by JoAnn Ross
The hours between sunrise and sunset were also spent with family. Zoe had blossomed, like a Burren wildflower that had finally gotten water to its roots, showing more and more promise of the lovely young woman she would soon become. Her way with Legends Lake also had proven Kate right about her being a born horsewoman. It was clear to everyone that she and the Thoroughbred had bonded.
Kate felt a prickling of concern about the way Brigid and Jamie were becoming so close to Alec, but they both so obviously adored him, it would have taken a harder woman than she to deny them such pleasure.
Pleasure. Her nights shimmered with it. Glowed. It was true, she’d told Nora and Erin on their monthly girls’ lunch at O’Neill’s Chicken and Chips, what they said about the entire world being brighter when you were in love. Surely the sun was warmer this year? The yellow of the primrose starring the hedges brighter? The birdsong sweeter?
They’d laughed at her, with affection, but Kate hadn’t cared that she was in danger of becoming a walking cliché. She was going to grab this glorious stolen time with both hands, revel in it, and if it turned out to be all the Fates were willing to grant her, she’d celebrate it, and gladly, then have memories to keep her warm for all the rest of her life.
Ireland had, over the centuries, resisted the mechanical dominance of clock and calendar, yet in the end there was no escaping the tyranny of time. It was the day before Jamie’s birthday; in only a matter of days, it would be Beltane, when the village May Day festival would take place, after which Alec would be returning to America with his daughter and Legends Lake. While Kate didn’t have any fears about the horse performing as he was born to do, the idea of spending her life reliving happy memories was not nearly so appealing as spending that life with the man she loved.
25
ON THE DAY BEFORE HIS BIRTHDAY, Jamie was in the barn currying his mare when a remarkable thought occurred to him.
He wasn’t afraid.
The mare wasn’t all that tall—only fourteen hands—but she still towered so high over him that he was forced to carry a three-legged stool around to climb up onto her back. There had been a time when even being in the same stall with one of his ma’s horses would have started his knees to trembling, made his heart pound like an Orangeman’s drum, and his lungs feel all tight.
Jamie had once been afraid of everything … the horses, the big boys on the bus that took him from the stud to Holy Child School in the village, the Brennans’ border collies that nipped at his heels whenever he’d pedal his bicycle over to his best friend Rory’s house, which he did most days, rain or shine.
But that had been when his da still lived in the house. His big strong da who was more often than not drunk, always angry at the world and everyone in it. Cadel O’Sullivan would return home late from the village, larger than life, like Goliath in the story Sister Immaculata told in morning Bible studies class.
BANG! The front door would slam shut, followed by the sound of his big boots clomping a warning on the bare wood of the stairs. Whenever Jamie dared to crack open his bedroom door and see his da swigging from a bottle of whiskey, he’d run back to bed, pull the covers over his head, close his eyes, and try to pretend that he didn’t hear the next BANG!—another slamming of the door to his parents’ bedroom, the terrible names his da would call his ma, who would try to hush him, reminding him of their sleeping children. His da’s answer to her tearful plea would be the unmistakable smacking sound of a hand against flesh.
After Brigid was born, the moment the first door slammed, his little sister would crawl from her trundle bed and hunker beneath the covers with him, where Jamie would hold her tight and try, as best a big brother could, to protect her from the demon fears while the terrible shouting and the bad words, that the nuns would have washed his da’s mouth out with soap for saying, got louder.
His ma had always tried her best to pretend that things were fine. Even on those days when she’d come downstairs to make breakfast with new bruises blooming like ugly blue roses on her face and her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, she’d quietly, but firmly, insist that some conversations were not for children. That when Jamie was a grown man, he’d discover that marriage was not an easy sacrament to keep, day by day, year after year. Then she’d hasten to assure him that he needn’t worry. Because she’d never—ever—allow his da to lay a hand on him.
When he’d been younger, Jamie had accepted her words at face value. She was, after all, his ma, and everyone knew that a mother would never lie to her children. Even after he finally realized that she was being less than truthful to him, that her words were born more of hope than fact, Jamie never brought up the subject of what he’d hear in the lonely, frightening darkness of the night. Just saying the terrible words out loud would have made them too true.
