The Crooked Branch (10 page)

Ginny wished she could cover Michael’s young ears, but it was too late for all that. He was taking it all in. Then Willie spoke up again. “O’Connell and the commission appealed to Lord Heytesbury in Dublin just this week, and they were turned away,” the older brother said. “This is what they asked for, exactly this—the prohibition of exports. O’Connell knows it—everyone knows it—that if they keep exporting our food for rent, all will be annihilation. Even those like yourself, lucky enough to have a surplus or a bit of money, you won’t be able to buy food where there is none.”

Michael was still staring up at his mother, his eyes watery, the melting snow dripping down from his hair. She wondered if he knew the word “annihilation.” Before his voice went, he was always asking the meanings of words, looking to learn newer and bigger ones. He was a clever boy. She leaned down to stroke his face.

“They don’t care, Mrs. Doyle,” Thomas went on. “They’re only too glad to be rid of us. There was talk of government aid, but it’s not forthcoming. The Queen has washed her hands.”

The cold was stealing into the room now, even though the door was shut and the fire crackling away. Maire laid down the brush and began plaiting Maggie’s black hair. Poppy had fallen asleep beside the fire, exhausted from chasing snowflakes. How she wished for Raymond in that moment, for the comfort of collective thought.

“What do you say about all this, Father?” Ginny asked.

Father Brennan reached inside his coat, and drew out a newspaper. “It’s the
Freeman’s Journal
,” he said.

“And?”

He cleared his throat, and read it out in a most terrible, somber voice. “‘They may starve! Such in spirit, if not in words, was the reply given yesterday by the English Viceroy, to the memorial of the deputation, which, in the name of the Lords and Commons of Ireland, prayed that the food of this kingdom be preserved, lest the people thereof perish.’” Father Brennan looked up from the paper, his eyes and the pate of his head gleaming. “It’s just as Willie says, I’m afraid. O’Connell went to Heytesbury, to plead with him for Ireland, for mercy. Not for a handout—we don’t need help from England. We produce enough food on this island to feed our people ten times over. If the lords and ladies would only stop taking that food off us and exporting it for profit. Even just for one season of hunger! But Heytesbury wouldn’t hear of it. He turned O’Connell away.” Father Brennan drew his lips in tight.

Ginny’s stomach gave a great twist and a heave, and she was afraid she might be sick right there on the hearth. She put a hand to her mouth, and after a moment, the feeling washed out of her. Father Brennan was folding the paper back into his jacket.

“I cannot, in good conscience, counsel you to heed the advice of these fine boys, Ginny,” he said. “I know you’re on your own here now, with your own good parents deceased, God rest them, until Ray gets work and sends back for you. I can’t say what Packet might do, when he meets with treachery on his watch. He could very well turn you out into the roads. Knowing Packet, I’d say he might evict the whole lot of ye, every last child of God.”

The priest turned to survey the Harkin lads, who were standing quietly now. “But I’ve known these two brave lads all their lives, and I like their gumption. Who knows? Maybe Packet would agree to delay the rents until the summer gale, seeing what kind of condition the poor people are in. He could convince his master surely, just to put off the collection for one season. It’s a fine idea they’ve cobbled together. If it works.”

“It will work,” Thomas piped up. “There’s a great strength in our numbers. No violence, but we have to stand together. It will only work if everyone does it.”

“Please, Mrs. Doyle,” Willie said, touching her arm. “At least think it over.”

Ginny nodded. “I will.”

The lads began to bundle themselves then, clapping themselves up to greet the cold. She saw them out through the door, and watched as they pitched themselves up the ridge toward the road beyond, their bodies all full of youthful hope and purpose. When they were gone, the cottage felt quiet and empty. Ginny looked at the silent faces of her children for only a moment before she made up her mind. She didn’t have the courage to risk them to the road, to wager the demolition of their home, to face Packet’s men and the constable armed with crowbars and torches at their door. She had to pay the rent.

