“Oh, the McNallys weren’t quite ready to sell it, what with its success and all of that. But your dad, he was quite the charmer there, with your mom all smiles and your tiny little self only a couple months old when he bought it.”

Colleen couldn’t quite forge the connection between herself and the small bundle in her mother’s arms. Of course she didn’t remember any of this—but there she was, part of the family history and pub from the get-go. Was this how her dad would one day feel when he looked at these photos and their stories? As though he didn’t know the man in the picture? Colleen cleared her throat. “He bought it before I was born.”

“No. Your mom was at home with you when he finally convinced the McNallys to sell. I remember that quite well. Your dad told ol’ Bud that he’d worked in an ancient pub in a village in County Clare. He had ideas. Big ideas. Living all that time in a small village of thatched cottages, he knew more about real pubs than the McNallys ever could.” Mr. Bivins’s face settled into the wrinkles of his lifelong smile. “And it didn’t hurt that your dad paid over market value. He was determined to own that pub. Nothing would stop him.”

“Nothing usually does.” Colleen paused. “But he moved here because of it, right? He’d already bought it when they arrived. The only pub he’d worked at before that was the one in Ireland.”

“No.” Mr. Bivins stared at the photo. “He spent months convincing Bud to sell. But didn’t it become all he imagined it to be? It’s a community. That’s what he wanted—a community built around a gathering place. And your mother, always so quiet and polite, always holding on to your dad for dear life.”

“But this couldn’t be closing day. He bought it before I was born . . . it’s why they moved here.” She knew she was repeating herself, but maybe he didn’t understand her, didn’t comprehend the details.

“No, Lena. I remember as clearly as yesterday.”

Colleen didn’t want to argue with the older gentleman—there would be no use in that. She knew that stories changed with time, that even her own most vivid memories were unreliable—what time had it been? What day? Facts didn’t matter so much as the overall impression. So if Mr. Bivins’s timeline didn’t match her dad’s, then it was only the intention that mattered, the determination to own and run a pub in a small-town community. That was what was worth recording.

Chapter Nineteen

Memory is an inner temple of feeling and sensibility.

John O’Donohue, Anam Cara

EIGHT DAYS UNTIL THE PARTY . . .

“It’s falling apart.” Hallie spoke to Colleen and into the soft misty morning air and pointed at the tree house.