She hugged them before they left the house with Malley that night. Erik first, and he kissed her forehead, and then Philippe. And is it that she has imagined it in all the thousands of times she has remembered that night since? Or did he hold her a little tighter, and linger just a little longer?

She has never been able to forget how pale he was as he left, how tired he seemed. And maybe she would have tried to talk him out of going, maybe she would have tried to persuade him to let her go instead, but he would never have listened. And that might not have stopped her trying, another night, but after everything that had happened, after the three days he had spent at Raoul's side, she didn't have the heart to argue with him. And trying to insist would only have upset him, only have made him more adamant.

(If she had tried, if she had gripped his hand and looked him in the eye and insisted on going in his place, would he have listened?)

(Did she let him die by choosing that one night not to stand her ground?)

She remembers the grey watery light that morning, the first morning of the first day in a world without Philippe.

And she was so stiff, from sitting in the chair beside Raoul's bed all night, her revolver in her lap. Every bone, every muscle aching as if her body insisted on feeling the grief that her chest was too hollow to hold. All night sitting there, ready, waiting. She can't even say what she thought of, as if from the time she sat in that chair to when she heard the first birds the next morning, she was outside of herself. As if something inside of her had slipped and said no more.

The birds singing.

A flash of the purple flowers growing by the wall, swaying in the cool evening. Philippe in her arms, trembling, watching them, the feel of him so real, so solid. The first time he left Raoul's side in all of those tree days. His voice so soft, "I can't remember what they're called." And she kissed his cheek, and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Greater periwinkles," she whispered. "Greater periwinkles."

The memory of it so crisp that morning, with the birds singing. The breath she drew so cold in her lungs. The feel of him trembling in her arms.

And he was dead.

He was dead.

But the birds were still singing.

(Christine was asleep with her head on Raoul's pillow, and as Sorelli rose from her chair she might have thought him dead too for how pale he was, how still. Might have thought his breath stolen in the night, if she had not heard him gasping. And she kissed his forehead, and he didn't stir, and she covered Christine with a blanket, and slipped from the room into the kitchen.)

(Philippe lying still on the table, ashen in the thin light. Erik slumped over, his head on Philippe's chest. He never stirred as she kissed his hair, never stirred as she bent over him, and kissed the corner of Philippe's mouth, so cold, never stirred as she eased the gun from his hand. As if she was outside of herself, as she stepped out of the house into that cold, damp dawn. As if she was the only one left living, in a world of the dead. Just her, and the birds, twittering somewhere far away.)

(The door of the house snicked shut behind her. She knelt in the dirt, and plucked every purple flower she could see. Her fingers shredded the petals, and crushed them into dust.)

Neither she nor Erik slept very much at all, in those first weeks after Philippe died.

They lay together in bed, the bed they'd shared with him, and held each other, and didn't speak, hardly dared breathe in case something would shatter, as if the world would fall around them.

It was Malley who had brought the doctor, too late. She didn't need him to look at Philippe, didn't need him to look for a pulse or listen for a heartbeat that was not there or lift the lids of eyes that would never open again. She knew he was dead without the doctor ever telling her, had felt it the moment he sighed on his last breath.

And she had been kneeling beside him, had been kissing his forehead, damp with sweat, kissing his closed eyes, kissing his cheek and the corner of his mouth and she tasted the iron of his blood but she couldn't care, she just kept kissing him, and whispering to him, that she loved him, and Erik loved him, and he could go and they would be all right, they would look after Raoul, promising him that he could stop fighting now, that he could rest and they would carry on, and she didn't know if he could hear her but she had to believe that he could, as she whispered in his ear, and kissed him, and felt Erik kneeling behind her, whispering too.

(Erik holding Philippe's hand to his lips, kissing his fingers, making the same promises, his eye half-closed with the bleeding.)

All of them there, gathered so close, Raoul's head on Philippe's shoulder, his eyes closed and lips twisted, Christine holding him, her cheek pressed to his hair and the tears in her eyes. All of them holding Philippe, with him at the last.

(That he was so loved-)

And Malley got there too late with the doctor. And he, too, was wearing Philippe's blood, his face pale when he found them gathered there, when he saw the look on the doctor's face.

His hoarse, "oh, God," the first words any of them had spoken.