•   •   •

The queue at the Big House was the same as any gale day. Ginny Doyle wasn’t the only coward in the parish. All the hungry families waited their turns to step in, and hand over whatever Packet demanded of them. For many, since the ruin of their potatoes, handing over their pigs or oats for rent would mean utter destitution to follow. They would starve. And still, they queued up for it—they all did. Fear of the road was worse than the fear of hunger. Mary Reilly was there, empty-handed. That portion of her potato crop that would’ve paid her rent was gone, along with all the rest. Ginny didn’t know what Mary would do, what she might offer to Packet in return for a stay. She tried not to wonder.

They trooped home after like a sad parade. It was usually a bit festive, gale day. There was a weight took off your shoulders by paying the rents, and afterward, there’d be a lot of merriment, and all the young people would gather up by the crossroads and there would be a great song and dance, once in the early winter and once in the early summer when the rents were due. But it wasn’t the same now, with Ray gone, and all the hunger in people’s throats and faces. It was uncommon cold, for November, with the snow and everything, and Ginny was glad to get the children home before sunset. Inside the door, the girls scattered, but Michael turned to look back at his mother.

“Mammy,” he spoke.

The miracle sound of his voice after eight weeks of silence brought a rush of blood swishing through her. Ginny went down on her two knees beside him, and gripped his hands in her own.

“There you are.” She smiled.

He cleared his throat, like his voice was rusty after not being used. “We should clear out the shed, bring everything inside the house,” he said.

There was no question, no sentiment. His voice was solid. He was right. They would have to keep everything under watch now, things being the way they were. Ginny should’ve thought of it before. She stood up.

“Come on, girls,” she said. “Poppy and Maire, you clear space in here—make as much room as you can. Michael and Maggie, come with me. We’ll start hauling it in.”

“Hauling what in, Mammy?” Maggie asked.

“Everything.”

•   •   •

Winter deepened, and the novelty of snow fled. It was the worst weather Ginny ever remembered having, and they stayed inside the whole time. They went out most Sundays, for mass, and the church was half-empty like she’d never seen it before. The people of the parish were disappearing. The Doyles’ cottage was tight and close, packed as it was now, with their provisions. The weeks went by like an oblivion. They seldom had visitors; everyone drew into themselves, their own little families. The hungry ones were too shamed to show themselves. The lucky ones even more so. They all became suspicious of one another, so they stayed inside and barred the doors. It was like all of Ireland was asleep, like the country thought it could outwit the famine by a trick of hibernation.

But Maggie never missed a day—never mind the winds blowing the rain sideways in lashing ropes across the frozen fields, never mind the drenching lonesomeness of her task—she went out and tended to her cairn. It grew fat and bloated, and she had to venture farther and farther from the cottage to find suitable stones. Christmas went, and then the year ticked over to the new one, and as Ginny watched that cairn growing larger, and their oat bushels dwindle, she began counting the weeks until she might get word from Ray.

NEW YORK, NOW

T
hings have not improved with Dr. Zimmer, but I keep going, mostly because Leo watches Emma for an hour before I leave, so I can take a shower. My hair dryer has acquired a luxury status I never imagined before motherhood, so I run it until my scalp is hot, until I fear that my hair will scorch. I think about canceling the therapy session and not telling Leo, so I can use my free time to go out with my good, clean hair, and window-shop or sit on a bench somewhere and feed pigeons like a proper crazy person. But then I remember the crunching, so I go.

On my way out the door, Leo grabs my hand. He has Emma snuggled effortlessly in the crook of one arm, in a way I haven’t learned how to do yet.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m really glad you’re doing this for yourself.”

“It’s important.”

“It is,” he agrees, “and I have no problem babysitting while you—”

“Babysitting?” I interrupt.

“Yeah, I have no problem babysitting while you go and do this, however long it takes.”

