American Anthem

by BJ Hoff

  Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t look away. “I’m wild to go, MacGovern. ’Tis all I’ve ever wanted to do, don’t you see? But now there’s more to it than that. If I stay in Dublin City, sooner or later Nan Sweeney will set her bullyboys on me, and they won’t finish until they pound me to a puddle in the street! No one crosses old Nan without paying the piper.”

  She stopped and caught a breath, then went on. “I thought—if I returned your watch, I could convince you to take me with you. I’d work for you however long it took to pay my way, I would! I’m fit, and I’m as strong as any lad, I promise you.”

  “You are daft, is what you are!” Conn threw back at her. “As if I’d subject my family to the likes of you!”

  Vangie gave his arm a hard yank, and when she spoke this time, her tone was much sharper than before. “Stop it, Conn! The girl says she’s telling the truth, and you have your watch. Now let it be.”

  In truth, Conn had begun to feel a bit shamed by the way he had harangued the girl. But she was a thief, despite what was almost certainly an uncommon attack of conscience, not to mention her outrageous scheme to wangle her way aboard ship with his help.

  Well, she could forget that idea. He might look the great amadan, but the little trickster would learn soon enough that he was not the dolt she apparently took him to be.

  But what could have gotten into Vangie, to be rebuking him in front of the children so? It seemed for all the world that she was taking the little reprobate’s side against him!

  He shot the girl one more look of contempt, then swiped his hands in a gesture of disgust. “I have no more to say to you. You know what you did, and that’s the end of it.”

  He would have walked away, but Vangie restrained him with a firm hand on his arm.

  In spite of the girl’s disreputable appearance—and even taking into account her thievery—Vangie couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. The child’s ridiculous clothes were in tatters, her hair looked a fright, and she was soaked all through. She also appeared to be none too clean. And that terrible fierce look of pain in her eyes when Conn had lashed out at her—

  But what caught at Vangie’s heart more than anything else was the girl’s seemingly feverish desperation to go to America. Was she alone altogether, then, that she would take up so casually with a family of strangers—with a man she had robbed, or at least thought of robbing—simply to get away?

  For an instant, Vangie almost felt guilty at her own reluctance to leave when the girl in front of her would obviously have traded places in an instant.

  It occurred to her that the busker girl might be in trouble with the law. Perhaps the reason she was so intent on getting out of Ireland was because a gaol cell was waiting for her if she stayed.

  And yet, she didn’t seem a bad sort. Sure, this was no hardened felon.

  “Please, MacGovern,” the girl pressed again. “You won’t be sorry for taking me—”

  “Now you listen to me, girl!”

  Conn had gone red in the face, and he was jabbing a finger at the girl as he began to revile her again—a sure sign that he was about to lose control of that wicked temper of his.

  “Even if I were mad enough to pay any heed to your foolishness,” he said, his words cutting the air like a blade, “which I assure you I am not, I couldn’t take you with us! It takes money to go to America, or are you so thick-skulled you didn’t know that?”

  The girl paled, and Vangie was sure she was close to tears, but she stood her ground, not quite looking at Conn but clearly not about to let him cower her either. Vangie couldn’t help but admire the youngster’s grit.

  “What, are you thinking the captain will simply tip his hat to your highness and welcome you aboard out of the goodness of his heart?” Conn ranted on. “You have to pay for passage, don’t you know? I’ve sold near everything but the shirt off my back as it is, just to take my family across! I haven’t the means to secure passage for a lying little thief like yourself as well!”

  Vangie gripped his arm, obviously hoping to silence him. But it was not her touch that shamed him. It was Renny Magee herself, lifting her thin face to reveal an utterly stricken look. Conn felt a rush of self-reproach over his harshness with the girl.

  Even so, there was no chance to make amends. Aidan chose that moment to step up and insinuate himself between Conn and the busker girl.

  Nothing could have prepared Conn for what followed. “Give the girl my ticket, Da,” his son said quietly. Conn froze, staring at his son without comprehension.

  “What—”

  The boy’s lean face was that of a stranger, hard and cold and openly defiant. “Give her my ticket.”

  Conn clenched his fists, bracing himself against the pain roaring up the back of his skull as disbelief clashed with the rage already boiling inside him.

  “Aye,” Aidan said, his tone quiet but edged with challenge, “I mean what I say, and you know I do. She can have my passage, for I will not be using it.”

  15

  THE PARTING

  What brings death to one brings life to another.

  IRISH PROVERB

  Aidan’s low, even voice startled Vangie into silence.

  Conn, obviously as stunned as she, stood as rigid as a rock, watching Aidan as the boy stepped up to him.

  Without so much as a glance at the busker girl, Aidan faced his father. “Didn’t I tell you from the first I wasn’t going, Da? I only came with you today to help with the little ones and say good-bye.”

  “I’ll not be listening to this!” Conn exploded, his features contorted with anger and incredulity.

  “And isn’t that just like you?” Aidan said, his voice still chillingly quiet. “You never listen. But this time you need to hear me, Da. I am not going with you. So if this girl wants to go, then she might just as well use my passage.”

