Da was up early. Sean found him sitting with a cup of tea, staring out the window at the clouds as if he could vaporize them by force of will. "Too rough" was all he said.

"It doesn't look that bad," said Sean.

"It's fine inland," Da said with disgust. "Only out there is it . . . what's the word . . ."

The word came to Sean-in his mind he heard Rebecca's voice. "Unstable."

He was hesitant to broach the subject, but it looked to be the perfect day for the highest point. Da conceded that it was, and besides, he wanted to do some poking around, see if he could find any relatives or old friends. He'd been an only child, but there had been a cousin or two. . . .

Orla found a hiking book with directions to the base of Carrauntoohil and information about the climb. The text noted that at approximately 3,400 feet above sea level, it was not an especially high mountain, but erosion and loose stones along the path required caution. The drive would take about an hour and a half each way, and the hike up and back could take as many as six hours. They would stop in Dingle on the way to buy food and bottles of water.

"Please be careful," said Da. "The weather can change in a heartbeat."

"Enjoy the day to yourself, and don't worry about us," said Sean. "We'll be fine."

Da was standing sentry at the door when Sean and Kevin straggled in late that night. "Is he all right? What happened!" he demanded. "I was out of my wits!"

"He's fine, Da. Just a little scraped up. And very tired."

Kevin allowed himself to be guided to bed, and Da hovered as Sean pulled his shoes and jacket off. "Where did he get that cut on his cheek?"

"Devil's Ladder," said Kevin, though he was half-asleep. "The rocks are loose and I slipped. But it was awesome! Uncle Sean got a disposable camera in Dingle and took pictures."

Once Kevin was tucked in, Sean went back out to the dining room with Da, who was peppering him with questions. "Did you have it looked at? What took so long?"

"Da, I'm a nurse. I looked at it. It's just a big abrasion-wide but not deep. We went to a pub afterward because we were starving and they had a tube of antibiotic cream behind the bar." He slumped wearily in his seat. "What did you do today? Find any relatives?"

Da sighed. "I found some people who'd known some people. . . . And I found my parents' gravestones. Gone fifty years now. Strange to say, but in my mind they were still on the island."

"Any leads on a place to stay?"

"A few. They all look nice." He didn't sound enthusiastic, but his eyes brightened when he added, "There's some land for sale on the island, and a building, though I suspect it's in pretty poor repair. I know it's mad, but it would be a dream to live there again."

The next morning clumps of clouds still trundled across the sky, and Sean braced himself for Da to sulk. But when the older man joined them at breakfast he was grinning broadly.

"It's all set," he told them. "We're to go on the ten o'clock departure."

"Are you sure?" said Sean. "The weather doesn't look any different."

"It's not the skies we care about-it's the seas, boyo!"

Apparently Blasket Sound had calmed enough for a crossing, and soon they were descending the winding cement walkway to the boat landing, along with a few other families and older couples vacationing together. The trip took a little longer than usual, about twenty minutes, the captain explained, because there was still a bit of chop. Da didn't talk once they were about halfway across the sound. He stared at the village nestled against the leeward side of the island.

A hundred feet or so from shore, the captain anchored the boat, and his crewman began to help people into a motorized rubber dinghy. The landing was hidden behind an outcropping, in a narrow, rocky harbor. When they climbed to the top of the steep cement walkway, Da stopped.

"Are you tired?" asked Kevin.

"You okay, Da?"

"I'm . . . a might flabbergasted."

From a distance, the shapes of the houses and stone walls seemed deceptively intact. Closer vantage told a different story. The village was in utter ruins.

There were a few houses farther up the hill that still had whitewash, one or two of which seemed to be used for storage or for rustic overnights. But the great majority of the former homes were roofless and overgrown with weeds. Da was unprepared for the sight of it.

"These were thick walls," he murmured to himself. "Never a drop of rain came through."

"Not quite what you expected," Sean murmured. "Which house was yours?"

