Running Back

“I was trying to protect you.”

“But, Mike. Oh, honey.” I could see the agony etched in each line of her face, and every line looked deeper today. “I am my own person. You cannot try to protect me. That’s not your role.” She shook her head. “You can’t just steamroll everyone else. It’s because you’ve always kept everything bottled up inside so much. I never taught you how to let it out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“After your father died. You just seemed like you were coping, and the girls and I were such a mess and it was too late that I realized you weren’t all right, that you never mourned—”

“Mom!” He jumped up, his hands fisting. “I am fine. I was fine.”

“No, you’re not.” She ran a manicured hand down the side of her face, over closed eyes.

He shook his head, hair flying everywhere. Bewilderment and anger and hurt fought for control of his features. “What, just because I tried to save our family?”

“Because you never let your family in. Why didn’t you talk to me about this? Or with Lauren?”

He sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, honey.”

He stared at her, and then grabbed my hand. “Come on.”

I stumbled. “Where—”

Behind us, Kate’s worried voice piped up. “Michael, don’t leave—”

He didn’t turn. “Sorry, Mom. I need to think.”

We didn’t speak until we walked up the stairs, and he held open the door to his room and I hesitated. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted—Because I slept in my own room last night.”

His eyes widened, and then he nodded. “Right. Not a problem.” He walked through and let the door close behind him.

I stood there for half a second, and then banged on in. I might have imagined it, but I thought he looked at me with relief. I offered a hesitant smile. “So, on a positive note, no guns.”

He dropped onto the bed. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

“What? No. You were a kid. You misheard a conversation. It happens.”

“My mom thinks I’m insane.”

I shrugged. “So does mine.”

He rolled an arm out. “Come lie down with me.”

I happily obliged, curling against his side on top of the floral quilt. But I didn’t stop with my listing. “Hey, I had an idea.”

“A brilliant one, no doubt.”

“I was going to hire someone to do a survey about substructures on Kilkarten. Why don’t we have someone come down and do one to see if they find any weapons? Just so you know for sure.”

Mike grinned at me. “And just in case you happen to see your lost city, right?”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, look. That is not the primary purpose. But if there happens to not be any weapons, and there does happen to be, say, a quay, wouldn’t that all just be wonderful?”

He was silent a long, long moment. Then he sat up and spoke with absolute certainty. “All right. Get me the contract.”

It took a moment for his words to make sense. “The contract?”

“Consider it a second positive note.”

I tucked my legs underneath me and stared at him. “Are you serious?”

He laughed a little. “Yeah.”

He’d rendered me speechless, at least for a minute. “Thank you.”

And I had my permission to dig at Kilkarten.

So I wrote to Dr. Sam Gregory, the Dublin specialist I’d always meant to contact for the electrical resistivity survey. He came down on Wednesday. He brought two assistants, grad students my age, and we spent three afternoons walking over Kilkarten, staking the land with metal probes and taking readings of the voltage. The survey created a map that showed the resistivity of the land. If we had any large, subsurface features, they’d show up.

Not much showed up.

I’d hoped for a very obvious footprint of a ship, but nothing indicated that strongly. There were some areas that looked promising enough to dig units there, but not what I’d been hoping for. The entire northwestern quadrant of the site was impenetrable by radar because the soil was too dense, so that was a waste.

It would be fine, I was sure. I’d just sort of wanted Jeremy to arrive and to be able to say, “Look! Here it is! I found Ivernis!”

However, I had good news for Mike. “Oh, hey,” I said as we lay out on the grass, and his head rested in my lap. “No weapons.”

He kept shaking his head, amazed. “I don’t understand. This was the defining trauma of most of my life. How can it not exist? Did we just miss them?”

“I don’t know, it’s possible. We seemed to have missed my harbor.”

He laughed and turned his face against my thigh. “What am I going to do without you this week?”

My hand froze on the top of his head. “Um. What? Why will you be without me?”

He stared up at me guilelessly. “I told you. I’m going to London for a charity event this week.”

I scowled down at him. “You most certainly did not tell me.”

He looked surprised. “Oh. Well, I am.”

“Hmph.”

I wasn’t exactly pleased, but at least I had no trouble keeping busy. I had to organize the crew, and gather all my tools. One day I went with Amanda O’Rourke to a folk festival several towns over, and Maggie had me over for dinner with her and Paul. Everyone was very sweet about my boyfriend leaving me for a week. Especially when I sat in the pub and scowled at the wall. At least three different people bought me drinks. As I finished off my last, O’Malley from the restaurant, Tim O’Brien and Eamon Murphy came over, wide grins on their faces.

“We hear he’s quite the athlete, your man. He any good at hurling?”

“Don’t know.” I took a swig and widened my eyes. “He plays football, actually.”

“Does he now? And how is he then?”

They couldn’t have been genuine. I bet they thought they were laying a trap. It made me smile for the first time all day. “He’s a professional, if you’d believe it.”

“Isn’t that a surprise? Charlie, did you hear that? Mike O’Connor plays football. You should have him in your next match.”

Charlie, a young man with gleaming blue eyes, looked back at me with unintentionally complicit glee. “That so?”

I widened my eyes. “It is so.”

We parted with mutual pleasure at binding poor Mike into a soccer game.

I also went into Cork to rent a truck. I had never rented one in my life. I wasn’t even sure if it was legal. Didn’t you have to be twenty-five? Or maybe you just have to pay ridiculous fees under twenty-five? I didn’t know. I lived in the city and barely ever drove.

I needed a truck; something that would carry the archaeologists and crew around, and fit our shovels and pick axes and buckets in the back. In Ecuador, we used to cram in ten people. Our shoulders and knees overlapped while the wind slapped our faces. We clutched the sides and laughed hysterically at each bump.

Which worked great, on the Pan-American. These little Irish roads looked far too narrow for an actual truck.

I managed to make it over to the hardware store without dying. It was much cheaper to buy local than to ship supplies over, and I’d already done my research and figured out where to shop for screens and tools. By the time Jeremy arrived, I’d have everything in perfect shape.

Theoretically.

Next, I set up a meeting with the local crew hires. In the pub, of course, no surprise there. They’d already