Longing for Home (46 page)

She took a deep breath. “The history grows worse, Tavish,” she warned.

“I haven’t left yet, Katie.”

She rubbed her arms. Though the night was warm, she felt chilled to her core.

“’Twas the beginning of winter, cold and bitter, and we had not so much as a roof over our heads, nor anything more than the clothes we’d slept in and the blankets we’d dragged out with us. We didn’t even have shoes.” They’d stolen clothes off clotheslines along the way, shoes off back porches. They’d gone from a family humbled by want, but honest and upright, to a family of thieves.

“I should have regretted then what I’d done to bring us so low. I should have felt repentant. As we walked the roads, my only thought was that at least I wasn’t in the factories. My feet were burned in the fire, and every step I took was excruciating. I wept in agony but didn’t regret saving myself from going to Manchester. I saw my parents stooped and aged with worry. I watched my sister grow thin and quiet, weak to the point Father had to carry her because she could no longer walk. And still I didn’t regret it.”

Katie rubbed a hand over her face, fighting the pain growing inside. She shook as though exposed to the bitter Irish winter once more, pushed back more tears at the memory of her poor sister’s suffering.

A self-loathing she’d not allowed herself to feel in a decade or more surged inside. What a horrible child she’d been, an unfeeling and cold-hearted girl. She looked over the river, the sting of wind only adding to the tears forming in her eyes.

“We lost the only home my family had known for nearly two hundred years, just as Father had said we would. My sister was dying, just as Father said she would. I’d known what would happen, and still I’d done everything I could to keep from being sent away.”

“You were very young, Katie.”

She knew that argument wouldn’t stand. “How old were you, Tavish, when The Famine taught you to know death?”

“I was seven.” Something like resignation sounded in his voice. Katie didn’t look back at him to see if his expression matched his tone. “A neighbor family lost two little ones.”

“And, young as you were, you knew what death meant and that dying of hunger was a real thing, did you not?”

“I did,” he said quietly.

“So did I.” Katie rocked back and forth, from her toes to her heels, unable to hold still in the least. “We slept in abandoned barns and roofless skeletons of houses with hardly a bite to eat as the weeks dragged on. Day by day death crept into Eimear’s eyes. I knew then I’d made a terrible mistake, but I realized it too late.”

“What happened to her?” Tavish’s voice was so quiet Katie hardly heard it over the sound of the river.

“’Twas nearly six weeks after we lost our home.” Katie wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. “Father found us a barn for shelter, one hardly standing but better than huddling against a stone wall like we’d been doing. He laid Eimear down in the musty straw and told me to care for her while he and Mother walked to the nearest town, hoping to find a bit of bread or a day’s work.

“‘Look after your sister,’ he said. ‘She’s in your charge and your care.’ And I promised him I would. I was wrong to have put my worry over Manchester above Eimear’s well-being. I vowed to my father I’d take care of her.” For the first time since their house burned, Father had looked at her without disappointment.

“We lay there in that barn as still as could be. We were trespassing, after all. Eimear kept saying she was cold. ‘I’m cold, Katie. I’m so cold.’ She said it again and again. I was afraid we’d be found, so I shushed her, telling her to keep quiet.”

She heard Tavish rise behind her, but his footsteps didn’t trail off. Her gaze fell to the river bank directly in front of her.

“I covered her with as much straw as I could, our blankets were too worn to be of any use. She just kept saying how cold she was.” Katie closed her eyes. ’Twas, perhaps, her clearest memory of Eimear. “‘I don’t want to be cold anymore,’ she said, so quiet and so miserable. We’d all been freezing for six weeks. All on account of my selfishness.”

Tavish didn’t argue that point. He made no sound behind her. She only knew he hadn’t left because she hadn’t heard him go.

Katie lifted her eyes to the nearly dark horizon stretching out before her. She let out a slow breath. Best finish her story and let him go if he meant to.

“Hours passed before she stopped saying how cold she was. I lay there beside her, looking at the stars peeking through the missing pieces of the roof. I was relieved when she finally grew quiet.
Relieved.
Eventually I fell asleep. When I woke up, Eimear was still sleeping. I tried to nudge her awake.”

For a moment Katie couldn’t speak. Too much pain filled her. She trembled from deep within, tears falling from her eyes.

“She was so cold.” Katie whispered. “So very, very cold.”

A salty tear rolled over her lips. Katie brushed it aside, but another immediately took its place. Her lungs clenched. Only with great effort could she pull in the tiniest bit of air.

Tavish’s hands settled gently on her shoulders. He didn’t speak a word, simply stood behind her, silently listening.

“I sobbed with my hands over my mouth to stay quiet, afraid someone would hear and find us there. I wept alone all day. Mother and Father didn’t return until nightfall.” Her next breaths shook out of her. Her throat burned with emotion. “They knew before they even saw Eimear. My mother crumbled, dropped to her knees right there. Father—Father—”

One of Tavish’s arms wrapped around her middle, holding her close to him. Katie wiped at her wet face. She struggled to regain control of her voice, to get even the smallest of breaths through.

“Father looked at me. He didn’t speak to me again. Not ever.”

She felt ill thinking back on those moments. The whole world fell apart that day.

“Father carried Eimear to the nearest town the next morning and asked the priest if she could be buried in the churchyard. We hadn’t money for a casket or headstone or even a grave digger. Father dug the hole, and then we helped him fill it in.”

More tears dripped off her face. Katie let them fall. With one hand Tavish gently caressed her arm, his other arm yet wrapped around her waist.

“All I could think was how cold she would be in the frozen ground without even a blanket. I could hear her voice in my mind. Over and over. ‘I’m so cold, Katie. I’m so cold.’”

