as they looked at a picture of a man holding a child in his arms. “I don’t know if I could do that.”
Hadn’t she done that very same thing? Just not on as grand a scale as leaving the country where she had been born. In many ways, she was no different. She was struggling to find her place in the world.
“They had to work to rebuild their lives.”
She was doing that also. The job was there but she floundered with the other aspects. Today had been the first day that she’d felt like her old self in a long time. She liked it.
“Let’s go have a look at that book.” Ryan directed her toward the center of the large building. He stopped before a glass case. Inside lay an old register with names written in faded ink.
“Come on.” He grabbed her hand and gently pulled her towards a computer screen on a wall nearby. He sounded as excited as a kid wanting to show off a toy. “All you do is type your last name in and see what comes up.”
“You do yours first.” She didn’t know much about her family tree. That hadn’t been a priority when her parents had been together. Certainly hadn’t been mentioned after their divorce. Even her grandparents had deserted her.
“All right.” Ryan tapped the keys.
A list came up on the screen of all the O’Dohertys who had passed through Ellis Island.
“See, this is my grandfather.” Ryan pointed with his index finger. “He was just a baby then. These are his siblings. All nine of them.” He ran his fingertip down the list of names. “I can’t imagine having nine children,” he said in wonder.
“That does seem excessive.” Her heart caught. She’d given birth to a child.
“A couple sounds like plenty to me,” he said offhandedly.
Pain filled her. She’d already had a baby. “That sounds about right,” she said dryly.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. I have to learn to live with it. Move on. It’s a fact and I can’t change it.”
He gave her a quick hug. “I think you’re doing a great job.” He kissed the top of her head and let her go.
She appreciated his show of support. If she wasn’t careful she could get too used to it. “Tell me about this grandfather or great-grandfather who picked up and moved his whole family.”
“Well, he was pretty much like everybody else who came through here. He was Irish and wanted a better life. Settled in Brooklyn, worked hard but had little other than family. And family is everything.”
“And your dad and mom?”
He looked away as if he wouldn’t answer then he turned back to her. “Mom was the local girl who married the big Irish policeman who came into the café where she worked. Mother used to say she fell in love with his Irish brogue and the rest of him just came with it.”
“So that’s where you get the hint of an inflection intermingled with your Brooklyn clip.”
He chuckled. “That’s a nice way of putting it. Mostly the Brooklyn has taken over but every once in a while the Irish really shows through.”
“How old were you when your mother died?”
“Thirteen.”
She didn’t miss the hitch of pain in the word. “Your sisters?”
“My sisters were a number of years younger. Dad became both parents.”
“That must have been tough, on all of you.”
“It was, but I think it was toughest on Dad. He’d lost the love of his life. He wasn’t only the breadwinner but he had to be the stable factor in our lives when his was crumbling.”
“Crumbling?”
He hesitated as if he didn’t want to say more. “He got sick. He developed motor neuron disease.”
“You had said he’d died but not that he’d died so slowly. That must have been horrible for him. You and your sisters.” She grasped one of his biceps and squeezed, hoping to relay her sympathy.
As if he’d gone off into the past, he continued, “I saw him struggle to keep his job for as long as he could. Then be forced to give up one more thing he loved.”
He needed to talk. She knew not only from her experience as a counselor but because she’d been in the same place when her parents had divorced and again when she’d left Alexis and Emily. Ryan and she had both known loss.
“I had to watch this rock of a man slowly die. He had to be put into a nursing home. I thought it might kill him to go but I was the one it almost killed. I hated it that he needed to be there.”
Ryan was pouring out his pain like water that had been dammed and needed a place to go. How long had he been keeping all this pain to himself? No wonder he’d isolated himself from the families of his patients. She felt troubled. She’d pushed him to be more open.
“You carried the responsibility, didn’t you? For everything. Him, your sisters. For holding things together.”
He looked at her as if amazed. As if for the first time he recognized that someone understood.
“Yeah. I visited him as often as I could. Took care of my sisters.”
Ryan’s reaction to what she’d told him about Emily suddenly made sense. He’d supported others’ emotions for so long that he didn’t want to carry hers. She hadn’t once heard anyone at the hospital talk about his father having just died. She bet he’d never let on to anyone what he was going through. He’d just shared a part of himself that few saw. She was honored to be one of those people.
“You’re a good man, Ryan O’Doherty.” She would have hugged him but she didn’t think he would appreciate that much pity. He was also a proud man.
“Are you through?” a man with a wife and couple of kids standing nearby asked.
“Yes,” Ryan said, stepping away from the computer.
He took her hand again and she gave his a squeeze. She didn’t want him to close himself off like he’d done before.
As they walked toward the entrance, Ryan said, “We didn’t look up your family name.” He turned as if to go back.
She tugged on his hand. “We’ll do it next time.” Would there be a next time? It would be nice if there was. She was enjoying her day with Ryan.
They boarded the ferry that would take them back to Manhattan and found a spot inside, out of the late afternoon wind.
“Are you hungry?”
Lucy found to her surprise she was, in more ways than one. “I’m getting that way.”
“If we have another hot chocolate, will that hold you over
