Galway Bay (38 page)

“Ah, she won’t find them,” Michael said. “You go. Máire will stay.” He held my hand. “I think I’m better. I wouldn’t want to eat if I was really bad.”

“Go on, Honora,” Máire said. “Take the blurt off him while he has an appetite.”

“I’ll be quick,” I said.

I hurried into the cottage. Thank God I had some of the seed potatoes we meant to leave with Da. I put them in the pot over the fire to boil, then ran out. I climbed over the stone wall, went through the marshy field, and found the few onions left there. I pulled them all and ran back to the cottage.

The potatoes were cooked now. I peeled away the skin and using our one spoon mashed them with the onions into a tin can and went back out to Michael.

Máire stood in front of the closed door of the shed. I made to pass her, but she wouldn’t move. “You’re not going in.”

I reached over her shoulder and shoved the door. Stuck.

“Michael’s latched the door from inside,” she said.

I took the handle and rattled it. “Michael! Open the door! . . . Michael!”

“Let him sleep, Honora. Nothing you can do. The fever will break or not. He’ll survive or not. Nothing you can do.”

She put her arms around my shoulders, but I shrugged them off.

“Michael! . . . Michael!” I screamed.

But there was no answer.

I ran to the back of the shed.

“He’s trying to keep you safe, Honora,” Máire said.

I didn’t answer her. Michael had left a small opening in the back to let in air and light for Champion. I stretched up to look through this slit, but the opening was too high. There, one of the stones piled up in the gap in the wall—that’ll do. I dragged it over and stood on it.

“Now I can see you, Michael, and I can hear you breathing. I’m here, Michael. I won’t leave you, a stór.”

Máire came around to me. She’d tied a rope around the can of pratties and onions. I lowered the food down next to Michael through the opening. The can hit the ground.

Food and water in his reach and me here standing vigil. I’ll watch. And Michael will awaken. He’ll eat and drink and stand up and come out of the shed and we’ll go to Amerikay.

I stood on the stone leaning against the mud-walled shed, looking down at Michael. As the day went, less light came through the small window until shadows covered Michael.

Máire came to me, put her arms around my waist, and made me step down. She sat me on the ground, my back against the wall of the shed, and stood on the rock.

“Breathing,” Máire said to me as the sun set on Galway Bay and darkness came.

After a while, I got up. “You rest,” I said, and stepped up onto the rock. I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him grabbing for breath.

The moon rose. The stars came out. A full moon, and not a cloud on it.

Now Michael breathed in spurts. Long moments of silence, but then he’d struggle for air. He’s battling.

“Fight, my love, fight!” I said into the opening.

“Honora.” His voice stronger—stronger, surely.

“I’m here, Michael! What?”

“Honora, I see her. Champion. Honora . . . Paddy’s riding her . . . they’re on the course. . . . Look at the people, Honora. . . . A piper . . . it’s my father . . . my mother’s next to him . . . Murtaugh Mor’s holding the great hammer. . . . All of them watching . . . they’re cheering our son, Honora! . . . There you are . . . Jamesy, Bridget, and Stephen with you. . . . How could you be at Gallach Ui Cheallaigh? . . . Wait, we’re together on the Silver Strand. . . . I’m swimming in Galway Bay. . . . Honora, there’s a mermaid swimming with me . . . the mermaid from Clontuskert Abbey. . . . She’s pointing to the shore . . . and there you are. . . . How beautiful you are. . . . Honora, you’re waving at me . . . the children, too. . . .

“I’m coming, Michael!” I got off the stone and ran to the door. I kicked at it, then I pushed with my shoulder until the door splintered and I was in. “I’m here, Michael. I’m here.” I took him in my arms. “I’m here.”

He opened his eyes but was still seeing those pictures in his mind. And then he looked at me.

“A stór, a ghrá mo chroí,” I said. “Always and forever, a ghrá mo chroí, love of my heart.”

“Did I pay the bride price, Honora?”

“You did. And more.”

“Tell the children—tell them their da loved them. Take them to Patrick. He’ll help you. Chicago. Don’t let them die.”

“Michael! Fight, fight!”

“Patrick. Chicago,” he whispered. “Promise me.”

“I promise, but, Michael, you’ll be with us, you’ll—”

“Good-bye, Honora. Safe home. Slán abhaile.” Michael closed his eyes. “A ghrá mo chroí,” only a whisper, then silence.

“Michael! Michael, not yet. Michael, please, not yet. Come back, Michael!”