She pressed her hand over her mouth, stifling her gasping breaths. Without a word, Tavish stepped around her and pulled her into a proper embrace. She buried her face against his chest, clasping his shirt tightly. If she let go, Katie knew she’d simply collapse.

“If I’d gone to Manchester, she wouldn’t have died. She would have been warm and safe and alive. It was all my fault, Tavish.”

“You couldn’t have known, love. Not truly.” His arms tightened around her. “You were only a child yourself.”

Katie shook her head against him. “I knew enough.”

His fingers threaded into her hair, holding her ever closer to him. “Oh, Katie.”

“My parents didn’t speak to me again. Not the day we buried Eimear. Not all the way to Derry. They didn’t say a word. Not one single word.” Her tears had soaked his shirt front, and yet he didn’t pull away.

“Have you been blaming yourself for this all your life?”

“I know what I did, Tavish. My parents knew it.”

He rubbed her back as he held her. “Is that why your father left you in Derry?”

“I killed his daughter.”

“You
are
his daughter.”

Katie slid her arms around him, leaning against him for support. “The night after we buried Eimear, I lay beside them in an abandoned cottage, pretending to sleep. They were whispering to each other. Father said, ‘I’ve lost everything, my land and all my children.’” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the warmth of Tavish holding her as he was. It did not stop the tears. “I was lying right there next to him and he said all his children were gone.
All
of them.”

Tavish set his hands on either side of her face, raising her eyes to his. “I don’t think he meant that you were not one of his children anymore.”

“He did.” She knew it.

“And that is why you mean to go back? To give him his land so he’ll claim you as his own again?” Tavish shook his head. “Katie—”

“I mean to give him his land because it is the right thing to do. He was punished for a mistake
I
made. I can’t expect any kind of forgiveness if I don’t make that right. And my sister never had a proper headstone, nothing more than two sticks tied together in the shape of cross.” She took a shuddering breath. “I mean to see to it she has a fine stone with her name on it. Years from now when people see it, they’ll know her name. She’ll not just disappear as if she never lived at all.”

“My Sweet Katie.” He brushed his fingers along the line of her jaw. Such a tender gesture.

“The only thing I can give him now is his fiddle. But that won’t be enough.”

“Your mother said she wanted you to come home. Sounds to me as though just yourself would be plenty enough.”

That set the tears falling again. “She didn’t, though. She told me time was short, in case it mattered to me. She didn’t ask me back.” She sniffled against the continuing tears. “And Father didn’t say anything at all. He never sends word to me. Never asks Mother to send his greetings or his love to me. Even dying he didn’t ask me back.”

Tavish pulled her more fully into his arms. “So what do you mean to do, darlin’?”

“I don’t know. I hate the idea of not seeing him again, of not even trying to make things right with him.”

His hand rubbed her back in wide circles. “But?”

She leaned more heavily against him. “What if I go and spend what I have to buy his land back, even find a job to eventually get Eimear a headstone? What if I do all that, and he still hates me? What if it’s not enough? I will have given up everything I have here for nothing.”

His hand stilled. “Given it up? But you’d come back, love. Surely you’d come back.”

She wiped at a tear. “I’d have nothing left. Every penny would be gone.”

“Begorra, Katie.” She felt him take a tense breath. “I knew you’d come here planning to leave, but I thought that had changed in the past months. I thought you’d come to think of this as home. I never imagined you’d even think of leaving us for good.”

She pulled back a little, enough to look up into his face.

His brow pulled in tight. “You would truly leave for good? How could you do that? How could you even think it?”

He wasn’t yelling, hadn’t even raised his voice. But Katie heard disappointment in his tone.
You full disappoint me.
’Twas her father’s words she heard in her head but in Tavish’s voice. She’d done it again. She’d failed in the eyes of someone she loved.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Katie pulled away and moved swiftly back toward the house, only just keeping herself from running. Why couldn’t life continue on a sure and certain path? And why must that path be filled with such deep and constant pain?

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Joseph opted to give Katie space. He remembered very well the feelings of loss and pain when he’d heard of his father’s passing. Katie had walked around the house in the two days since her mother’s letter arrived, with tears constantly brimming in her eyes. The cheerful, determined Katie had disappeared.

He knew there was little he could do to ease her pain, but he wanted to help in any way he could.

He hung back after lunch when he would usually have returned to the fields. Katie had her basket filled with loaves and ready for delivery.

“I’d like to help you make your deliveries, Katie, if you don’t mind.”

Her smile was heartbreakingly shaky. “I would appreciate that. Biddy was supposed to help but couldn’t spare the time. Are you sure
you
can spare it? I know you’ve a crop to tend.”

“Finbarr is capable of seeing to things for an hour or two.” He took up her basket and walked with her out the door. The buggy was hitched up and waiting.

“I can see you were pretty confident I’d agree to your offer of help.”

“Because I know you’re smart.” He set her basket in the backseat of the buggy.

At his offered hand up into the buggy, she shook her head but not in refusal. “Do you know no one ever handed me up or down before I came here?” She let him hand her up. “I was always just a servant. And servants don’t matter.”

He stepped up and grabbed the reins. “Well, you have certainly mattered here.”

“
Have.
I think you’ve heard I may be leaving.”

He had. “You apparently told Biddy, and she told Ian. Ian told me.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Likely all of the Irish Road has heard by now.” Her brow creased. Her mouth turned down. “Do you think they’ll be disappointed in me if I choose to go?”

He set the buggy in motion. “They’ll be sad to see you leave, Katie, but I don’t think they’ll be ‘disappointed’ in you.”

She looked away from him. Something in the set of her shoulders told him she was fighting her own emotions.
Poor Katie.
News of her father was a blow. But to add to that the weight of half a town’s dependence on her would crush anyone.