And then he went for the priest.

It was Malley who took care of the arranging. The train back to Dublin, for her, with Philippe in the coffin. The car that would take Erik and Raoul and Christine. The clothes for them, because they could not travel to Dublin still wearing Philippe's blood. The suit for Philippe. The funeral, and the graveyard, the pallbearers. Malley who did it all, and when he asked her, asked Raoul if it was all right, Raoul could only nod, and release a shaky breath.

She squeezed his hand, and looked at Malley, and said it would be fine.

(Malley died a year later, killed at the Four Courts. And she was not there but she has dreamt of it, dreamt of him in the rubble, the dust dried in the blood on his face, eyes so blue, blank and staring, his head hanging back. Twisted, broken. They said, afterwards, that it was quick.)

(It is his kindness that she remembers best.)

She had heard the shots that night. Heard them far away though they were not that far really, and she knew it meant that Philippe and Erik and Malley had found the Tans and MacThomáis, but she didn't think any more of it than that because of course there was going to be shooting. She just drank tea, and waited for them to come back, and prayed that there would only be a few scratches.

She was ready to deal with a few scratches.

She was not ready for the crunch of boots on the gravel, and the door swinging open, and Erik stumbling in with Philippe on his back, limp and still.

(She had thought he was already dead.)

What else could she and Erik do, when they knew Raoul would be well, but go and find the men who had taken Philippe from them?

She had a quiet dream when she was in Kilmainham after the Rising.

She had fallen back to sleep after the shots had stopped in the Stonebreaker's Yard, curled up tight on her narrow cot, too exhausted to stay awake though when she closed her eyes she could see the blood dark on the gravel. And in her dream, she was lying in the long grass by the shore, watching it sway against the sky in the soft breeze. She heard the movement, the gentle rustling, but she didn't look away from the tips of the grass against the blue sky, the larks dark overhead, their song sweet, and she felt Philippe lie down beside her. Neither of them spoke, but his fingers curled with hers, and she leaned into him, and together, lying there, they watched the birds.

And she had it again, two nights after he died, and she wanted to say something to him, but there were no words to fit her tongue, so she just pressed herself closer to him, and he kissed her hair, and they lay there in the grass, watching the larks.

She has had it many times since, that dream. Had it when she was ill, after the bullet that clipped her side. Had it the night before she married Erik. Had it the night after Connie was born. Had it so many times, through so many years, always the same. Lying in the grass, watching the larks, their fingers twined, neither of them speaking. The same dream, over and over, and over again.

As if he has only slipped a little bit out of view.

She has never regretted giving Philippe the morphine that took his pain away. Never regretted it, even if it did hasten his death.

She washed the blood from his face as the doctor stitched Erik's forehead, washed what had run down his neck, washed it from his chest. Erik had torn his clothes open when he was trying to stop the bleeding, and the blood was still warm, as she washed it away. And when Christine covered him up to his chin with Erik's big coat, she tucked it around him, as if she could keep him from growing cold.

She goes on Sunday mornings to visit the grave where her two men lie. When other widows would be at Mass, she goes to Glasnevin, and brings them flowers. And maybe she would speak to them but she can never find words and it is better that she stay quiet when she is there. She talks to them every day anyway, in her head, and it is usually Erik who answers, but sometimes it is Philippe, too.

How blessed was she, to have loved and been loved by two such special men in her life?

(For the last year, now, since Ruairí helped to bring him back, she brings flowers to Casement, too. To make up for all the flowers that neither Philippe nor Erik could bring him, in all the years he lay in that unmarked grave in Pentonville. On the day they buried him here, she could see Christine holding Raoul, and she closed her eyes and felt her own two men press close through time, and knew that they were there, in some way, too.)

When she knew she was expecting, it was at Philippe's grave she told Erik.

A cool morning in early April, 1928. A little more than seven years since Philippe had died, but she wanted him to be a part of her baby's life in any way possible, from the first moment.

(Sometimes it feels like a lifetime, as if he belonged to a different world. Sometimes it feels like only yesterday, since he embraced her tight before walking out the door.)

