The Devil's Due: An Irish Historical Thriller (7 page)

I sighed. The reunion I had pictured in my head had only been a dream. I had hoped Kathleen would be here too, to meet me at the station. I had pictured holding my son as Kathleen told me all about him. I counted again, as I had done numerous times. My son would be eight months old now. I didn’t know much about caring for a child, but I knew it was difficult and maybe Kathleen had decided it was best to send Mary and Tim to meet me.

My steamer loaded, Tim stood waiting by the cart. I turned to Mary to help her up.

“You shouldn’t have come,” she said again. She stood before me, hands planted on her hips, daring me to disagree. I wasn’t sure what I could say to ease the tension. Mary stared at me, waiting for my answer.

I shrugged. “How could I not, Mary?”

She shook her head. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she asked, her voice shrill.

I felt the fear rising in my chest again.
Have I been wrong about Mary?
I knew well the fate that waited for unmarried mothers. At the first signs that they were pregnant, young girls were sent away. Tainted for life, the baby and mother were left to languish in shame at the Magdalen Laundry or a home run by the Sisters of Mercy. Reform schools the Catholic Church called them. Somewhere out in the country; out of sight, out of mind. The Church was good at sweeping its problems under the rug. But I never thought Mary would do that, not to her own sister.

“She hasn’t been sent away? Has she?” I searched her eyes.

Mary said nothing for a moment, then dropped her hands. She shook her head.

Thank God,
I said silently.

“Kathleen and the baby?” I asked. “They’re well?”

“The baby,” Mary said softly, she looked down for a second before finding my eyes again. Then she shook her head. “The baby died, Frank.”

“Died?” I said, not quite believing my ears. I felt a tightness in my chest.
Died?
How can this be?
Ever since Eileen’s letter, I had pictured my son. I had thought of all the things I would teach him, the things my own father had taught to me.
My son is dead?

“It was two days,” Mary explained, “and poor Kathleen, she tried Frank, but the baby wouldn’t come. When she finally did I could see something was wrong. It was all too much.” Mary shook her head again. “The baby died two days later.”

The news came like a blow and I stood there staring blankly at Mary.
Dead? How can this be?

I don’t recall climbing onto the cart, but at some point I found myself sitting next to Mary as Tim, his hands on the reins, steered us over the bumps and ruts in the road, away from Limerick. Mary and Tim were both silent, which was just as well for I had nothing to say. The only sound came from the snorts of the horses, the clop of their feet and the creaks and groans of the cart. I stared ahead, hardly noticing the sights and scenes that had occupied my dreams for the last year as a jumble of thoughts and emotions swirled in my head.

“Oh Frank,” Kathleen said as she sobbed on my shoulder. “She hadn’t been baptized. We never had a chance.” I held her tight, her body shaking as she sobbed. I felt a tear run down my own cheek.

From a young age, both Kathleen and I, like most Catholics, had been told of the horrors that befell babies who died before they’d been baptized. They were forever damned to the eternity of Limbo, Father Lonagan had told us. Although we never knew exactly what Limbo was, I had a vague yet terrifying image of souls in anguish, chased forever by demons. In many ways, Limbo sounded worse than the fire and brimstone of hell that Father Lonagan had repeatedly assured me I was destined to see firsthand. Many babies died before their first year, something I had seen not only here in Ireland but in America too. That was painful enough. What made it worse was that Kathleen and I had never married. To many priests, unwed mothers were sinners, and the babies they bore were the product of that sin. An unbaptized child, and an illegitimate one at that, if I believed what Father Lonagan had preached, our baby would suffer for our sins. Despite my own views of Father Lonagan and the church, I understood Kathleen’s anguish.

We were standing outside Mary’s house, a small cottage on twenty acres, nine miles south of Limerick City in an area known as Kilcully Cross. There was steam rising from the washtub. Kathleen, when I first saw her, had her sleeves rolled up, her forearms red from the scrubbing. Now as she clung to me, her body wracked by sobs, I didn’t know what to say. The dreams that had kept me awake for hours—what I would find when I returned to Ireland, my reunion with Kathleen, meeting my son—had been nothing more than that. Just dreams.

“Did the baby have a name?”

Kathleen lifted her head from my shoulder, wiped her eyes, and nodded. “Margaret,” she said.

“Margaret?”

Kathleen nodded. It was my mother’s name.

I let out a heavy breath. The child that I thought would be a son had turned out to be a girl. She must have known the world that awaited her. That’s why she fought so hard against being born—and almost killed Kathleen in the process, Mary had said. Then when she first saw Ireland for what it was, she decided it wasn’t a world she wanted to live in.

“And you?” I asked. “You’re alright are you?”

Kathleen nodded. “The midwife said the baby wasn’t ready, that she had turned the other way. That’s why she wouldn’t come.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “But I’m fine now.” She took my hands. “I wanted to tell you, Frank, I did. That night at the Cavanaghs’?” She looked at me, searching my eyes to see if I understood. “But you wouldn’t have left if you knew. And if you stayed”—she shook her head—”Billy or the British, one or the other, would have found you.” She sighed. “And when I received your letter from America, I wanted to write back and tell you then. But I couldn’t.”

