Crooked Branch (9781101615072)

by Cummins, Jeanine

  “Ah, we’re great friends, aren’t we, mister?” Mrs. Spring said to him. “I’ll bring him back in a while.”

  “I’m only after feeding and changing him,” Ginny said. “He should be grand for a couple of hours, but if he gets fussy, don’t hesitate.”

  Ginny watched his wide eyes peeping over the top of Mrs. Spring’s shoulder as she disappeared up the stairs with him. When they were gone, Roisin sat down heavily on one of the stools beside the worktable. She looked awful shook.

  “What’s the matter?” Ginny asked her. “Are you unwell? You look pale.”

  “In my four years in this house, that woman has never set foot in this kitchen,” she said, shaking her head. She stood up then, brushed the flour from her hands. “I hope she’s not planning to make a habit of it.”

  Ginny laughed lightly, and for the first time, she saw something of a sour look pass across Roisin’s usually jolly features.

  “My goodness,” Roisin said, “but that made me awful nervous altogether.”

  “Well,” Ginny said, returning to the onion she’d been chopping before the disruption, “she’s gone now. We survived.”

  Roisin was sifting flour for a spice cake. “She’s grown very attached to young Raymond,” she said. “Very attached indeed.”

  • • •

  It became customary, after that, for Mrs. Spring to spend a couple of hours each afternoon with Raymond. It was early June, and the weather was fine and clear most days, so they often walked out in the gardens together, and when it rained, she would bundle him into her arms, and sing to him beside the big fire in the drawing room. She brought him extravagant gifts, fine little suits of clothes, an exquisite silver and ivory rattle, sweets he was too small yet to eat.

  Ginny told no one of her plans to leave Springhill House if the crop came good at home, not even Seán, though she was sure he suspected. She couldn’t risk upsetting the comfortable balance they had all settled into. She knew it would distress Mrs. Spring to be parted from baby Raymond when the time came, but that couldn’t be helped. In truth, Ginny was growing fond of Mrs. Spring, too, despite her peculiarities. How could she not, with the way the woman doted on her son? When they got out of here and went home, when Raymond was back from America and the crop was strong again . . . when Ginny’s family was whole and all of this was a distant memory, she would welcome Mrs. Spring into her home in Knockbooley. Of course she would. Mrs. Spring could visit young Raymond whenever she liked.

  • • •

  Ginny and the baby still slept cuddled up together in the four-poster bed in that silked, striped room, which seemed to have become a permanent arrangement, despite Ginny’s repeated insistence that they were well able to return now to the servants’ quarters in the attic.

  “It’s too drafty up there for him,” Mrs. Spring would argue, fussing over Raymond. “Besides, this room is only sitting empty anyway, gathering dust. He’s the most delightful houseguest we’ve ever had at Springhill.”

  So they stayed.

  Late one night while all the house slept, Ginny was nursing little Raymond when she heard a clatter at their window, which was frightful, being that they were on the second story of the house. She thought some bat or night bird had hurled its poor body against the glass, and she arose from her bed with Raymond still at her breast, to look out. Seán was standing below, his features upturned and glowing ghostly in the moonlight. She opened the glass, clutched the baby tightly, and looked out.

  “Oh, thank Jesus that was the right window,” Seán said, replacing his hat on his head. “Come down, Ginny.”

  Her heart skidded. “I’ll be right there.”

  Raymond whimpered when she pulled him off the breast, as he was only halfway through his feed and still hungry. He kicked angrily at the blanket his mother swaddled around him.

  “Shh, shh, it’s just for a minute, love.” She kissed the top of his head. She had no housecoat, and she could hardly go down to Seán in her nightdress, so she slipped into her shirtwaist and skirt as quickly as she could. She tried not to wonder, but she knew something must be very wrong at home for Seán to come in the dead of night like this. He had been to see the children earlier, and he must have gotten some urgent news, to risk disturbing the house.

  “Please God, don’t let it be the blight,” Ginny said. “God keep that crop clean and strong.”

