A Coward's Escape

If you have ever stood by the ocean, you will understand the feeling I have, of being overpowered. The waves, colliding at full force with the cliff, roar in my ears. The tang of salt and plantlife crowds my nose and hangs thick on the back of my tongue. The storm-stirred blue, empty, vastness that stretches as far as courage will let us dare wander. And there, just off the coast, a whale surfaces for air, and I almost imagine I could pet him if I make my eyes small enough.

The salt-wind has made my hair and dress stiff so long have I been sitting on this rock, staring at that great expanse. Mother will not be pleased with my appearance. But I have no room for fear of her, because underneath that very fitting sense of being powerless, my heartache screams for release, and trumping them both is my wandering mind. A mind that wonders how it must feel, to have your breath pounded out of your chest by those unforgiving waves, for that salt to replace oxygen and assail your tastebuds with its strength. To have your life claimed by that lonely, empty, world of liquid glass.

There is a sound behind me, a scrabbling of rocks and a scraping of boots.

“I thought I might find you out here.” Aisling settles on the rock next to me, not quite as gracefully as would be expected of her. “Jesus, it’s hard to climb rocks in this.”

If she was hoping for a laugh, a giggle, a snicker, I disappoint once again. “The Doyles will be here soon,” she says after a minute.

“Oh, the dark foreigners, those wily ó Dubhghaill,” I whisper, picking up a few grains of sand and rubbing them between my thumb and forefinger.

“If you’d please not call them that while they’re here,” Aisling says primly.
I must laugh at this, slightly--a painful chuckle that burns my throat. The Doyles are as proudly Irish as any family on this glorious coast.

After a few more hypnotizing minutes of watching the waves, and listening to the gulls that are circling, Aisling strokes my crusted hair. “You ought to come in the house, Aillén.”
Aillén is Aisling’s pet name for me. It means “little elf”, and it fits well--I am short and slender, with small features and slightly pointed ears.

“I shan’t,” I reply petulantly, unable to stand another minute of the Doyle’s mindless sons, Quillan and Cillian, or Mrs. Doyle and my Mother’s matchmaking schemes.

“You must,” my sister responds with force. “Come now; Mother will have a fit to see you in this state, and she would swoon were the Doyles to see this mess.”

“I don’t rightly care the Doyles think of me,” I snap, the lie tasting bitter on my tongue.

Aisling doesn’t correct or berate me, but chooses to ignore the statement and rises to her feet before offering her hand to help me to mine. Resigned, I take it. Her skin is hot.

“Cillian’s quite taken with you,” she says gently as we move toward the house.
I scowl and have no answer.

“He’s your only hope,” Aisling adds, her voice at once stern and pitying. She knows that Cillian Doyle irritates me, with his arrogant manner and dominating personality.

She is also right that he is my final chance, but it demeans my vanity to admit such to myself, and has far greater consequences confessed aloud.

***

After helping me to bathe away the ocean in a cloud of heather soap, and dressing me in a gown that she says brings out my eyes, Aisling sits me on the stool and combs out my hair. I have always enjoyed the feeling of having my hair toyed with, and so I sit through her sometimes-painful ministrations silently. My stool is strategically placed in front of the window, and, while she works, I stare at the water below us.

It’s a dangerous obsession, my draw to the ocean. Every minute of the day it calls to me, beckons me, to feel the water licking at my skin, to taste the salt on my lips, to carry its scent in my hair. Some days it could almost win, and then I remember what cruelties this water commits, how it wreaks havoc, and I recoil--not in fear, but in awe and repulsion. That such a crystalline surface could hide a monster so vile astounds me. That such a monster could claim a pure, genuine soul breaks my heart.

Aisling has finished braiding my hair. She reaches over my shoulder and thumbs away the tears that I was unaware I’d been crying.

“You know you mustn’t cry in front of the Doyles.”

I waste no breath on sour lies this time. “He’s going to want an answer,” I say.

Aisling agrees with me. I have already waited far too long.

“You know you must not refuse.”

I nod, understanding the truth, but knowing that I intend to do just that.

***

Mother is entertaining the Doyles in the sitting room when Aisling and I enter. Cillian gets to his feet, rather gracefully. I cannot claim him an unhandsome man, for he has an oval face, flaxen hair, ivory skin, and the build of a soldier. But it’s his eyes that alienate me--dull brown orbs of steel that show neither emotion nor passion.

Without prompting, I curtsy to the Doyles and apologise for keeping them waiting. Two of them stare back, coldly.

“It’s fine,” Cillian answers quickly on behalf of his family. “I trust we find you well?”

“Very, sir, thank you. And you are in good health?”

“I am.”

Mother nods her head subtly to the doors beside us. I understand what she wants, though it is exactly what I have been dreading. “I wonder, then, if you might accompany me on a turn about the garden? I fear I have been in the house all day without exercise.”

“Of course.”

No one follows us through the doors--they all know that this walk has a purpose, one that they would see advanced at any cost.

Cillian clearly feels the same, for we have barely closed the doors behind us when he demands to know my mind. “Have you thought about it?”

“Let us go look at the ocean.”

I steer him, rather forcefully, toward the bench that sits near the edge of the cliff. And suddenly there it is, that roiling beauty of blue, and my heart rate calms. “It’s so beautiful,” I whisper.

Cillian has no patience for my stalling. “Muirghein, I asked you if you had thought about my proposal.”

“Of course I have.”

“Well? What is your answer?” He strokes my cheek gently with his knuckles, and I find his skin to be cold. “You know you will want for nothing while I live.”

“I know.”

“And you know I care for you.”

“Yes, Cillian, I know.”

“Then what is the issue?”

The issue is that he wants to own me without my consent. He wants to own my heart, and possess my soul, and invoke my passion--three things that are not mine to give any longer. My brave soldier, my bonnie lad, has them all for himself, wherever he may wander.

“There is none,” I lie, and it tastes like bile this time.

“Will you marry me, then?”

Do you love me?
You have hung the stars in my sky and keep the sun alive with every breath.

I am silent, the memory so powerful that I can smell the spice that clung to his shirt, feel the callouses on his hands against my face, and taste his lips.

“Why do you not answer?” Cillian demands.

Will you take my hand, and run with me, and give me a legacy to call my own?
I will give you anything and everything you wish.

Tears start to slip down my cheeks. Cillian looks startled. “You are overwhelmed. We shall leave this for another day, and you must rest.”

“I’m fine.” Another lie, and the bile gets thicker. “I have my answer.”

“And?” He looks to stop breathing. I know it will hurt him to hear my refusal, but I suppose that it will be his pride that cannot recover.

“Cillian, I....”

What shall we call the wee thing?
Our son.

“I would be happy to be your wife.”