But he lay so still. I knew then. I shook him. Bent down onto his chest, listening for a heartbeat. But I knew.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” I started wailing.

And then Máire was there with me.

“Come out of here. You need to keen for him right and proper, out where the wind can carry the sound through the glens,” she said. “Come, a stór, come. Your Michael’s not in this small, dark place. He’s outside, Honora. His soul will pass over Galway Bay. He’s escaped. He’s free. Come. Let’s watch for him.”

Máire pulled me out into the night and brought me to the rock seat Michael made for me so I could watch the Bay. She sat me down and her next to me. I keened into the darkness.

“My love, my heart, my hero from the sea,” I chanted.

“Kind and strong and brave . . .” Máire sent the words out.

“My husband—without fear, without meanness, without jealousy . . . Pride of the Kellys . . . Michael, Michael, Michael . . . I can’t, Máire! Without him, I can’t . . .” I covered my face with my hands.

“Honora! Honora, look! The moon’s rising. It’s full. See the way it shines on the Bay?”

I lifted my head and looked down. The full moon shone down on Galway Bay. A path of light rippled along the dark waters, moving as if someone were walking on top of the waves—Michael crossing Galway Bay, stepping into the starry heavens.

“Michael,” I whispered. “Slán abhaile, my love—safe home.”

Then, a wind, easy, soft, touched my face. I felt him. Not gone. Here, truly here . . . before me, behind me, below me, above me, on my right, on my left . . . St. Patrick’s prayer . . . in the light of the sun, in the radiance of the moon . . . in the splendor of the fire . . . in the swiftness of the lightning . . . in the depth of the sea . . . with me. With me always.

Chapter 21

D
A AND THREE MEN
from Bearna came later that day. They battered down the shed. I watched all the walls fall on Michael, the thatched roof collapse over him . . . his grave. And no one said, “It must be done this way.” No one had to explain. Cover the fever dead where they lay. Had to be done. No time to send for a priest. Quick and quiet when fever kills.

“Sorry for your troubles . . . Sorry for your troubles,” the men said. “Sorry . . . sorry . . . sorry . . .”

Máire stood with me.

“Michael buried his pipes under the floor of the shed. Now they’re resting with him,” I said to Máire. “But he’ll be all alone up here, forever.”

“He’s his own fields stretching out around him—more than my Johnny has,” Máire said.

Da brought the children and Mam to the cairn made by the stones of the shed. We stood together, Paddy and Jamesy close to me. I held Stephen in my arms; Bridget clutched my hand. Stephen said, “Da? . . . Da?” while Bridget kept asking, “Where’s my da?”

“Do you have a few words, a prayer, Honora?” Da asked.

They all looked at me.

I took a breath. “Michael Kelly was a man without meanness, without fear, without jealousy . . . Husband . . . father . . . piper. . . blacksmith . . . farmer . . . horseman . . . Much loved . . . Very, very . . . much . . . loved. . . . Full of love himself . . . and honor . . . He will dwell in perpetual light. . . . He has found eternal rest. . . . Safe. Slán. Amen.”

“Amen,” they answered.

Jamesy tugged at my skirt. He held up his tin whistle to me. “Will I, Mam? I only know the one tune.” Jamesy played the song his da had taught him, the notes shaky but there:

A Nation Once Again

A Nation Once Again

And Ireland long a province be

A Nation Once Again.

“Very good,” I said to Jamesy. “Your da would have liked that.”

A nation . . . Can a country of unmarked graves ever be a nation? Michael, your bones will dissolve into this earth, to mix with so many others.

But not your spirit. You crossed Galway Bay on a path of light—your spirit before me, behind me, above me, below me. Our children will rise in the strength of your spirit. I will bring them to Chicago, Michael. I swear it.

Billy Dubh, the gombeen man, knocked at the door as soon as we got back to the cottage. Watching for us.

“Sorry for your troubles, missus,” he started. “Very sorry,” trying to push his way in through the half-opened door, that weasel face, those peering eyes.

I started to close the door on him, but Mam came over and let him in.

“You’re very welcome, Billy Dubh,” she said.

“God bless all here,” he said.

Mam looked at me. Don’t antagonize him.

“Well now, missus, a difficult day,” he said. “A widow left on her own. But thank God there is the workhouse. It’s a refuge—a refuge. Those who clung to their land died wishing they had signed away their claim and taken the help.”

Nothing about Amerikay . . . So, not as well-informed as he thinks, or else he knew what we’d planned and thought I wouldn’t be going now. How could I?