“Kathleen, I…” I started, choking on my own words. I took her hands in mine. “I’m sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“I know,” Kathleen said, nodding as she put her arms around me again. “I know.”

___

I reached out and touched the metal, the large circle intersecting the cross. It was cold, but I kept my hand there anyway. Someone—Mary? Kathleen?—had attached a small piece of wood, carved with the inscription. I ran my hand across the words.

Margaret Coffey

July 12, 1921 - July 14, 1921

Before I knew what I was doing, I was silently mouthing the words to a prayer, as a tear ran down my own cheek. I felt Kathleen’s hand on my shoulder.

“We couldn’t hold a wake, and we couldn’t have a funeral in the church. Father Lonagan would never have permitted it.” I heard Kathleen’s sigh. “But Mary arranged with Father Leahy to say a mass right here. And Mary arranged for the cross.”

“Father Leahy?” I asked, looking up.

“He’s from Abbeyfeale, a friend of Mary’s. He’s the one who has agreed to wed us.”

I nodded. Trapped in the unforgiving and rigid rules of the Catholic Church, Kathleen had had no choice but to bury Margaret here, below a large oak on the highest point of Mary’s farm.

“When we can, we plan to move her, to a churchyard for a proper burial. I want to speak to Father Leahy again when we see him.”

I stood and took Kathleen’s hand.

“I should have been here,” I said softly.

“There was nothing you could have done, Frank. The baby would have died anyway.”

I shook my head. “I should have been here.” I looked back at the marker, at the grave where the daughter I had never met had been buried. “What was she like?” I asked quietly.

Kathleen leaned into me.

“Mary said she looked like me,” Kathleen said as she wiped a tear from her eye. “But she had dark hair, like you.”

We stood quietly as dark clouds built overhead and the wind rustled through the grass around us.

___

I listened to the
shoosh
of the rain on the thatched roof and the staccato splatter of drops off the stones outside. I stared out the window, at the hill, lost now in the rain, at the large oak I knew was there but couldn’t see and at the grave that was sheltered below it.

“Frank,” Kathleen said. I turned. Standing in front of the stove, she held the kettle up. I nodded my response and turned back to the window. I heard the clang of the kettle on the stove. A moment later, I felt Kathleen’s hand on mine. She led me away from the window to the chairs in front of the stove.

“Frank. There’s something else we need to talk about.” She waited until I nodded. “You’ve been gone a long time now, and they might have forgotten about you.” Her eyes narrowed. “But you can never be sure.”

I nodded again as I thought about seeing Billy at the railroad station. It had just been a coincidence, but one that had left me shaken nonetheless. And the British soldiers, the ones I had seen on the platform? When Mary, Tim, and I had left the station, they had been standing out front, watching with bemusement the comings and goings of a people they had, until recently, terrorized.

“They certainly haven’t forgotten about him,” Mary said as she joined us, the door banging shut behind her. She shook off her wet cloak and hung it on a peg by the door. While Kathleen and I had been visiting our daughter’s grave, Mary and Tim had been tending the chickens and the cow and the other livestock that had kept the three of them alive over the last year. She stood in front of us now, her eyes darting back and forth between us before settling on mine.

“We may have a truce and a treaty, but that doesn’t mean we have peace.” She waited a moment to see if I would argue. When I nodded, she turned and took four cups off the shelf. Kathleen got up to help, but Mary put a hand on her shoulder and Kathleen sat again.

“Things are calm now,” she continued as she looked over her shoulder at me, “but it wouldn’t take much.” Men who had fought together for the last two years, she explained as she prepared the tea, were now taking sides. Commanders were doing all they could to hold the companies together, in case the truce didn’t last.

“Still,” Mary added. “Some are choosing to go with the new Free State Army that Michael Collins is forming, while others say we should keep fighting.”

I didn’t need to ask which side Mary had chosen.

“And as for you”—she pointed her finger and gave me a stern look—”you’ll do no such thing as choosing one side or the other, not with Kathleen to mind. So don’t go getting any wild notions in that head of yours.”

I didn’t argue, not that it would have made a difference. After nineteen years of acting the mother, acting the mother-in-law came naturally to Mary. If she had her druthers, she and some of my old comrades would carry on the fight while Kathleen and I made our home as far away from Limerick as we could. I hadn’t thought about taking a side when we set sail ten days ago, but if I had to choose, I would keep fighting until all British forces, in the north as well as the south, were gone. I would keep fighting until all of Ireland was united in freedom. I nodded at Mary. For now, I would have to keep that to myself, lest I upset her any more than I already had.

