376DENNIS LEHANE

Danny looked over at Quentin again, the man scratching at his beard.

"Nora," Thomas said, "did you get an annulment? Answer me, girl." Nora shook her head.

Danny rattled the ice cubes in his glass. "Quentin."

Quentin Finn looked over at him. He raised his eyebrows. "Yes, young sir?"

"How'd you fi nd us?"

"A man has ways," Quentin Finn said. "I've been searching for this lass for some time now."

Danny nodded. "You're a man of means then."

"Aiden."

Danny lolled his head to look at his father, then lolled it back to Quentin. "To track a woman across an ocean, Mr. Finn, that's quite a feat. Quite a costly feat."

Quentin smiled at Danny's father. "I see the boy's been in his cups, yah?"

Danny lit a cigarette with the candle. "Call me 'boy' again, Paddy, and I'll--"

"Aiden!" his father said. "Enough." He turned back to Nora. "Have you any defense, girl? Is he telling a lie?"

Nora said, "He is not my husband."

"He says he is."

"Anymore."

Thomas leaned into the table. "They don't grant divorces in Catholic Ireland."

"I didn't say I got me a divorce, sir. I just said he was my husband no longer."

Quentin Finn laughed at that, a loud haw that tore the air in the room.

"Jesus," Connor whispered over and over again. "Jesus." "Pack your things now, luv."

Nora looked at him. There was hate in her eyes. And fear. Disgust. Disgrace.

THE GIVEN DAY"He bought me," she said, "when I was thirteen. Man's my cousin. Yeah?" She looked at each of the Coughlins. "Thirteen. The way you buy a cow."

Thomas extended his hands across the table toward her. "A tragic state," he said softly. "But he is your husband, Nora."

"Fookin' right on that, Cap'n."

Ellen Coughlin blessed herself and placed a hand to her chest.

Thomas kept his eyes on Nora. "Mr. Finn, if you use profanity in my home again? In front of my wife, sir?" He turned his head, gave Quentin Finn a smile. "Your path home will, I promise, become far less predictable."

Quentin Finn scratched his beard some more.

Thomas tugged Nora's hands gently until he covered them, and then he looked over at Connor. Connor had the heels of his hands pressed to his lower eyelids. Thomas turned next to his wife, who shook her head. Thomas nodded. He looked at Danny.

Danny looked back into his father's eyes, so clear and blue. The eyes of a child with irreproachable intelligence and irreproachable intent.

Nora whispered, "Please don't make me leave with him." Connor made a noise that could have been a laugh.

"Please, sir."

Thomas ran his palms over the backs of her hands. "But you will have to leave."

She nodded and one tear fell from her cheekbone. "Just not now? Not with him?"

Thomas said, "All right, dear." He turned his head. "Mr. Finn." "Yes, Cap'n."

"Your rights as a husband have been noted. And respected, sir." "Thank ye."

"You'll leave now and meet me tomorrow morning at the Twelfth Precinct on East Fourth Street. We'll properly adjudicate the issue then."

Quentin Finn was shaking his head before Thomas had half fi nished.