1929 (20 page)

“It’s the meanin’ behind tha’ words,
Patrick,” Shannon called from the kitchen.

“Aye, but they’re still just words. An’ if
people stopped takin’ offense, the words would have no power
a’tall.”

“Where you work, are they hiring?” Jonathan
asked casually. Ava eyed him from the kitchen.

“Nah. There’s rumors of layoffs because of
what happened last month. Got everyone on edge.”

Patrick and Jonathan continued talk of work
while Ava offered to help Shannon, who stirred a pot of ham and pea
soup and pulled a sizzling, cast-iron skillet out of the oven
filled with small cakes.

“What are those?” Ava asked. “It smells
wonderful.”

“Boxty. Potato cakes of a sort. I’ll teach
you how to make 'em, if you and Jonathan like ‘em,” she said and
smiled while slicing a heavy loaf of soda bread. Both Shannon and
Patrick crossed themselves and mumbled a prayer, and then Shannon
lifted the ladle to serve soup to her guests.

“How long have you been in America?” Jonathan
asked.

“Near five years. Me n’ Shannon here came
over together. Married the day ‘fore the boat pushed off,” Patrick
said, smiling.

“Honeymoon trip,” Jonathan commented.

“Well, I wouldn’t say it was a honeymoon,”
Patrick said, laughing. “The first days were exciting with the
prospects of coming to America and all. But tis hard to find a bit
o’ privacy when yer crammed in with a couple hundred other
emigrants in steerage day after day.” Jonathan shook his head,
unable to imagine.

“Is it all you thought it would be? America,
I mean?” It wasn’t Jonathan’s words, but his tone that caused Ava
to give him a hard look and poke him in the thigh. Patrick
laughed.

“Yes and no. Everything always looks better
from far away. Take Shannon, for example.” He recoiled before she
could even raise her hand to slap his shoulder. Her green eyes
flashed, and she hit him twice in the arm, hard. “Now, now, woman,”
he howled. “Shannon here was the most beautiful lass in all of
Enniskerry.” He pulled her close to his side and kissed her on the
top of her head. She pinched him for good measure. “There was talk
back home o’ opportunities that any man willin’ to work hard would
have his own land in no time. Dint turn out to be that easy. But
I’ll get it. One day,” he said contentedly.

“That’s what you want? To own land?” Jonathan
asked.

“Aye. Tis what every Irishman wants,” he said
quietly.

“Where?” Jonathan asked, having stopped
eating, watching Patrick intently. He shrugged.

“Maybe upstate, maybe out west. Not sure just
yet.”

“How will you go about that? Obtaining land,
I mean?” Jonathan asked, curious at what strategy he had in
mind.

“Work hard, save, and it’ll come. Maybe
before lil' Roan is old enough for schooling.”

“How can you be so sure you’ll get it?”

Patrick raised his head and looked Jonathan
straight in the eyes. “Because I want it bad enough.”

Toward the end of the dinner visit, Patrick
arranged a night to get together with the other men to show them
how to build the hanging shelves, and Shannon promised to come over
to teach Ava how to make boxty.

November 13th1929

The days passed without much else to break
the monotony until mid-week when Caleb came home to a quiet
apartment that distinctly lacked the smell of food, burnt or
otherwise. Arianna sat on the couch in the dark, staring at a dying
fire. She remained motionless as he walked through the door and
greeted her. Sitting carefully on the couch beside her, she held
something against her chest with folded arms.

“Ahna, what’s wrong?” he asked gently,
reaching for her hand. She jerked it away. “Did you have a hard
day, my love?” He tried again for her hand. She pulled away again,
her gaze remained on the fire.

“Ahna, you’re scaring me. Tell me what’s
wrong.”

After a long moment, she turned her head
slowly toward him and silently stared at him with vacant eyes. The
dying light intensified the dark hollows under her eyes, sunken
cheeks and the drawn lines of her mouth. The focus of her lifeless
eyes locked onto his, and her stock-still posture caused the hairs
on the back of his neck to rise. He remained trapped in her
startling gaze until she glanced down at what she held to her
chest. Uncrossing her arms, and turning Caleb’s hardbound notebook
over, she opened it slowly.