“You’ll be going to Abbeyfeale,” Mary announced. She went on to explain that she had arranged for Kathleen and I to stay on a small farm owned by the Maloneys, relatives of her dead husband John. The Maloneys’ farm was 40 miles from Limerick City and a world away. But even in New York, I remembered, thousands of miles from Limerick, the IRA had still managed to find me. If they found me there, they could find me in Abbeyfeale. It was a thought I kept to myself.

“I know a priest who will wed you,” Mary continued, “but it can’t be here.” Kathleen and I had already discussed this, but I let Mary have her say. That we would be getting married was never a question, but Mary wanted to be certain that I knew my obligations.

“I’ll need to get my money first,” I said when she was done. I had left so quickly the year before there had been no time to get my savings. I would have to visit the post office. I wondered again if the IRA still had men inside.

“It’ll do you no good if you’re dead,” Mary snapped. She gave me another sharp look, making sure I understood. “For now, it’ll be safe where it is.”

I nodded. Fierce when crossed, it wouldn’t do to question Mary, certainly not now. Besides, she was right; the money could wait until I understood just how much Ireland had changed since I’d left.

I wondered about my things, but I didn’t ask. The IRA, I suspected, had taken everything. Coats and boots were in short supply, and the Volunteers commandeered whatever they could. Now that I was back, I realized I’d had left nothing of value when I’d fled. In my coat pocket, I wrapped my hand around my father’s watch, feeling the reassuring
tick-tock
of the gears. It was the only thing from my past that I still owned. The only thing that mattered.

While Mary talked about Abbeyfeale and the wedding and her plans for us, one way or another, before we left Limerick, I had unsettled business to tend to. I had come back to Ireland for Kathleen and for the baby. But now that I was here, I knew it was more than that. Now that I was in Limerick, I couldn’t leave without facing my past. And the first thing I needed to do was to track down the man who had saved my life.

Unfortunately, that would have to wait for two more weeks.

___

Although she didn’t say it, I think Mary saw how happy Kathleen was to have me there. The last year had been difficult for both of them and I suspected that it had been a long time since either had laughed or even smiled.

Like many in Ireland, Mary had her share of sorrow. Her husband John Reidy, a blacksmith who had quietly supported the IRA, had been killed by the British almost two years before. He hadn’t been shot or hanged, but his blood was on their hands the same as if he had been. Although he wasn’t a Volunteer, he had steadfastly refused when the RIC had asked him to forge steel shutters for their barracks. Then one night, in reprisal for an IRA raid, the Black and Tans set fire to several businesses, including John’s smithy. Told by the Tans that his apprentice was inside, John had rushed into the flames. While he frantically searched the smoked-filled shop, the inferno grew. John would never learn that his search was futile, that while he battled the flames, his apprentice was safe at home having supper.

Mary never had time to grieve. With a dead husband and the smithy—and her home along with it—reduced to ashes, she had been forced to leave Rathkeale, the only village she had ever known. She found a farm for rent—almost twenty acres—some twenty miles away in Kilcully Cross, a small quiet crossroads nine miles south of Limerick City. Far larger than she and Tim could manage on their own, they only raised a small crop, and Mary had been forced to take in laundry, leaving her hands permanently raw from washing and mending clothes.

Mary was the only family Kathleen knew, their other siblings long gone, one to Boston, another to Philadelphia, the rest to England and Australia. I didn’t know if Kathleen’s mother was still alive, but it didn’t matter. She was a tired and bitter old woman who had given birth to twelve children. By the time Kathleen came along—she had been number thirteen—her mother had been too worn out to worry about another child. She left the mothering to her then twelve-year-old daughter, Mary. Kathleen’s father, like many Irish men, had given up too and found the only solace he could in the drink. Too many years of poteen—what Americans called moonshine—had killed him before his time.

That was why, I suspect, Mary was so protective of her sister. Sure I was a cousin, but Mary never saw it that way. To her, Kathleen and Tim were the only family she had left.

___

Two days after I returned, I was repairing a section of wall where the stones had fallen. It was hard, heavy work, but a work I enjoyed. My hands in Irish soil once again, I smiled despite the pains in my back. I spent the days doing the odd chore around Mary’s house: mending the thatch on the roof, fixing a broken lantern, whitewashing the fowl-house and then the barn.

Kathleen was busy at the stove, the rabbit I had caught in the morning now a stew in the pot. I laid a final stone on top of the wall and stepped back to admire my work when I heard the creaks and groans of the trap.

I turned to see Mary and Tim coming up the lane. Tim, his hands loosely on the reins, let the horse lead the way. Head down, the old mare plodded along, the lane to the cottage as familiar to her as her own stall in the barn. I watched Tim, the awkwardness of a boy growing into a man’s body. Tall and thin, he looked nothing like his father. Except for the hair. Tim, like John, had curly black hair, the hint of a Mediterranean ancestor in his Irish blood. I saw the faint lines of the scar on his chin. Awkward, even as a child, Tim had tripped and fallen in his father’s smithy, catching his chin on the anvil. Some seven years later, the white line of the scar still ran along the side of his jaw.