Longing for Home (51 page)

Chapter One

However long the day, night must eventually fall. Katie Macauley knew that truth well. For every bit of joy she’d known, life had served her an ever-increasing portion of pain and grieving. Her Irish heart was just stubborn enough to keep going despite it all and just foolish enough to believe someday the balance would tip in her favor.

Finding a home amongst her displaced countrymen in a tiny town far from nowhere in the dry and unforgiving vastness of the American West seemed a fine argument in favor of optimism. Logic told her the odds of that happening were far too slim to be anything but a gift of fate. And yet the town of Hope Springs wasn’t without its problems, a great many problems, in fact.

“Michael, bring the butter crock, lad. We’re eating without your father if he’s not here in another five minutes.” Biddy, Katie’s dearest friend in all the world, gave her a look of utter exasperation. “I can’t imagine what’s kept that man in town so long. He and his brother had best return with a broken axle or a three-legged horse to explain their lateness.”

Katie set out the last of the dinner plates. She’d been invited to have her evening meal with Biddy and her family, an offer she appreciated more than any of them realized. Though she worked for a family who treated her with kindness and had the heart of a wonderful man—Biddy’s husband’s brother, in fact—she often felt alone.

“Put the spoon in the colcannon, Mary,” Biddy told her little girl. “Then fetch the soda bread, if you will.”

Colcannon and soda bread.
’Twas a bit of the Emerald Isle thousands of miles from Ireland.

Biddy crossed to the narrow front window. “What is keeping that man?”

Katie joined her there, looking out at the dimming light of dusk. “Ian realizes he’s late and knows you’re likely cross as a bag of cats. I’ll warrant he’s staying away out of fear of you.”

Biddy gave a firm nod. “And well he should, the troublesome man. My supper’s a full thirty minutes late from waiting for him. He’ll need to butter me up sweet if he means to be forgiven for this night’s troubles.”

Katie smiled. She knew her friend too well to believe she was truly angry. Indeed, Katie could see Biddy was more concerned than anything else. She and her Ian had the happiest marriage Katie had ever seen, though her experience of such things was admittedly limited.

“Never fear, Biddy. Tavish’ll round him up and bring him home to make his apologies.”

“And not a moment too soon, it seems.” Biddy looked back toward the rough-hewn table, where little Mary was carefully setting down the plate of soda bread. “Thank you, love. Now you and Michael go wash your hands.”

“With soap?” Mary clearly hoped the answer was no.

“Aye. Soap and plenty of it.” Biddy eyed both her children. “On with the two of you, then.” She shook her head at their retreating backs. “I swear to you, Katie, they’d eat out in the muddy fields if I’d let them.”

“And return to the house so filthy you could toss them against a wall and they’d stick,” Katie added.

Biddy smiled, as Katie hoped she would. But just as quickly as the lightness appeared, it faded. Biddy turned back to the window. “Where is that man? It’s not his way to be late.”

Katie set a reassuring hand on Biddy’s harm. “He and Tavish likely ran into Seamus or Eoin or Matthew and are busy telling wildly exaggerated tales of the glories of their pasts.”

Biddy gave a single, quick laugh. “Men. I swear they’ve tongues that could clip a hedge, so sharpened are they on their own teeth.”

“Indeed.”

Biddy set one hand on her hip and rubbed at her forehead with the other. Her gaze lingered at the window.

“I am certain all’s well.” Katie spoke with all the conviction she could muster, but Biddy’s worries were beginning to settle heavy on her as well. Tavish had left over an hour earlier and could easily have gone to town and back in that time.

As if making a finely timed entrance, the turning of wagon wheels and the pounding of hooves sounded from the yard.

“At last,” Biddy breathed and made her way to the door. She pulled it open. “The two of you had best—” Biddy’s eyes opened in shock, her words ending abruptly.

Katie moved swiftly to the doorway. Tavish was climbing over the back of the wagon bench to the bed. His mouth was drawn in a tense line, his eyes snapping with something very much like anger and also a great deal of fear.

“What’s happened?” Katie called out.

“Come help me,” he answered. “Quick, Katie.”

Biddy stepped out with her.

“Just Katie.” Tavish’s voice was insistent, sharp. “Just Katie.”

Alone she moved quickly over the short distance to the waiting wagon. Tavish had made his way to the back and offered a hand to help her up.

“What’s happened?” she asked again, her voice low.

Ian was nowhere to be seen. The wagon was empty except for a few crates and a messy pile of blankets.

“Why’ve you returned without Ian?”

“I haven’t.” He spoke too solemnly for Katie’s peace of mind.

Tavish took hold of the nearest corner of the blanket and tossed it back.

Heavens above.
’Twas Ian beneath the blanket. Ian, bloodied and bruised and unmoving. Katie’s very breath rushed from her.
Saints preserve us.

“Keep calm, Sweet Katie. Biddy’ll need you to be strong.”

Katie struggled to find air enough to speak. “Is he dead?” she whispered.

