The Troubles (The Jessica Trilogy Book 2)

by Connie Johnson Hambley

  “No documents mention any child or pregnancy. That doesn’t surprise me. The fact that Bridget never went to trial meant very little evidence—if any—was found against her. If the papers had gotten a hold of the fact a pregnant woman was incarcerated, there would have been a ruckus in the news about it. As it was, it seems that she was held as bait.”

  “Bait?”

  “Yes. The British had identified the key brains behind the civil rights movement and popular opposition as a man, assumed to be a close associate of Daniel and Patrick. Common practice was to watch every visitor of imprisoned activists, although the authorities called them criminals, not political prisoners. They tried to determine networks and then would disrupt organizing by targeting and killing leaders.”

  “Why zero in on Bridget?”

  “According to the paper, they received an anonymous tip that she was the leader’s wife and justified her incarceration on the basis of national security.”

  “So, changing her name to Mrs. Harvey was to blur the lines of connections.”

  “Exactly. The Brits imprisoned her to see who might visit and lead the authorities to her husband. And it’s no surprise that they failed to even turn up a marriage certificate. Evidently they found it easier to believe in a missing husband rather than a woman being the brains behind the movement.”

  Michael stopped pacing and slowly sank into a chair. “Are you telling me that Jessica’s mother was imprisoned out of fear she was an enemy of the British?”

  “Yes.”

  Michael railed against Murray’s attempt to soothe away the news with a gentle tone. He kept his own voice in check. “Jessica’s uncles were heavily involved—that doesn’t mean their sister was.”

  The tiny white wads were rearranged into a long dotted line. Murray waited until Michael directed the conversation with his next question.

  “How long was she there?”

  “Five years.” Murray stood up and replaced cold and muddy coffee with a steaming mug.

  Michael swallowed against the bitter bile that pushed its way up from the pit of his stomach. He looked at the images of Bridget, smiling on the banks of a lake, surrounded by admiring men and laughing women. Young Bridget exuded vibrancy that shimmered right off the surfaces of the black and white photos. He thought of the reserved and sickly woman Jessica described and dreaded the reason for the change. “Someone must have visited. Someone must have cared.”

  “The conditions at Maghaberry prison were quite trying. Men lived atop one another without space to move. Even their meals afforded them nothing but cramped tables, so they could only wish for space to move about or exercise. Circumstances were even worse for women. Prisons were built with only men in mind. Women were being locked up as an afterthought. Since they knew better than to let men and women share and mix, what may have been a medium security prison for men effectively worked as a maximum-security lock down for women. Word is they had less than one hour out of the cell each day. I shudder to imagine what her experience was like. But we did identify one person who remembered her and cared enough to visit.”

  Michael raised his head. “Let me guess. Gus?”

  Murray frowned. “If Gus had visited her, I doubt very much he would ever have been able to leave the country again. The Brits take their security very seriously.”

  “So, who then?”

  “Our fellow in archives found a three paragraph article buried inside the late edition of the newspaper reporting on the Heinchon boy’s sister’s release. The conditions were very harsh. Seems her health suffered horribly. She was given a reprieve for humanitarian reasons and was subject to immediate deportation.”

  “Deportation? But she was a citizen. How could they deport her?”

  “She was deemed to be an enemy of the state and a felon. Penal deportation is not new. Just ask a few blokes in Australia. When getting to that country became easier with modern transportation, exiling criminals to the bottom of the earth lost favor. Deportation codes are still on the books. Father Hughes pushed hard for her release from prison on the promise she would leave the country.”

  “Was Father Hughes was trying to get the family of Gus, Bridget and Jessica back together?”

  “It sounds that way.”

  “But that’s not what Bridget did.”

  “No indeed. Think of it. By that time, a five-year-old girl had another mother and father. Bridget went to live across the border in Ireland.”

  Michael’s excitement faded as he listened. He picked up the photograph of Bridget, Gus, and Kavan and studied their faces, wishing a boy’s wish that all could be made right just by desperately wanting it. He must have sat there for longer than he knew. His coffee grew cold.