If things were different he would have been the father. And she would not give up Erik for the world, would not choose between he and Philippe any day because how could she when she loved them both? But they had agreed, years before, all three of them, that when the war was over, when everything was done and Ireland was free and they were safe, then they would start a family, if they still wanted to. And Philippe would be the father to any child, because Erik was afraid a baby would inherit his face, and he did not want to inflict it on an innocent child.

(She remembers the way Philippe smiled that night, as they decided it, how soft his eyes were, and he kissed her, softly, on the mouth, and kissed Erik, and the three of them lay together, him in the middle, whispering into the small hours, her hand on his belly, Erik's hand cupping the side of his face, his arms cradling them both.)

(How many times did she dream about a tiny baby with those blue eyes and curling blond hair?)

(In those early weeks in Kilmainham, she wondered if maybe there was to be a child. Her courses were late, and if it became known she was expecting a baby, with the public outcry around the executions, they might have been compelled to release her. There were several nights as she lay curled up on that small cot, when she thought, maybe. But then her courses came, delayed, and that little flicker of a question died away like everything else seemed to be that summer.)

That day at Philippe's grave, she'd already known for the best part of a week. There had been a dream of him, walking down the lane, the craggy stone walls either side of him and sky splashed in a sunset, his big black coat wrapped around him, hands in his pockets. The back of him all she could see as he walked away, and she would have run to him but something pulled her back.

She had already suspected, but when that dream came, she went to the doctor, and he told her she was right.

The only place to tell Erik, really, would be as close to Philippe as they could get.

Erik's fingers twined between hers, that cool afternoon, the broad brim of his hat tilted to shadow the damaged half of his face. At that angle, the sun shone on the silver just edging into his hair, made him looked distinguished, something proud and defiant in the angle of his neck, his jaw.

(She would be the first to admit he always looked distinguished to her.)

She knew it was the right time for him to know, and she kissed his hand, as they looked down at the stone bearing Philippe's name. (So hard to believe, seven years of his body lying beneath that soil. So hard to believe now, forty-five years of his body lying beneath this soil.)

"There's something I have to tell you," she whispered, and Erik's fingers tightened in hers.

"What is it?" His voice barely a breath, the edge of concern, and she kissed his knuckles.

"I'm expecting a baby." She kept her voice quiet, and squeezed his hand, and heard him take a shaky breath.

"Sorelli-" His voice so faint, half-strangled, and she felt the tremor run through him.

"It's going to be fine," she whispered, squeezing his fingers tighter. "It's going to be fine."

(She would not tell him how frightened she was of something going wrong, how frightened she was of something happening to their baby.)

(It is one of the few secrets she has ever kept from him.)

(The night Connie was born, Erik rushed into the room as soon as the midwife went to the door to say he could, and came straight to her side and kissed her forehead, and didn't look at their daughter until she promised him that her face was all right. And when he took Connie into his arms, the tears trickled down his cheeks. "She's perfect," he whispered, "she's perfect.")

She considered Philippa, but it was too much like Philippe, and she meant what she had said, that Raoul would want Philippe's name for his own child someday. So she chose Philomena, and Erik nodded, and squeezed her hand, and whispered, "and Constance, for a middle name."

Their little girl, named after the man who would have been her father, and the Countess who held a place deep in Sorelli's heart.

Philippe regretted not joining the Rising. She knows that. She knew that even at the time. He always regretted not being on O'Connell Street to see Pearse read the Proclamation, regretted not seeing the flags flown out of windows, regretted not taking up his rifle and joining her in the fight. And it was right for him to have stayed with Raoul, right for him to have put Raoul first when he was so ill and needed him, and she loved him for that, loved him for not abandoning his little brother alone in a hospital when he needed him most.

(She almost would have stayed herself, but the doctors probably would have thrown her out.)

(The worst part, in those five days of Easter Week, were the lulls in the fighting when she had no way of knowing how Raoul was. She couldn't let herself think that he might be dying.)

(She told Markievicz, on the Tuesday night, what was on her mind, and Constance squeezed her hand, and didn't say anything, and she was glad for that silence, glad that it gave her a minute to breathe.)

She always thought Maud Gonne MacBride was too much. But Constance Markievicz, formerly Gore-Booth, was the woman Sorelli would have followed to hell, if she'd asked her.

