The Passions of Emma (12 page)
“And she’s going to take you away with her, out to that house,” Noreen finished in a rush, surging to her feet. “Mam, don’t let her! Don’t let the angel take you away from us!”
“What foolishness is this?” Bria tried to laugh, but her throat closed up.
I’ll not be leaving you,
she wanted to promise.
Never, never would I leave you.
But the words got tangled up with the lie that lived inside of them.
I’ll not be leaving you,
she wanted to promise.
Never, never would I leave you.
But the words got tangled up with the lie that lived inside of them.
“Foolishness,” she said again instead, though she could understand what had started her fey daughter off on one of her wild imaginings. An angel . . . aye, an angel the girl had seemed, something magical and extraordinary, standing high above them all up there on the catwalk with the sun streaming down through the high windows, so that the very air around her had seemed to quiver and tremble with showered light.
Bria knelt on the shingled beach so that she could wrap an arm around each of her girls. “The lady who came to the mill today—it’s no angel, she is. A very grand and pretty lady, surely. But no angel. And for certain she’ll not be having anything to do with the likes of us.”
Merry hummed a bright, sweet dreamsong. She began to sway, her eyes fluttering closed, and Noreen spoke for her, the words dreamy as well.
“She says it’s not afraid we should be, for the angel will be making all our wishes come true.”
Noreen turned pleading eyes onto her mother. She’s like me, Bria thought, wanting the miracle, wanting it so very desperately, and yet unable to stop herself from looking always for the tarnish on the silver lining. While Merry took after her da, with the grand and impossible dreams in her.
“Come now, me darlin’s,” Bria said, her arms tightening around them, pulling them close. “We should be getting ourselves home.”
Yet she stayed where she was, kneeling on the cool wet sand.
They felt so small and fragile in her arms, her girls, and she wanted to hold them to her like this, safe against her breast, forever.
They felt so small and fragile in her arms, her girls, and she wanted to hold them to her like this, safe against her breast, forever.
On the way home they crossed paths with the men who worked in the onion fields. The field hands all carried hoes on their shoulders, and ropes of the prized Bristol red onions swung from their fists. Bria looked for her man among them but he wasn’t there.
As they walked past the Crow’s Nest Saloon, she stopped to stand on tiptoe and peer above the slatted doors, searching for the big, brawny sight of him from among the b’hoys standing hipshot at the bar. But he wasn’t there either.
Their house stood on the water side of Thames Street—a two-room clapboard shack perched on stilts. It had a tarpaper roof, and its walls were stuffed with eelgrass for warmth against the New England winters. So different this house was from the thatched-roof
shibeen
she had lived in all of her life before this.
shibeen
she had lived in all of her life before this.
Some days she could shut her eyes and every stone hedge and potato ridge of her home in Ireland would rise vividly in her mind. She would feel the loss of her life, of herself, as big and gaping, and forever.
So she would make herself open her eyes wide and look at her girls and her man, all of them dear as God’s breath to her, and she would make herself think of this country she had come to. This America, so big and grand, so full up to bursting with life and dreams and promise.
Och
, it could break your heart with its promises, this America.
Och
, it could break your heart with its promises, this America.
By the time Bria turned up the dirt path, she was walking so fast the girls had to trot to keep up with her. She hardly felt the tired ache in her legs anymore as she climbed the steep stairs of the front stoop and threw open the door. But the kitchen was empty, and his name and the smile she always wore just for him died on her lips.
The house smelled of the bacon and cabbage she had cooked for supper last night, and so she left the door open to the salt breeze.
While the girls washed up, Bria put on her apron and made them soda bread and bacon sandwiches. “There now,” she said as she set the heaping plates on the table. “You’ll really have to use your jaws to get around that.”
Noreen made a face at her, for she said that very same thing every Saturday-off when she made them sandwiches. But Bria only laughed.
She bent over and kissed the top of her daughter’s head, where the part shone white in the brown hair. “Why don’t you go on back outside and enjoy the rest of the day, what with the sun fit to burst in the sky?” She gave the girl’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Go on, then, love, and take your supper with you.”
Noreen cast a look full of yearning out the open door, yet leftover fears held her still. Then she snatched up the sandwich with both hands and ran out into the sunshine.
Bria followed her to the door, watching and smiling. But when she looked around for Merry a moment later, she saw that the child had sat down at the table and fallen asleep before she had taken the first bite from her sandwich. Sometimes the little ones fell asleep standing up at their ring spinners, they got that tired.
Bria gathered her up and carried her into the bedroom. So weightless did she feel in her arms, light as gossamer silk. And so heavy did Bria’s heart feel at the sight of her darling baby’s face, so thin and tired and pale.
Bria laid her down between the feed-sack sheets, which were rough but clean. She smoothed back Merry’s bright curls and kissed her forehead. Tomorrow, Bria promised herself, she would take them for a proper picnic at Town Beach. She’d buy them a jelly roll as a treat, even though it would cost a whole nickel.
Tomorrow . . . She felt the despair smash into her like a breaking wave and she shook beneath the force of it. Tomorrow—what a grand and sad word that was. So full of hope and wonder and
promise. But only if you were sure of having one, sure of having a tomorrow.
promise. But only if you were sure of having one, sure of having a tomorrow.
Bria gave her daughter another kiss, soft as a whisper, and went back out into the kitchen. She looked at the sandwich sitting there on the chipped enamel plate and thought she ought to eat it. It was just that she had so little appetite anymore, yet still the babe grew big and heavy in her belly, while the rest of her looked like a bundle of twigs tied together with string. And with herself out of a job now and her man back to working the onion fields, they would be living on carrots and turnips and swamp apples soon enough.