"I'm not entirely sure."

On his opposite side stood Kevin. Sean saw the boy slide his hand into his grandfather's. The three of them stood there surveying the remains of Da's boyhood. Sheep grazed across the hillside. The sun shone, bleaching the white of the few standing cottages, super-saturating the green of the grass. It was breathtakingly beautiful . . . and devastatingly sad, all at once.

"Let's go to the top where we can see better," said Kevin. "I bet you'll find your house then."

So they climbed, and as they did, Da was able to get his bearings. "This was the schoolhouse," he told Kevin. "But we didn't even have a teacher those last years. Most of the children went to Dunquin for school, but my parents didn't want me to go. I was their only child, and mamai wanted me with her, so she taught me herself."

"You called her mommy? What did you call your grandfather?"

"Mine had died before I was old enough to address them. But I would have called them daideo." It sounded like "daddo." "In Dunquin the English-speaking kids used 'gran-da.' "

Sean realized he'd never heard the boy call Da anything at all. They wandered uphill, and Da pointed out different houses and who had lived in them. Finally they came to the one he remembered best of all. "This is it," he said. "Here's my home."

The back wall, what was left of it, was set against the hill. One side wall had held a door with two windows on either side. Remnants of the fireplace were barely visible behind the weeds that sprouted out of the dirt floor. Da described the contents as if it were a litany of sacred objects. "This was my parents' bed," he said, pointing to one corner, "and here's mine over here. Here's the table and chairs, and the cabinet for the dishes." His hands made the shapes as he trod through the weeds. "The roof was very sturdy-my da made sure of that. We used to dry the fish up there on sunny days to cure it for the winter. But you couldn't smell it in the house. That's how tight that roof was."

And now it was made of sunlight and salt air.

Da took the little whitewashed stone out of his pocket. "I had the idea that the divot I made when I took it would still be here, and it would fit right in." But there was no whitewash left, nothing but rain-battered stones ready to topple at the next stiff wind.

Kevin made a loop with his thumb and forefinger and rested it on a rock in the doorway. "Here," he said. "Try it out."

Da set the little stone into the well of the boy's fingers. He laid his hand lightly on his grandson's head and gazed at his scraped face. "You're a keeper, cuisle mo chroi."

Kevin wanted to get a closer look at the seals on the beach. About forty of them were nestled together at the far end of the sandy spit, like an enormous lumpy gray blanket. Sean, Kevin, and Da sat a respectful distance away and pulled out the sandwiches and drinks they'd brought. Kevin ate his quickly and went down to the water's edge to skip stones.

"Our name in Irish," said Da, "it means either exile or pilgrim."

"Doran? I didn't know that."

"There's some irony in it. It's the same word whether you're coming or going. Whether you're being kicked out or drawn toward a place." He glanced back toward the village. "I've felt like an exile ever since I left here. Except with your mother, of course. That woman had a way of making me feel so at home. You know how that feels? Like you're in exactly the right place?"

"Yeah," said Sean. "I used to feel that way when I was up to my armpits in a medical crisis-a birth gone wrong or a bad burn. The worse it was, the surer I was."

"Admirable."

"Maybe. Or maybe it's just my drug of choice-other people's medical problems."

"Ha!" Da laughed. "Either way, it's a damn sight better than pickling your own liver and puking in your bed!" He clapped a hand on his son's shoulder and Sean allowed it. "Doing good for the wrong reason is still doing good. Who's to say anyone's motives are completely pure?"

"I guess I was more of a pilgrim, then. I never felt kicked out. I always wanted to go."

"It gets to be a bit of a habit, doesn't it? The leaving." He picked up a handful of sand and let it slip through his fingers, studying it as if to gauge it against memory. "You said you were a pilgrim. Are you still?"

"I don't know. I certainly don't have the religious fervor. At least not anymore."

"But you did at one time."

"Yeah, it was . . . you know . . . my purpose. God's plan. Go patch up a bunch of people."