  Murray had finally exhausted his nervous energy. News delivered. Tempest passed.

  Michael barreled on. “There’s no way she can waltz into the bishop and start asking questions about her mother. A baby was born. A mother went to prison. Bishop Hughes knows what happened. He obviously had more than enough power and resource to reunite them after Bridget’s release, but he didn’t. He must have felt he had very good reasons not to do so.”

  “You have to find out those reasons first, Michael. You cannot let her blast forth with an American brashness and start demanding answers to questions that should never be asked. You may laugh at my Irish ways, but my soul is worried for Jessica. She’s been thrown up in the air like a bit of chaff, and the first wind that puffs will claim her. Let her know she has a place with you. Hold her to you and anchor her.”

  Michael’s throat clenched in the effort to control himself. “I don’t know how.”

  Murray slowly wiped down the countertops and put their cups in the sink, letting Michael’s words hang in the air. He couldn’t help but be saddened by the boy who sat on the stool. “There’ll be no second chances if she decides to leave you.”

  Michael patted Murray’s back with wordless thanks and walked through the swinging kitchen doors into the hallway. The sky hinted at dawn by changing to a deep cobalt blue. He plodded his way up the stairs, gripping the newel post and railing, almost pulling his body up the long stairway to his bedroom. Catching himself midstride, he first turned away from his renovated master suite, almost forgetting he had erased all of his parents’ unhappiness with new carpet and paint. He opened the door and slipped into the room as soundlessly as he could.

  Jessica stood at the window, a silhouette against a starry blue sky, hugging herself, head resting against the panes. She seemed so small.

  He walked up and wrapped his arms around her from the back, resting his chin on her head. “I thought you’d be asleep.”

  “I couldn’t. I tossed and turned for a while and went down to the kitchen to get something.” Shaking fingers brushed under her eyes and the back of her hand wiped against her nose.

  “How much did you hear?”

  “Enough.”

  He held her tighter, feeling her warm skin through one of his T-shirts she liked to wear to bed. “I’m so sorry.”

  He turned her toward him, staying close. Her breasts were soft, and her heart pounded against his chest. He curled her arms between their bodies to stem her shaking. His voice was coarse as he whispered, “I was going to let you get a good night’s sleep before I told you.”

  “I know,” she said and rested her head on his chest. “It’s what she never wanted me to learn. I feel like I’ve betrayed her for digging through her life. There’s a loop running through my brain, and none of the images are what I want to see. I want to envision her happy and healthy, but they flicker to her being curled up and emaciated in a concrete cell.” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m just so damned angry.”

  “Angry?”

  “I’m angry at being lied to by Margaret and Jim. I’m pissed at Gus for facing off against Magnus and getting himself killed. I want to hate you for confusing me even more.” She half laughed, half sobbed the last words.

  “They did what they thought was best. She k
new you and loved you.”

  “But I treated her like a weak old lady. I never had a chance to show her the respect I have for her now.”

  “That was her choice. She gave you a freedom she never had and wasn’t trying to make you into something you weren’t. She accepted you. In my book that’s pretty huge.”

  “She lied.”

  “She protected you.”

  “From what? From who?”

  He didn’t answer right away. She grew limp as her energy slowly drained. One by one the stars began to fade as the day progressed. The flat lake reflected the changing colors, and Michael knew that along its shores two men with night scopes patrolled.

  She pulled away and wiped her face on her sleeve. “Maybe I’ve learned enough and should just stop.”

  He started to say more, that the truth existed whether she could see it or not, like the pit that remained in his stomach. Maybe Bridget wanted to forget her past and maybe Jessica had learned enough, but whoever made sure those journals ended up in Jessica’s hands knew who she was and wanted her to know the truth.

  “That’s not an option anymore.”

