The children were asleep in the tiny room above the fireplace. They had gone to bed clutching the presents Maggie brought with her from England. All except Catherine, who had been trying to comb her mother’s hair, intent on weaving into it one of the pretty ribbons her aunt had given to her.
“Let me do that, Catherine. Go on up to your bed and have a good night’s sleep so you’ll be fresh as a daisy in the morning for school.”
“Can’t I stay home with you, Auntie Maggie? I don’t need any more learning, I can read and write well enough now.”
“Your father wants you to stay because he left too young himself. Me and my sister would drag him to school until he was eight years old. After that, he got too big and we couldn’t carry him. So we would leave him lying in the road because he was making us late for our work up at the big house. He wanted to be with his brothers, out working in the fields and on the farm. As he was the only one in the family who could read, your father felt he had done all the learning he needed and was ready to leave school.”
“He never told us that,” whispered Catherine.
Maggie looked around the cottage. The men were out fishing and the only other person in the room was Mary, who had not even acknowledged the fact that she had a visitor. It was the perfect opportunity to spend time alone with her sister-in-law.
“That’s because he wants you to finish school, my love, even if some of your friends don’t,” Maggie spoke in the hushed tone of a shared secret. “Your father tells me you already write better than he can. Now don’t tell him I told you that. He was always a good reader but struggled with his writing. Sure you only have half a year left to go, that’s not long at all. Most of your cousins across the water finished their schooling, a couple of them even got apprenticeships.”
Catherine didn’t know what apprenticeships meant but it sounded very important to her. She figured a word that long was either something to be ashamed of, or proud of. The beaming smile on her aunt’s face told her it was the latter.
“All right so. I’ll leave you to look after Mammy. Maybe she’ll let you comb the knots out of her hair, she’s being good tonight,” Catherine kissed the top of her mother’s head and hugged her aunt.
When they were alone in the parlour, Maggie took her niece’s place at the side of the bed and began combing Mary’s long wavy hair. There was no response from the younger woman, and it took all of Maggie’s patience to hold back from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. It had been the same with James’s sickness. They had all tried to bring him back to them by coaxing, shouting, even slapping him, to no avail. Some of his family had cried in front of him but he never once reached out. It was Mary’s visit and the handful of shells his little girl sent over, that finally broke through the invisible wall he had managed to build around himself. Maggie knew she would have to find a way to do the same with Mary, as quickly as possible, before the young woman got too used to her presence.
There was a song that Maggie’s mother used to sing to her children as they went to sleep. Maggie often sang it to her own young ones and it was the same piece of music her brother Peter played on his fiddle at the end of family gatherings. She closed her eyes, remembering what it was like lying with her brothers and sisters, listening to the song as they drifted off to sleep. Even the animals at the other end of the cottage would settle down for the night at the soft tones of her mother’s voice.
As she gently untangled Mary’s hair, Maggie sang “The Parting Glass.”
“Oh all the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company,
And all the harm that e'er I've done
Alas, it was to none but me.
For all I've done for want of wit
To memory now I can't recall.
So fill to me the parting glass,
Goodnight and joy be with you all.”
As the verse came to an end, Mary crossed her arms over her stomach and curled up in a ball. The comb was caught in her hair and as Maggie was trying to untangle it she heard a soft, low moan. It seemed to be coming from across the room, so she peered into the dim light, cast by the fire’s dying flames. Thinking that one of the children had crept down the stairs and was hiding in the shadows, Maggie called out in a loud whisper.
“Which of ye is hiding in the corner? Get back up to your bed this minute, do you hear me?”
Mary was still lying in a fetal position and Maggie realized where the sound was coming from. Leaving the comb stuck in the long tresses, she leaned over the younger woman and embraced her, pulling her upright. The two women rocked backward and forward as the song filled the air once more. Huge sobs broke free from Mary’s body, drowning out Maggie’s voice and alerting the children overhead that something was wrong.
Catherine and her younger siblings were shocked at the scene that met their eyes at the bottom of the stairs. Their mother was keening and sobbing and their aunt had her clasped in her arms as she sang to her. Both women were slowly rocking to the rhythm of the tune. The children huddled together on the bottom step, waiting anxiously for the singing and crying to come to an end. Gradually, Mary’s sobs quietened and Maggie’s voice trailed off as the rocking stopped.
