An overindulgence on junk food had constructed a battle between his brain and spirit.
His brain yearned for sleep. His brain expressed in no uncertain terms its irritation that sweets and numerous cups of coffee had forced it alert for over twenty-four hours.
He had stopped counting the quantity of cups.
His spirit commanded the silence of his brain. His spirit announced that sleep would be detrimental to his heart.
His heart said it had already suffered detriment when he tore through the Sanders mansion and failed to find a trace of his absent love.
Epinephrine had kicked in within the first few hours. Dylan had channeled the entitled men from his father's old club to persuade the police into allowing him to see Harry Wilson, who had surely thanked his lucky stars for the steel bars that separated him from a seething Brandon and a raging Dylan.
It was a feat, tapering a thirty-six year old's temper in a sixteen-year-old's body.
Where the fuck is she? Dylan had tried to roar at Harry. What the fuck did your psycho ass do with my Bren?
The words were there, but they failed to find their way to his tongue.
"Dylan." A lankier Harry than he had once known, yet still recognizable in appearance, had eyed Dylan from behind the cell. "Long time no see. How's Janie?"
"Don't talk to me about Janie," said Dylan.
"Jealous I was her first?" asked Harry.
"You were her - what?" Dylan sought to clear his muddled mind. "Look, I'm not here to talk about Janie. We're here about Brenda."
"Who?" Genuine puzzlement rested on Harry's features.
"Brenda," said Brandon as he neared the cell. "My sister. What the hell did you do with my sister?"
"Don't know what you're talking about," said Harry.
"Cut the crap," said Dylan. "We know you did something with Bren and Donna and if you don't 'fess up now, you're gonna make everything worse for yourself."
"First off," said Harry, "I don't give a shit what you threaten me with."
"I'm a McKay," Dylan reminded him.
"And I'm a Wilson," said Harry. "You think we listen to McKays? You talk the talk, Dylan," he said, stretching Dylan's name in mockery, "but when have you ever walked the walk? Second off, I don't know a Brenda."
"You want me to walk the walk?" Dylan stood as closely to Harry as the bars permitted. "Wilson, you don't want to know what I'm capable of. Don't think I won't find out what you did to Zosha."
"Did it even cross your puny little brain that I might've been helping Zosha?" Harry leant against the wall of the cell, equanimous despite the accusations.
"On what planet is shutting Zosha up in a psych ward helping her?" asked Brandon before Dylan could form the question.
"It's not like she can take care of herself," said Harry. "Zosha needs constant care and attention. She can't even brush her teeth by herself."
"And whose fault is that?" asked Dylan.
"Not mine, if that's what you're implying," said Harry.
"I'm not implying," said Dylan. "I'm suggesting. Loudly. Clearly. You heard the loud, clear suggestion, didn't you, B?"
"Heard it," said Brandon. "Inclined to believe it."
"Then you're as doltish as McKay," said Harry. "Zosha was better off where she was."
"No family, no friends, everyone wondering if she'd vanished into thin air, but Zosha was better off?" asked Dylan. "That's one twisted mind you have there, Wilson. And I suppose Bren and Donna are better off where they are, too?"
"Look, if you can't find your girlfriends, that's not my problem," said Harry. "You sure they didn't just ditch you both? Donna I know for a fact can do better than you."
"Hey, asshole." Brandon curled his fingers into his palms. "You better make it your problem. 'Cause if my sister and our friend stay missing, you're gonna need a whole lot more than these bars to protect you."
"You think I'm afraid of you?" asked Harry. "I could wipe the floor with you, kid."
"Who pissed in your Cheerios?" asked Dylan.
"You did. Or do I need to remind you about the talent show?"
"This cannot seriously be about the talent show."
"What happened at the talent show?" asked Brandon.
"I'll tell you later," said Dylan. "'Cause apparently some people are still holding grudges about things that happened when we were kids."
"You killed my lynx," Harry snarled. "It's a lot deeper than some petty grudge."
"You killed his lynx?" asked Brandon, open-mouthed. Whether his shock stemmed from the accusation, the idea of a pet lynx, or both, Dylan could not be certain.
Nor could he say he cared, for he thought the entire interaction a waste of time.
"I did not kill his - you know what, this is pointless," said Dylan. "Wilson's not telling us a damn thing about Bren and we're losing daylight. We're going back to search the mansion ourselves."
"I don't have a thing to tell you," said Harry. "Genuinely don't have a clue who this Bren chick is you keep mentioning. And, sorry to disappoint, but I wouldn't snatch Donna. I happen to like her."
"If you like Donna the way you like Zosha, then that means diddly squat," said Dylan.
"You did something to them," said Brandon. "All of them; Zosha included. We're gonna find out what and when we do, you'll be sorry."
"Ooh, shortie's making threats. I'm quivering," said Harry in a tone drier than day-old, price-slashed biscuits.
"I'm not short," said Brandon indignantly. "I'm average."
"Tell Janie and Donna I say hey," said Harry to Dylan as if Brandon hadn't spoken a word, "and tell this Bren chick if she ever decides to ditch you…"
"You'll seduce her and throw her in a ditch somewhere?" Dylan realized he had to get out of there before he broke through the bars to strangle Harry.
Fuck off, he told Harry, though the sentence that emitted from Dylan's mouth came out more in the form of the tamer Get bent.
