It took some doing to make Liam comfortable, but finally, with the aid of some extra pillows and a blanket, he was settled on the sofa with his arm propped up.
“How’s that?” I asked him.
“’Twould be perfect if you’d help me get the sling off. At the moment, I feel as if I’m about to strangle myself.”
I put my arm behind his shoulders. “All right. Sit up again.” Once he was upright, I unfastened the sling and slipped it off, then settled him back on the pillows. “Better?”
“Much. Thank you.”
“You’re comfortable?”
“Well—” His mouth twisted slightly. “About as comfortable as a man can be, I suppose, with a newly broken bone and his pain meds wearing off.”
“I’ll be glad to fetch you a pill, if you think it’ll help.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll tough it out. The pills don’t ever do more than make me sleepy, without relieving much of the pain. I seem to be immune to their full benefits.”
“That’s odd. Has anyone ever figured out why?”
“No. All I know is I’ve had to take them a few times over the years, and every time I’ve given them up very quickly. I’d rather feel the pain than lie here in a stupor.” He shifted a bit on the sofa and tried to maneuver his arm to a better position.
“Can I help?”
“No, not really. It’s this damned contraption. I can’t move the way I want to.”
“If you could, your wrist would never heal.”
“I know. Well, once I’ve adjusted it won’t be nearly as much of a nuisance as it was when I broke my ankle.”
“At least you can be semi-functional with a broken wrist. You’ll find ways to work around it. How long ago did you hurt your ankle?”
“Oh, years ago, not long after I moved here. One of those stupid, unnecessary accidents. I’d just gotten out of the bath and was dripping wet when the telephone rang. I didn’t stop to think and ran to answer it. Sort of an automatic response, y’know? I’ve always been a bit fanatical about missing calls, and I wasn’t used to having an answering machine yet. Anyhow, I slipped and fell, and knew straightaway that I’d done an awful number on myself. Tried getting up and couldn’t, and meanwhile the phone continued to ring. Finally, I managed to crawl over and pick up the receiver, and wouldn’t you know that was the exact moment when the caller rang off? All I got for my trouble was the dial tone. Luckily, I then had the presence of mind to call the operator for assistance.”
“Oh, Liam, how awful!”
“Yes, rather. I had to have a nasty operation, spent a month in a wheelchair, and six weeks after that hobbling around with crutches and a walking cast. ’Twas a pain in the arse, but there was still plenty of stuff I could do while I was laid up, and I did heal in time. I wasn’t left with an obvious limp, either, though there’s still a fair lot of metal hardware holding the joint together. I can just imagine what mayhem that would create at an airport security check if I ever decided to travel again.”
“Do you think you’d like to?”
“Eh?”
“Travel again. Do you think you ever would?”
“I really don’t know. I’m fond of this place and don’t feel a need to leave it, though I suppose—” His brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Well, if I got lonely enough and the right opportunity presented itself, I suppose I wouldn’t refuse. Why?”
“I was thinking that maybe you might like to visit me next year.”
“Let’s wait and see what happens with my eyes before we make that sort of plan. The doctor says it’s a simple case of iritis, but what I’d like to know is why, if it’s so simple, am I having such a devil of a time getting it to clear up? And why couldn’t it be stopped before I came to this?” He touched the bandage, frowning. “A simple infection shouldn’t be wreaking this kind of havoc!”
“At least you aren’t going blind.”
“Yes, so they say, but Sarah, I have this sneaking suspicion that a week from now, that damn doctor is just going to say, ‘I’m so sorry, Mr. O’Malley, but there’s nothing more we can do’ after he takes the bandage off.”
“You know, I hate to say it, but I wonder if your doctor knows what he’s doing? How long have you had this infection, anyway?”
“Oh, Lord, I don’t know. Off and on, six months, maybe?”
“Six months? Oh, Liam, there’s no way something like this should go on so long! You’ve got to have a proper eye specialist examine you!”
“There doesn’t happen to be one in the vicinity.”
“Then you’ve got to go someplace where there is!” I got up and paced, wondering if there was anything I could do to help. Then it came to me: the simplest, most obvious solution. “Liam, come back to Boston with me. Some of the best eye specialists in the world are there. Take your pick, and I’ll make an appointment for you. You could even stay with me while you’re being treated. I have plenty of room, and I’d be glad to do anything I could to help.”
“It’s kind of you to offer, but when do you propose that I fly over?”
“When it’s time for me to go back. Look, if we make the arrangements now, I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting you a plane ticket.”
“No, we probably won’t, but what am I supposed to do about my wrist while I’m away having my eyes cared for? I don’t want to wear this cast one minute longer than I have to.”
“Any orthopedist can take x-rays and remove a cast. Unless—there wasn’t anything complicated about your fracture, was there?”
