What the Wind Knows

Thomas became a doctor because as a child he suffered from a mysterious illness, which Annie quickly diagnoses as asthma. Thomas and Annie discuss the upcoming truce between Eamon de Valera and Lloyd George, Prime Minister of England. Thomas confesses that he finds Anne changed, that she is no longer Declan’s Anne. When she asks if he was in love with her, Thomas answers that she was always Declan’s and that she had a fire about her that he didn’t want to be burned by. They kiss, and Annie is swept by her desire for Thomas.

Annie spends the days with Brigid and Eoin; sometimes she helps Thomas on his doctor’s visits. In August, Thomas leaves for Dublin.

In a journal entry, Thomas recounts meeting with Michael Collins on the eve of the peace treaty that would formally place Eamon de Valera in the role of hero and Collins in the role of an antagonist. Thomas also confesses that he is in love with Anne.

Maeve wakes Annie: Robbie, Maeve’s brother, has been shot and is on the floor of the barn, drenched in blood. Daniel O’Toole, Maeve’s father worries that Robbie has lost his eye. Robbie was shot by British forces known as the Tans. When Maeve announces that the Tans are coming up the road, they hide their guns and put Robbie in the barn’s back bedroom with a bottle of liquor. When the Tans arrive, Annie adopts a Southern American accent and pretends that Daniel is there to help her with a pregnant mare. She amiably welcomes the Tans into her home to search for guns, then brings them into the barn to inspect the mare. The Tans fall for the ruse that Robbie is passed out drunk and leave.

Thomas returns and inspects Robbie. Robbie will live, though his eye may be permanently damaged if it succumbs to infection. Annie admits that she came up with the mare as a distraction because of a story she had read about the Underground Railroad.

Thomas’s journal entry about this night reveals that many people close to the family are wary of the new Anne. Liam Gallagher, Declan’s brother, notices that Anne is not quite herself, and connects her presence with the arrival of the Tans.

Liam Gallagher, Declan’s brother, was the one who shot Annie on Lough Gill.

Thomas and Annie drive Robbie to Dublin because his health has taken a turn for the worse and he needs the resources of a city hospital. Once Robbie is safe, Thomas brings Annie to a wedding for his friends Dermot and Sinead. The party is a fancy affair . Annie meets Michael Collins, who asks her if she loves Thomas. Collins, Thomas, and Annie take a picture together—the same picture that Annie had discovered in Grandfather Eoin’s belongings.

In his journal entry of this night, Thomas marvels that he could gather in public with his revolutionary friends without fear of a raid. The night is slightly marred when someone steals the guns hidden with Robbie and Liam implicates Anne in the theft. What’s more, at the wedding reception, when Anne learns that it is August 26, 1921, she grows frightened and demands that Michael Collins leave the reception. Thomas alerts the guards at the doors as smoke bellows through the Gresham Hotel’s vents.

At the wedding, Annie’s panic stems from her knowing that there was an attempted assassination of Michael Collins in the Gresham Hotel shortly after the peace treaty. Her foreknowledge is hard to explain. On their way out of the Gresham Hotel, Thomas confronts Anne. She begs him to understand that she can’t explain why she’s not the same Anne he used to know. They notice lights on in Thomas’s Dublin house—Michael Collins wants answers. Annie tells Thomas that she loves him. She confesses that Liam Gallagher shot her on the lake.

Annie tells Collins, Thomas, and Collins’s right-hand man Joe O’Reilly the old Gaelic story of Niamh and Oisín, who loved one another despite Niamh’s far-fetched stories about her background. She recites the story in Gaeilge rather than English, a symbol of her commitment to the Irish cause.

Thomas’s journal records that Anne has told him the truth—her birth in America in 1970 and her journey to Ireland circa 1921.

Back in Garvagh Glebe, Annie devotes her time to teaching Eoin how to read and write because Eoin is scared of going to school. Thomas encourages Eoin to combat his fears by telling him the history of the Irish potato famine; Eoin needs to be educated so he can help rebuild Ireland.

Annie is moved by Thomas’s positive influence on Eoin’s upbringing. Thomas claims that even though Annie wasn’t born in Ireland, she is Irish to her core. He notes that Annie looks exactly like Anne except for the missing gap in her teeth and the tone of green in her eyes. Annie and Thomas run to the barn, where they have sex.

Thomas’s journal entry argues that Anne’s new identity “is its own kind of rebellion” (241) that defies the centuries of Irish oppression at the hands of the English. One day, when Anne was playing with Eoin by Lough Gill, she nearly disappeared into the fog. Thomas caught her and pulled her back just in time.

In bed, Thomas asks Annie about the future. She tells him about New York and about Eoin as an old man. Eoin had always seen Thomas as a father figure. Annie decides to stay in Ireland with Thomas.

Liam is gone. Thomas wonders if he’s somewhere in Cork, while Annie wonders if he’s concocting a plot to blame her for his own shady behavior.

Thomas’s journal entry details a letter from Michael Collins, who is in discouraging negotiations with the British government. Collins senses that Anne was right—they Irish are setting Collins up as a scapegoat in exchange for the limited freedoms England is willing to give Ireland. Thomas fantasizes about having a child with Anne.

Michael Collins returns from London and reveals that the English are only willing to go as far as Dominion status for Ireland, meaning it would be an autonomous region within the Commonwealth rather than fully independent. Annie tells him about the future of the treaty: It will be signed, but later, De Valera will blame Collins for pushing Ireland into an unsuitable agreement. As she predicts, the Irish cabinet votes in favor of the treaty, but Da Valera puts out a notice that the treaty goes against the nation’s best interests.

When Eoin screams from a nightmare, only Thomas can soothe him. Brigid is planning to move to America to live with her daughter now that her children are scattered or dead and now that Eoin has his mother back.

Thomas’s journal notes that Michael Collins has been under enormous stress, which shows in his exhaustion and behavior. People are starting to look at Collins with resentment. Thomas senses that Anne hasn’t told him everything about Collins’s fate.

Michael Collins stays with Thomas and the Gallaghers at Garvagh Glebe for Christmas. Thomas throws a party for all the neighbors, and Annie admires Thomas’s hospitality and kindness. She is seized by the fear that their relationship is doomed to disappear.

Thomas proposes marriage, but before Annie can answer, they are interrupted by the sudden arrival of Ben Gallagher, Declan’s oldest brother. Ben is angry about the treaty, certain that it will bring civil war.