Not yet in a cell, nor free to go, Steve paced as he assured the other boys of his wellbeing and warned them that if Harry was involved in the girls' disappearance, they would be difficult to find.
Harry's mother, said Steve, was the Sylvia formerly known as Keating.
"Shit, not the Keatings," said Dylan.
"Who the hell are the Keatings?" asked Brandon. Frustration teetered at its boiling point, with the girls' uncertain fate, the confrontation with Harry, and their inability to secure Steve's release at the forefront.
"The founders of Beverly Hills," said Steve.
"Wait, seriously?" asked Brandon.
"More or less," said Dylan. "The Keatings stretch way back in the zip code. They were dubbed the founders awhile back after they helped most of the newer crowd gain prime real estate."
"Some of the older crowd, too," said Steve. "My parents used the Keatings."
"Then that means - dammit!" said Dylan.
"Dammit? Why dammit?" asked Brandon. "What's going on?"
"If Wilson stashed the girls somewhere," began Steve.
"- he could have stashed them anywhere," finished Dylan. "Even places on the estate you don't know about."
"There's loads of hidden places I don't know about," said the grim-faced Steve. "You'll want to start with the guest house."
"Why do we want to start there?" asked Dylan.
"Lock's rusted," said Steve. "We've never used the place, but maybe Harry -"
"We've got to go," said Dylan. "I can't take this shit anymore."
"Go," said Steve.
"We'll get you out," said Dylan. His words lacked enthusiasm, conviction; so listless was he without Brenda.
Or without the knowledge of where she had gone.
"You better," said Steve. "'Cause let's face it: this face? In juvie?"
"Don't go getting narcissistic on us," said Dylan.
"I'm just saying. This is not a face for juvie."
Negotiating with the police did nothing. Arguing the bogus charge that Steve had harbored a fugitive wanted for the mental incapacitation of Zosha Blake only resulted in threats of arrest for Dylan and Brandon.
Disheartened, they returned to the Sanders mansion and debated calling the respective sets of parents.
They agreed that Donna wouldn't want Felice to be called. Rush and Samantha both were.
Calling the Walsh parents was a point of debate. Neither boy could decide whether the discussion should wait another day, or immediately occur.
Ultimately, Jim and Cindy were called and, within the hour, Dylan had booked their flights despite their protests that they could pay for the airfare themselves.
And they wonder why Bren's so damn stubborn.
Brenda, you can be as stubborn as you want.
Just come back.
The call had come in then, the one he hadn't wanted to receive.
"Why are you answering Steve's phone?" asked the haughty voice.
"Why are you calling Steve?" sniped Dylan.
"I don't have to tell you anything I don't want to tell you," said Kelly.
"Alright, then tell me this. A. What did you have Harry Wilson do with Brenda and B. what did you have your little friend do with Brenda?" Had the telephone been a mobile phone, Dylan would have crushed it with the sheer force of his closing fist.
"Here we go again," said Kelly. "Did you ever consider that maybe I'm not as evil as you like to pretend I am?"
"Never called you evil," said Dylan. "You just have a serious problem with my girl that you need to address. And maybe with brunettes in general. Not to mention what you've been saying about your ex-best friend Donna."
"Look, you have no idea what happened with Zosha."
"You're right. All I know is what you yourself said, which to me is nothing short of a confession."
"That doesn't mean I knew that she was alive or that Harry had hidden her away."
"If you thought Zosha was dead and didn't say anything, that's not much better, Kelly. How can you possibly think that's better?"
"I don't have to take this," she said. "You know what? I don't care anymore. I don't care what any of you do. And when Bren comes crying to me over what happened between you and me in that pool -"
"Nothing happened in a pool," Dylan cut her off. "You and I weren't in a pool together."
"Well, not in this life," said Kelly.
"This is the only life I care about," said Dylan.
"Even if Brenda's gone forever?" said Kelly.
The conversation ended with a click.
She's not. She can't be.
Unless Kelly had Anteros snatch -
No. Bren's here.
Somewhere.
"Woah! Hey, no throwing of phones that don't belong to you," said Brandon as he caught the cordless telephone before it made contact with the wall.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," Dylan muttered through gritting teeth.
"Don't be so hard on yourself, bro." Brandon's tone was gentle. "How were we supposed to know Wilson would show up when we weren't around? I'm supposed to be the one who can literally feel when Bren needs me. I knew something was wrong, and I chalked it up to the connection going haywire. This is on me, not you."
"No, you don't get it," said Dylan. Slapping his hands against his thighs, he stood. "This. None of this shit. It didn't happen, okay? It didn't happen."
"What are you talking about?" asked Brandon.
"Bren falling off the cliff. The whiplash. Bren and Donna missing. Steve seconds away from juvie. None of it happened. Well…maybe the Steve one did, but not like this."
"But it did happen," said Brandon, whose confusion had only deepened with Dylan's tirade.
"Yeah it did, and it's my fault," said Dylan. "If I hadn't made that - I mean, Bren, she'd still be with - but she would - but I would at least know she -"
"Okay, you're losing it. Take a nap," said Brandon. "I'll keep looking."
"I ain't tired."
"Bren's not here so I'm saying exactly what she would. Nap. Now."
"Your entire damn family has a severe problem with obstinance, you know that?" grumbled Dylan. "Fine. I'll take five. No more than five. You better wake me in five."
"Did you say ten?"
"Walsh!"
"Five, got it."