But then one afternoon, which would become the day Jamie began believing in miracles, his father was magically gone, his cruel, threatening dark presence blown away as if by a fresh Atlantic Ocean breeze.
Perhaps, his best friend Rory had suggested, the faeries had come and spirited him away. Or more likely, Jamie had overheard Mrs. Sheehan, the butcher’s gossipy wife, say to Mrs. Murphy, the devil had come and collected Cadel O’Sullivan to sharpen pitchforks in hell.
Jamie hadn’t exactly known what had happened to cause such a miraculous event. All he knew was that one day he’d gone into the village with his aunt Nora for ice cream and when he’d returned, his ma had been in his aunt’s bed, instead of home in the barn, tending to the horses as she should have been.
He heard rumors of Quinn Gallagher beating his da to a bloody pulp down at the Irish Rose, but none of the grown-ups were talking, except to tell him that his da had gone to live with family in Dungarven and to assure him that he wouldn’t be back and Jamie needn’t ever worry about him again.
There were times when Jamie considered that if he’d only been a spy back then, he could have discovered what had happened to his da. But most of the time, he didn’t want to think about the man who’d terrorized his family, and he certainly didn’t want to fill the pages of his notebook with writings about him, either.
At first, after his da had left the house—and Castlelough—Jamie had lain awake nights, fearful that the slam of the door and the shouting and the fighting would start in again. But miracle of miracles, his da stayed gone and his ma began to smile and laugh and tell him stories about when she’d been a little girl growing up on the farm, learning the secrets of the horses from her own dear da, who apparently had been a kind and warmhearted, gentle man who’d never lift a hand to an animal. Or, though she’d never said it, Jamie guessed, against any other person.
Jamie hadn’t inherited his mother’s magical gift with horses. But at least, he thought, as he carried the stool around the front of the mare and climbed up on it to begin combing out her mane, he wasn’t afraid of them anymore.
And then it happened.
He felt it first. An all too familiar prickling at the back of his neck, followed by a skim of ice up his spine.
The barn was suddenly cast into deep shadow. Tightening his fingers on the curry comb, Jamie glanced nervously over his shoulder and viewed the huge hulking shape that took up the entire doorway of the barn, effectively blocking out the lowering daylight.
“Where the fuck is your mother?” The giant’s all too familiar roar had Jamie quaking in his boots.
“I d-d-don’t know.” Jamie continued currying the mare, hoping his da wouldn’t notice how badly his hands had begun to shake. He wondered if he’d somehow conjured up his father by thinking about him.
“You wouldn’t be lying to me now, would you, boyo?” His da took a swig of the clear poitín, then tossed the empty whiskey jar onto the barn floor. The horse, sensing danger, grew skittish; her ears flattened against her head, and she danced a bit in place as if preparing to bolt at a moment’s notice.
Jamie knew exactly how the mare felt.
His da began slowly, threateningly, unfastening his leather
belt. “I’ll be asking you again, where is that whore who thought she could be kicking me out of me own house?”
“It’s not your h-h-house. Ma inherited it from G-g-grandda Joe.”
Jamie hated the way he’d begun to stutter again, something he hadn’t done since his da went away. He also knew his trembling voice gave away his fear. His da was a bully and like all of his kind, could smell weakness like a shark sensed blood in the water. “And she isn’t a w-w-whore.”
He wasn’t certain what, exactly, a whore was, except that Jesus forgave them and just yesterday he’d heard Mrs. Sheehan telling Mrs. Kelly that Kathleen O’Shaunnessy, who’d recently separated from her husband, and who, according to Mrs. Sheehan, dyed her hair too blond, wore her skirts too short and too tight, and went home from the Irish Rose pub with a different man every night, was a whore.
Jamie’s mother might be separated from his da, but she’d never dyed her hair, and as for other men, the only ones who ever set foot in the house were his uncles and Father O’Malley, who’d drop by on occasion for a cup of tea and a chat. And Alec. Jamie desperately wished his ma’s Yank was here now.
