67

June 2018

IT’S OVERCAST OUTSIDE AND the nursing home room is cooler this evening. Ruth is in her chair by the window, and pleased, I think, to see me. Though she is soon horrified by the story I tell her, about Cynthia, and Lila who was not Lily.

‘Mrs Cavanagh, I wanted to ask you something else – why do you have just one earring?’

‘Pardon?’

‘The earring shaped like a cross, the one on your nightstand – there’s just one. Why not a pair?’

‘What an odd question!’ Ruth says, but her eyes are darting now, between the nightstand and me.

‘And, I hope you won’t mind me saying this, but’ – I pick up the earring, ‘a rose-gold cross with embedded crystals doesn’t seem quite the thing for a lady of your vintage? No offence.’

‘None taken. I’m a woman of eclectic tastes. As I said to you last time, you can get away with all sorts when you’re ninety-three.’

‘It’s an unusual earring though. And I’ve seen it before. But on someone else.’

Ruth looks caught off guard but recovers quickly, shakes her head and looks back down at her book.

I turn the earring over in my palm. ‘I’m pretty sure about this actually. It belongs to a woman called Liz. Liz Landry?’

Now Ruth’s head jerks up and it’s written all over her face.

‘Am I right?’

‘How do you know Liz?’ Ruth asks, giving nothing and everything away.

‘She lives in Rowanbrook and her kids go to the same school as mine. But you must know that she lives there, right?’

A pause. A long pause, as Ruth stares, and I can almost see the battle going on inside her head. Eventually she sighs.

‘Sit.’

I do as I’m told.

Ruth places the book back on the windowsill and clasps her hands together on her lap. It feels like a long time passes before she speaks. I can hear everything – every tick of the clock on the wall, every rustle of leaves outside the window, each time the evening breeze picks up. But I say nothing, resisting the urge to fill the silence. Eventually, Ruth begins the final part of her story.

‘Mary chose her mother’s name, Elizabeth, for Lily, when she moved out of my house and they started a new life away from Rowanbrook. It was also Lily’s middle name. Evolving from “Lily” to “Lizzie” wasn’t too difficult when she was three, and then as she got older, she became Liz. Mary reverted to her maiden name after Robbie died and started calling herself Mary-Ann, which was her birth name and on her passport. So, Mary Murphy was Mary-Ann Holborn, and Lilian Elizabeth Murphy became Lizzy Holborn, who then married and became Liz Landry.’

‘And Mary stayed in Ireland all that time? Didn’t she want to get further away? Back home to the US?’

‘She couldn’t risk flying. It was easier to get passports back then, and children flew on their parents’ passports, but even still, she was terrified they’d be caught. So she stayed here. For Lizzie.’