The floor of the pool bottomed out into a deep chasm. Thick drops of water lashed upon his face.
But the skies weren't cloudy.
"Why the hell am I standing in a pool? Wait; is that - hold on, am I in the 90210?"
Dylan nearly lost his balance as he pivoted in a rush of wind.
"Bren!" He ran towards the voice, trying to see through the obstructive rain. "God, Bren, where the hell have you been?"
"Where the hell have I been? Where the hell am I now?" she asked.
It was only when Dylan lunged for her and consequently crashed into the wall of the pool that he realized she wasn't the Brenda he had been searching for.
He had two options.
He could force himself awake and continue searching.
Or he could keep dreaming. Steal a moment with the woman who controlled his dreams.
He would have remained torn, if it hadn't been for the babe.
"I've tried," said Dylan. "Tried to dream you up again. So many times. Why has it been so fu - friggin' hard?"
"Are we standing in Steve's old pool?" asked Brenda. "I'm not answering any questions until I'm not standing in a pool in the city I've purposely avoided for years. I don't know who Steve's done in here."
"You had me standing on the middle of a frozen lake. One wrong move and I could've been a popsicle."
"Dylan!"
"Okay, okay, hold on. Don't go anywhere."
"Does it look like I'm going anywhere?"
Dylan grasped the fabric of Aiden's plain clothing, holding on as tightly as he could whilst he set his mind to a new location.
"Better?" he asked.
Brenda slowly circled the area, taking in the mountains that ascended into the sky.
"I know this place," she said.
"I haven't been," said Dylan. "I never could bring myself to go. I'm running off pure imagination here. Well…imagination and Google Images."
"You didn't do too badly," said Brenda. "It almost looks like how I remember. But why here?"
"Because if I'd gone to New Zealand with you as planned instead of going to K2, then our lives would be a hell of a lot different."
"You get melancholy when you mention K2," she noted.
"You can see me?" he asked. His breaths trampled underfoot his bobbing throat. "You can finally see me?"
"No," she said. "I hear it in your voice. What exactly happened there?"
"I don't really want to go back there." Dylan took turns between staring at Brenda and eyeing Aiden's spittle.
"Guess you told Kelly."
"I didn't, actually. I told her the basics. That was it. Spent a lot of time drinking and using to block it out."
"Are you telling me you've kept it inside all this time? That can't be good, Dylan. Not when it makes your voice go all squeaky like that. At least Kelly has a degree in abnormal psych. She might've known how to help you."
"Didn't want her help. Besides, what am I supposed to say? Hey, I'm Dylan McKay, and I start panicking every time I'm near a damn cliff?"
"A lot more than panicking," said Brenda. "Thank God David had those ice cubes."
Dylan halted in his anxious footsteps. "Did you just - hang on, what do you know about David's ice cubes?"
"He used them to help with your shock, didn't he? I'm no doctor, Dylan, but you might wanna get checked out for possible PTSD courtesy of K2 and the Idiot Who Thought He Could Climb It."
"Brenda, do you even know what you're talking about?" said Dylan.
"Not at all," said Brenda. "I mean, when we went to Yosemite. I was never on a cliff, right? I could've sworn I wasn't."
"Do you think you were on a cliff?"
Brenda's face scrunched in a moment of intense concentration. "I don't remember being on a cliff, but I remember falling off of it? And Val, did she go up to Yosemite with us?"
"Not originally." Dylan gawked at Brenda. "You have memories about Val joining us? And about you falling off the cliff?"
"I don't know. I'm so confused."
He encouraged Brenda to share what else she knew of their sophomore summer.
Her recollection was jumbled, with memories of their original summer fighting memories of their new.
"It's working." Had Dylan jumped through the surface of the earth and sprung up on the other side as he felt the inclination to do, he would have rivaled the introduction of the Captain Planet animated series. "I'm changing things. Everything I've been doing, you're aware of it."
"More confused than aware."
"The important thing is we're getting somewhere. My two Brens are merging, just as I hoped. Eventually, everything you know about from our old life will be dust on the wind."
"But not before you tell one of us about K2."
"Maybe eventually. Right now, I need answers. And while I listen to them, I want to hold our son."
"We've been over this. The chances of Aiden being yours are -"
"Highly likely now that I've seen this."
Dylan waved his fantasy of their Boston rendezvous onto one of the mountains.
His eyes never left Brenda's face as she watched with keen interest.
Was he imagining things, or had her eyes grown a tad smokier when she saw the image of his bare ass flick across the mountain?
"If this doesn't prove we were in Boston together," said Dylan, "and I fu - fricked your brains out until we made our son - who, by the way, very much has my hair - then I don't know what does."
"I'll admit it's possible," said Brenda, "but I'm still not sold."
"Still, I have as much of a chance of being his father as Monaghan does, so may I?"
"I guess."
Dylan would never get used to the feeling of holding his son, the phenomenal little being that he had created with his Brenda.
He knew without a shred of doubt that he had fathered Aiden, regardless of what any paternity test would say.
Paternity tests were as easy to manipulate as memories, especially if you had money to play the system and could turn the medical staff in your favor.
"I had something similar," Brenda finally confessed. "But it wasn't Boston."
It was Dylan's turn to gape at Brenda's supposed memory of their impromptu meeting in Vienna.
"I knew it," he said. "It's that hair. That light blond-brown thing I temporarily had. That's how you knew. You saw me."