“You lied,” she whispered. She flipped the
sheets, exposing page after page of meaningless doodling, drawings
of his childhood home, ocean beaches and an entire page crowded
with her name, written in every size and script, surrounding a
poem. He looked with dread from the notebook to Arianna’s face and
back to the book. “First of all,” she spoke slowly in a too-calm
voice, “You said you had ideas, plans. You said you were writing
those ideas down, working on them until one of them would work. And
you said we would be out of here by the first of the year.” She
stared at him again with frighteningly empty eyes, waiting for an
answer. Caleb took a moment, rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers
through his hair. He stared at the floor while he spoke.

“Ahna, I,” he paused to take a deep breath,
“I had to tell you all that. I needed you to hold on, to make the
best of things until I was able to figure something out. To be
completely honest, Aryl has been the only one with an idea and,
well, that one didn’t turn out to be practical. For us anyway,” he
said dejectedly. “I do know something will work out. I just need
more time.”

“You thought I’d run again,” she assumed.

He nodded. “Are you telling me you wouldn’t
have? If I had brought you here and told you, right then and there,
that I had no idea how we were going to get out of this place? If I
had told you just how hard life would be for us? You wouldn’t have
run the first chance you got?” He turned toward her on the couch.
“Ahna, I told you that I would find a way out for us, and I will.
But I can’t work miracles. I just need more time. It’s not even
been a month,” he said, pleading. She turned her head toward him in
disbelief.

“It feels so much longer than that,
Caleb.”

“I know. It does to me, too. This life is
exhausting.” He searched for something to say and remained quiet
for a long time.

“Don’t ever lie to me again, Caleb,” she
finally said firmly. “Every day for two years, my father came home
and reassured us all that everything was fine. Right up to the day
when the bank showed up to take our things and give us notice to
leave. Do you remember what you said when you came home that day,
almost a month ago?” He shook his head, too tired to remember. “You
said everything would be fine. It would all work out. But I already
knew the truth. The neighbor’s wife had come over, crying. Her
husband invested everything with Jonathan. He got home before you
did and broke the news to her. And when you got home, all I heard
was my father’s voice. It’s fine, it’ll all be okay, there’s
nothing to worry about. It’s the other reason I ran. Not because we
were suddenly penniless, not because I don’t love you. I just
couldn’t be blindsided like that again.”

He nodded, his eyes acknowledging. “All
right. From now on, no sugarcoating. I promise.” He took her hand,
and she didn’t pull away this time. She leaned over slowly and laid
her head in his lap, watching the last of the burning embers in the
fireplace. He stroked her hair, trying to smooth her wild, raven
tufts. “You look like hell,” he said with a smile. She whipped her
head around, mouth open in shock. “Hey, I thought we were going for
honesty.”

November 23rd 1929

“Now it’s a party!” Maura cried as Arianna
and Caleb walked through Ava’s door the following Saturday night.
“How’ve you been, love?” Maura asked as she hugged her.

“All right,” Arianna said, smiling.

“Yer losin’ weight, ye sure yer feelin’
a'right?” Maura asked, concerned, feeling her forehead and touching
her gaunt cheeks. Arianna nodded.

“My stomach is upset, but I’m fine.” Arianna
handed Ava a plate of biscuits and a small jar of honey. She had
managed to master biscuits well enough to be edible as long as she
sat in front of the oven the entire twenty minutes. Ava added the
plate to the table of food. Everyone had brought a dish, so there
would be plenty to go around. The room was fairly bursting and it
quickly grew stuffy with so many bodies in the small space. Aryl
shared his last bottle of brandy, and after a while, Maura grew
frustrated with the occasional loud outbursts from the men gathered
on one side of the small room.

“A'right!” she yelled, getting everyone’s
attention. “Seein’ that all the men are gathered over thar, and all
the women are over here, why don’t we split this lil' party up an'
ye men grab a plate o' food an' go find somewhere else to be. Let
us women alone to talk about ye, and don’t be stealin’ the brandy
on yer way out,” she ordered with hands on her hips. All the men
looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Jonathan took the box
of cigars from under his bed before they filed out the door as Aryl
offered his apartment and Caleb offered his last bottle of
whiskey.

