The Last Bride in Ballymuir by Dorien Kelly Read Free Book Online

States next week to look at my work. Some nonsense about
doing fabric design for them.”
    “ Nonsense?” he repeated in a
teasing voice, amazed that she seemed so uncomfortable with her own
prosperity. “People don’t generally cross the ocean on a
whim.”
    He could have sworn his bold sister was
sporting a blush.
    “ Don’t go making more of
this than what’s there,” she said. “I’ve things I need to see done,
that’s all.” She stood and settled her hardly touched mug with the
others nesting in the kitchen sink. “Now are you coming with
me?”
    He opened the cupboard and found it as bare
as a pauper’s. “I might as well.” One last hopeful peek in the
refrigerator yielded nothing. Shrugging on his jacket he asked,
“What exactly do you eat, sister, fairy dust and summer
dreams?”
    “ More like yogurt and the
occasional bit of gra nola.” Pausing from
her efforts to secure Roger to his leash
when he appeared more in mind of a game of tug-of-war, Vi grinned
up at Michael. “Mr. Spillane down at the market is usually filling
the shelves about now, and he’s not against letting a customer in a
bit early.”
    He followed on his sister’s heels. “So I’m to
go to market for you?”
    “ If you plan to do any
eating, you are.”
    Vi dropped him off at Spillane’s without so
much as an introduction. Peering in the front window of the market,
Michael saw a burly, silver-haired man busy stacking boxes of soap.
He rapped on the glass, and the man looked sharply his way. Michael
worked up a casual smile and wave, hoping that would get him
through the gates to this paradise.
    The man opened the door just enough to stick
out his head. “We open at eight, as the sign on the door would have
told you—had you come when there was light enough to read it.”
    Michael gazed at the neat rows and narrow
aisles just beyond the door. “Vi—my sister—said you’ve let her in
early now and again.”
    “ Vi? Then you’re Vi
Kilbride’s brother Michael come to visit? I’d heard you were in
town.” The door opened wider and one enormous hand ushered him in.
“I always let Vi shop when the whim takes her. If I didn’t, she’d
forget to eat altogether.”
    Michael stepped into the
store. Almost reeling with pleasure, he
inhaled the combined scents of fruit, flowers, and food. Paradise
it was.
    “ I’m Seamus Spillane,” the
storekeeper said, extending his hand. “Welcome.”
    Michael shook the man’s hand. “Vi mentioned
that she had an account here.”
    “ She does, and because I’d
hate to see the girl starve to death, I also have my son run the
groceries to her house when she thinks to buy any.”
    “ Your son hasn’t been up her
way in some time,” Michael commented, then reached out to heft an
orange in one hand. The color was incredible, almost tempting
enough to have him biting into the bitter skin.
    The grocer held out a basket. “Fill this, and
when you’re done, take another. You have the look of a man who
likes his food.”
    Smiling, Michael took the basket and dropped
the orange into it. “More than you know,” he said.
    It wasn’t gluttony
overtaking him. It was the sweep of hue,
scent, and texture that he’d been deprived of for so long. Though
he meant to have an eye to price, he had soon loaded the basket
with a rainbow of produce: blood oranges from Spain, tomatoes
from Holland, grapes so perfect they hardly
seemed real.
    In the next basket went
goods from around the world: pasta of every conceivable shape,
cereals screaming with sugar, and tins of
soup that he was sure would be the
difference between starvation and not. Looking at the wealth of food in front of him, it hit Michael how prosperity had come to the Republic.
He’d missed so much in his time gone. So much to make up for. So
much to learn.
    His gaze settling on a tub brimming with
bunches of fresh cut flowers—God knew where they had been jetted in
from—he pulled two bouquets and added them to his pile. This