“Mary, are you back with us now?” whispered Maggie.
The young mother didn’t reply. Instead she turned to look at her three frightened children on the stairs and held her arms out to them. They immediately ran to her, sobbing. After a while, when everyone’s strength was spent from crying, Mary kissed her children and sent them back up to bed. She promised to make breakfast for them before they set off for school the following morning.
“Do ye want me to go up with ye?” asked Maggie.
“We’ll be grand, Auntie Maggie, sure haven’t I been bringing these wee ones to bed for years now?” said Catherine as she pulled her little sister along by the hand.
“I am well able to go to bed by myself,” sulked Thomas, ashamed off his swollen red eyes.
“Of course you are, son,” said his mother. “Catherine, you settle Mary-Anne while Thomas gets to sleep. You know what men are like if they don’t get their rest.”
“I do, Mammy. They wake up with faces on them that would sour milk, don’t they?” said Catherine.
Thomas didn’t care about the disparaging remark from his older sister. His mother had called him a man and that was enough to add two inches to his height as he climbed the stairs.
As soon as they were alone once more, the two women clung to each other and cried fresh tears.
“What brought you back to us, Mary? Was it the song?”
“Oh Maggie, that was my father’s favourite song. He would have my mother sing it while he played the tune on his fiddle. It was the last song she ever sang. After my father sold it to pay our rent my mother swore she would never sing again and she kept her word – until the day he left to look for work in Leitrim. He kissed us all goodbye and I watched as my mother took his hand and walked him to the end of the village. I ran around the back of the houses and hid behind a hedge, trying to get as close as I could. She held both of his hands and sang ‘The Parting Glass’ to him, and that was the last time I laid eyes on my father.
“You never did find out what became of him, did you Mary?” said Maggie.
“I know in my heart that he’s dead,” tears streamed down Mary’s face as she spoke. “Sure it wasn’t too long after he left that we lost my mother to the fever.”
Maggie was wondering just how much of the previous two weeks her sister-in-law was aware of. She was afraid to say something that might send the young woman back into the depths of despair.
“Do you remember what happened to Annie?” asked Maggie.
“I do, but I couldn’t cry or let myself feel anything. It was as if my heart had turned to stone. I’ve been aware of James and Pat talking to me and poor Catherine looking after me as if I was a baby. I was afraid to let go, Maggie. It felt as if the loss of my parents, and my younger brother and sisters being brought to America, was all rolled up into the one big ball of pain. I thought that if I was to grieve for Annie, then it would open a floodgate that I might never be able to close. Does that make any sense to you at all?”
Mary’s sister-in-law brought her some hot tea and reassured her that what she had experienced was normal, especially for a pregnant woman who had lost so many loved ones.
“I went to see someone in the workhouse back home – just the once, mind you. The old man who used to live across the street from Owen and Rose. Do you recall him?” asked Maggie.
Mary replied that she did, as the image of his thin, crooked frame came to mind.
“Well, the poor old soul spent his last months in there. I saw a lot of unfortunate women in that place with the same look on their faces as you wore, Mary. Many of them had lost husbands and children and had given up on life. I always meant to go back and pay some of them a visit, but I couldn’t bear to step foot inside that building. Not even one more time. There are dark places inside our heads just waiting for us to enter. Once you go in, it can be very hard to leave. The longer you stay there, the less likely you are to escape. Promise me, Mary, that you will never go back, no matter how bad things get. Will you do that for me, love?”
As Mary nodded her head the comb swung across her face and she pulled it out from the tangled mass of hair. Maggie took it from her and climbed onto the bed behind the young woman. Easing the wooden teeth through the knots she hummed the tune that had played such a big part in Mary’s recovery. When the job was done both women lay down side by side, falling asleep with a blanket draped across themselves.
After a good night’s fishing, James arrived home with Pat in the early hours of the morning and knew, as soon as he saw the peaceful expression on his wife’s face, that Maggie had worked her magic.