“Now that’s better,” Maura said, plopping
down on the couch after the door closed. “Ye girls gather round,
and let’s get on with the gossip. And bring the brandy.” Ava
skipped over with the bottle and sat close to Maura. “Now as I was
askin’, what’s gone on since I saw ye last?” she asked, pouring
herself a glassful.

“I got to know our neighbors,” Ava
started.

“The annoyin’ one?”

“No, no, next door here. Shannon and Patrick.
They’re very nice. They’re from Enniskerry.”

Maura’s eyes lit up. “I know Enniskerry!” she
exclaimed. “Me family lives not too far north a' there! Good
people, is she?” Ava nodded.

“She’s very nice. She’s teaching me all kinds
of helpful things.”

“Well, why isn’t she here with us? Go get her
to join the party!”

Ava jumped up, grinning and went next door,
rapping impatiently. Shannon opened it and smiled.

“I’m having a get together at my house, and I
was wondering if you would come?” Ava blurted out.

“I’d love to, when’ll it be?” Shannon
asked.

“Right now.”

“Oh. Well.” She turned to look at Patrick. “I
do have to get the babes down for the night.” Patrick scoffed.

“Go, Shannon, I’ll put the wee ones to bed.”
She looked from Ava to Patrick and smiled.

“A'right, let me get my sweater.” She put it
on and started giving instructions to Patrick. “Now if Roan won’t
sleep, give him some warm milk and sing ‘im that lullaby, an’ if he
fusses, walk the floor pattin’ his back and–” Patrick hushed
her.

“I think I know how to care for me own babes,
Shannon.” He gave her a quick hard kiss and squeezed her
bottom.

“Don’t be too late,” he whispered, glancing
at the calendar.

“I’ll see to you later, don’t you worry.” Her
eyes flashed wickedly, as she and Ava scurried away.

Ava made introductions, and Shannon settled
in right away with a drink and talk of Ireland with Maura. With
nothing overly pleasant to talk about in their own lives, Arianna,
Ava, and Claire listened to stories told by Maura and Shannon that
had all of them doubled over with laughter. Arianna handed her
drink to Maura after taking two sips. Her stomach was still
disagreeable, and she didn’t want to have to leave early from
sickness.

An hour passed and Ava’s side and cheeks hurt
from laughing so hard. A harsh rap at the door suddenly interrupted
their carousing.

“If that’s the men tryin’ to get to the last
o’ the brandy, shut the door quick!” Maura called as Ava opened the
door to the see the beady-eyed one looking very irritated.

“The noise coming from over here is keeping
the whole building up! Have mercy with the yelling and the
laughing, how’s a body supposed to get some sleep with all this
carrying on, there’s noise ordinances, you know. It’s nearing nine
o’clock an’ most impolite to hold a party when there’s been so much
sickness and folks are tired with recovery, sickness probably
floated across from over here anyhow–”

“Jaysus sufferin’ Christ!” Maura grabbed
Ava’s arm, pulled her out of the doorway, and met the beady-eyed
one nose to nose.

“Yer a yapper, aren’t ye?” she yelled,
clearly taking the woman by surprise. “What’s the meanin’ of coming
over here distruptin’ our good time with yer whinin' and carryin’
on? If yer so damn sick, maybe ye should be in bed! And if yer not
and our carryin’ on is botherin’ ye so much, why can’t ye come
speak to Ava civil-like? Stead of bellowin’ on. I’ve heard a heifer
giving birth to twin calves make less racket than you!” The
beady-eyed one’s eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open. “Now,”
Maura said with her arms crossed. “You’ll do one of two things.
Either shut yer trap and carry yer disagreeable arse back to yer
apartment, or ye’ll shut yer trap an' join us for a drink, leavin’
yer problems at the door.” Maura tapped her foot and looked her up
and down quickly. “What’ll it be?” It took the woman a moment to
speak and when she did, her tone was in check.

“Well, now . . . I’m not the drinking type,”
she said and turned to her apartment.

Maura closed the door, and Ava pulled on her
arm.

“Why would you invite her in to join us?” she
asked, appalled.

“If ye can help it, never make an enemy of a
neighbor, Ava,” she said. “Now that doesn’t mean that ye shouldn’t
put ‘em in their place when they cross the line, mind,” she said
and smiled. Ava couldn’t help but laugh, thinking that Maura could
put a hardened criminal in his place and send him crying to
confession.

November 24th 1929