Leo is smiling warmly at me. His face is completely without guile, and I wonder if mine is reflecting the degree of enraged disgust that suddenly engulfs me. I close my mouth, measure my tone carefully. “It’s not
babysitting
when it’s your own kid, Leo.”

He looks at me quizzically. We’re standing in the open doorway, and his hand is on the knob. “You know what I meant,” he says.

“No, I know what you
said
.”

He sighs, and I see the effort, but it fails: he rolls his eyes. “Oh, Majella, come
on
.” He is exhausted by me. I am exhausting.

I don’t want to be hypersensitive. I don’t want to be a bitch. But come the fuck on.
Babysitting?

“Did I give up my life and friends and boobs to stay home and babysit?” I ask. “Seriously, is it babysitting when I do it, or just you?”

Leo shakes his head. He leans to kiss me, but not on the lips. “I’ll see you after,” he says.

•   •   •

“At the end of our first session, you mentioned your baby dying,” Dr. Zimmer says, flicking the button on her ballpoint pen like she’s reading back her grocery list. “You told someone the baby died, and we’ve never really revisited that.” I cringe. “Do you want to dig into it?”

“Not really,” I say, smiling so she’ll know I’m nice and I love my baby abundantly. I wonder about doctor-patient confidentiality, and what the rules are about when to call child services. She’s not a real doctor anyway. I mean, not the medical kind, even though she likes to be called “doctor” because of her PhD. I wonder if she’s still bound by the same rules, to keep my disgusting secrets. “I kind of never want to talk about it again, but I guess I should, right?”

“Probably.” She settles back in her chair, crosses her patent leather pumps at the ankle. I wonder if she owns other shoes. “So who were you talking to when this happened?”

I take a deep breath.

“My therapist,” I say. “A different therapist—I tried one other time before this.”

“And why didn’t it work out?” Dr. Zimmer says, with no indication that she might be kidding.

“Because I told him my baby died,” I answer.

“Yes?” She looks at me as if there should be more to this explanation.

“You know, once that kind of lie is out there, you can’t really take it back,” I say. “You can’t exactly stuff it back into your purse like an escaped vibrator.”

Dr. Zimmer smiles, which might be a breakthrough.

“So you never told him the truth?”

The truth? What an outlandish idea!

“No, I mean, how could I?
Woopsie, my baby’s not actually dead at all—just kidding!
I was afraid he’d have me committed.”

Dr. Zimmer shakes her head, and her hair-halo bounces lightly. “So what happened?”

“I called you,” I say. “I came here instead.”

“And did you tell your husband what happened, about saying the baby died?”

“No, I just told him it didn’t work out, I wasn’t comfortable.”

Dr. Zimmer takes the kind of deep breath my mother takes when she’s worried about me.

“Do you think I’m pathological?” I ask.

“I think you’re overwhelmed.”

That seems like a fair appraisal.

“But what about the crunching?”

She holds a hand up. “One thing at a time. I want you to walk me through how it happened with this other therapist. How did the conversation go, when you told him the baby died?”

I cringe again. I wish she would stop repeating it. Can’t we move on?

“Well, it’s not like I planned it. I didn’t plomp down on his couch and go
I’ll just make up a bunch of crazy shit and see what happens.
I don’t . . . I don’t know.” But now I’m thinking back to that day in his office. I’m remembering that awful conversation, the feeling in my stomach. “I was telling him about a dream.”

Dr. Zimmer writes down
dream
in her notebook. I watch her underline it.

“In the hospital, the night I had Emma. It was horrible, it was so real.” I close my eyes. “When she fell, it happened so slowly that I should’ve been able to catch her. That’s what I told the therapist, that I saw her fall, I saw her slip from my breast and roll toward the edge of the bed.”

With my eyes closed, I can see it happening again, like it’s real, like it’s happening right now. It’s terrifying. I clutch my chest, take a sharp breath.