"Dylan, these could easily be a product of our overactive imaginations."
"And they could just as easily be true. So as far as I'm concerned, this is our son, and I -" Dylan's confidence wavered. "Well, I'd like to see all the memories you have of carrying him; if, if that's okay."
"Them," said Brenda, who within seconds had dramatically softened her tone.
"What?" asked Dylan, but the footage began to roll.
He spread out his hand towards the snow-brushed mountain and waved it in the manner of a schoolchild clapping out blackboard erasers.
"What are you doing?" asked Brenda.
"I just wanna see if this works."
"Connor should've been sitting there." She pointed to the empty chair beside her pictorial figure in what appeared to be a doctor's office.
"Then it worked," said Dylan smugly.
"Oh, that's mature," said Brenda.
"I don't care. Monaghan shouldn't be anywhere near our son. Since I can erase that, I will."
"He's not as bad as you like to pretend he is," she argued, though continued on in her memory footage.
In a way, Dylan experienced it all. Every kick and craving. Every changing curve. Every moment of concern flashed across the mountain, sinking into the aquamarine stream below.
Seeing Brenda crouched over in the bathroom made Dylan want to jump into the screen, bringing her close to him until her pains melted off of her and into him.
Instead, Dylan carefully shifted Aiden against his neck and kissed Aiden's nose.
"You gave birth in a barn?" Dylan rubbed at his eye. "Am I seeing this right? A barn? Alone?"
"I wasn't alone," said Brenda. "Feel free to unerase my companions at any point."
"I like it better this way."
"Well then, for the record, I wasn't alone."
"Was Brandon with you?"
"No."
"Steve or David? One of the Londoners?"
"Also no."
"Alright, then unless it was Val, they're staying erased. Is there a reason you couldn't get to the hospital?"
"Terrible storm. Don't you wanna see the person who helped deliver them?"
"It wasn't me or our brothers, so no. Why do you keep saying them?"
The demolition of Dylan's respiratory system answered his own question.
He conjured up the exact comforter he and Brenda had kicked off the bed during their first time to allow him to hold her as he sobbed.
"I should've," he blubbered, "I - I should've been there."
"There's no way you could've been there." Brenda rubbed her hand across the comforter until Dylan's shoulder rested below her hand and the fabric. "We aren't even in the same century now."
"Our son's never gonna know me," said Dylan. "That's hard enough and now I find out that we had a second son neither of us can know?"
"We can dream him up." He heard the emotion Brenda attempted to conceal. "We can all be reunited in these dreams."
"It isn't enough, Bren. I'm sure whomever delivered our sons is perfectly adequate and I'm grateful to them, but if I'd been there -"
"It wouldn't have changed anything. He was already gone before I gave birth."
Dylan wasn't so convinced, but as time was short, he moved on to ask Brenda his next set of questions.
He wanted to know everything Kelly Taylor had told her over the years.
"Why?" asked Brenda. "What's that gonna do?"
"Brenda. Look, all I know is you were supposed to come home after one summer in London. One summer -"
"You know why I didn't -"
"- and then one year. A single year, Bren. I know something caused you to stay away and after what I know now, I need you to tell me anything Kelly told you that was even slightly off-putting."
"You saw her yelling after you got me out of jail."
"Yeah, I did. And something tells me that wasn't the first time. Or the last."
Infuriated was a poor word to describe how Dylan felt when Brenda finished.
Enraged, incensed; none of those suited.
Because now he knew the real reason Brenda hadn't returned after that year.
Kelly Taylor.
He listened as Brenda described her tumultuous conversations with Kelly, or as more scenes played on the mountain. A catty response in the hospital explained away as a pathetic joke after Brenda had screamed in for the others to come into the Peach Pit restroom. The lies Kelly had told about their disastrous European trip.
None got to Dylan as much as the postcard.
Kelly had sent Brenda a postcard from Lake Minnetonka the summer of Brenda's initial RADA program. There had been pleasantries, questions of how Brenda fared and details of the Walsh's summer without her.
"She told you what?" Dylan repeated, shaking to the point that Brenda had reclaimed Aiden from him.
"That you hadn't been seen and were probably down in Baja."
"That part's true, but you just told me Kelly said I was down there sending letters to her."
"It's not like I believed it," said Brenda. "You and Kelly weren't in a letter-sending place when I left. But then when you didn't answer anything I sent or call me back after I had Brandon give you that message - and then I found out from Brandon about you crashing Donna's thing -"
"Brandon told you?"
"I overheard him talking to Steve in the background about it when I was on the phone with my parents."
"So you found out I made a scene over Kelly and decided to stay away, not realizing that my drinking binge had nothing to do with Kelly and she was an easy target."
"No, that was more because of Kelly calling me up to tell me about that guy who attacked Donna so Kelly could berate me for being a bad friend or whatever - guess Don didn't tell her that we'd already spoken - and oh yeah, Kelly just conveniently slipped in that you'd asked her to go on a trip around the world with you. London? You were going to go to London with her?"
"I wasn't going to go to London with her."
"Dylan, I saw a picture of the pamphlet! The freaking Elizabeth Tower was on the front cover!"
"London wasn't part of it. I swear. Is that why you didn't come home? Because you thought me and her would hook back up and come show you that we had?"
"By that point, I'd stopped caring. I was over it. Tired of Kelly. Tired of her games. Tired of all the fickality - is that a word? It should be - of Beverly Hills. And I loved London. So I stayed."