(She remembers drifting awake in the early morning, that first morning after Connie was born, and seeing Erik sitting at the window, the curtains parted just enough to let the grey light in, and he was holding Connie in his arms, rocking her gently back and forth as he looked down at their new little girl, and his voice was so faint Sorelli felt like she was intruding by hearing him speak at all. "We'll keep you safe," he whispered, "Philippe and I both. And you won't ever see him but I promise you he's here watching over you, and he loves you so much...")

(She closed her eyes, and did her best not to hear, and the tears slipped down her cheeks, but she didn't want Erik to see.)

It was her privilege to be there when Ruairí was born, her privilege for her hand to be the one that Christine squeezed tight, her privilege to be the one to whisper to her and encourage her and swear to her she was doing well. It was all she could do to keep from crying, as she nestled her new little godson in Christine's arms, and went to tell Raoul he could come in.

And afterwards, when he stepped from the room to get some air, she pulled him into her arms and hugged him, and whispered in his ear that Philippe would be proud of him. He smiled at her, a thin watery smile, and kissed her cheek, and all she could think was that she was proud of him, this man that she still saw as so much a boy, who she had known since he was nine years old and she first met his brother, and with all that she loved Philippe she came to think of Raoul as her brother, too, and she would have done anything, would have done anything and still would do anything, to protect him.

(And Christine, when she came to know her, has been her best friend, her closest thing to a sister.)

She kissed his cheek and shooed him back in to Christine, and promised she'd be along in a minute with tea.

(When she and Erik got home, a little later, and found the girl who had stayed with Connie all day asleep, they held each other there in the hallway a long time, and didn't speak at all, but they didn't need to.)

She remembers looking at Raoul at Philippe's funeral, so pale and tired, his arm strapped to his chest to take the pressure off his wound as he leaned on Christine for support, and for a long moment she was seeing Jack Plunkett, who was only seventeen too when he went and fought in the Rising and had himself sentenced to death, only to be given penal servitude instead, his dear defiant brother Joe executed in the Stonebreaker's Yard. (That she heard the shots that morning, and didn't know until after that it was him who had fell—Heard all the shots, him and MacDonagh and MacDiarmada and Pearse and the younger Pearse and the rest, all these friends, and only learned after which shots had killed which, on those cold May mornings...)

All these brothers gone to fight beside each other, ready to stand and die together. A war fought in the blood of brothers.

She always knew that there was no one more important to Philippe than Raoul. Always knew it, and she would never hold it against him, never blame him for that. His little brother, his only brother, alone from the time he was a baby, if not for him. How could Raoul be anything but the most important person to Philippe?

It would not be right any other way.

The confusion of Easter Weekend, and all the little details that stand out.

The colour draining from Philippe's face, when word reached him that it was Casement who had been arrested in Kerry.

The countermanding order, all operations for Sunday cancelled.

Erik, his hair askew, rushing to tell her that they would go ahead Monday instead.

Philippe trembling, crying as she held him, whispering that Raoul was too young—so young-

(His appendix ruptured, the surgeons operating, the whisper of infection setting in, and he was twelve, only twelve, how could he be as sick as that?)

"I have to stay, I have to. How can I go out there and leave him? What if he-"

"Listen to me, he's going to be fine. He's in the best hands. You just have to stay here so he's not alone."

"They'll say I'm a coward, say I betrayed them."

"They'll say nothing of the sort and if they do they'll have me to answer to."

He huffed something, a cross between a laugh and a sob and scraped his hand through his hair and she took both of his hands and squeezed them tight so he had to listen to her.

"You have responsibilities they don't. If they get shot their wives will still carry on. Who does Raoul have if anything happens to you? Who does Raoul have to stay with him if you go out there and fight?"

(He would never have asked her not to fight, she knows. And if she had insisted on switching places with him, on staying with Raoul so he could go out and fight, then Raoul would have been terrified and fretting for him and bad enough to be so sick but to be terrified on top of it—And if Raoul was to die, and Philippe was not there, then he would never forgive himself for it, and she knew that. But if something were to happen to Philippe, she would have been the first to step up, and look after Raoul. So help her, but they'd have to tear her away from his side.)

But her words worked, worked to persuade Philippe, worked to keep him from going out there and getting himself killed in his own terror for his brother. He nodded, and leaned into her, and she knew she had won, knew there would be no more foolish talk from him, that he would be all right, and stay with Raoul.

