were calmer, he apologized and insisted he hadn’t meant it, but the regret was always there lurking in his face.” She dropped her gaze to their entwined hands. “He died less than a month later, trying to break up a fight between two drunkards in the bar. Everyone, including Maura, thinks he and I had a fairy-tale love story, that he gave up everything for me and never once looked back. But that’s not true. He was miserable, and he regretted the life he gave up. He resented me for being the reason he had to live the life we had.”
“How could anyone regret having you in their life?”
“He said in marrying me, he’d burned the one bridge he desperately wanted to cross back over, that he was stuck.” She looked up at him. “The most difficult thing was that he was right.”