"I only asked her on that trip because I thought you'd already stopped caring when you weren't at my intervention."
"I didn't even know about your intervention. A group of us had gone over to Snowdonia and were well out of range. We didn't get back until you were in rehab. I tried to call."
"They didn't tell me."
"They never tell you, do they? Or were you just too busy telling Kelly you'd fallen in love with her?"
"Fuck's sake," said Dylan, unable to filter himself. For all her harping on about choosing herself and not wanting to hurt the two men she claimed to love, Kelly hadn't had any issue with actively working to inflict pain upon Brenda. "What else did she tell you?"
Other conversations were mentioned. Multiple ones were inundated with more fabrications.
"I did not propose to her," said Dylan. "Your brother proposed."
"She said you both did."
"Well, she straight-up lied."
"A trip around the world isn't a proposal?"
"Okay yeah, I'll admit I asked her on that, but I never had any intention of proposing to her."
Had Brenda returned from RADA when planned, Dylan believed he wouldn't have proposed to Toni, either.
"It wasn't the first time you asked her to travel with you," said Brenda. "At least this time wasn't in front of me."
"Another one of my asshole moments."
An explanation would have come off as an excuse; in Dylan's case, a ridiculous excuse.
At the time, however, it was easy to not dwell on his callous actions when he saw Steve hanging all over Brenda and Brenda announcing to everyone that she would be leaving them.
Leaving him.
The trip had been a test, a way to determine whether Kelly would also leave him behind.
Irony had left an acrid taste when, in their travels, Dylan found himself wishing Kelly had.
"I really thought you were done with me," he said. "If I'd known what I knew a year later - that we still had a shot - I wouldn't've told Kelly all that past lives stuff, which I now know was all horseshit anyway. Friggin' hypnotherapy."
"Can we stop talking about Kelly now?" asked Brenda. "I've more important things to focus on. Aiden's getting hungry." She looked down at their whimpering son. "You know what that means."
"You pop out a boob and I watch our son feed?" Dylan stretched out his hand to caress Aiden's curls.
"That isn't what they mean by a dream feed."
"Can't blame a guy for trying." As much as Dylan didn't want their time to end, he firmly believed in the need to return to a conscious state so that he could yell at Brandon for letting him sleep longer than the permitted five minutes.
"But wait," said Dylan. "Before you go. If you're aware of things happening in our new life, then can you tell me where the hell…"
Two thoughts dominated Dylan's mind when he learnt that it had been a mere fifteen minutes of rest and would have been five had Dylan not sucker-punched Brandon in the elbow when Brandon attempted to wake him.
The first thought was of his being a father, twice-over, of children he would never have the opportunity to raise.
The second, he immediately shared aloud.
"I know where our girls are." Dylan pulled on his shoes as he spoke with Brandon.
"How?" asked Brandon.
"Never mind how." Dylan tossed on his jacket and snatched at his helmet. "We ain't got much time. We have to get there now, before we lose them to a shit ton of cement."
xx
The post had been slow.
It had been slow enough in the twenty-first century when packages from Dublin took weeks to arrive in Cork, and that, at least, involved transport by vehicle.
It then went without saying that the post would be a snail's pace in the century Brenda now called home.
A little over a month had passed since she had penned a letter to Benjamin Harrison, who would hold the position of the US presidency only until the following January. In the letter, Brenda had painted herself as a family member of Troil and had asked for help in tracking down the presumed immigrant.
She doubted the President would make the search for the real Brenda Walsham his top priority. Nevertheless, it was the method Brenda had selected. She required details of Troil's life before she could feel it appropriate to give in to her romantic urges with Diolún. Brenda hoped that at least one individual in Washington would see it. A journalist, perhaps; one whose curiosity would inspire digging.
And fuck, did she want to give in.
Diolún would be leaving in three weeks' time for a journey lasting a duration Brenda knew not and during those three weeks, she wouldn't even be able to kiss him.
You could always say Fuck Troil and go for it, argued her mind.
Are you honestly telling me that if your Dylan, your own Dylan - or even Connor, for that matter - were to kiss another Brenda, you would be perfectly fine with that?
Fuck no. The only Brenda that Dylan gets to kiss is me.
What about Connor?
Huh?
You didn't answer my Connor question.
Oh right, yeah. Connor also doesn't get to kiss other Brendas, though I don't know why any would be around him.
And are any around Dylan?
Probably not. He's God knows where doing God knows what with some kind of Kelly.
As the weeks wore on, however, Brenda became less certain of Dylan's sempiternal love for Kelly.
And as the weeks wore on with Aiden's changing appearance, she began to question if her son had begun to morph into her ex.
Or, perhaps he was taking on the appearance of her father.
Aiden had also developed his grandmother's affection for gardening.
Cindy delighted in the feel of the blackened earth under her fingertips. She loved discovering the precise amount of water that helped new flora to bloom.
Brenda did not.
Brenda could not garden worth a damn and the more time she spent with Nuala Buckley only proved that fact.
"Are you quite certain I used to be good at this?" asked Brenda, leaning back to wipe the sweat across her brow.
At two months old, Aiden did a better job at throwing seeds than Brenda did at planting them with her nonexistent green thumb.
"Yes," said Nuala with her almost permanent smile as she skillfully moved the seed packet out of Aiden's reach, "quite good. All that time you have spent in America must have wiped the talent straight from your fingers."
