January 1887 Chicago, Illinois

“I’ve had a letter from my mam,” Mary Agnes confides to Kathleen. “She says it’s because of me my gram has passed on.” She bites her lip. Gram. Was it because of Mam? Fiach coming at me reminded her of Mam’s shame? And that was too much for her? Or was it the lump? It had to be the lump.

Kathleen stops kneading flour and lard on the worn kitchen table and looks up. She sweeps a mass of red hair from her brow. “Why would she say such a thing as that?”

“It’s a lie, all of it.”

“All of what?”

“My mam thinks it’s my fault my half-brother approached me.”

“Did he now?”

“Well, he didn’t get far, if that’s what you’re after. Came at me in my bed.”

“Who came at who in whose bed?” Doria bites into an apple as she rounds the corner into the kitchen.

Mary Agnes freezes. How much did she hear?

“A man in your bed?” Doria says. “Tart.”

“I’m no such thing.” Mary Agnes’s face blazes. The kettle calling the pot black, you mean.

“Talking back, are you?” Doria sneers at Mary Agnes and rushes out of the kitchen. “Mother!” she calls.

Mary Agnes turns to her friend. “What am I to do?”

“I can’t say rightly, but my guess is you’ll be sacked within the hour. The mistress don’t have your kind here.” She shakes her head. “Anyone who can’t keep her drawers on—”

“I didn’t let anyone in my draw—”

Doria, triumphant, rounds the corner into the kitchen again. “Mother will see you in the parlor.”

“‘Who came at who in whose bed?’” Mary Agnes’s face burns, her high cheeks tinged red. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to with that suitor of yours.”

Doria reaches out and slaps Mary Agnes on the face.

Holding her cheek, Mary Agnes walks to the parlor like a prisoner awaiting a sentence. She will never give in to Doria. And if Doria ever thought Mary Agnes would cover for her, those days are over. She will speak her mind. Even if it costs her the job.

Mrs. Rutherford, ashen, sits in an overstuffed chair near the fireplace. She doesn’t look up when Mary Agnes enters the room.

“Ma’am?”

“That will be all, Mary. Pack your things.”

“Can I—”

“I said pack your things. Doria told me what transpired. A man in your bed, in my house.”

“There was no man in my bed, but there was a man—”

“Now!” She looks up and glares at Mary Agnes.

Mary Agnes doesn’t move. If this were a chessboard, she would be backed into a corner. There must be something I can say? Something I can do?

“My wages, ma’am?”

“There won’t be any wages. That was stated clearly in the contract. Three months probation. Go. Now!” Mrs. Rutherford barks.

No wages? Mary Agnes has never heard the mistress raise her voice but she stands her ground. “I understand that, ma’am, but nowhere did it say I wouldn’t receive any wages, just no wages until . . .”

“Did you hear me? I said go. Now.” She worries her hands. “If there are to be wages, I will have Mr. Rutherford send them to your sponsor.”

Not to Uncle Fiach. He will send it all back to Ireland.

Doria, her back against the parlor door, stifles a smile. “Good riddance,” she mutters under her breath as Mary Agnes leaves the parlor. “Worthless Irish bogger.”

THE LETTER SITS CRUMPLED IN HER LAP. After she reads the news, she balls the letter into her fist and cries out. Her grandfather gone, too? So soon after her gram?

It can’t be, Mary Agnes thinks. She uncrumples the paper, smooths it out, and reads again. Maybe this time the news will be different.

Dearest Margaret—

It is with great sadness that I rite now of the pasing passing of my dear Father, Festus. It has been a season of sorruw sorrow for all of us.

When he lost his men in a storm off Inis Bo Finne last mouth month, that was the last he spoke, except in the old langwitch. Into the nite, and in all weathers, he paced the shore here at Dawros. Reeving Raving mad, he was by then. He must have cawt his death of cold becawse the old innkeeper found him there on the strand. We buried him with all the others at the cemetery at Ballynakill.

I will rite again as soon as I have news of our travels to Amerika.

Give my regards to Fiach and Helen.

Your sister-in-law,

Anna Coyne

Dear Granda? Gone raving mad? Dead and buried?

“No,” she wails. “Noooooo.”

IN AND OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS she goes, boundaries between wakefulness and dreaming blurred. The world is distant and muffled and hazy, thoughts disjointed and fragmented, time distorted. At times, Mary Agnes is almost lucid, and just as fast, she’s plunged into disturbing thoughts and she’s running, they’re after me, Granda, she screams, and she reaches the end of the alley, help me, help me, and no one is there.

On another night, she finds herself on the floor, shivering although she burns with fever, but she doesn’t have the energy to get up and trembles on the floor until early morning, when Helen finds her and urges her to return to bed. Helen tucks the sheets and blankets around Mary Agnes and calls for her mother.

Exhaustion, her aunt calls it, but anyone would know it is something else, something deeper. The loss of her granddad was the final straw.