Máire spoke up. “Don’t worry about Honora. She has family.”

“Ah, well, all the more reason for her to sign this paper. Choices, then—if not the workhouse, her family. But why have the worry of land and rent and poor rates, with agents and soldiers coming around to bother her,” he said to Máire. Then to me, “I can spare you that worry.”

“Eviction?” Da said.

“But she has a lease,” Máire said. “Very legal. Show him, Honora.”

Michael had kept it behind a stone near our hearth. He planned to make the lease over to the Dwyers after his last day at work. I handed the parchment to Billy Dubh.

“Ah, a shame, really,” he said, shaking his head, a false face of sorrow on him. “I’ve seen too many of these. They count for nothing when property’s been sold.” He smiled at us as he tore the lease in two. “There’s new management now. Serious businessmen. Better to go quietly now than to wait to be ejected. I will give you two pounds.”

“And if we tumble the cottage?” I asked.

“Two pounds total, missus.”

“Then I’ll wait for the bailiff. Good-bye, sir.”

“Let me think,” Billy Dubh said. “In view of your sad loss I will make an exception. If you leave right now, I will give you three pounds and I won’t ask you to tumble your cottage.”

“Done,” I said. I pointed to the pot hanging on a hook over the fire. “That is not included.”

“Take it. I learned my lesson.” He laughed. “Wouldn’t want the Irish Brigade attacking me.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I picked up the pot and walked over to the glass window. A clear day, and the sun shining on Galway Bay. I heaved the pot through the window, shattering the glass.

“Honora!” Mam said.

No one else spoke.

Billy Dubh blew out his plump cheeks and took a long breath. His face was red. I knew he wanted to hit me.

But he didn’t. “Wasteful,” was all he said.

“You’re getting your fee,” I said. “I’m not going to let you sell the glass from the window my husband gave me.”

So. We moved to Bearna. September came. The fifteenth, my birthday, and a month since Michael died. The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. I am twenty-six years old.

“Happy birthday, Honora,” Mam said to me.

She and Máire sat together by the fire.

“Thank you, Mam.” A comfort to be with Mam. She’s so calm. Reassuring for the children to live with her and Da—for me, too.

Máire had said right away she wasn’t all that set on Amerikay and wasn’t it a good thing we didn’t pay for the tickets because now we had money to see us through the winter, and Mam said thank God for the good fishing and the Lynches not pressing for the rent.

They assumed I wouldn’t want to go now. Do I? I don’t know. Michael, I said to him in my mind, at least now I can walk the Silver Strand and stop at the big rock where we sat that first morning—climb up to Knocnacuradh and say an Ave for you at your sad grave.

Mam gave me the porridge she’d made from the meal Máire and I’d brought from Galway City.

Strange. I have more money than I’d ever before in my life. Fifty-three gold sovereigns tucked behind a rock near the hearthstone. Ah, Michael, you were right about the Bianconi people. Goodhearted. Mrs. Carrigan gave me ten pounds from Mr. Bianconi himself. He’d never forgotten Murty Mor, the big blacksmith, she told me. A nice woman. “Are you a widow?” I’d asked. Rude, really, but the words had come out of my mouth.

“Not a widow,” Mrs. Carrigan had said, “though my husband travels so much for Mr. Bianconi, I feel like one.”

Not a widow. But we were, the Keeley girls, both of us widows now and back where we had started—Bearna/Freeport, in a fisherman’s cottage.

On the way back from town we’d stopped at Galway Harbor. A tall sailing ship was anchored in the Bay—the
Cushlamacree
getting ready for its last Atlantic crossing of the season. We’d stared at it a long time. “Over and done with,” Máire’d said. Is it?

After the first spoonful of porridge, my stomach turned over. Nauseated every morning now.

Mam looked at me. “Are you . . . ?”

“I think so,” I said.

Máire shook her head. “You should have had more sense, Honora.”

“Máire,” Mam began.

“I think I’ll go out to the children now,” I said.

“Good. Some fresh air for you,” Mam said.

Mam’s worried because I’m so silent, mourning without tears, and if I’m pregnant . . . How could I travel now? I can’t lose this baby— Michael Joseph Kelly.

September light—still some heat left in the sun at midday. I crossed to the strand to where the children played. Bridget was helping Stephen and Gracie dig deep holes in the sand, while Paddy, Jamesy, Thomas, and Daniel challenged the waves—running forward to just where the surf hit the sand and then backing away.