  BELFAST, NEAR STORMONT

  NORTHERN IRELAND

  KAVAN FIRST MET Bridget on the shores of Lough Neagh when he was four and she was two. She was seated in the lap of her Ma, banging a spoon against the side of a tin cup. He remembered how red jam smeared her face and how she refused any attempt to clean her up by twisting her head and body away, and threatening to release earth-shattering howls. Ma was beside herself. She wanted her daughter to be sparkling clean when the sagarts arrived, as if they had never seen a smudged and wild-haired toddler before. He could still see Bridget’s face widened in disbelief as Ma dabbed a hanky with spit, how she screamed in terror as the hanky came closer. She finally wriggled free and broke away, right into Kavan, knocking them both to the ground.

  Instead of crying, Bridget had merely gazed up at him. Perhaps it was the instant camaraderie of children in an adult world that calmed her. He remembered how his mouth watered at the promise of the seeds puddled in jam at the corner of her mouth, his hollow stomach grumbling at the discovery. He can still feel the way her body relaxed when he brought his mouth to hers, lipping and licking the last of the jam away. He does not remember how they separated or who may have pulled them apart, but the back slaps, jostling, smiles, relief, and the sweet warmth of Bridget’s mouth stayed with him forever.

  Eventually, Kavan began to earn the reputation as the one person who could do the unthinkable and bridge the impossible. When he was barely more than ten years old, he had come across two men locked in a seething brawl down an alley by his flat. A crowd of bystanders had encircled them, cheering them on, encouraging their anger and hate. Both men were bloodied and failing, but neither would relent. Kavan had pushed his way into the center of the circle, stepping aside whenever the fighting men flailed near. He simply stood there, watching. Then, when the men seemed to pause for a breath, he had slowly raised his hands, placed them on their arms, and simply said, “Please stop.” And they did.

  From that moment on, no one ever treated Kavan as simply Kavan. Conversations would hush when he approached. Young girls and their mothers would steal looks at him from under their lashes. Complete strangers brought him in to comfort the sick and, being a young man of few words, spent his time of consolation reading. Doing so allowed him to read more widely than any peer or elder. Some were contraband copies of banned books. Many other times, the classics or philosophy. Most often, the only book in the home was the Bible. But he read each for hours at bedsides of the infirmed. His body of knowledge soon outstripped most teachers. People believed that he was not only wise beyond his years but that his insights were divinely inspired.

  Any power he had was given to him freely. The religious say the power was given to him as one of God’s chosen. The secular would say such power was given by each and every person who paused to look as he passed them or that it was given by those who clung to and analyzed each word he spoke. The jaded would say he had a shtick and worked it. Whatever external forces gave him his power, his internal force burned with the deep and fervent belief that he was put on Earth for a purpose.

  He possessed two inborn traits he silently coveted. One earthly quality he cultivated with an obsession bordering on maniacal was discretion. He never betrayed a person or a secret. That made him more valuable than gold to those who sought his counsel. With neither word nor eyelash flicker, Kavan Hughes became a vault of secrets. As the personal troubles of some became the political problems of all, Kavan kept his promise and never divulged a confidence, at least overtly. This quality helped him with Man.

  His second trait was that of an uncanny strategist, the quality that helped him with God. As he made his way through life and early priesthood, his knowledge of the hearts and minds of men and women proved seminal. Without divulging a secret or tipping the slightest hint, he could ask questions of a confessor that would lead to the kind of reconciliation no one thought possible. By boring into the crannies of guilt or belief, through the artful construct of a question or a story, he would build the scaffolding of compromise. He knew the strength of a position because he knew the opposition.

  He was a neutral observer biased only by God’s light. The weak used him to bring messages to the powerful. The powerful used him to weigh the effect of action on popular opinion. He used them all to bind a way back to unity.

  Few ever suspected what he was doing. None ever suspected why. If anyone had known the unabiding hatred he carried for the English or the longing he had for a united Ireland, he never would have made it past being a Monsignor at an insignificant parish.

  Even within the safest strongholds surrounded by those who voiced kindred beliefs, he never spoke of his own desires but only helped elicit and strengthen the beliefs of others. Then, he would carry messages of politics and faith to the powerful. He knew he would be safe as long as he was useful.

  He learned a harsh lesson, but he quickly realized that secrets traveled faster than the thirsty to a pub, and he saw how long a lie would stick if it hit the right mark. He quickly and painfully learned that not everyone shared his tight lips. Except for Bridget Heinchon.