A selfish, terrible part of her has always been grateful that Raoul's appendix ruptured when it did. That it kept Philippe out of the Rising, and kept him safe.

(If they had decided to execute him too, and she had heard the shots from her cell, she doesn't think she could have borne it.)

After she tore those flowers to shreds between her fingers, she went back into the kitchen, and Erik had not stirred, his head still on Philippe's chest, but she knew he wasn't asleep. And she pulled a chair up beside them, and with one hand cupping Erik's face, she lay her head down next to Philippe's, so they were cheek to cheek, and his face was so cold against hers, and it was all she could do to breathe, but she had to be near him, near them both. She had to.

Erik always blamed himself for Philippe's death, she knows that. And part of her has always blamed herself for it, too.

She heard all about the ambush, and how it was a set-up. And how the moon was so bright in Philippe's eyes as he lay there gasping on the ground, the blood hot between Erik's fingers.

How many nights did she wake to hear Philippe's name on Erik's tongue? How many nights did she wake to find him curled up tight? How many nights did she wake to find him at the window, the curtains pulled open so he could get air and breathe?

How many nights was she the one who woke gasping?

The Civil War, and when she heard Erik was to be executed she nearly went and insisted they be married. But if she had done that they would have arrested her on sight, and there would have been no wedding, and Erik would have died.

It was not a traditional proposal. It was her lying weak in bed, the fever passed off and the wound in her side still sore though she was out of danger, and Erik come to hold her hand. And he kissed her fingers, after sitting there a long time, and whispered, "when this is over-" and she knew what he meant, knew what he was going to say, and she nodded, and whispered, "yes."

2 August 1923.

Their wedding day.

Their only guests, Raoul and Christine. Neither of them 21, yet. And they wanted to be sure everything was legal, so they had to find two witnesses. And Mr Gordon, Millar, Raoul's new employer and an acquaintance of Philippe's, did for one, and the other was Markievicz.

They wouldn't have had it any other way.

2 August 1921.

The day they loved each other for the first time, without Philippe.

The quiet in the house, their own breath. And they had kissed each other daily, but it was as if by silent agreement that they not go further, until that evening, his hands on her hips, her hand on the back of his neck. And he gasped into her mouth, pressed himself close to her, and she swallowed, and nodded, and there, together, they learned to love each other in the new way their world had turned. And there were tears on both of their cheeks, but neither of them mentioned them.

(Just to be loved, just to be held, just to be together, and have each other.)

She met Erik first, 1911, in Conradh na Gaeilge. Tall and brown, newly-home from Brazil, and he was reserved, and she suspected it was because of his face, but she didn't care about that, and they became friends, and that was enough, for the both of them, then.

She loved Philippe first. 26 October 1912, the after party at the Metropole. And he had long been a patron of the Abbey Theatre, but he had never been known to take a lover. And that evening his eyes met hers across the room, she remembers his scarf was apricot and it was bright with the gold of his hair, and he took her by the hand, she led him to her rooms.

Though she was the one to lay him down, there was nothing shy in how he touched her.

She had not meant to fall in love, not with either of them. But it happened, somehow, and when she slept with Erik after he was released from Frongoch, Philippe didn't mind when she told him. And the evening they came to her holding hands with soft smiles, and said they had something to tell her, she knew what to expect.

That they three should love each other. What more could they have asked for?

She never could have returned to the stage after. How could she? Five years since she had acted in anything at all, seven since she had performed with any significance, but it felt like so much more, as if a wall had crashed down and trapped that part of herself behind it. Too much had happened. How could she slip into a costume and stand on the stage and perform written lines, and pretend that everything was just the same as it had always been?

Pretend that Philippe might be there in the audience, waiting for her?

(Erik would have been there, and Raoul, and Christine. But the very thought of doing it made something clench deep inside her, something that declared no more and would not yield.)

She was not the same Sorelli she had been in the summer of 1918, not the same Sorelli she had been in the spring of 1916. No one was the same, no one could ever be the same again. How could she go up there and pretend to be that same girl she had been, when she looked back through her memory and saw only how young she was?

She was twenty-seven then, thirty-four when it was all over, but she felt aged immeasurably, and they would never know that, to look at her, so maybe it was best to just let them pretend. Let them think of her however they wanted.