  She hoisted the baby onto her shoulder and fled down the corridor, her heart racing. Raymond squawked in her arms, and she tried to shush him, but it was too late. The door to Mrs. Spring’s chamber was opening, and she was peeking out.

  “Is everything all right?” Mrs. Spring asked. “Nothing’s wrong with the baby? Is he ill? Shall I send for the doctor?”

  Ginny’s mind was flipping and racing, but she managed to go to Mrs. Spring, to feign calm. She reined steadiness into her voice. “No, no, we’re grand,” she said. “I just need a bite to eat. He’s hungry, and I haven’t enough milk for him, so I’m going to make myself a cup of tea. Go back to sleep.”

  Alice Spring yawned, her face anxious beneath her cotton nightcap. For a moment, Ginny was afraid she would insist on joining them. Ginny took a deep breath, faked another yawn herself. “I’m going to be quick, and straight back to bed. I’m exhausted,” she said. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Good night, sweet Raymond,” Mrs. Spring said, her voice still thick with sleep.

  The door closed with a click, and Ginny flew to the staircase and down as quickly as she dared in the dark, with the baby on her shoulder. She opened the small green door across from the stable, but Seán was nowhere to be seen.

  “Seán,” she whispered.

  The bushes next to her rustled.

  “Shh!” he said. “She was looking out. Mrs. Spring was at the corridor window a few minutes ago.”

  “Is she there now?”

  The bushes wobbled some more.

  “No,” he whispered back. “I don’t see her now.”

  Ginny opened the door a bit wider. “Get in, quick!” she said.

  “You’ll need tea,” Seán said, and she could feel her face drain of color.

  They went down to the kitchen, and Ginny unloaded Raymond into Seán’s arms while she filled the kettle and started a fire in the high hearth, for to boil the water. She lit a single lamp on the worktable, and then sat down on one of the high stools beside it, to steel herself for whatever he had to say. Seán was awkward with the baby, and tried to hand him back to her, but she shook her head.

  “I can’t,” she said. If there was a shock coming, she didn’t want to drop him. “Is it the blight? How is the crop?”

  They had started hearing sporadic reports that the curse was returning, that it was marching, more slowly this time, but just as decisively, across the land. Hope was still the order of the day, but now it was tinged with alarm. If the crop failed again, the starvation would be endless, the misery complete. There was no mercy coming from the landlords. They had proved themselves more pitiless than ever in the time of Ireland’s greatest despair. This time, it might not be absurd to think of the absolute extermination of the Irish. How could they possibly survive another failure, another whole year of nothingness?

  “The crop is fine so far,” Seán said. “Maire has been checking it daily, for signs of decay.”

  Ginny breathed. Raymond squirmed in Seán’s arms.

  “Raymond?”

  Seán looked at her, confused. “He’s grand, he’s here.”

  “They didn’t have word from America?”

  “Oh,” he said. “No, no.”

  “So what is it, then?” One of the children. Something was wrong with one of the children.

  Seán cleared his throat. “It’s Michael.”

  Ginny sucked her breath into her and trapped it there. She found she couldn’t breathe out again. Her knuck
les were hard and white, her cold fingers curled over the edge of the worktable. Her knees trembled on the stool beneath her, and she could feel her bowels loosen.

  “What about Michael?” she whispered, but her voice came out warped, louder than she intended. She already knew what Seán was going to say. He was ill, her son was unwell.

  “He’s ill,” Seán said, and Ginny dropped her head into her hands.

  “How bad?”

  Seán paused, then conceded, “Bad.”

  She could hear the water boiling for the tea, but she didn’t move from the stool. Seán handed her the baby, and went to lift the kettle from the fire. He spooned some tea leaves into the waiting teapot, and poured the steaming water in over them. Raymond was stretching and mewling, but Ginny barely registered him. In her mind, she was already home.

  “In what way is he taken ill?”

  Seán cleared his throat, swirled the water in the teapot in front of him. He didn’t want to say any more, but he knew he had to.

