Free The Promise of Light by Paul Watkins Page A

and kept their hands stuffed in their pockets.
    They watched me coming closer. Then one man said “It’s him,” and walked across to meet me. His hand slipped from his pocket and reached out to me like the blade of a knife. “We come to say we’re sorry about your da.” He was Irish, with a faint American twisting of the words. “I’m Pratt and this is Duffy. Come here out of the dark, Duff.”
    Duffy shuffled over. The tight curls of his hair were mashed down on his head with brilliantine. “Your father was a great man.”
    Pratt nodded. “An inspiration to us all.”
    Pratt slapped Duffy on the arm. “Anyway, that’s all we came to say.”
    “You were talking with my father the night of the fire.”
    Now Pratt turned. “Yes, we were. Did he mention that?”
    “He said you owed him money. He said you were crazy for showing your face around here.”
    “Money was it?” Pratt chewed his lip and then laughed. “Well, I’m sure I might owe him a bit.”
    I moved to the front door at the house and swung it open. “Would you like to come inside? I’d like to talk with you.”
    “No.” Duffy took a step toward the car. “No, we got to be going.”
    I stood in the doorway. It was dark behind me and I felt as if I was standing at the entrance of a tunnel. “How much do you know about what my father did in Ireland?”
    They were quiet for a while. I heard waves breaking on the beach. I stood very still, barely breathing, frightened that they knew everything but wouldn’t tell me.
    Pratt’s hands found their way back inside his pockets. “It really is time we were going.”
    I wanted to force them to stay. “What did he do? I heard he was in prison.”
    “If he’d meant for you to know these things, then surely he’d have told you himself.” Duffy opened the car door and sat behind the wheel.
    “Don’t go. Please. Who are you two? How did you know my father?”
    “We’re old friends is all.” Pratt had reached the car. He rested his hand on the door. “And if you heard us talking the other night, you’d have heard us promise to keep you out of it.”
    “But what harm is there in telling now?”
    Pratt slipped into the car and before the door was shut, Duffy had already started the engine.
    First I only walked after them. Then I ran. I chased them down to the edge of the road and saw Pratt turn to look at me. “Why won’t you tell me?” I shouted after them. “For Christ’s sake, why?”
    I wouldn’t be able to catch them. And even if I did, they wouldn’t tell. I had seen a window, when they paused and thought it over. They had come close to talking. The words were already forming in their minds. But the window shut quickly and they knew they had to leave before they broke their promise to my father.
    They could have told me everything. I knew it. I could see it on their faces. And I knew I would never see them again.
    I knew nothing about Ireland, except that my parents came from the west coast. They never spoke of it, and they were not the only ones to start again as they passed through the gates of Ellis Island. I had friends at university whose German or French or Italian parents seemed to have forgotten where they came from. It had not troubled me until now, but suddenly it was all I cared about.
    I started packing. I threw a suitcase on the bed and crammed in socks and trousers and shoes. There was no time to waste. I didn’t know how long it would take to sell the house. I’d have sold it for one ticket, if the boat was sailing that day.
    Perhaps in Ireland there was also a window, and if I didn’t get there soon, it too would close. The country seemed an impossible distance away, anchored out of reach somewhere in the past.

CHAPTER 4
    The masts of sunken sailboats jutted from the harbor like dead trees in a flooded field. Dillon’s fishhouse had almost disappeared. Its roof lay slopped into the guts of the building. Paint had blistered on its walls. The breeze lifted ashes from