“I grabbed for the blanket,” I say. “But I only grasped the corner of it, and it unrolled, unraveled, like a burrito. So slowly, sickening slow, but she came loose from it like the meat of the burrito, and her ten little fingers splayed out in terror. Her startle reflex worked, because she screamed when she fell. And then, after she landed on the floor in a heap, she didn’t scream anymore. She was like squashed fruit on the laminate floor, her soft, tiny, newborn head caved in—no blood, just a rumple of small, naked death.”

I open my eyes, and Dr. Zimmer is staring at me.

“It didn’t start out as a lie,” I say. “I was just telling him about the dream—this horrible dream that was so real and so haunting, and he misunderstood. I guess I let him misunderstand.”

“You still seem quite alarmed by it,” Dr. Zimmer notes.

“I am.”

“Have you had the dream again?”

“No,” I say, but then I stop. “Well. Not when I’m asleep.”

“So you think about it during the day?”

I nod. “I’m besieged by that image, of Emma falling. It comes to me constantly—at the sink washing dishes, at the grocery store choosing avocados, in bed kissing my husband, I suddenly see Emma coming loose from her swaddle and plunging toward the floor, her tiny gums bared open to the world.”

“What you’re describing sounds very much like a flashback,” Dr. Zimmer says. “When you have these incidents of memory, do you almost lose track of yourself, where you are, what you’re doing, when the memory comes on you?”

“I guess so.”

“And for that moment, the memory feels more real to you than whatever you’re actually doing?”

“Yes.” I feel this swooping sense of relief, that she understands. “Once, the vision was so strong that I actually cried out, and startled Leo. He was dozing on the couch, with Emma on his chest, and I woke them both. She started crying and Leo couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, why I’d screamed like that.”

“You didn’t feel you could explain it to him?”

“I didn’t want to scare him.”

It’s quiet in the office now, too quiet for New York. I can’t hear traffic noises or the hiss of the steam radiator or quarreling neighbors. No pigeon pecks the ledge outside the window. Dr. Zimmer’s pen is poised silently above her notepad.

“Was there anything else about the dream?” she finally asks. “Anything else you remember?” I close my eyes again, and it’s like going back into a place of dread, slipping under. I can still see it, her tiny fingers stretched out in the naked air.

“There was a monkey-creature on the wall above my bed, and the nurse came in with a dustpan and a little broom, and she swept the baby away,” I say, opening my eyes. “Silly, right? And the nurse just pressed that lever on the trash can with her squeaky white sneaker, and when the lid popped open, Emma’s body slid off the dustpan and into the garbage. The nurse said not to worry—they’d get me another one.”

Dr. Zimmer is writing again.

“Then the monkey scampered down the wall and tried to pry open the trash can, and that’s when I screamed myself awake. But I didn’t tell the other therapist, and I don’t know why.” I’m crying now. Dammit, I’m always crying.

Dr. Zimmer considers me for a moment. “Perhaps you needed that imaginary death to explain your tears,” she suggests kindly. “You’re a new mother, you’re supposed to be filled with exuberant joy, right?”

Maybe I’ve been too hard on Dr. Zimmer.

“And instead, all you could think about was this awful dream, the possibility of losing her,” Dr. Zimmer says. “You said it yourself, that you’re obsessed with mortality.”

I nod again, and then a fresh round of boring tears.

“Majella, trauma can account for itself, however plain.”

“But I haven’t had a trauma,” I say.

Dr. Zimmer smiles. “Becoming a mother can absolutely be a trauma, both physically and mentally.”

“But I wanted this baby. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone.”

“And now you have her. And it’s probably nothing like you imagined.”

My shame feels bottomless. How can she know this, when I haven’t told her?

“No, it’s not. . . . I mean, I imagined my body would take a beating, but not like this, not this total annihilation. I didn’t think I would need a C-section. I thought I was tougher than that, and then . . .”

“Lots of tough women need C-sections,” Dr. Zimmer interrupts. “Please tell me you know that has nothing to do with toughness.”