“He was still breathing when I found him. But he’s in a bad way.”

He was, indeed. The man’s face was swollen, discolored. She’d never seen anyone lie so utterly still. “Had he an accident with the wagon, or was he thrown from a horse or something?”

Tavish shook his head. The man generally wore smiles and mirthful twinkles in his deep blue eyes. Katie was not at all accustomed to seeing him somber.

“I’d wager my entire farm he was set upon by a mob.”

Katie’s heart fell clear to her feet. “A mob? Good heavens. Who’d do such a thing?”

And yet, she knew the answer. Hope Springs was ten years deep in a feud. Half the town was Irish. The other half hated the Irish with a passion. So, the Irish had opted to return the sentiment and hate their neighbors with equal fervor.

She set her hand lightly at Ian’s heart. His chest rose and fell faintly, as though his breath was hardly there. “I’m afeared for him, Tavish.”

“And it’s right you should be. He needs doctoring.”

Katie glanced quickly at the doorway. Little Mary and Michael had joined their mother. The three of them looked on with fearful expressions.

Merciful heavens.
Someone had beaten the father of these children to within an inch of his life. Beyond, perhaps.

“This is more of the feud, then, is it?”

“Aye.” Tavish sounded neither surprised nor horrified. Clearly this sort of thing had happened before.

“How bad is it likely to become?”

He set his hand lightly on her arm, his eyes heavy with worry. “How bad? Oh, Sweet Katie, this is only the beginning.”

Discussion Questions about
Longing for Home

1. Katie firmly believes her refusal to go to England to work in the factories led to her sister’s death and her family’s losing their land. In what ways is she correct? In what ways is she wrong? How might her life and that of her family have turned out differently if she had gone to England as her father wanted her to?

2. Katie began working as a servant at the age of eight and spent the eighteen years that followed very much alone. She didn’t have family or anyone else to truly care for her and help her make sense of the terrible tragedies she had passed through. How might her perspective on her losses have been different if she hadn’t been left alone to sort through all that had happened?

3. Katie wonders, when watching Emma’s aching need for her father’s affection, if any father realizes how important his opinion of his daughter truly is. How can a daughter’s relationship with her father influence the woman she becomes and the choices she makes? What other people play a crucial role in shaping the lives and beliefs of children? How can we be better influences in the lives of the children we interact with?

4. In recounting her reasons for keeping her father’s fiddle, Katie confesses she hoped he would come back for it so she could see him again. What reasons, whether noble or ignoble, might her father have had for never returning? What reasons might he have had for remaining so silent over the years, not even sending so much as a greeting?

5. Katie says, “No one was a child after The Famine. We were nothing but cobbled-together pieces of the children we once were.” Why, and in what ways, can traumatic experiences be more devastating to the children who pass through them than to the adults? Conversely, why and in what ways do children often prove to be more resilient than adults?

6. When Katie was a child, starving and homeless, she was told that bad things wouldn’t be happening to her if she were a good person. Why do some people believe that bad things happen only to bad people despite enormous evidence to the contrary? What might convince someone to say such a thing to a person in the midst of struggles? How do such unfeeling and unkind declarations add to a person’s suffering?

7. Tavish and Joseph each view the other as having the advantage in courting Katie. In what ways might each of them be correct about the other? In what ways might each be incorrect? Is Joseph right not to let his feelings for Katie show, or ought he to tell her what is in his heart? Why do you think Tavish doesn’t talk about his late fiancée? What might that tell us about his internal conflicts?

8. Tavish and Joseph are both vying for Katie’s heart, though she doesn’t fully realize it. What does each have to offer that she needs? Who do you think is the better match for Katie? Why?

9. Katie has spent her life in pursuit of her father’s forgiveness as well as that of her dead sister. Yet Tavish tells her that the person whose forgiveness she needs most is her own. Why is the act of forgiving ourselves often the hardest of all? How might the restitution Katie has always planned to make help her find the forgiveness she seeks? Would making those sacrifices be enough for her to find peace?

10. In her mind, Katie has always been on the road back to her home in Ireland in search of forgiveness and the family and home she lost there. What else has she been looking for over the years, perhaps without even realizing it? In what ways has she actually found in Hope Springs what she has been seeking?

11. In the end, Katie chooses to remain in Hope Springs but reaches out to her father in a letter. Why was this the best choice for her? What difficulties or regrets might this decision cause for her later on? Do you think her father will respond? In what way?

12. Music has always been a balm for Katie. It is a reminder of home and happier times, as well as a soothing and calming influence. What things in your life give you comfort in times of sorrow or struggle?

Let’s Talk History

Land in Ireland in the nineteenth century was owned and worked under a centuries-old tenant system. The families who worked and lived on the land didn’t own it. Though many had lived in the same home on the same plot for generations, they could be evicted with little or no notice. The crops produced on all but the tiniest pieces of that land belonged to the landlord. As a result, the poor in Ireland depended almost entirely on the potatoes they could grow in the small plot allowed them for their personal use.