Page 89 of Promise Me This

Leona

For the first time in twelve years, time doesn’t crawl. It absolutely flies.

One minute I have weeks to come to terms with the idea of leaving, and the next, the day has come. Anxious energy reverberates through me as I shower, towel off, and don the thick wool sweater Siobhan got me as a parting gift. To take a bit of Ireland with you, she said. Like I’m not leaving my whole heart here when I go.

I sit at the edge of the mattress and face the mirror that leans against the wall. My cheeks are fuller than when I arrived, my eyes brighter. I look like me again. The girl I knew before I became the woman I am.

Perhaps pieces of both can coexist.

The lightest knock draws my gaze. “Come in!” I call, and then two wide, teary green eyes peek around the opening door.

“Oh Niamh.” I stretch my arms wide. “Come here.”

She runs across the room and throws herself against my chest, squeezing the breath out of me. “Do you have to go?”

Her loose curls tickle my chin, and the scent of her strawberry kids’ shampoo wafts up to my nose. I don’t have the words to comfort her, because right now with her cradled against me, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to say goodbye either.

Callum steps into the room and leans against the floral wall, arms crossed and head bowed. I know this hurts him as much as it hurts me, but he’s trying to be strong for Niamh. He doesn’t want to pass on his fear of goodbyes to his daughter. He wants to write a new story for her, one where people come back. Where they keep their promises.

Two nights ago, when we lay tucked into one another in the lazy evening light of this room, he whispered it all to me. His hopes and fears for her, and for himself. The ways he feels he doesn’t measure up. All the steps he’s taking to be the father he never had, despite it all.

It’s a version of him that’s new to me in the midst of everything I already thought I knew. This man, stoic and seemingly carved from granite in his stillness as he watches me with his daughter, is both the person I’ve always loved and someone new that I get to fall in love with for the very first time.

And I am. Because every fear is the flipside of a coin, and the other side is a man who loves his daughter so much he wants to be everything she needs. A man who can’t see that he already is.

I smile at him and lay my cheek against the crown of our girl’s head, blinking away tears. In those quiet conversations, I promised to be the one to tell him every day how good he’s doing. I promised to help him write that new story for Niamh by coming home.

He clears his throat, but his voice still comes out thick with emotion. “She has to go, love. But she’ll be back before we know it.”

“Before I’m five?” Niamh mutters against my chest.

“No, not before you’re five.” I sit back, bracing a hand on each of her shoulders, and meet her gaze. “And I’m so sorry to miss it. But when I come back, we’ll have a big party to cover everything I’ve missed. It’ll be Christmas and your birthday and anything else all wrapped into one!”

A cheeky grin stretches across her face, revealing her dimple. “Will there be presents?”

I wink at her. “More than you can handle.”

“I can handle a lot!”

“That she can,” Callum muses. The corner of his mouth finally lifts as he strides across the room to squat next to us. “This one was hoping someone would plait her hair one last time.” He glances up at me, the green in his eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “I never could master the double plait.”

I laugh, spin Niamh around in my lap, and study the two of us in the mirror. Despite a complete lack of shared genes, the ring of gold in our eyes makes us look somehow related, and it warms a piece of my heart. Like she was always meant to be mine, and I hers. I run my fingers through the fine strands of her blonde hair, separating it into equal parts. “Did you bring hair ties?”

“Daddy?” Niamh asks, peeking up at him.

He chuckles and shoves a hand into his back pocket, drawing out two small rubber ties. I retrieve them and loop them over my fingers so they’re available when I’m ready.

“Ready for your first official lesson in braiding?” I tease.

Callum rolls his eyes. “You think you can teach me something the Internet hasn’t tried to already?”

Niamh meets my gaze in the mirror and I wink. “I know I can.”

The drive to Dublin consists of four hours of rolling green hills, windmills in the distance, and music filling the somber silence that hangs in the air between us. We’ve said all the words we have for one another over the past few weeks, preparing ourselves for this pain. All that’s left to do is endure it.

We make it to our hotel just as the world grows dark around us. My flight leaves early tomorrow morning, so we’ll stay in the city for the night and then say our goodbyes before the sun has even risen. It is all so familiar that the sense of déjà vu is debilitating.

I stretch out on the bed and stare up at the ceiling, with its smooth white surface and lack of wooden beams, and ache for the inn that has been my home for three months. Despite knowing this is what has to be done, every part of me wishes I could turn tail and run all the way back to Cahersiveen, bidding the Irish government good luck in kicking me out.

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