Enough that she had been what she had been, once.

She took up writing. Philippe was always the poet, and Erik was the musician before the soldiers broke his hand when they arrested him as he choked on his own blood. When he couldn't play the accordion anymore with the way his fingers had healed (a little out of line, some of them, often stiff and sore, and he murmured once that the soldiers had made a mistake in not breaking his other hand as well, that would have kept him from firing a gun), he took up writing as well. Not poetry, but small pieces of music, to work the notes out of his head, scraps of thoughts and ideas. He took to carrying a little notebook in his pocket and a pencil, during the war, for scribbling down things that came to mind, to have them.

(She still has all of his little notebooks, even the one that was stained with Philippe's blood, but he never wrote anything in that one ever again, and maybe it was ghoulish of her to keep it, but how could she have thrown it away?)

When she knew that she would not be going back to the stage, it seemed only natural that she take up writing, too.

She was never a poet, never could weave something into a story, so she wrote what she knew best, plays. It didn't matter whether they would ever be performed (they were, most of them, many times), but it was enough to write them, enough that the words helped her to feel closer to Philippe, and closer to Erik.

(When Raoul set up his publishing company with Christine a couple of years after they were married, he told her it would be an honour to publish her plays. And they published some more of Philippe's poetry, and published Erik's reflections, his "recitations" as he called them, and it makes her warm inside, each time she sees the three of them together on the shelf.)

Erik is the only person she has danced for, in all the years since, and when he died she knew she would never dance again.

(How he loved dancing with her, around the parlour, or in the kitchen, or in the garden beneath the stars, with the record player for their only company. And how he smiled and kissed her as they swayed, as themselves, just for themselves.)

Philippe always loved poetry, and sometimes he would whisper it into the darkness, as they lay all three of them pressed close under their coats, looking up at the stars just visible between the webbing tree branches. Yeats was his favourite to go to, when he was in the mood for quoting.

She remembers one night, when she was lying in the middle, Erik pressed closed to her back and Philippe's hand twined with hers as he looked up at the stars between the trees. She was drifting somewhere on the edge of sleep, when she heard him sigh, and whisper, "for my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose," and Erik smiled into the back of her neck and murmured, "in the deeps of my heart." She snorted, and Philippe's laugh was soft as he rolled onto his side, and wrapped his arm around them both.

(She would have lain awake all night between them if she could, listening to them quote lines of poetry at each other.)

'The Lover Tells of the Rose in his Heart' was always one of their favourites. And before they put the lid on the coffin holding Philippe, she slipped a copy of it into his pocket. And thirty-six years later, as she sat alone with Erik's body the night before they buried him, she slipped a copy of it into his pocket, too.

She has left instructions that when the time comes, she is also to be buried with the poem.

It was no surprise to her, that Philippe and Erik should love each other. She had long-suspected each of them of having taken male lovers in the past. Philippe had confirmed it for her, in July of 1916, when she was hardly out of prison, and there were all the rumours flying of diaries found, of letters, that Casement was secretly a homosexual and there was no hope of a reprieve.

It had shaken him. She knew that, could see it in him the first moment she laid eyes on him after she was released. Everything that was happening was taking its toll, and the Philippe of that July was not the Philippe of that April. Something haggard in him, worn and tired, and it made her heart ache.

What could she do but ask him?

So she led him to it, one night. If he and Casement had...and she didn't mind such things because she had taken female lovers and it was not uncommon in the theatre...and no matter what anyone said it did nothing to the integrity of a man, did not make him any way less, did not mean there was something defective...

And he went to the window, went to the window and stood there looking out, and there was only quiet in the room, only the sounds of their own breathing, as she waited for him to answer.

"Yes," he whispered, so low she could hardly hear him, and she went to his side, and drew him into her arms.

How it killed her that there was nothing she could do to take Philippe's grief away over Casement, to make it easier for him to carry. Only lie beside him and hold him and keep him from being alone in the darkness.

She left him to make tea only because he said she should, and when she got back she found Raoul curled up beside him, both of them crying, so she crept downstairs and waited until they were asleep, then went back up and covered them with blankets, to keep them from getting cold.

