better. Hope couldn’t grow on scorched ground, and hope was for the foolish.
If anything, this would make me stronger.
Not for the first time, I thought about leaving London and going back to Ireland. Finding some quiet stone cottage by the sea and drinking whiskey all day. A place where money and businesses didn’t matter, where I could be free of any consideration aside from what I wanted. Silas could be there. It could be the two of us, secluded and spoiled, spending every moment with one another. And I would watch him staring at the surf, watch the way the corners of his eyes would crinkle as he squinted into the setting sun. I would watch those long, strong hands flex and curl as he sifted through pebbles on the beach.
But all of that only made me remember the last man I’d been on an Irish beach with. My father, walking home from my mother’s funeral, him telling me about opportunities for dockworkers in Liverpool…
Daddy.
I slid off the bed and went in search of a dressing gown, trying to avoid the crushing wave of sadness that came when I thought about my family. My mom, dying of consumption just months after my little brother. My father, moving us to Liverpool and then to London, working his way up from dockworker to manager and then to the owner of his own company, only to succumb to the same disease before I turned twenty-one.
He had poured all of himself into his work, and it was his blood and sweat that had created O’Flaherty Shipping Lines.
Well, his blood and sweat and one very lucky investment.
It had been my fourteenth birthday. We had just moved to London, and my father had taken all the money he’d earned in the last two years and purchased one ship—a beaten-up, decades-old vessel called the Aquamarine (which he’d promptly renamed the Clare , after our home.) My father was a prompt deliverer and fairly priced, and before long, we had more work than the Clare could handle. Then came the Shannon , named for my mother, the Sean , for my brother, and finally the Molly . We had the beginnings of a fleet, the makings of a thriving business.
Since my father had made sure I’d been schooled, I was far better at the accounting and bookkeeping than he was, and so I’d spent every evening after school and every Saturday in our warehouse, working the numbers.
Mr. Cunningham had come into the warehouse we rented in the East End, looking for my father, but upon seeing me scribbling at a desk, had sauntered over with a smile. He’d been a young man then, newly married. He was the handsomest man I’d ever seen, and I had looked up into his face and been temporarily paralyzed by the sudden awareness of his maleness , or rather, of my femaleness . He’d looked at me like I was a woman, not a girl. And I had felt very compelled to tell him, when he’d asked me if I was Aiden O’Flaherty’s daughter, that yes I was, and that I had also just turned fourteen years old.
“What a special age,” he’d murmured. “Happy birthday, Miss O’Flaherty.” And then he’d presented me with the small daffodil from his buttonhole. I’d clutched it while he’d spoken with my father about the possibility of investing. Only my father and I knew how desperately we needed the money—we were swamped with work and if we didn’t purchase new ships, we would have to start turning away orders. When he’d left, he’d placed a small card on the desk where I worked. Even I, as inexperienced as I was, could tell the card was expensively made, with its thick stock and filigreed letters, and so I didn’t dare refuse the order dashed in ink on the back.
See me.
And below that, an address in Knightsbridge.
The next day, when my father thought I was at school, I went to Frederick Cunningham’s house. Looking back, I cannot believe that I went…fourteen years old in a new city, going unchaperoned to a strange man’s house. I’d always been bold, but this had been outright dangerous. I suppose I’d felt
If anything, this would make me stronger.
Not for the first time, I thought about leaving London and going back to Ireland. Finding some quiet stone cottage by the sea and drinking whiskey all day. A place where money and businesses didn’t matter, where I could be free of any consideration aside from what I wanted. Silas could be there. It could be the two of us, secluded and spoiled, spending every moment with one another. And I would watch him staring at the surf, watch the way the corners of his eyes would crinkle as he squinted into the setting sun. I would watch those long, strong hands flex and curl as he sifted through pebbles on the beach.
But all of that only made me remember the last man I’d been on an Irish beach with. My father, walking home from my mother’s funeral, him telling me about opportunities for dockworkers in Liverpool…
Daddy.
I slid off the bed and went in search of a dressing gown, trying to avoid the crushing wave of sadness that came when I thought about my family. My mom, dying of consumption just months after my little brother. My father, moving us to Liverpool and then to London, working his way up from dockworker to manager and then to the owner of his own company, only to succumb to the same disease before I turned twenty-one.
He had poured all of himself into his work, and it was his blood and sweat that had created O’Flaherty Shipping Lines.
Well, his blood and sweat and one very lucky investment.
It had been my fourteenth birthday. We had just moved to London, and my father had taken all the money he’d earned in the last two years and purchased one ship—a beaten-up, decades-old vessel called the Aquamarine (which he’d promptly renamed the Clare , after our home.) My father was a prompt deliverer and fairly priced, and before long, we had more work than the Clare could handle. Then came the Shannon , named for my mother, the Sean , for my brother, and finally the Molly . We had the beginnings of a fleet, the makings of a thriving business.
Since my father had made sure I’d been schooled, I was far better at the accounting and bookkeeping than he was, and so I’d spent every evening after school and every Saturday in our warehouse, working the numbers.
Mr. Cunningham had come into the warehouse we rented in the East End, looking for my father, but upon seeing me scribbling at a desk, had sauntered over with a smile. He’d been a young man then, newly married. He was the handsomest man I’d ever seen, and I had looked up into his face and been temporarily paralyzed by the sudden awareness of his maleness , or rather, of my femaleness . He’d looked at me like I was a woman, not a girl. And I had felt very compelled to tell him, when he’d asked me if I was Aiden O’Flaherty’s daughter, that yes I was, and that I had also just turned fourteen years old.
“What a special age,” he’d murmured. “Happy birthday, Miss O’Flaherty.” And then he’d presented me with the small daffodil from his buttonhole. I’d clutched it while he’d spoken with my father about the possibility of investing. Only my father and I knew how desperately we needed the money—we were swamped with work and if we didn’t purchase new ships, we would have to start turning away orders. When he’d left, he’d placed a small card on the desk where I worked. Even I, as inexperienced as I was, could tell the card was expensively made, with its thick stock and filigreed letters, and so I didn’t dare refuse the order dashed in ink on the back.
See me.
And below that, an address in Knightsbridge.
The next day, when my father thought I was at school, I went to Frederick Cunningham’s house. Looking back, I cannot believe that I went…fourteen years old in a new city, going unchaperoned to a strange man’s house. I’d always been bold, but this had been outright dangerous. I suppose I’d felt
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