Girl on the Leeside by Kathleen Anne Kenney

Author:Kathleen Anne Kenney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2017-06-20T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Though leaves are many, the root is one;

Through all the lying days of my youth

I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;

Now I may wither into the truth.

—W. B. YEATS

It was the middle of October and Keenan Doyle was turning fifty in a few days. Siobhan painstakingly planned a party at Sean Cahill’s restaurant in Clifden. The Leeside would be closed for the evening, which wouldn’t be a problem since most of the locals were attending the party. Sean and Bettina, his wife, had wanted it to be a surprise party, but Siobhan saw the futility in that and told Kee about the planned festivities. He feigned annoyance to mask his pleasure, which didn’t fool her for a moment, and promised to act suitably surprised when, instead of a quiet dinner with Siobhan, he would be confronted by a roomful of his friends and neighbors.

“And can you tell me who’ll be there?” he asked Siobhan.

She replied, “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that at least the guest list be a surprise, though I doubt if most of the faces will cause a shock.”

He hesitated, then inquired casually, “Have you asked Katie to come, then?”

Siobhan looked at her uncle gravely. Katie had been noticeably absent from their lives lately. “Of course I have, and no, I don’t know if she’s coming.”

Kee nodded and left the room. He had no idea why Katie had been avoiding him the last few weeks. It wasn’t a contrived absence from the pub, some stupid stunt to make him miss her or get him thinking about her. He’d have smelled that. For some reason she didn’t want to be around him. It was the suspicion that he might have hurt her—could she be hurt?—that was bothering him, and bothering him a lot if the truth be told. And he was surprised at how much he missed her, how much he longed for her.

Impulsively he decided right then to go out to her farm. He drove almost recklessly, at one point overtaking a truck stacked with building supplies, and his van bounced into the yard near Katie’s large stone barn. Kee was rewarded with the sight of her standing next to a youngster and his mother, and holding a pony by its halter. As he was about to call out, he saw her quickly climb onto the convenient animal and whisk it away down one of the riding trails. Kee froze as he was about to climb out of the van. Had she seen him? He thought she had, but he couldn’t be sure. He caught the interested gaze of the young mother as she herded her son toward their vehicle. Quickly he shut his door. Fine, he thought. It was only a neighborly visit, after all. It’s not like he needed to see her. Kee started the van’s engine and didn’t notice that his drive home took twice as long.

The next morning Siobhan wanted to scrub down the pub’s stone floor, so she and Kee carried the tables, chairs, and stools out into the yard.

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