  “High fever, headache. He’s not himself at all. He’s very poorly.”

  “When did it come on him?”

  “Only yesterday he was fine, Maire said. It was very sudden.”

  “Anyone else ill, nearby?”

  “One of the Fallon boys fell ill during the week. The mother thought it was the dread famine fever.”

  “And?”

  “Died last night, Maire said.”

  Ginny gasped, and it felt like a punch to the stomach. She rocked herself and her baby on the stool. Her hand was moving frantically beside her face, like a small bird, like it didn’t belong to her.

  “Has he any rash? Michael?”

  Seán nodded. “Along his abdomen, and up under his arms.”

  Ginny knew the danger of that rash. She knew what it meant. The worst kind of fever. Her stomach plunged. She stepped off the stool and fell down on her two knees in prayer. Through her muddled shock of grief she could hear Seán’s voice, clear like a bell cutting through the din. “Ginny, you need to go to him.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  NEW YORK, NOW

  In the morning, Leo lets me sleep in, and it’s strange, waking up to my own biology, without the frantic urgency of Emma’s cries to retrieve me from my dreams. It takes me a moment to figure out where I am. Sometimes in sleep, I think we’re still in our tiny Manhattan apartment, and I’m still thin and modestly glamorous. Waking to this new life is still a confused adjustment to me.

  I sit up, and realize that my pillow is wet, and so is my face. What was I dreaming? I can’t remember, but I have an awful, unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach. Ginny Doyle’s diary is sitting on my nightstand. I take a deep breath, reach for it, and flump back against the pillows, but before I can crack it open, Leo’s face appears in the doorway. He has Emma tucked into the crook of one arm, and a plate of pancakes in the other.

  “I got you maple butter and honey!” he sings, but then I guess he catches a glimpse of my face, and his expression falters. “What’s wrong?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing, I don’t know. I think I had bad dreams last night but I can’t remember.”

  He sits up onto the edge of the bed, and nestles Emma into the canoe of my legs.

  “Yeah, you were very restless in your sleep,” he says. “I almost woke you.”

  I yawn, stretch, and toss the diary onto his pillow beside me.

  “But that should make you feel better,” he says, gesturing at Emma like he is Vanna White and she is the prize. “And this.” He gestures back to the stack of buckwheat pancakes he set on the nightstand.

  I reach for the plate instead of the baby.

  “These are my favorite,” I say, stuffing a towering bite into my mouth. “So good.”

  He smiles at me. “Try not to drip food on your daughter,” he jokes. But I do not laugh.

  The buckwheat and honey go dry in my mouth, and suddenly I can’t chew, because I’m crying instead. For fuck’s sake.

  “Hey. Hey,” Leo says, leaning forward, and taking the plate from me. He sets it back on the nightstand. “I was only joking. You can spill all the food you want on the baby. Maybe she likes maple butter. She needs a bath anyway.”

  God love him, he’s a good sport. He’s trying to joke his way out of it. I finally manage to swallow the enormous bite, but it sticks in my throat halfway down, because I didn’t chew it enough. Leo is holding my hand.

  “It’s not you.” I sniff. I thought I was ready to talk, but my lips feel hard against each other, and my throat is taut. I wave my hand in front of my face—why, I have no idea. It doesn’t help. “God, what is the matter with me? I’m such a mess.”

  Leo doesn’t push. He waits until I can breathe deeply, and then he says, “Listen, take it easy on yourself, Jelly. You’re not a mess. I hate it when you say stuff like that.”

  I breathe again, and Emma rises and falls with my breath even though she’s on my legs, because my body is now so spherical and interdependent that any activity going on in one part of my anatomy causes fallout around the globe. I’m planetary like that.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m just not used to being so emotional. Gah. It’s awful. I’m so sick of all this weird, random crying. It’s like I suddenly have no self-control.”

  This must be what it feels like for people who have incontinence. Like, Oh dear, would you look at that. I just pooped my pants again!

