“She died because of me,” he said, his speech slurring. “If I hadn’t taken her to Texas, she would still be alive.” He took another gulp of his whiskey. “She left me, Miss Sweeney, just like my mother left after she told me she never would. The ones you love will always leave you in the end, one way or another. It may have been my fault they left, but I will never let it happen again. Love is a curse, Miss Sweeney; don’t ever let yourself fall in love.”

He was rambling now, and making no sense. Surely he couldn’t be equating Mary’s death with deliberately leaving him? And quite likely there was more to the story of his mother’s departure than he was saying. The events had evidently become all mixed up in his mind. What was clear to me was that his trust in those close to him had been destroyed, one way or the other, and the poor man was tortured by it.

His head drooped, and the sound of his deep breathing told me he had fallen asleep. I watched him for a while, then stood up and went over to him. Gently, I took the empty glass from his hand and set it on the table. He didn’t stir. I draped a blanket over him and tiptoed out of the door and up the stairs.

I lay in bed recalling each word he’d said and how he had looked at me. At first, I’d been giddy that he’d finally noticed me and had taken me into his confidence. But then a small voice inside my head told me the encounter meant nothing at all. All he’d done was recite the bare outlines of his past. He might as well have been talking to a stranger on a train. The closest he came to betraying emotion was when he mentioned Mary.

“Don’t ever let yourself fall in love, Miss Sweeney,” he’d said.

I realized then that we were alike. I was afraid to fall in love as well. I still believed no man would ever have me. Ma had told me that often enough, drilled it in until I believed it. Whatever feelings I had for Aidan O’Hanlon were schoolgirl fantasies, and I needed to put them out of my head.

* * *

By the next day he had returned to the aloof and slightly distracted man I had come to expect. He nodded at me in the hallway, as if the evening before had never happened. I wondered if he even recalled it.

“So how was your evening with himself?” Kathleen’s question sounded more like an accusation. “The two of yez looked very cozy, sitting talking as if ye’d known each other for years.” She turned to Mrs. Donahue. “You should have seen them,” she said. “If I didn’t know better—”