“There are things you don’t know about your precious sainted mother,” Cadel O’Sullivan said on a silky slur more dangerous than the loudest shout. Ireland might not have any snakes, but if it did and if one could talk, Jamie figured it’d sound a lot like his da right now. “You’ll be finding out the hard truth yourself one of these days, but I’m not here to be wasting time having a fucking conversation with the likes of you.”
“Why are you here?” Jamie dared ask as he judged the distance to the door of the barn, trying to determine whether or not he could outrun his tormentor.
“I had a run of bad luck at the racetrack and I need money to pay off me debts. So, lad, you’ve got yourself three seconds to tell me where your ma would be, or you won’t be able to sit down for a month.”
Watching the leather belt slowly slip free of the loops of his father’s tweed trousers caused icy fingers to squeeze Jamie’s heart, which only moments earlier had felt so carefree. Looking at his father’s beet-red face and viewing the dark murder blazing in his narrowed eyes, Jamie had never been more frightened. Not even the moonless night he and Rory had been camping out on a school trek and he’d momentarily mistaken the moan of the wind for a banshee.
But then he remembered bruises darkening his mother’s pale skin and the way she’d kept her face to the wall that day his father had disappeared from Castlelough, as if she’d been the one who’d done something to be ashamed of, and Jamie knew that he’d die before telling this bully that she’d gone to his aunt’s where he supposed they’d be planning his birthday celebration.
“I told you,” he lied unconvincingly, “I d-d-don’t know.”
For such a large man, and drunk to the gills as he appeared to be, Cadel moved with surprising speed. Before Jamie had gotten the last word out, he was yanked off the stool by his collar and flung across the stall into a pile of straw.
“I warned you, ye little bastard,” his da roared, sounding just like Hawthorn, evil chief of giants from the old Celtic myth Brother John had read the class only yesterday. He towered over Jamie, beefy arm raised.
Jamie put his arm over his face to shield it as the belt whipped through the air.
Crack! It missed its target and hit the door of the stall. Crack! This time it whistled past his ear before curling around a wooden post.
“Tell me, you fucking little spawn of a slut!” As the belt slashed through the air once again, Jamie finally began to react and rolled over, out of harm’s way. The buckle instead grazed the foreleg of the mare, who whinnied a loud protest and backed into a far corner of the stall.
“Tell me where she’d be off to, or I’ll be killing you!” From the evil expression darkening his eyes, Jamie feared it was no idle threat.
“Go to the d-d-divil,” he shot back, determined that it would be better to die fighting for principle than die a coward.
After all, he thought, as he rolled out of the way of the slashing belt once again, weren’t the nuns always talking about how beloved the martyrs were in God’s eyes? Being whipped to death by your father might not be on the same level as being stoned by Pharisees, but surely it must gain some points in heaven?
“Cadel O’Sullivan!” His ma’s voice suddenly rang out as clear and strong as church bells proclaiming the Angelus. “If you threaten my son one more time, I swear on St. Peter’s holy ring, that it will be the last thing you ever do.”
Jamie’s da slowly turned. His furry caterpillar-like brows plunged down toward his crooked nose, which had been broken more than once in pub fights.
“Since when did the likes of a pagan witch such as yourself believe in the Pope? Or his fucking ring?” he sneered. “And would ye be threatening your own husband?”
“I’d be warning you that if you lay a hand on my child, you’ll be a dead man.”
His ma’s blue eyes were as icy as sleet in February, her voice steel. If he weren’t so terrified, Jamie would have cheered. Even the much revered Irish pirate queen Maeve, who stood up to the first Queen Elizabeth, could not have been braver.
“Talk’s cheap enough. We both know that you wouldn’t dare fight me. Aren’t I your husband, after all? Your lawfully wedded husband, despite your pitiful attempts to make it otherwise,” he stressed with supreme confidence.
“We’re legally separated.”
“The Church doesn’t recognize it,” he reminded her.
“Our marriage is a state affair, having nothing to do with your Church.”