"What changed?"

Sean shrugged. "I guess I thought Huntington's gave me some sort of special status, turned me from a pumpkin into a golden carriage." He gave a self-deprecating little snort. "Now I know I was just a pumpkin all along."

Kevin ran toward them. "Can I go in?" he called. "It's getting hot!"

"Okay," said Sean. "But you'll have to go in your boxers. We didn't bring extra clothes."

"You can't go deep," Da warned. "That current will take you out to sea like a rocket." Kevin pulled off his shirt and pants and ran back to the water. "You have to watch him," said Da.

"I'm watching him." Kevin waded slowly into the water, holding his arms out.

"Does he know about the Huntington's?" Da asked.

The question caught Sean off guard. "What? I . . . I have no idea."

"You were about this age when we told you. He should know."

"We don't know if Hugh had it. It's very possible Kevin's not even at risk."

"Yes, but we'll never know if Hugh had it. We have to assume he's at risk."

"I've assumed that all my life. It didn't do me any good."

"The doctor told us we should tell you. He said it gets harder as the child gets older."

"I can't think about that now, Da." Sean watched the boy hop a little deeper. "I don't even know who's going to take care of him when I leave, I can't exactly-Oh, Jesus!"

Kevin seemed to lose his footing, and suddenly his head bobbed under. Sean was racing toward the shore in an instant. "Kevin!" he yelled. Though it was only about a hundred feet, it seemed to take ages to cover the distance, and the boy still hadn't come up. "Kevin!"

Sean dashed into the cold water and immediately felt the pull of the current-it was much stronger than it seemed from the surface. He spun around, arms carving through the water to search out and grab hold of the boy. But they found nothing.

Da ran into the water, but Sean called to him to stay shallow. All he needed was for the old man to go under, too. They screamed and screamed for Kevin, scrambling back and forth in the waves, Sean's legs aching against the grip of the current.

Seconds ticked by, and Sean's medical brain began spinning through the possible outcomes of oxygen deprivation . . . loss of consciousness . . . brain damage . . . death. "KEVIN!" His voice intertwined with his father's broken cries and the raw wind.

Finally, a few yards to the right, Kevin's black hair parted the waves and he came up sputtering. He went under again before Sean could get to him, but Sean dove in his direction and was able to grab an arm and haul him up to the surface. He pulled the boy close and struggled against the current as he carried him toward the shore. As the last wave licked at his ankles, he stumbled and they both fell onto the sand.

"Are you all right?" Sean grabbed his face to look at him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Kevin choked out. "But you're hurting my scrape."

Da was kneeling over them, "Kevin! Jesussufferingchrist, boy!"

"Sorry," he coughed, sitting up. "It got deep faster than I thought."

"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Sean panted raggedly. Then he felt his father's arms come around his shoulders, steadying him, comforting him, and he thought he might cry from the relief-not just for Kevin's safety, but for his father's embrace, something he realized he'd longed for for almost thirty years.

"I didn't mean to scare you," said Kevin.

"I know, it's okay." Sean rested his head against his father's shoulder, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "If you're okay, everything's okay."

CHAPTER 51.

"Your last full day in Ireland," Da said to Sean and Kevin over breakfast the next morning. "What do you want to do?"

Kevin said, "I want to know why one meat muffin's black and the other one's white."

"Ah, the black one has a secret ingredient I dare not reveal!"

"What is it?"

"Da . . ." Sean shook his head. "Trust me, Kev, you don't want to know."

"Tell me!"

"It's blood!"

"Gross!" said Kevin, stabbing the dark pudding with his fork and flicking it onto Sean's plate. "That's disgusting! Why would anyone put blood in food?"

"Because it's full of nutrients, lad! If you've precious little to eat, you'll get your nutrition where and how you can." Da laughed. "Now it's just tradition. Eat the white one. It's got no bodily fluids that I know of." Not surprisingly, Kevin was done with breakfast.