  “I know it’s hard,” Leo is saying, “but it’s totally normal. I was just reading about postpartum depression on WebMD and—”

  “You what?” I interrupt.

  Leo looks up at me. Caught.

  “I was just, I mean, I was just looking around, not like I was specifically looking for information about postpartum depression, but . . .”

  “Good, because I don’t have that.”

  “No, I know, that’s what I’m saying.”

  My tears have vanished now, and the weird, desperate sadness I felt a moment ago has been entirely replaced with anger. I have switched gears unequivocally, like only a proper psychopath could do.

  “So why were you looking up postpartum depression?” I say. “Do you think I’m falling apart?”

  “No way.”

  I lift my chin. “So then why?”

  “I was just reading about different kinds of postpartum experiences,” he says. “And I think yours is perfectly normal. The hormones racing through your body during this time, they’re just . . .”

  I can tell he wants to say crazy or perhaps insane. He casts about for another word.

  “Overwhelming?” I offer him.

  “Yes.” He snaps his fingers. A look of unadulterated relief settles over his face. “Overwhelming. Even if you didn’t have the sleep deprivation, the big life change, all the stress of caring for a new baby. Even without all that stuff, just the dips and spikes in your hormone levels alone are enough to make you feel supersensitive.”

  My favorite pancakes are getting cold on the nightstand, and Emma, as oblivious to my emotions as ever, has fallen asleep on my legs.

  “You’re very sweet, Leo,” I say, even though I feel slightly annoyed by this whole conversation. I want to think it’s sweet. But instead, I feel like my very real, very personal emotions have been reduced to some safe, clean Internet diagnosis. “But you know, I think it’s more than that.”

  I trace my finger along the contours of Emma’s sleeping face.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I just—” Where do I even begin trying to explain all of this to him? “Yes, it’s true, everything you’ve said is true. I’m hormonal and overwhelmed and sensitive. The change in my lifestyle has completely knocked the wind out of me, and I didn’t expect that. I thought this would be effortless for me, that I’d be a natural.”

  “You are, you’re so nurturing,” he says.<
br />
  That sentiment is so wildly wrong that I don’t even bother contradicting him.

  “Every effort I make seems to flop. I’m not used to that. I succeed. I’m a succeeder!” And then I shudder, remembering. “Ugh, that mommy group yesterday. Even that girl Jade, from channel C . . . I liked her. I mean, it was awkward, but she seemed nice. And then I practically had to put her in a choke hold to get her to take my phone number. I’ll probably never hear from her again.”

  Leo rubs a hand along my leg. “It will get better,” he says. “You’ll find people you click with. And you’ll get back to work when you’re ready. You’ll find a rhythm.”

  “I know,” I lie. I glance at the diary on his pillow, then reach back and grab it. “I was reading this last night, before bed. I think this is what upset me, gave me the nightmares or whatever.”

  “Why, what does it say?” Leo picks up the plate and takes a bite of my pancakes.

  “She killed someone.”

  “No shit!”

  “Yeah, in front of her kid.”

  Leo chews thoughtfully. “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  “Salacious!” he says, puckering his lips.

  “Leo, this is not Us Weekly,” I say. “This woman was related to me.”

  He sets the plate back down, and begins to nod his head.

  “Oh, I see, I get it now,” he says, and he brings his hands together in front of him, in this maddening professorial gesture he uses whenever he’s theorizing about something. “So because your, what was she, like your great-great-great-aunt’s uncle’s cousin’s grandmother? Because she was a bad mother, because she killed someone in front of her kid, somehow this trickles down to you?”

  “It’s not as crazy as you make it sound,” I say.

  “Actually, it kind of is, Majella.”

  “No, it’s not,” I say. “Think about it, Leo. You know my mom. She’s not exactly the warm, fuzzy type. She flees the scene at the first sign that she’s about to become a grandmother. She’s incapable of talking to me about anything more serious than a hammertoe. She’s totally emotionally vacant.”