“No. It’s all lined up properly now. Just needs time to mend.”
“Well, then, why not come back with me?”
He shifted restlessly, and his brow furrowed as he replied. “In theory, it’s a wonderful idea, and I’d love to say yes, but before I do—” He sighed. “Damn these wretched eyes! There are some things I need to be telling you, and it would be a whole hell of a lot easier to do if I could see you!”
“We could have this conversation next week, after you’ve got the bandage off.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve postponed it long enough.”
“Sounds important.”
“It is. Deadly important, and I trust you, but I still have to ask—are you completely willing to be sworn to secrecy?”
I felt a distinct chill. Why was he so insistent about secrecy?
“Liam, you were telling me the truth, weren’t you, when you said you weren’t running from the law?”
He nodded. “The secrecy is crucial to my health and sanity, not to save me from going to prison. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a criminal. Nevertheless, I fear that what I have to say will make you angry. I’ve not been completely honest with you.”
“In what way?”
“I’ve been keeping up quite a charade, my dear, but I only intended to do so until I was sure I could trust you.”
“O.K., now you’re beginning to make me awfully nervous.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, I’m just having a hard time figuring out where to begin. Forgive me if I just plunge?”
“Of course.”
“Right. Well.” He struggled to sit upright and re-positioned his arm. “It all began with the pictures you sent.”
“Which pictures? You mean, the ones of me?”
“Yes. The moment I saw them, I realized we had met before.”
I blinked and stared. Was he out of his mind? “Now, how could that be possible, with me in the States and you here in New Zealand?”
“Ah, but I wasn’t always in New Zealand, remember? It might seem like a lifetime ago to me, but it’s only been a little over five years since I came here. Before that, before my health went to hell, I traveled the world, including the States. And I’m thinking it was maybe eight or nine years ago now, you attended a certain concert in Boston, in a very small club—”
“The last small-venue concert I went to in Boston was Ronan O’Farrell’s, eight years ago. I told you about that. Hardly anyone came to the show, and no one was at the stage door to greet him afterwards, except me and my boyfriend of the moment.”
“Yes, and Ronan came out exhausted, and the two of you escorted him to his hotel. I dare say he never forgot that kindness.”
“How would you know that?”
Liam managed a tentative smile. “Well, here I am at the point of no return, and I’m not handling it very well, am I?”
“You’re making a perfect botch of it, if you want to know the truth. Will you please tell me what you’re trying to say and be done with it?”
“All right. Well, for starters, Liam O’Malley is—an alias. Liam is actually my middle name, and O’Malley is my mother’s maiden name. When you and I first met, I was still known as Ronan O’Farrell.”
“You expect me to believe that? Good God! Here I thought you were a nice guy, and you turn out to be just another sad, sorry, delusional fan who can’t let the poor man rest in peace!”
“I’m sorry you’re angry, but it’s true. I am Ronan O’Farrell. A year or two after that concert in Boston, I fell seriously ill, and I realized that if I tried to continue at the pace I’d been keeping up, I wasn’t going to live much longer. I also knew myself a little too well. A modified schedule wasn’t going to work for me. I would have to give it my all, as I always had, or give nothing. My brother-in-law came up with the idea of total retirement. At first, he was half joking and so was I, but as I lay alone in hospital during those long, sleepless nights, I began to consider it, and to wonder how I might fix things so I could follow through with it. I imagined many possibilities, until I finally hit on one I believed would really work. What if people could be made to believe that Ronan O’Farrell hadn’t survived his illness? What if, while a funeral was staged and carried out, Ronan O’Farrell quietly traveled off incognito, to some remote part of the world where he wasn’t likely to be recognized? Well. It didn’t take much effort on his part to convince those who loved him, and suffice it to say that by the time Ronan O’Farrell was well enough to make his journey, he was so dramatically changed no one ever did recognize him. So, he came to his retirement in New Zealand, to relax and learn a new way of life.”
Liam grew progressively calmer as he told the tale, and I realized that it must have been quite a burden to keep it to himself all this time. “Liam, I—I’m not sure what to think of all this.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Well, I—”
“I can’t say I blame you. In your place, I wouldn’t believe me, either. There are two ways I could prove it to you, but for one I’ve got to wait a week, and for the other I’ve got to wait even longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s no way you could look into my eyes and not know me, and neither could you deny what your ears and heart would tell you if I could pick up a guitar and play for you.”
“But you can’t.”
“No.”
“I have to take what you say purely on faith.”
“Yes.”
“I need some time to think.”
“Fine. Go for a walk or a drive. Clear your head. I’ll be right here when you get back. I might be asleep, but please, if I am—wake me. Don’t leave me hanging a moment longer than you must. And if you do find it in your heart to forgive me for my—deception—then I’ll gladly go back to the States with you. Oh, and one more thing?”