But even the smell of the bacon was making her ill. She wrapped the sandwich up in a scrap of paper and put it away in the pie cage for later.
She set about baking up a fresh batch of soda bread, pouring a scuttleful of coal into the potbelly of the black iron stove. In Ireland she had cooked over an open hearth, boiling potatoes and turnips in a big pot. She’d had no wood or coal to make a fire, but plenty of peat bog for digging up lay right outside the cottage door. No smell was so loamy sweet, she remembered with a sigh, as that of burning peat.
Bria shook her head hard, trying to tear her thoughts away from home. She might as well get her heart settled on it—she was never going to see Ireland again.
As she reached for the flour tin, Bria glanced out the window and caught sight of her daughter squatting in the dirt, playing jackstones against herself. A ragged bunch of mill boys had gathered around to watch in silent admiration as she tossed up four jacks and caught them all on the back of her hand.
Bria had to smile at the sight of it. You wouldn’t think their Noreen, with her brown, pointy face and prickly ways, would be such a draw for the lads like she was.
“God save us!” Bria exclaimed aloud, for one of the boys had just offered her daughter a drag on his cigarette, and sure if the
naughty child hadn’t just taken him up on it. “Her da will be having to beat them off with a
shillelagh
afore long.”
naughty child hadn’t just taken him up on it. “Her da will be having to beat them off with a
shillelagh
afore long.”
“You are speaking, maybe, to the fairies?”
Bria whirled so fast she nearly knocked over the open flour tin. “Donagh! You scared the breath right out of me.”
The man who stood in the doorway gave her such a smile it outshone the sun. Laughing, she ran up to him and stood on tiptoe to plant a smacking kiss on his cheek. She smiled to herself at what the neighbors would say: Mrs. McKenna behaving so shamelessly forward with the Saint Mary’s parish priest, and never mind that the brave and beautiful lad was her very own brother.
She took him by the arm, pulling him inside. “Set yourself down. I’ve just put a kettle on.” She took his hat and hung it on a wall hook for him, then watched, smiling, while he settled the long length of him into one of her ladderback chairs. “You’re looking fine,
mo bhriathair
.”
mo bhriathair
.”
Father Donagh O’Reilly was indeed a handsome man, with his thick, dark red hair and warm brown eyes, and the wide mouth on him that always seemed but a tickle away from a smile. God’s gain had been some good woman’s loss, surely.
Just then the kettle began to shriek and Bria went to set it on the hob, while she prepared the tea for steeping.
“I was pleased to see you at the five o’clock Mass this morning,” her brother said over the dying whistle.
She cast a smile at him from over her shoulder. “Have you eyes in the back of your head, then?”
He grinned at her, but then his mouth took on a serious set. “Maybe not in the back of my head, but I’ve eyes. And ears. So faithful to the Mass every day, you are. Not one day have you missed in all the months you’ve been here. Yet not once have I heard your voice in the confessional box. Not once have I placed the sacred host between your lips.”
Bria turned her back to him, pretending to be busy with fitting
the teacups so carefully into their saucers. While her belly clenched with such a misery she feared she would be sick.
the teacups so carefully into their saucers. While her belly clenched with such a misery she feared she would be sick.
“Bria, lass . . . I may be God’s anointed servant on earth, but I was your big brother before that, and I understand how you might . . .” His words trailed off, and she imagined he was looking at her now with the worry and the hurt plain in his eyes. “If it’s a thing you can’t say to me, there’s a priest up in Warren, and a kind, understanding man he is. I can drive you up there in the cart, maybe?”
She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around the swell of her belly. “I can’t,” she nearly shouted. “I can’t, I can’t. So don’t ask it of me, Donagh. Anything else, but not that.”
She heard him get up and a moment later she felt the heavy warmth of his hand on her shoulder. “There’s no sin greater than God’s capacity to forgive,” he said softly.
She wanted to lean back into the comfort he was offering, but she held herself still. Never would she go kneel in that golden oak box to beg forgiveness for something she wasn’t sorry for.
He turned her around, trying to look into her face. But she pulled against him, averting her head, and so he let her go.
“I heard they’ve given you the sack up at the mill,” he said after a moment.
“Hunh.” She had meant it for a laugh, but it came out strangled. “I suppose your ears had the telling of the tale before the shift whistle had even finished its blowing.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. “Aye, well, that’s the other reason you’re being plagued with my company this day. Mrs. Daly—she who does the housekeeping for the rectory—has up and decided to go live with her daughter over t’ Boston-way, and leaving my poor self with no one to dust the banisters and set out my slippers come an evening.” He gave her chin a playful nudge with his curled knuckles. “So I’m here to say the tasks are yours for the doing, if you’ll have them. Though I’ll not be able to pay you mill wages, you mind.”
The sobs thrust up in Bria’s chest and burst out of her throat,
shocking the both of them. He wrapped his arms around her, and she pressed her face hard into the black scratchy wool of his cassock, and still the tears came, while he stroked her back and said, “There now, there now,” and she clung to him as if to let go were to drown.
shocking the both of them. He wrapped his arms around her, and she pressed her face hard into the black scratchy wool of his cassock, and still the tears came, while he stroked her back and said, “There now, there now,” and she clung to him as if to let go were to drown.
When at last she quieted, he set her at arm’s length from him. He spoke as if his throat hurt. “Are you all right then, lass?”
She nodded and sniffled and scrubbed her nose with the back of her hand. “What will folk think? You giving such a plum job to your very own sister.”
“They’ll think: Better my sister than some pretty young colleen with designs on my priestly virtue.”
She choked on a laugh, and then a fit of chest-racking coughs seized her. She bent over nearly double beneath the force of them, fumbling in her pocket for her handkerchief and the patent medicine.
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