It was in 1918 that Erik told her. How he had known Casement in Brazil. How he had more than known them. And some part of her laughed inside, for the coincidence of it, of Erik and Philippe both.

What are the odds that they both would have loved the same man on two different continents, only to find and love each other?

She only met Casement a couple of times. Enough to say hello, enough to exchange a few words and a smile, but not enough to know him, not really. But she feels like she knew him, as if she knew him well, just from listening to Philippe, from listening to Erik.

(She's mourned him in her own way, for how the men she's loved had loved him, and every year on the anniversary of his death she writes him a letter, and burns it with the light of a candle.)

She could only get pieces of news, when she was in Kilmainham. Scraps of it, and it depended on her visitors, and they were never left alone to talk freely, so anything they said had to be carefully phrased, not to give anything away, not to get anyone into trouble.

It was a constant ache in her chest, that Philippe could not come to see her. But she would not ask him to, would not ask him to put himself at risk when he had already avoided being taken. Oh, she knew there must be a secret police file on him somewhere. How could there not be, when you considered who his friends had been? And they learned during the war that there was not one but two files with his name on them, in the depths of Dublin Castle, but they couldn't arrest him when there were doctors and soldiers who would say that they had seen him in the hospital all through Easter Week, holding his brother's hand, and whispering to that boy so very ill. For him to have visited her in Kilmainham after would have been a ridiculous risk, would surely have seen him arrested, too, and what would become of Raoul then?

She got word to him through her visitors, through Eva Gore-Booth and Fiona Plunkett, to stay away. And they brought back the news that Raoul was recovering, and Philippe was safe, and the relief was enough that she almost broke down in front of them but she held herself together.

And it was from them that she found out, in pieces, over days, over weeks, about Erik, about Casement, about the dead and the wounded and the arrested.

Which of them it was that told her about Erik she can't quite remember, but she thinks it was Fiona. Fiona who, with her sisters, between searching for their father and trying to get news on their brothers and trying to see Joe before he was shot, took the time to find out for her about Philippe and Raoul, and especially about Erik. (She has always been grateful, for that.) Erik, lying dying in hospital from the bullet in his chest, and if she were free she would have gone to him, just to hold his hand, just so he would not be alone. But the walls were cold and grey, and she was under arrest, and every night she thought of Philippe at Raoul's side, Philippe as she had last seen him, his eyes rimmed red from crying, and she thought of Erik struggling for breath, Erik bleeding to death with no one to say a kind word to him, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming.

They'd stopped the executions while Erik still hovered at death's door, and it was Fiona, too, who brought her the news that he had been reprieved, and then that he was recovering from his wounds, and was going to live.

That was the first night Sorelli slept soundly since it started.

Philippe had nightmares of the hanging of Casement, his mind working to create how it must have been.

On the nights that her nightmares are of executions and not of Philippe's death, not of Erik shot, it is Joe Plunkett she sees, frail and weak with those bandages around his throat, his spectacles given away because he would not need them, being stood in front of the wall, and shot.

(A man with only weeks left to live, and still he went out to fight, to die.)

She's heard the rumours that she seduced all of her guards, but there was nothing of the sort. She talked to them, that's all. Just talked to them, and smiled. And if they became unreliable over it, then clearly the prison needed a better class of guard.

Some people think she should write a memoir of all her experiences, but they would never believe her if she did. And there are too many things she would have to leave out, to protect too many people.

Homosexual acts are still an offence, no matter how much love is in them.

(She could never write about how safe it felt, lying between Erik and Philippe, as they kissed each other.)

A memoir would have more lies in it than truths.

It was Erik who told she and Philippe both about Christine, and her safe house. She had not expected to need it so quick, and though Erik had warned them that she was only a girl of sixteen, she had expected to be struck by how young Christine was the first time she met her.

But when Christine disguised her as her cousin (a person who didn't exist), and stood quite calm beside her as she lied to the RIC that she would tell them if she saw Sorelli Harrison, Sorelli knew that this girl was one of the best, and Erik was right to trust her.

There is nothing that binds them to call them family, only their own sense of it, but it was an honour to name Christine godmother to Connie, an honour to be named godmother to Ruairí, and there is no woman that Sorelli has ever cared for more.

