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Ronan held his breath as Myna lifted a portion of fish with her fork. She brought it to her mouth, chewed, swallowed, and picked up another portion.
If Myna had been herself she would’ve asked where the money came from for such a meal. Or perhaps she would have guessed.
All Ronan wanted was for her to speak to him again.
‘Alfred gave me the fish.’
She glanced up from her plate. Her eyes were puffy, her hair tousled. She took a bite, chewed and swallowed. She picked up another piece with her fork, considered it a moment, and put that piece into her mouth too.
‘He said he’d give me a fish every time I went into town. He said you were very important to him, that it was important you got better.’ Ronan fought to keep his voice from breaking.
Myna frowned. ‘Alfred?’
Ronan nodded. ‘Alfred said you were important to him,’ he repeated.
‘Alfred was one of Father’s friends, a long time ago. He used to bring us fish every day when I was a child.’
‘He brought you fish every day? Why?’ Ronan already knew this story, but now Myna had started to speak he needed her to continue.
Myna shrugged. ‘Before I was born, they say that ours was the busiest fishing port in the whole district. But then the fish vanished. Alfred was the only one who could still catch any. I guess he brought them over because he and Father were friends.’
Ronan put down his fork. ‘I never knew Alfred and your father had been close.’
Myna shrugged again. ‘He and Father had a falling out, I suppose.’
‘Over what? Your father seems pretty vocal of his dislike of people, but he’s never said anything of Alfred.’
‘How should I know, Ronan!’ Myna narrowed her eyes, and pushed her plate away. ‘I’m not my father’s keeper. What does it matter, anyway? Maybe Alfred’s just a creepy old man with no children of his own.’
She stormed off to the bedroom, and Ronan heard the creak of their bed as she threw herself on it.
As he cleared the table he couldn’t help allowing a little burst of hope. She’d eaten at least half of her meal, where she normally pushed it aside after a bite or two. She’d spoken to him, in full sentences. And she’d allowed herself to get angry. It was progress, he decided. She’d cracked the ice, just a little. He hoped it might not take too much more to shatter it completely.
––––––––
‘If you’d let me in, I could’ve helped. I know all the charms to help protect the pregnant mother and her baby. I could’ve done something.’
Dyllis bustled around the kitchen, wiping crumbs off the table into her hand.
‘You brought this on yourself, the two of you. You especially—staying during a childbirth! It’s a woman’s space, that is. There’s no place for men at a birthing. And then to invite in a stranger—who knows what the woman did. I’ve lived in these parts my whole life and I’ve never heard of an ‘Oulde’ before. She probably cursed you both.’
Ronan stood by the bedroom door, arms crossed across his chest. He wished he could expand his body so it filled the space and prevented any sound from passing through. Myna had suffered enough already, and yet this woman would not give up, reciting her lecture every time she visited. The best Ronan could do was stop her from barging in on Myna and causing more distress.
‘Myna was a gift. I tried so hard to have a child, and I couldn’t, for so long, and then the Sea heard my plea for a baby and delivered Myna to me. And now you’ve stolen my chance at a grandchild. The two of you. If I’d been here—’
‘Myna would never have coped had you been here. The labour probably would’ve taken her as well.’ Ronan spoke through gritted teeth, words he’d long bottled up.
Dyllis looked up in surprise.
‘Well, I never! After all we’ve done for you. You came to this town with nothing, and we built you a house, on our land—’
‘Alfred contributed half the house, for the work I’d done for him. And this land isn’t yours—it belongs to no one. It’s the place no one wants to live because it’s so far away from anything. You’re here because you were cast out from the village. Don’t think I don’t know that story.’
Dyllis sucked in a breath, jutting out her chin and straightening her shoulders. ‘You don’t know half the story! If you think you’re better than us, simply because of a misunderstanding in our past, then you can just move back into that village. I can take care of my daughter myself.’
Ronan almost laughed. ‘Your daughter doesn’t want to be taken care of by you. You don’t care; you harass, you intimidate, you get under her and everybody else’s skin.’
‘Then why didn’t she move away when she had the chance? Why would she insist you build your home here, so close to us?’
Ronan narrowed his eyes. It felt so good to be giving voice to everything he’d held inside. ‘She doesn’t believe she has a place in the village. Whatever it was you did in the past, it made her an outcast, too.’
‘You have no idea what we’ve been through as a family.’ She spat the words at him. ‘And you never will.’
Dyllis strode out the door, allowing it to bang shut behind her, and Ronan sank against the wall, his heart pounding. But then Myna’s soft sobs carried to him through the walls and the relief flooding his system at saying words long locked away passed, regret taking its place. He should’ve kept quiet. Myna already suffered enough. She didn’t need her husband and mother fighting, too.