  If anyone could have made the mistakes of a desperate person, it should have been Bridget. Her father died of drink. Her mother went off the rails. Alone, she learned to fend for her family. Desperate people put their needs above all others, using gossip as currency or making mistakes in their own favor. Never Bridget.

  From the moment he tasted that sweet jam, he never lost track of her. The flats they lived in were as connected as the people who lived there. Alleys and streets crossed one another the way bloodlines and marriages intersected their people. He thought he was the only one who kept his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut. That was until he saw how Bridget watched and waited. As a woman and not of the clergy, she could go places and do things without watchful and judgmental eyes following her. They were a match made in heaven.

  As an altar boy, Kavan was always at Saint Peter’s. Bridget went as well, to clean and polish. Bridget cared for her family by caring for others. Through her contacts in the church, she found flats or food for those in need. He watched her as she leaned her head over slates and chalk, helping the young ones with their studies. She, too, was a voracious reader, and he slipped her books of Niccolo Machiavelli, Karl Marx, Socrates, Thomas Jefferson. She gave him works by Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Hobbes, Martin Luther, and Jean-Paul Sartre. They were both clear on their destinies and instinctively knew to keep their growing radicalism in deepest secret. She never asked anything for herself. She didn’t need to. She had him and Gus to watch over her.

  Gus Adams was the only other person who saw Bridget for who she was. Kavan could not claim her as his own because he was beholden to his vows and the tradition of the church. He would never bring scandal and dishonor to his door, nor could he consider her as his alone. Gus could not claim her for s
he was beholden to no one and let no tradition define her. She lived her life robustly, without fear of rumor or reputation. Gus respected that and loved her even more for it. Kavan and Gus shared the heart of an incredible woman. The three formed a bond that transcended their time.

  The picture in the day’s paper triggered Kavan’s memories. Somehow, among all of the races won, the pictures chosen to run under the headline Jessica Wyeth Spotted at Aintree jarred his memories to the surface. Two pictures, one from the past and one from the present depicted the same scene: a horse in the winner’s circle surrounded by its jockey, owner, and trainer. The picture from the past showed the beaming trainer and stoic owner standing beside a gleaming and wild-eyed horse in a winner’s circle at Suffolk Downs, a flat track outside of Boston. The stocky stance, curly hair, and broad smile of the trainer from the older photo were of his friend, Gus Adams. He could hear his friend’s humor as fresh as ever. The horse was named Dark Irish, a poke, Kavan knew, as much for the horse’s color as it was to its heart. For one shining moment, they were together again, laughing at a shared joke. Gus would have enjoyed knowing his jest had people smiling even years later.

  Alone and unobserved, Kavan allowed himself to stare at the images of friends long gone. The recent picture showed Jessica Wyeth and owners beside an equally wild-eyed horse. Jessica was the image of her mother. His heart pounded in his chest as he thought of the love and connection he had to them both.

  He could clearly see Jessica’s athleticism and near-regal bearing came from her mother. Even covered in the slop and mud from the track, she stared at the camera with a combination of daring and aloofness. She dared the viewer forward, then kept just out of reach, squelching any satisfaction to know her better. He let himself remember her mother’s laugh and noted Jessica’s cool, almost cold, gaze. The wariness that lay beneath the surface broke his heart. He wondered how much she knew about her mother.

  Next, he studied Gus’ round face and had a pang of nostalgia for his old friend. There wasn’t a day that Kavan didn’t send up a solemn prayer for Gus’ health and wellbeing for living a life of sacrifice and humility. When Bridget and Gus died, a piece of Kavan died with them. He yearned for the joy of sharing a few more pints and laughs at what young men did when they thought they had nothing but time to live. Imagining the craic of that moment made him grin at the unsaid jokes and private truths. The breeze of memories kicked up a swirl of envy, for Gus was more of a man than Kavan could ever be. Gus had what Kavan so desperately wanted for himself. He wondered if different choices would have led to different lives.