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blocks and all, and the tires are there too.”
    “Really?”
    “Horseface is just darling, Mom. Can I learn how to ride him? I mean, is twenty years too old for a horse to be ridden?”

Chapter 3
    I SUPPOSE our fate had already been decided that morning, but I don’t see such events with an awareness of their immediate and future significance. Teddie always did, and my obtuseness irritated him. Just as well he was safely three thousand miles from me—and someone else’s problem now.
    We went through the house again, peering into cupboards this time. And bare they were. I kept telling myself that it was because no one had been tenanting the place that there was only a dusting of sugar in the bowl, a half cup of flour in the canister, a small tin of curried beans, an inch of ketchup, a fingernail of salt and the same of pepper. The fridge had been cleared and unplugged. Snow turned it on with a dramatically uttered, “There! We can shop later. That’ll be fun.”
    “Expensive, too,” I said, knowing my daughter’s proclivity for impulse buying. However, we did have to eat.
    Snow was rattling on enthusiastically about redecorating, which would mean more outlay of cash. I
could
see the merit of her suggestions (take a positive attitude, Rene). A touch here, some paint there, new curtains at those windows, some judiciously placed new carpet, and new vinyl and paint in the kitchen would give the house a much more cheerful atmosphere. Simon volunteered to paint the outside trim, Snow to weed the neat garden, and both were so generally enthusiastic that by lunchtime I could relax and appreciate the potential charm of the house.
    I locked up and we piled into the car. As we bumped down the lane, Simon cursed the bulldozer and I wondered which of my relatives had had the audacity to give Shamus Kerrigan permission.
    On the off chance that Brian Kelley would be haunting the hotel, we ate in town, at a charming restaurant just off St. Stephen’s Green. Then we did some gawking down Grafton Street. People hurried, as on other streets, but as many more sort of lounged down the sidewalks, utterly unconcerned about reaching their ultimate destinations. Double-decker buses roared down the narrow street, occasionally puffing hot exhaust around our legs, but not with the horrid urgency of their New York counterparts. Altogether, Dublin was exercising much charm to soothe this savage colonial breast.
    We arrived on the solicitor’s street, and I suddenly felt very Georgette Heyer, looking at the beautiful Georgian fronts with the lovely fanlights above the doors. Finding the right number was not hard, but finding a spot to park the Renault did take time.
    Michael Noonan looked more like a jet-set playboy than a solicitor, but, fortunately for my peace of mind, his manner and cogent explanations (as far as he went) dispelled any further comparison. He wore his dark hair short on top and close cut but long in the back, with well-trimmed sideburns, which added to his rakish appearance. His eyes behind the heavy black-framed glasses missed nothing of my appearance or my children’s as he welcomed us each with a firm handshake. Despite myself, I looked down at his hands, as the children did, and knew their opinion before I saw it in their eyes. He had hands.
    He also had brains.
    Ceremoniously I tendered him my identification and my grandfather’s naturalization papers, which clearly established Granda as the late Irene Teasey’s brother Michael Maurice Teasey.
    He handed me a parcel of long, folded documents. “Your copy of the will, which makes you principal heir and co-executrix with this office, myself in particular, the authenticated list of the belongings in the house and on the property, and their estimated value for death duties.”
    I dutifully opened the uppermost document, and flinched at the whereases and second parts and all that overwhelmingly confusing legalese.
    “There were other bequests?”
    “Some minor ones in