“And isn’t it that same state who might be interested in knowing that you’re giving a bad moral example to the boy”—he jerked his head in Jamie’s direction—“by having some oversexed Yank staying beneath your roof.”
“He’s not staying beneath my roof, but in the room above the barn.”
“Why don’t you be telling that to the divorce court?” he suggested evilly. She was used to him roaring curses at her. But the way his voice turned soft, nearly a whisper, proved more deadly than the loudest shout. “Perhaps I’ll be asking it to take the boy away from his slut mother and return him to his da, where he belongs.”
The threat was like a sledgehammer slamming into her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Could barely stand. No, Kate vowed. There was no way she was going to allow this man to control her or her son any longer. Besides, if pushed to the wall, she could prove Cadel was not Jamie’s father.
“Over my dead body.”
“And can’t that be arranged?” Again with surprising speed, Cadel grasped a handful of Kate’s long black hair.
“Jamie, run!”
Terrified, Jamie watched as she clawed at her brutal husband’s ruddy face with her short fingernails, witnessed his father backhanding her, once, twice, then a third time, slamming her head back and forth like the sock doll Jamie’s great-grandmother Fionna had made Brigid for Christmas. Blood began to flow from her nose in terrifying rivulets.
Jamie’s blood was rumbling in his ears like the roar of the surf during a December storm as he crawled up onto his knees, then managed, on legs as wobbly as a foal’s, to stand. His feet wanted to flee like the wind, to race away, over the fields and never stop, until he’d reached some faraway place his da could never find him. At least to the cave on the beach where he’d hidden other times when his father had gotten drunk and mean. But those very same feet seemed to be nailed to the barn floor. He could only stand there, frozen.
“Save yourself, Jamie!” His mother jammed a knee into his da’s crotch, causing him to howl in rage. “Run away from here,” she cried as the next slap sounded like the crack of gunfire. “Now!”
Cadel dodged another of her wild kicks, then tore her blouse, exposing the lacy bra Jamie had only ever seen hanging on the clothesline.
Jamie had been raised on a stud. He knew about sex; not only had he seen the results of his mother’s breeding, he’d also witnessed s
tallions covering mares. But as he watched those brutal, hairy-backed hands rip apart that lovely blouse adorned with Celtic animals his mother had embroidered herself, he knew that she was in danger of something far worse.
Screaming like an ancient warrior king, he launched himself onto the evil giant’s back, hitting and kicking for all he was worth. When he managed to bite down on his da’s ear, hard enough to draw a bit of blood of his own, Cadel roared. Reaching behind him, he flung Jamie all the way across the stall where he landed beneath the mare. As she reared up on her hind legs, Jamie feared that if his father didn’t kill him, the horse’s hooves surely would.
But his distraction worked. His mother scrambled to her feet, grabbed the nearest weapon—which happened to be the scoop shovel she’d used just this morning for the grain—and swung it with all her might. The shovel was not one of the modern aluminum ones sold in feed stores, but a heavy metal shovel with a thick oak handle that had been made by her great-grandfather Fitzpatrick.
Thwack! It hit her husband against the chest, which only seemed to make him angrier. She swung again, this time connecting with the side of his head with a sickly thump that sounded like a melon being dropped from the top of the barn.
Appearing shocked by the way the tables had turned, Cadel crumbled to his knees. His dark eyes slowly rolled back in his head. Then he toppled to the floor.
“Ma?” Jamie cautiously crawled out from under the terrified mare, who was violently shaking her head, but had stopped kicking at her stall door. “Did you kill him?”
“Oh, darling!” Kate scooped him into her arms and held him so tight, he thought she might squeeze the air out of his lungs. “Are you all right?”
“I’m f-f-fine,” he gasped. It was more lie than truth, but he wanted to reassure her. Together they stared down at the blood that was soaking into the yellow straw from the split in his da’s head. “Jaysus, do you think he’s dead?”
“I don’t know.” Trembling, she touched her lips to the top of his head and hugged him tighter. “But I suppose I’d best check.” She knelt in the straw that was quickly turning the color of rust and pressed her fingers against the monster’s throat. “I feel a pulse. So he’s alive.”