I shrug, and then I shake my head.

“So your physical recovery has been difficult?”

“It’s shocking,” I say. “My body is a disaster.”

“But you’re improving?

“I don’t know. I mean the pain is improving. But that’s not the thing. I mean I feel like my body failed the first test of motherhood, which sucks.” Dr. Zimmer shakes her head, but doesn’t interrupt, so I continue, “But it’s my mind that is most startling.” I reach carefully for each word, like a kid swinging arm-to-arm across the monkey bars. “My mind is in tatters. I didn’t expect this. I feel just totally . . . adrift.”

Dr. Zimmer lays her pen down on her notepad.

“I love her so much,” I say, and my voice feels strangulated. “I don’t mean to sound like I don’t love her. It’s fucking macabre how much I love her.”

My heaven-scented need-factory. I am entwined with Emma in ways I never saw coming. My love for her has the bared teeth of a wild animal. Fangs. Slaver. So what does it say about me, that I was able to deliver that nightmare lie, that harrowing, horrible, terror-gape of a lie, so easily? It slipped out of me, exactly in the precise way that my reluctant daughter did not. There was no preparation, no struggle, no push. It tumbled forth unbidden.

“How could I say that about her? That she died?”

Dr. Zimmer is watching me twist the Kleenex around my knuckles. I can see my distorted reflection in the toe of her shoe. She doesn’t answer.

“It’s like this kind of love that obliterates everything else in the universe,” I say. “Like there’s nothing else left. It’s postapocalyptic, motherhood. Like I’m just a shell that’s left.”

“It does feel that way sometimes,” Dr. Zimmer concedes. “And it might for a while. But not forever. Parenthood is tough. But it gets easier.”

I don’t believe her, but it doesn’t matter because the bell on her cell phone dings, and our time is up.

•   •   •

There’s always a crazy guy on the subway, but it’s not usually me. Or maybe it would be more honest to say that people don’t usually
know
that it’s me, because at least I’m self-aware. Usually, crazy on the subway is obvious: an out-loud iPod singer, a twitcher, or a crotch-on-pole rubber, complete with revolting funk and moans. Or a Jesus-shouter, angrier and more unkempt than the son of God ever was. But today it’s me. I’m the obvious one.

There, all the way against the wall, alone on the two-seater. No one wants to sit next to me because I’m leaking tears and milk, see? I forgot to change my nursing pads before I got on the train, so I start to leak through my shirt three stops before home. September is drawing down, but it’s still too warm for a jacket, so I cry to cover the wet spots. It’s like biological pyrotechnics.

“I’m such a fucking mess,” I say out loud. I’m grateful to live in New York, where no one cares if you mutter and curse to yourself on the subway.

At home, I change my shirt and bra, stuff fresh nursing pads against my itchy nipples. Leo is in the office, on the computer, and Emma is sleeping in a basket by his feet. I stand in the office doorway and watch them for a moment. He’s poking around on Facebook, answering e-mails, but he keeps looking down at Emma beside him. He leans over her with his phone, and snaps a picture.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he says to her.

And my heart wells up with guilt and gratitude. Leo is such a good father, such a natural.
He should be the mother, not me,
I think. He is touching the tip of her sleeping nose softly with his finger; he’s not terrified of waking her. I take the two steps down, into the office, and he turns to greet me.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” he says, and he pushes the rolling chair away from the desk, and grabs me onto his lap. “How was it, was it good?”

“Yeah, it was fine.”

“Jelly?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry about the babysitting crack.”

I shake my head. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” he says, and he turns me on his knee so that I’m facing him. He touches my cheek, and I recognize the love in that gesture—I just saw him do that to Emma. “I want you to know that I don’t really think that,” he says. “I know it’s not babysitting, she’s my own daughter. It was just a poor choice of words.”

I lean my head against his.

“I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“For being such a raging hormone monster.”