Free City of Hope by Kate Kerrigan Page B

in, except that Padraig and Liam held me back.
    â€œCome on now, Ellie.”
    I screamed. Rage and fear consumed me.
    â€œOpen the coffin. I want to see him! Open it, now. He’s still alive, I know it. John’s not dead—not John, not my John!”
    Padraig put his arms around me and held me together. The broad chest of a man, the scratch of his wool coat against my face—John, but not John. John was gone. He was dead. It was the truth. At last, it was out.
    Maidy stood behind him, and held her hands up to her face in shock.
    â€œOh, Ellie,” she said, “oh, Ellie, Ellie, Ellie.”
    She held her arms out to me, but I did not want to go to her. I did not want to give in to this truth. I would not look at John going into the ground. I would not look on him.
    I broke away from Padraig and ran through the crowd. Out of the graveyard, past the church, beyond the foliage of faces—their judgments, their shock, their pity.
    I scrabbled in my good clothes down the hill of the main street, past the shops—closed in my dead husband’s honor—and I ran and ran until I was at the door of my building, and then I ran up the stairs. Once inside the apartment, I ran straight to the bedroom and, without thinking, flung open the dusty trunk. I emptied all the drawers of dresses, skirts, undergarments, a hairbrush, mirror, cosmetics, throwing everything into it, then I banged the lid shut.
    I would run, and leave John behind. As I had done before. Then he would be here waiting for me, and I would be away, making things right. Making things better for both of us.
    All of my papers were kept in a bureau upstairs. I praised my luck in having an organized mind as I pulled out my passport and all my American papers. There was a small lead safe under the desk, where I kept an amount of cash, away from the prying eyes of the local bank and Irish taxman. I opened it hurriedly and counted out almost two thousand pounds, which I crammed into the purse-belt that I used to keep my money safe on my travels to Dublin, placing it under the waistband of my skirt.
    I took the pen from its holder and a sheet of writing paper from the bureau and hesitated as I began to compose a note to Maidy.
    In the end I forced the words onto the page in a hurried scrawl: “Sorry, Maidy, I have to go away. I will be in touch soon. With love, Ellie.”
    It was disgracefully brief, but all I could manage. I folded the paper in two and put it into my coat pocket.
    I dragged the trunk as far as the top of the stairs, and met Katherine coming up.
    â€œJesus, Ellie—are you all right?”
    I didn’t stop to talk. If I stopped, she might persuade me to stay. Or rather I might realize I was being foolish and want to stay myself.
    â€œHelp me with this,” I said, all but throwing it at her.
    The two of us maneuvered the heavy trunk down the narrow stairs and lifted it into the back seat of the car.
    â€œWhere are you going? How long will you be gone?”
    I answered her quickly, before she asked me all the other questions I didn’t dare ask myself: What will I say to people? What will I tell Maidy? Why won’t you stay for a few days and sort things out?
    â€œI don’t know, Katherine, but I shall write to you when I get there and give you instructions.”
    It was a lie, for I knew exactly where I was going, but as for how long? Time was meaningless now. Death had made a cursed trick of it. It seemed an age since I had left the apartment that afternoon, and yet, in that moment, it was as if the past twenty-four hours hadn’t happened at all and John was still waiting for me back at the cottage.
    As I turned the key in the engine I said, “Look after things for me here, Katherine.”
    She nodded. “Of course.”
    I handed her the note for Maidy, my fingers clutching it, reluctant somehow to let it go. I was frightened by the speed and ferocity with which I was running, guilty