It was when she was ill with the infected bullet wound that Christine was arrested. Even now she is not sure of the details of it, but she remembers when her head was her own again, and she saw how pale Raoul was, and knew that Christine had been taken, she remembers squeezing his fingers tight, and she was so tired, but she mustered the strength to whisper, "they won't execute her," and he smiled faintly at her and nodded, and whispered what she was about to say, "it looks bad to shoot a woman."

She stood at Christine's side as she married Raoul, and signed her name beside Erik's as a witness, and it was all she could do to keep from crying.

She dreamt of Philippe stroking her hair, when she was sick with that bullet wound, and woke to find Erik, asleep half-slumped on the bed, and she brushed her thumb over his fingers.

There is a selfish part of her relieved that she never had to see Erik in hospital in those days, never had to see him insensible from the blood loss, from the infection, never had to see him with the soldiers hovering outside his room, to be sure no one tried to steal him away to safety.

If she had seen it, it would have been one more thing in her nightmares.

Two nights after he died, she woke in the darkness and could have sworn she felt his fingertips brushing her cheek.

Erik was always prone to pneumonia, the result of the bullet that had buried itself in his chest in 1916 and destroyed part of his left lung. It was pneumonia that almost killed him afterwards, when he was in hospital and she was in prison and Philippe was caught unable to see anyone he was worried about, except for Raoul. If anyone had ever asked her, she would have said she was sure it would be pneumonia that would take Erik from her.

(It almost did, a time or two. He refused on going to the hospital, insisted that if he should die it would be in his own bed, but it never got too close to that.)

And she was so sure she would be at his side when he died, holding him in her arms and whispering to him and kissing him like she had whispered to and kissed Philippe, so sure it would be pneumonia, that when he complained of a headache and she saw the way he was rubbing his forehead, she thought nothing of it. He was prone to headaches, in his later years. The result of being hit on the head too many times in the war, the result of the bullet that had glanced off the bone above his right eye the night that Philippe was shot. She made him tea, and he took aspirin and put on the dark glasses instead of his normal glasses, and decided to go into the garden for a while, that the air might help. And if it didn't, he would go back to bed.

He went outside, and she rinsed their cups and wiped down the table, and followed him out, but by then it was already too late.

If she had been five minutes faster, she could have called an ambulance. If she had thought that this headache was different than the others she could have insisted on a doctor. If she had known, known what would happen, she would never have let him leave the bed that morning.

The sight of him sprawled on the ground, his glasses smashed, blood trickling from another little cut in his forehead, and her heart dropped to see him, dropped as she ran to his side and knelt down and pulled him into her arms. Two breaths, all he took as she held him, and she shook him and kissed him and called his name, and he never stirred, lips parted and head lolling, and it was too late, too late.

She knelt there like that a long time, rocking him, whispering to him, until she heard the crunch of feet on the gravel, and Connie knelt down beside them, the tears shining gold on her cheeks.

It was Connie who made the calls, to the doctor, to the priest, to Raoul and Christine, to Ruairí, and it was Connie who sat her down with a cup of strong tea that had just a little whiskey in it, and gave her a look she had inherited from Erik, stern and insistent that she drink, and to see that look in her daughter's face, to see that look when Erik was dead—

That was when the tears came.

How lucky was she, to have two men who loved her so very much?

How lucky was she, to be able sleep between them both at night, and listen to them breathe, and know that they were well?

And it ended far too soon, but she has never not felt fortunate for the time that they had.

Connie and Ruairí come to see her every Saturday, phone her several times a week, send her postcards and letters from wherever they may find themselves, separate or together. And she knows there is nothing between them, that they are the dearest of friends and nothing more, but they are what they fought for, all of them. Them, living happy and free. They are what it was all for. And every time she sees them, she knows that what they did was right, knows it was all they could do, even if it meant being called murderers, even if it meant being arrested and shot at and running for their lives. It was war, but it brought them this.

She tends her garden, her roses, her greater periwinkles. She reads her books and writes plays, and finds pieces of Erik's and pieces of Philippe's that go together, and maybe should be published, now, after all. She looks up at the stars at night, and listens to old records, and though she is alone, she is never lonely. She knows that someday she will see her men again, knows they are watching over her, still. And she wears a ring for each of them, and has never stopped loving them.

And when she closes her eyes, she sees them smiling.