“Yes?”
“If you do believe me and forgive me, then—would you please call me by my given name?”
“I will if I can,” I managed to reply.
“Thank you,” he returned graciously. Then, sounding anxious, he added, “You will be back, won’t you?”
“Yes. I can’t say exactly when, but I do promise to come back. I might be a couple of hours, though. You’ll be all right alone?”
“I think so. I shan’t move from this spot unless I need to visit the loo.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t leave you.”
“No, no it’s all right. Go where you’ve a mind to, and we’ll talk when you come back.”
I felt so torn as I got into his car. He shouldn’t be left alone, but I really needed to get away for a bit and think, well-removed from the influence of himself and his environment. Luckily, there were nice places to hike nearby, and it only took a few minutes to drive to one of them. I parked the car, then struck out on one of the few trails that Liam and I had not explored together. I didn’t have to go far to find an empty bench, but that was no surprise. It was winter in earnest now, with a chill, constant wind blowing. No one in their right mind would hike on a day like this.
I couldn’t help chuckling at the thought. Given the shock of Liam’s confession, I was hardly in my right mind. No matter how I shivered, though, I would not go back until I had decided for certain that his story was true, and I could call him Ronan in good faith.
By now I had determined that I didn’t have to hear him play his guitar to make a decision, but a glimpse of his eyes was another matter. I needed that, and badly. I’d only really seen them once, less than twelve hours before, and the circumstances were less than ideal.
Try as I might, I could not rid myself of that vision: Liam on the floor, his face turned towards me, contorted, pleading, his inflamed eyes open a mere slit, such pain did the light cause him.
It was damn near impossible for me to see any resemblance to Ronan O’Farrell in that scenario, but if I moved back in time a bit…
Liam in the airport, pushing away from the telephone booth, walking towards me with a long stride that didn’t quite match his small stature: that had seemed eerily familiar at the time, though I did not understand why. There had been something about his voice, too, that resonated within me, as if I had heard it before—but how, when he had always declined to speak on the telephone?
Oh, that should have been a warning ages ago, along with his refusal to send me a photograph! If I hadn’t been so devastated by Hal’s situation, I would have handled everything so differently! I would have refused his invitation—politely, of course, and offered plausible excuses for why I couldn’t make the journey, but—too late for that now. Here I was in New Zealand, oceans and continents separating me from everyone and everything I knew. Some spark of intuition had led me to this—but why?
“I do,” I said softly, the sound of my own voice startling me. “I do remember. Oh, God, Ronan…”
I looked up, half expecting him to be standing there, but of course he wasn’t. His soul’s voice had spoken to me in spite of physical distance, as it always had.
Yes, there was yet another reminder of that spark of intuition. Hadn’t I always known there would be some chance of meeting him in another time and place?
There were tears in my eyes as I got up from the bench and walked back to the car. On the road, though I was just a short distance away, it seemed the drive would never end. Was it another trick of Ronan’s, to insure that I would take the proper time to consider my feelings?
No matter: I was back at the house now, leaping down from the driver’s seat, my feet carrying me up the walkway to the front door, which slowly swung open to let me inside.
Ronan stood in the foyer waiting, his eyes unbound.
He ought not to have taken the bandage off, but I understood why he had felt it necessary. He was squinting fiercely against the light, but his eyes settled on me and their gaze never wavered as I approached. I couldn’t begin to guess how much that must hurt him, and my foremost thought was to get him back inside, to the pure relief of a darkened room. I mounted the steps and, the moment I was close enough, I took his hand. “Oh, Ronan, your eyes!”
He closed them then, and his mouth trembled, and then suddenly, incredibly, before I fully realized what was happening, he had drawn me close with his good arm, clasping me tightly.
My arms crept around him and locked him in an embrace I had always longed to give. Now, finally, I had permission, and I knew his secret name.
“Ronan,” I murmured. “Oh, Ronan. Ronan!”
Our tears mingled as he pressed his cheek to mine. “Oh, God, I was so frightened,” he confessed. “You have no idea, Sarah! I really believe that if you had said Liam, I would have died on the spot.”
“But I promised, Ronan. I promised that I wouldn’t come back here until I could believe it, and say it, and mean it.”
He drew back and studied my face solemnly. “And you do? Really? And you forgive me, too?”
I touched my nose to his and smiled through tears. “How can you even ask?”
He grinned broadly: the boyish grin I knew well from any number of old album covers. Already, he looked as though some of the years had dropped away. “I had to ask. Your belief in me, and your understanding and forgiveness were not to be taken for granted. I knew that even before you came here. May I—may I kiss you?”
“No. I promised I would take no liberties, and I meant it. You must grant me the privilege first.”