"That'll be it," said Brenda. "America. Yes, my life in America is to blame."
"It will come back to you." Nuala dug from the fruitful earth fresh, bright orange carrots bedazzled with white hairs. "It never gets old," she said.
"Sorry, but what doesn't get old?" asked Brenda.
"Digging up vegetables for ourselves," said Nuala. "Planting flowers for us to enjoy, for your child to someday walk amongst. Picking fresh fruit from the trees and knowing that produce is ours and ours alone." She scoured the area, adding, "What little produce there is."
"The Famine?" asked Brenda, wanting to tread lightly on a difficult subject.
"Ay, the famine conditions of the year last."
"There was another famine?"
"Conditions were there, as they have often been. Were you not affected by the one that spread from the Russian Empire? I had heard America had joined in with the other countries in monetary support."
"Did they? I must have missed that in the papers."
Having never heard of a Russian famine in the late nineteenth century, Brenda hadn't the faintest notion of whether the United States had offered support during its rocky period of Reconstruction.
"I don't suppose you have remembered the famine of our childhood?" Nuala adjusted the little cap that sat upon Aiden's head. Its threads had lovingly been knit by Nuala's mother.
Brenda hadn't yet accepted her permanent place in her strange world and still hoped for a way out, back to her own home.
Simultaneously, she could not bear to think of leaving any of the people she had met, whom she knew would all be long deceased in her future.
Could she walk amongst the graves of people with whom she had become closely acquainted and wonder if she had remained in their recollections?
What if they would forget her the moment she returned? Could she accept that?
Could she accept never knowing whether she had become but a distant dream to the people she had already grown to love?
To Nuala?
To Diolún?
"Are you getting weary of my lack of memory?" asked Brenda. The question served as a distraction against her own dismal thoughts.
"Weary isn't the word I would use," said Nuala. "It is upsetting; not for me, but for you. Despite your trials and tribulations, I know there is a great deal many things you would find worth remembering."
"Would I find what you speak of worth remembering?"
"It is part of our childhood, for better or for worse. Its effect on this land, I suppose, will be ingrained in me until the day I die."
"Do not speak of such things."
"My dear Brenda, such things are inevitable." Nuala carried a hint of amusement in her expressive eyes.
"Yes, but I have only just returned," said Brenda. "Perhaps not just, though recently enough. Aiden; my son has become quite attached to all of you to even consider the thought."
"Very well. We shall banish the thought from our minds. Shall we rest for lunch?"
"Please. I am famished. I expect Aiden will soon be, too."
What Brenda wouldn't give for a good PB&J.
A burger. She could go for a burger. A nice, juicy burger with all the fixings and a large milkshake to wash it down.
Hell, she'd even accept a liver pâté.
None of those options were available. Her diet consisted of meat, when they could afford it; wholemeal bread; oatmeal; and the vegetables dug up from the garden.
For that day's lunch, Diolún and Lucas arrived with a special treat for Aiden.
"A banana." Brenda stared at the now-foreign object as if she had never seen it. "How ever did you acquire it?"
"A lad down at the docks had one in his possession," answered Lucas. "Diolún persuaded him into selling."
"The only persuasion required was an exchange of the banana for a pint of ale," Diolún assured.
"Which I happened to have in my possession," said Lucas. "Fine pint it would have been, too."
"The lad made his choice," said Diolún.
Brenda thanked him with an impetuous kiss to his cheek that flustered the both of them and made talking unthinkable.
"Where's my thanks?" asked Lucas. "It wasn't Diolún's pint."
Brenda giggled and gave Lucas a hug for his troubles.
She wandered through her thoughts as she stood grinding the banana with the mortar and pestle she had discovered in the cupboard.
"Brenda."
She turned towards his voice.
"Have I caused ye discomfort?" asked Diolún. His hand flattened along the doorframe.
"On the contrary," said Brenda. "I fear it is I who is causing you discomfort."
"Impossible," he said. "Need a hand with that?"
"You have mashed up banana?"
"Not banana, but I have mashed a fair few vegetables in my day."
She moved to step aside, but found herself captured.
Diolún maintained a respectable distance from Brenda's back as his arms circled towards hers.
"Diolún," she breathed.
"Bren." His voice matched the low level of Brenda's. The murmur of her name darted horripilation across the nape of her neck. Their faces aligned in close proximity.
"We cannot." Brenda fumbled for an excuse that seemed fatuous even to her. "You've - I cannot tie you down -"
"I have loved ye all of my days," he said, "and I will love ye all the days that remain."
"I believe I love you as well," she admitted.
"Then why must we go about continuing to conceal how we feel? Is it the two years of mourning ye feel ye must follow?"
"It is an assortment of things, Diolún. You are shortly leaving."
"I am not asking to take ye to bed, Bren. I am asking if ye want to be kissed and if ye do, I ask that ye be truthful."
"I do," she said.
"Who do ye want to be kissed by?" he asked in her ear.
"By you." Her chest felt lighter than it had in months.
"Then turn around."
Their eyes locked as he ever-so-gently, ever-so-slowly pushed a tendril away from her face. Warm anticipation permeated the otherwise chilled air.
"Say it," he said.
"Say what?"
"Ye know what."
"Diolún, will you -"
"You cannot go in there!"
Nuala's yelp entered the kitchen as the door flew open and Diolún's back connected with the small counter.