“Get away!” she screams as the devil himself rouses Mary Agnes from sleep, his fingers clenching her head so tightly that she cannot escape the headaches. Granda! she calls out again. But again, he isn’t there. She’s tempted to give up completely. It would be so easy. Take a tablespoon of lye. But then she remembers all the Irish have been through in their long, bloody history. Celts and Vikings and Gauls. English occupation. Penal laws. Famine and starvation. Then she slaps herself into reality. I can weather this. I have to weather this.

And then, one morning, she doesn’t know how many days or weeks later, she swims up through the fog and opens her eyes.

“Here, take some tea,” Helen says. She is sitting beside Mary Agnes in a flouncy cream dress, her hair piled on top of her head.

Mary Agnes reaches for the tea with unsteady hands and nods her thanks. She hasn’t spoken since the letter arrived.

“What day is it?” Mary Agnes asks.

“You speak!” Helen squeezes her cousin’s hand. “It’s Tuesday. January the 25th.”

“That long? Three weeks?”

Helen nods, yes.

“Hazy . . . It has been very hazy,” Mary Agnes says. “Like time went away and I was trapped somewhere. The last I knew we were reading the letter . . .”

“You were gone from us for a while,” Helen says. “But now you are back. I’ll fetch Mother.”

“Not yet. Can you tell me what I’ve missed?”

“Missed? Not much. I suppose the biggest news is Mother and I went to a fabulous sale at Davis and Morse. Linens, towels, blankets.”

That is not what I meant, Helen. I meant what did I miss in the world? In the country? In Chicago?

“But look at this!” Helen shuffles the newspaper. “‘Wanted—Female Help. A young lady as bookkeeper. Must thoroughly understand bookkeeping, reasonable salary.’ And it doesn’t say, ‘Irish Need Not Apply.’ I think I will do just that. Apply. As soon as I graduate.”

“That sounds wonderful, Helen.” Mary Agnes tries not to feel a stab of jealousy, Helen finishing bookkeeping school and she still a housemaid. I could be sitting in a great hall reading Latin. Studying maps of all the continents. Writing poetry . . .

“It’s hard to land any position in this town, Mary A. Every ad says, ‘German or Scandinavian girl.’ Nothing for the likes of us. Still.”

“Unless you work for another Irish family or an Irish business.”

“Or they’re desperate.”

The barb stings.

Helen prattles on, seemingly unaware she has wounded Mary Agnes yet again. “Oh, look! Richard Mansfield is playing Prince Karl at the Columbia this weekend.”

I can’t afford to go to the Columbia or anywhere now that I don’t have a position. And I don’t want to go. To be entertained. To laugh.

Mary Agnes asks for the newspaper to shield herself from Helen. If I need anything, it’s eyeglasses. She skims ads. “‘Eyes skillfully fitted free of charge using the best of scientific instruments.’ Prices $1.50-$2.50. And just over on Madison in the Tribune building. I think I’ll save up for eyeglasses instead.”

“You’re no fun.” Helen makes a face at Mary Agnes.

Fun? Gram gone and now Granda, too. It’s too much. Can’t Helen see? Can’t anyone see? I don’t know what fun is anymore.

THE DAY MARY AGNES STARTS HER new position in the kitchen of a wealthy Irish family in another parish, she is well, and outfitted with snug spectacles, thanks to Aunt Margaret entreating Uncle Fiach for two dollars of Mary Agnes’s wages, “so the girl can see, for heaven’s sake.” He handed over two dollars reluctantly, the rest of her wages sent back home. She still owes Helen two dollars for her boots, a debt that hangs over her head.

This position will be different, Mary Agnes thinks. I just know it. The O’Sullivans live on the corner of Washington and Page, a stately home with a sweeping porch facing south just blocks from Union Park. And, she thinks, what a relief they’re Catholic.

She’s got Sundays off, and half-day Thursday, too, and is making seventy-five cents per day. Three days turn to three weeks turn to three months and she receives her first wages. She dutifully sends half of the money home without a note and deposits the rest into a new savings account at First Chicago Savings and Loan. She confesses to Father Gannon at St. Mel’s and says three Hail Marys as penance.

When one of the six O’Sullivan girls marries—and with much less fanfare than Claire Rutherford would have—Mary Agnes and other maids fill the back pews. It’s a gorgeous spring day, fit for a bride. And isn’t she lovely in that trim black gown, and that veil! And what a handsome pair they make.

Mary Agnes’s mind wanders as it’s wont to. She can’t help seeing the image of Fiach coming at her at night and again on the lane. The burly man who sheared off her hair at Castle Garden. The Italian gang in the alley in New York. Her Uncle Fiach fondling her rear.

No, she reminds herself. I’ll never marry. This is my life. A big house. Good wages. Enough food. I’ll not complain of tired feet or aching hands, scalded wrists or scabs. I’ll rise up and above it all, yes ma’am, of course ma’am, at your service ma’am, smile. Watch me, I say. I’ll run a big house someday and won’t I show them all, the Dorias of the world.