The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

the well of the saint.
    In the village, men worked in shirtsleeves, and arms turned ruddy in the sun. Trevor watched the skeleton of his building take shape, the beams and block that were the solid bones of his dream.
    As the work progressed, the audience grew. Old Mr. Riley stopped by the site every day at ten until you could set your watch by him. He brought along a folding chair and sat with his cap shielding his eyes and a thermos of tea for company. There he would sit and watch, sit and nap until, sharply at one, he would stand up, fold his chair, and toddle off to his great-granddaughter’s for his midday meal.
    As often as not, one of his cronies would join him, and they would chat about the construction while playing at checkers or gin rummy.
    Trevor began to think of him as the job mascot.
    Children came by now and again and sat in a half circle by Riley’s chair. Their big eyes would track the sway of a steel beam as it was lifted into place.
    This event was sometimes followed by a round of appreciative applause.
    “Mr. Riley’s great-great-grandchildren and some friends,” Brenna told Trevor when he expressed some concern about them being near the site. “They won’t go wandering closer than his chair.”
    “Great- great -grandchildren? Then he must be as old as he looks.”
    “One hundred and two last winter. The Rileys are long-lived, though his father died at the tender age of ninety-six, God rest him.”
    “Amazing. How many of those double greats does he have?”
    “Oh, well, let me think. Fifteen. No, sixteen, as there was a new one last winter, if memory serves. Not all of them live in the area.”
    “Sixteen? Good God!”
    “Well, now, he had eight children, six still living. And between them I believe they made him near to thirty grandchildren, and I don’t have count on how many children they made. So there you have it. You’ve two of his great-grandsons on your crew, and the husband of one of his granddaughters as well.”
    “How could I avoid it?”
    “Every Sunday after Mass, he goes to visit his wife’s grave, she that was Lizzie Riley. Fifty years they were married. He takes with him that same old ratty chair there and sits by her for two hours so he can tell her all the village gossip and family news.”
    “How long has she been gone?”
    “Oh, twenty years, give or take.”
    Seventy years, give or take, devoted to one woman. It was flabbergasting and, Trevor thought, heartening. For some, it worked.
    “He’s a darling man, is Mr. Riley,” Brenna added. “Hey, there, Declan Fitzgerald, have a care there with that board before you bash someone in the face with it.”
    With a shake of her head, Brenna strode over to heft the far end of the board herself.
    Trevor nearly followed. It had been his intention to spend most of his afternoon lifting, hauling, hammering. The sound of air guns and compressors whooshing and rumbling along with the constant rattle of the cement mixer had the young audience enthralled. Beside them in his chair, Riley sipped tea. Going with impulse, Trevor walked over to him.
    “What do you think?”
    Riley watched Brenna place her board. “I’m thinking you build strong and hire well. Mick O’Toole and his pretty Brenna, they know what they’re about.” Riley shifted his faded eyes to Trevor’s face. “And so, I think, do you, young Magee.”
    “If the weather holds, we’ll be under roof ahead of schedule.”
    Riley’s weathered face creased into smiles. It was like watching thin white paper stretch over rock. “You’ll be there when you get there, lad. That’s the way of things. You’ve the look of your great-uncle.”
    As he’d been told so once, hesitantly, by his grandmother, Trevor considered, then crouched down so Riley wouldn’t have to crane his neck.
    It’s just that you look so like John, Trevor, his brother who died young. It makes it hard for your grandfather to . . . It makes it hard for him.
    “Do I?”
    “Oh, aye. Johnnie Magee, I knew him, and your grandfather as well. A fine-looking young lad was Johnnie, with his gray eyes and slow smile. Built like a whip, as you are yourself.”
    “What was he like?”
    “Oh, quiet, he was, and deep. Full of thoughts and feelings, and most of them for Maude Fitzgerald. He wanted her, and little else.”
    “And what he got was war.”
    “Aye, that’s the way it was. Many young men fell in 1916, on those fields of France. And here as well, in our own little war for