"Jarlath!" Brenda clawed at Jarlath O'Connell in her attempt to get him off of Diolún. "Jarlath, let go of him!"
"My wagon has been torched." Jarlath smashed his hand across Diolún's face. "Care to explain that, McKay?"
"You've many enemies." Diolún spat rivulets of blood that showered against Jarlath's jaw. "Should I pen a list?"
"Haggarty said he saw you standing near the wagon."
"That does not mean I torched it."
"Need I remind you that I carry your secrets? That this picturesque family setting you have with Brenda can end at any moment if I tell what I know?"
"Ye do that and half the village will turn on ye."
"What secrets?" asked Brenda.
"They are not important for ye to know," said Diolún.
"Aren't they?" asked Jarlath.
Brenda ground the pestle against his back, causing Jarlath to fold inward and release Diolún.
"Get out of here," she said.
"My quarrel does not lie with you, Brenda," said Jarlath. "It never has. I beg of you to not make it so."
"You are insulting my guest." What she lacked in height, Brenda made up for in posture and voice projection. "This is my home. Diolún is my friend. I insist you vacate the premises at once."
"This is the Buckley home," said Jarlath.
"And the Buckleys' daughter also asks that you leave." `Nuala stepped through the door. "Lucas?"
"Would be my pleasure." Hitting his fist against his palm in warning, Lucas moved to stand in front of Jarlath. "How you leave is up to you, O'Connell, but you will be leaving, one way or the other."
"You are all making a grave error," said Jarlath.
"Remain in this house a minute more and your occupation will become gravedigger, of your own grave," said Lucas. "We've a nice spot in the garden for it."
"Remember, anything that happens henceforth could have been avoided and is your own doing," said Jarlath before taking his leave.
Brenda hurled herself at Diolún's chest, taking his face in her hands. "Are you alright?" she asked.
"A pestle," he said, laughing. "Ye brought O'Connell to his knees with a pestle."
"Is he delirious?" Worriedly, Brenda glanced at Lucas.
"That's my brother," said Lucas. "Always finding the humor in the dark."
"Help me get him to the bed," said Brenda to Nuala.
Between the three, they were able to bring Diolún to sit on the bed so that Brenda could work on stitching up his cut.
She had asked Doc Haloran the quickest way to stitch, for moments like these when her family was hurt and informing medical personnel required a journey.
Diolún watched her work, catching Brenda's hand in his. "I don't suppose we can continue from where we were before the rude interruption?"
"Not with this cut," said Brenda. "I should have cut Jarlath myself for doing this to you."
"I did not torch his wagon." Diolún held up his other hand to prevent Brenda's instant response of I know. "But I cannot say that I wouldn't have liked to have been the one to do so."
"Has he always been that insufferable?"
"To me, yes. You, on the other hand, used to trust him a great deal. Perhaps too much. Ye were under the impression that he could help us and he did, at first."
"What changed?"
"I have already said more than I should. Ye are meant to discover this on yer own."
"What changed?" she repeated.
"He took a liking to Nuala and ye weren't overly fond of how - shall we say, forward he was towards her?"
"So he is an ass," said Brenda.
"That is one word for it," said Diolún with a wince.
"That is enough talking from you. I want you to rest."
"It is the middle of the day."
"Middle of the day or not, you rest. Besides, I need to check on Aiden. I do hope he slept through the excitement."
"Give him my best," said Diolún as he lay back against the bed.
Brenda chided herself for permitting Diolún to come as close to her as he had.
Look, if I knew I'd be stuck here forever, it wouldn't be as big a deal for me to kiss him. But I don't know that. I don't know how long Dylan will take to complete his task and when that happens, I can supposedly leave this century behind.
I can't leave Diolún in the lurch when I do.
She picked up Aiden, examining his hair whilst holding him against her.
I don't get it. It's almost like he got Dylan's hair.
But that's impossible.
Isn't it?
An outside commotion caused Aiden to cry and Brenda to be on her guard.
"He's back," said Lucas, a rigid figure in the doorway. "O'Connell is back. Might you know where Darragh keeps his shotgun?"
"Don't you?"
"He seems to have moved it."
"Oh, Brenda!" Jarlath's voice streamed through the window. "Ay Brenda Walsham, she who wields a mighty pestle, come meet my friends."
"I'll get Diolún," said Lucas.
"No," said Brenda. "Let him rest. I will handle this."
She called in Nuala to hold Aiden and walked outside with Lucas.
Jarlath led a team of men, each of whom wore surly expressions and suffered from severe lack of hygiene.
"Brenda has a secret," said Jarlath. "Shall I tell these men your secret, Bren?"
"I've not the faintest notion of what you speak."
"Convenient, her memory loss, isn't it?" asked Jarlath to the men. Brenda recognized them as the individuals employed to tear through the homes of people unable to meet rental payments.
They were the Royal Irish Constabulary, agents of the Crown, and their ostensible purpose was to maintain peace.
Brenda failed to see how the flames that had enveloped the cottage in the next town over helped to maintain any kind of peace.
"O'Connell, you traitor," said Lucas behind her.
"Twelve years ago," said Jarlath, "Brenda's father was sentenced to a lifetime imprisonment for the murder of Father Ciarán Keating. Our good doctor Séamus Walsham, however, deceived everyone with his confession. Séamus, you see, was covering for someone of utmost importance to him."
