May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

every bit of it had been Aislinn’s idea. She was always comin’ up with interesting sayings like that, he thought, and from the time she’d brought the first batch of them home, she insisted that books were like the land, since no one could ever really
own
such an eternal thing. And now, as he ran his fingertips over them, rememberin’ when he and his sister first proudly staked their temporary claim to such treasure, he couldn’t help but think of what’d concerned him from the first moment his Mam told him they were leavin’. Aislinn was to be the only one left behind.
JULY 19, 1847
    It’s still night when he’s awake and slippin’ his way down the ladder from the loft. Mam and Aunt Em were up talkin’ way after he was supposed to be asleep, and he worried that he’d not wake in time to pay Aislinn one final visit. But something wakes him when there’s just the slightest hint of light on the horizon, and he gets past Mam and Aunt Em, who’ve yet to stir. Maybe it was Aislinn woke him up, he thinks, as he’s off down the Lane to the churchyard.
    The slate is still clear of any weeds or grass, often as he and Mam and Aunt Em come to visit, each of them separately, pretendin’ they didn’t do so, but each of them knowing every time the others’d been here. Ethan sits down beside her, careful not to touch the ground above her coffin, or the one alongside it either.
    Mahrnin’, Misses O’Neil, he says to the slate next to Aislinn’s. He barely knew the woman when she was alive, but it’s as if he’s become close to her, what with all the visits and settin’ down alongside her eternal resting place as often as he has by now.
    Mahrnin’, Aislinn, he says, sadder, the guilt of their departure heavy on his mind and in his words. We’re off t’day, loike I was sayin’ yesterday. Three days it’ll be to Newry, Mam says. I can only take six o’the books in th’Libr’y. We each gotta carry some o’ the food an’ six was all I figgered I could manage. I was gonna bring th’others out here an’ lay ’em alongside ya, but I figgered you’d be sad t’see ’em get rained on like dat, even if dey’re mostly th’English hist’ries an’ such. Better t’leave ’em in the cottage, an’ maybe whoever else comes t’live here’ll get a chance t’read ’em.
    He’s spent so much of his twelve and a half years with Aislinn as a constant presence, even in the ground like this, that his eyes can’t help but fill with the water at the thought of sayin’ goodbye once and for all. But he doesn’t want her to be sad, and doesn’t want Mrs. O’Neil to see him cry, so he opens the book he’s brought with him, and turns to the page he’d marked with an old piece of shoelace.
    I’m takin’ th’Shakespeare along wit’ me, he says. I still gotta sound out some o’ da words an’ I don’t know if I’ll ever understand him th’way you do, but I figgered you’d want me to keep workin’ at it. I remembered how you liked
Much Ado About Nothin’
, an’ I figgered it’d be better t’read somethin’ from one o’ da comedies than somethin’ sad. So here goes, it’s from Benedick.
This can be no trick. The conf’rence was sadly borne. Dey have th’trutha this from Hero …
    When he finishes it, he half-expects to hear Mrs. O’Neil start applauding the way Mam and Aunt Em always did on Saturday nights. But there’s just the silence of the first light of mornin’. So he talks a little more, mostly about the journey, with a few
you remember when’s
 … followed by a story and maybe a little laugh at the end of it, thrownin amongst the chatter. But there’s only so much of it he can handle, and before too much longer he’s off, not saying goodbye, just
s’lahng
, figurin’ that Mr. Hanratty had it right when it comes to moments like these.
    He’s not halfway back up the Lane when he sees Aunt Em making her way toward him. And he knows just what she’s doin’.
    We figgered you was here,