It was nearly eleven o’clock in the morning. For over four hours, Maggie and McCabe had been sitting next to each other on the hospital chairs, occasionally napping, but mostly just sitting and silently waiting. Every once in a while, McCabe would get up and peer over the bedrail at his mother’s face. Sometimes lowering the rail, taking her hand and raising it to his lips.
He was there now looking down at Rose’s pale bruised face, her bones so thin and delicate he couldn’t imagine how she’d survived the fall without shattering every one. He sensed more than heard Maggie coming up from behind to join him.
“You’ve never told me much about your mother,” she said, “except that she emigrated from Ireland and that she spoiled you silly.”
McCabe smiled. “She liked spoiling me because I was the youngest. The kid they never intended to have. What do you want to know?”
Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know. Just some family history.”
McCabe thought about it. “Okay, I guess. Her maiden name was O’Toole. Rose Marie O’Toole. Born and raised in the village of Ballynacally in County Clare.”
Rose’s eyes flickered open. “Ballynacally?” she said in a voice only slightly louder than a whisper. “I was born in Ballynacally.”
“Yes, you were, Mam.”
“What was it like in Ballynacally?” Maggie asked her. “Do you remember?”
“Ballynacally,” Rose whispered once again, and then closed her eyes and was quiet.
“It wasn’t much of a village,” said McCabe. “I visited once. The place was just a speck on the road with two hundred and some people at last count.” McCabe’s eyes remained fixed on his mother as he spoke, wondering how much of what he was saying she could understand. And sorry that Rose wasn’t able to tell Maggie the story herself. “There was one main street, a few shops, one church and five pubs. Rose’s father ran one of the pubs. The poorest of the lot, to hear Mam tell it. It wasn’t much of a pub and he wasn’t much of a father. Starting at age fourteen he forced her to work behind the bar. For free of course. No wages. And illegally since she was underage. But nobody in the village was about to report him and he didn’t want to pay for any hired help. Her mother, my granny who I never met, objected to him using his daughter that way and they constantly argued about it. He always won the arguments. Usually with the aid of his fists.”
“He beat her up?”
“To hear Rose tell it, yes. She said it happened a lot. Sometimes for no reason except that he was drunk. Smacked Rose around a time or two as well when she tried to interfere.”
“Why didn’t her mother get a divorce?”
“In Ireland back in the forties? Wasn’t an option. Divorce wasn’t allowed in Ireland until they finally changed the law in 1996. Like it or not, abusive or not, marriage was forever.”
“Jesus? Really?”
“Really. Rose’s mother finally decided the only way she could protect her daughter from her husband, the only way she could enable her to do more with her life than work as an unpaid barmaid, was to send her out of the country. Without telling her husband, my grandmother arranged for Rose to come to America to live with her uncle—her mother’s brother—and his family. It was the only place she could think of where the old man couldn’t find her and drag her back.”
“She did this without telling your grandfather?”
“Yes. She only told him after Rose was safely ensconced in New York. Rose never saw either of her parents again. But in one of her letters her mother described how her old man knocked the shit out of her mother for doing what she did in sending Rose away. Only in the letter her mother called it shite.”
“When did all this happen?”
“Back in the forties. 1949 to be exact. Rose was seventeen at the time. Her uncle in New York sent them the money for passage and she came over on a small steamer, moved in with the uncle and his wife and their three kids, who were all younger than Rose. They lived here in the Bronx not far from where I grew up. Rose managed to get a job as a teller at a small savings bank in the neighborhood. She saved pretty much all her salary with the idea of bringing her mother over and the two of them living together. Never happened. Her mother died first.”
“And she met your father?”
“Yes.” As he recounted the tale, McCabe could swear he once again could see a slight smile form on his mother’s lips. He hoped so. He hoped she was enjoying a happy memory. “They met at a dance at a local church hall. She was a real beauty, just like her granddaughter Zoe. They look very much alike. My father took one look at her and asked her to dance and didn’t want to let her go. He danced pretty much every dance with her, and when she said she had an eleven p.m. curfew, he insisted on walking her home. She told him that they were only a few blocks from where she lived and she could manage very well on her own, thank you very much. Dad being Dad wouldn’t take no for an answer. Told her it wasn’t safe for a beautiful young woman to walk the streets alone at night and that because he was a cop it was his responsibility to escort her home. She told me he kissed her for the first time on the front step of her uncle’s house before she could even unlock the door. I once asked her if she kissed him back. She didn’t answer. Just smiled a smile that made me suspect the answer was yes.”
“How very forward of her.”
“Indeed. Anyway, they were married six months later. My oldest brother, Tommy Jr., was born nine months after that. Almost to the day. Then came Bobby. Then Fran. Then, after a break of four years, I arrived.”
“The accidental baby.”
McCabe smiled. “Yup. That’s me.”
Rose’s eyes fluttered and she seemed to smile again. Maggie looked down. “Do you think she knows what we’re talking about?”
“I don’t know. I think so. I hope so. We love you, Mam.”
“Tom? Is that you?” Her eyes fluttered open.
“No, Mam, it’s Michael.”
“Oh, Michael. You look so handsome.”
“And you look beautiful.”
She smiled at the compliment and closed her eyes again. She seemed at peace.