"Don't do this," growled Lucas.
"What is he on about?" asked Brenda. Dread spread its clammy claws across her chest, wrapping her in its vicelike hold.
"Haven't you wondered why Brenda fled to America?" asked Jarlath to the men. "Diolún McKay thought it the best option. Murderers, as you know, are embraced in America."
"Lucas?" Brenda's voice had become meeker than the squeak of a mouse.
"Brenda told ye to leave. I suggest ye leave."
Brenda turned to see Diolún, whose face had become empurpled.
"Diolún, what is he on about?" asked Brenda.
"Bren, I - I didn't know how to tell ye -" Diolún stood on the precipice of weeping.
"Allow me," said Jarlath. "Brenda here, not her father, is the reason Father Keating is dead."
An ice bath straight from the waters of the Artic that had nothing to do with the winter wind covered Brenda from head-to-toe until she thought she would struggle beneath its layers.
Dylan, finish your damn task and get me the fuck out of here!
"You are mistaken," said Diolún. "Brenda did not kill anyone."
"I know what I saw with my own two eyes." Jarlath motioned for one of the men. "I demand that you escort her to her cell."
"What do you think you're doing, O'Connell? Our Brenda isn't going anywhere." Nuala handed Aiden to Lucas and stepped in front of Brenda. "He is only acting this way because you warned me against him all of those years ago."
"I can see why," said Brenda as she scrutinized Jarlath. "Can you not handle a woman who is able to see you for the poltroon you are, Jarlath O'Connell?" At the blank faces around her, Brenda added, "That is, a coward."
He always was a coward.
Are you talking to me? asked Brenda.
Jarlath is the one who helped to clean the blood of Father Keating off of the schoolhouse floorboards, and he dares to stand there acting as if he were innocent, said the internal voice.
Then you are Brenda Walsham? The real Brenda Walsham?
I am. 'Tis a pleasure, Brenda Walsh.
How are we connecting? Are you in America?
I do not know where I am. There is a man here who claims himself as my husband. When he cleans, his objects attack. They make loud, whirring noises and fly across the carpet as if they have descended from the skies above.
Are you talking about a hoover?
Perhaps. What is a hoover?
It is - Brenda paused even in her thoughts, attempting to define a vacuum, it is a machine that cleans carpets. But if you are only an ocean away, how do you know of a hoover?
Perhaps in a dream. I dream quite a lot these days, now that I have been separated from my daughter. It is a distraction from the monotony of this walled room.
A daughter? asked Brenda. You have a daughter? With Diolún? What walled room?
Jarlath's voice broke through the haze, severing Brenda's connection with her counterpart.
"For what are you waiting?" he asked. "Séamus Walsham was unjustly arrested for a crime his daughter committed. It is time she pay for the sins her father pretended were his."
"Brenda did not kill Father Keating," repeated Diolún. "O'Connell is correct in one regard, however. Séamus is not the responsible party. I can tell ye who is."
Expecting Diolún to turn the accusation on Jarlath, Brenda felt the air escape her when Diolún instead accused himself.
"That is a lie," said Brenda. She pleaded with the RIC. "You cannot possibly believe him."
"We've a confession," said one of the men.
"Diolún, what are you doing?" she cried out with a leap towards him.
"Trust that I know what I am doing, Bren." Diolún raised his free hand to reach out for hers. "You've a child to care for."
"And you've a ship to man."
"I am manning my ship," said Diolún. "The ship of me family. I promised ye."
"This was not part of that promise. Haven't you any idea the abysmal conditions of these prisons? They are not fit for the vermin that scuttle across their floors."
"I've some idea. It is why I will do everything possible to keep you out of them."
"I cannot let you do this."
"That is not yer decision."
"You are of my family. It should be our decision."
"If I do not do this, O'Connell will continue to come after ye. I will not allow ye or Aiden to become caught in the crossfire of a childhood rivalry."
"Lucas, talk sense into your brother!"
"Ay, he has never listened to sense," said Lucas with a helpless shrug of his shoulders. "Stubborn as a fairy, that one."
"What about due process?" Brenda asked the men. "What about statute of limitations?" she yelled.
"The woman; does she speak enchantments?" asked a voice in the crowd.
"'Tis not enchantments," said Nuala. "Leave her be. She has spent time in America and is unfamiliar with the rules of the land."
Brenda had half a mind to holler at Nuala, until she saw the fear in her friend's eyes.
Nuala wasn't respecting the law; she was protecting Brenda from it and for that, Brenda couldn't fault her.
"Fucking America," said the man directly behind Jarlath. "Fucking softies, the lot of them. Fuck America and fuck its politics."
Brenda took the man's tirade as an opportunity to encircle her arms around Diolún's waist, as if doing so would keep him there. "I will get you out," she vowed. "I will find a way."
"I do hope so," said Diolún, somehow finding a smile to add, "for I still await the caress of yer lips."
Then, he was gone and, though Brenda had both Nuala and Lucas pulling at her to coax her back inside, she could think of nothing but how Diolún had decimated his promise.
He had left her alone.
And Jarlath O'Connell had chosen the wrong woman to anger.
-x
A trailer for Itero is up at wish upon a dream on YouTube and wishuponamilliondreams on Insta.
Sources: DoChara, The Irish Times, JStor, the website for National Gallery of Art, the website for New York Library, and especially Google.
Thanks a million! Stay healthy and safe out there. xx