Lake of Sorrows

He had been puzzled by the fact that he’d never seen this girl before, that he’d known nothing of her existence. He made a few discreet inquiries at the wedding party, and found she lived with her father and younger sister near Loughnabrone. She was considerably younger than he was—fourteen years—and astonished, embarrassed by his interest, her manner always somewhat diffident. He had not taken love easy, as the song implored, but uncharacteristically pursued her, wooed her, and eventually won her heart, although he sometimes wondered now whether she had finally consented to marriage more out of misplaced compassion than from genuine affection. At the time, it hadn’t mattered. He had never experienced anything like it, the hunger that seemed to occupy every cell of his body, a chemical fire that would not be calmed or cooled. His all-consuming need to be with her, to possess her, had seemed sufficient to carry them both. But of course it had not been sufficient.

He’d told no one that Eithne had been carrying their child when she’d walked into the river. It didn’t seem right to share a secret that had been revealed to him only through her death. She must have known about the child, and she had been so far sunk into confusion and despair that the prospect of a new life had not lifted that dark veil, but only made things worse. She had packed a bag before she’d walked down to the river that day, a single lucid gesture that had been calculated, he supposed, to save him the trouble of sorting through her things after she’d gone. He had opened the case and spilled the neatly folded skirts and blouses onto their bed, buried his face and wept into the silky underthings still suffused with her scent.

Lugh came through the bedroom door and stopped in front of him. The dog lifted his graying muzzle and sniffed the air, and Ward tried to reassure him with a friendly scratch. “It’s all right, auld son. Relax.” He felt great tenderness for his aging companion, who had arrived in this house as a tiny pup, a gift from his colleagues just after the first anniversary of Eithne’s death. They had been together a long time, he and Lugh, and he knew the dog wouldn’t last the year, if that. Lugh had come to the point in his existence where major systems had begun to break down, as they would for all creatures, Ward supposed, should they live so long. We are all vulnerable in that way, he thought—soft and imperfect, riddled with frailty. Long ago he’d forced himself to admit that he’d been drawn to Eithne Scully’s dangerous streak, as if she could make up for that part of him that was afraid to live intensely in the present. He’d been fascinated by the dark, chaotic side of her nature, capable of great passion and creativity, but also subject to fits of paranoia and an inconsolable desolation. He’d once thought that if he could only surround her with peace and constancy, she might be able to hold some fragment of it within her, but once again he had been wrong. A capacity for contentment was something they had never shared. Eithne was always restless, chafing at any and all expectations. When he’d first brought her to this house after they were married, she’d followed him around as if on a tour, then gone home to her father’s house for another fortnight before he’d convinced her to come back and live with him here.

In hindsight, of course, he felt he ought to have seen the signs earlier. At first, the changes had been gradual, imperceptible, mere hairline cracks. He’d taken to sorting through their lives, remembering gestures and looks, wondering about that certain blank expression that had said she didn’t know who he was or what she was doing here with him. Eventually she hadn’t been able to play the harp anymore; her hands would no longer do what she told them. He had arrived home one evening and found her sitting at her harp, with the instrument all unstrung, a web of golden wires across her lap. It wasn’t right, Liam, she’d said. I know I could play if only it were strung properly. The harp sat, still unstrung, in the corner of the sitting room.