  A terrible heaviness lodged in Vangie’s chest, a weight so crushing it stole her breath away. Her mind flashed through scenes from the past nineteen years: Her infant son snuggled against her breast. Conn lifting the laughing boy over his head, swinging him about as if the two of them could sprout wings and fly. Aidan’s tenth birthday, in better days, with the family gathered around him.

  No. For the love of God, no! He couldn’t mean to leave them now, to stay behind in Ireland while they traveled to America. They would lose him forever, never see him again in this life.

  She desperately wanted to deny it, to shut her eyes to the truth she saw in her eldest son’s face, to open them again to find that it had all been a terrible misunderstanding. But she knew. With a sick certainty, she knew that Aidan had set his mind to this, and there would be no changing it.

  He had told them he would not go, told them repeatedly. And just as repeatedly, Conn had refused to listen.

  And what about herself? She had been desperate to believe Conn when he insisted that the boy was simply talking to the wind, that he would never stay behind and watch his entire family set out without him. Hadn’t she turned a deaf ear to her son as well?

  Now, however, as she stood watching the boy challenge his father, she admitted to herself that she had never been quite convinced. Unlike Conn, who simply could not believe that in the end Aidan would actually defy him, Vangie had merely suppressed her fear that he might do exactly that. Perhaps if she had faced the inevitable from the beginning, then she would be better able to bear the pain now ripping through her.

  She looked at her son and, as was so often the case, saw a younger Conn.

  Indeed, the boy could have been Conn twenty years ago.

  They were almost the same height, and although Aidan was the more slender of the two, he was already showing signs that in a few years he would grow as sturdy and hard-muscled as his father. He had the same sun-burnished copper hair, the same stubborn chin. The same fire in his eyes. The same pride: the fierce, hardheaded, at times irrational pride that clearly marked him as the son of Conn MacGovern.

  God in heaven, how can I bear
this?

  She would surely go mad. And Conn—

  Merciful Lord, it might destroy Conn entirely!

  Quickly, she handed the baby to Nell Grace, then laid a hand on her son’s arm. “Aidan—”

  He turned to look at her, his expression going soft and regretful. “I’m sorry, Mother. Truly, I am. But I told you. I told you and him both. I can’t go. ’Tis not for me.”

  “You young fool!” Conn shouted at him. “Do you have any idea at all what you’re throwing away? You would actually stay in Ireland to starve while your entire family goes off without you? Think, boy! Your passage is paid! Do you really mean to throw away the only ticket to freedom you may ever have?”

  “I don’t call it freedom for a man to desert his country!” Aidan returned. “And I won’t be throwing away my ticket, unless you’re too stubborn to make use of it.” He gestured toward the busker girl. “She wants to go with you. I don’t. Take her.”

  “Do you really expect me to hand over your passage to her?” Conn flung an arm out toward Renny Magee, nearly striking the girl as he did so. “What, I’m to take a common little thief to America in place of my own son?”

  He took a step toward Aidan, his face murderous. “You are going, do you hear me, boy? You will go with us if I have to pound you senseless and throw you onto that ship!”

  Aidan’s eyes went hard, and Vangie saw him knot his fists, but he never wavered. “I warn you, Da. Don’t lay a hand on me! Don’t.”

  The ship’s whistle pierced through the pouring rain. There was no time left to them now. No more time for talk, no time to beg or try to reason with them. If they didn’t go aboard soon, none of them would be leaving Ireland this day.

  But it mattered little how much time they had. Conn and Aidan would simply go on blasting each other with the pent-up fury and frustration that had been seething between them for weeks. And in the end nothing would change. There would only be more pain.

  Conn lunged toward Aidan, who in turn gave his father a hard shove backward.

  “No!” Vangie shouted, throwing herself between them. “No, Conn! You’ll not do this. Aidan—stop it! Both of you, stop!”

  They looked at her, then backed off—but only a little—as they stood glaring at each other.

  “Conn,” Vangie said, her voice trembling, “he did try to tell us. He said he wouldn’t go. We didn’t listen. We didn’t want to listen!”

  But even as she tried to defend her son, Vangie felt her heart begin to shatter.

  She turned to Aidan. “I can’t believe you mean to do this! Can you actually turn your back and walk away from us, son? From me? From your father, your sisters and brothers? The Lord knows when we’ll see one another again, if ever! Aidan, think! Think what this will mean—to all of us!”

  “I have thought about it, Mother.” His voice gentled as he took Vangie’s hand. “And, of course, I’ll miss you. You know I will. But I’m not a boy anymore, can’t you see? I’m a man grown, and I’ve a life of my own to live, without Da telling me how to live it—or where. And I don’t choose to live my life in America!”

  He fairly spat the word, as if the very taste of it would poison his mouth.

  By now Aidan’s face was a mask of barely controlled fury. “Either you give my passage to the busker girl or else toss it into the Atlantic,” he grated out. “I don’t care what you do with it, but I’ll not be using it. If the day ever comes when I change my mind, I’ll pay my own way across. But this is not that day.”

  Conn stood, shaking with scarcely restrained rage, as Aidan embraced the others, first Vangie, then Nell Grace, who by now was weeping openly. He kissed both her and Baby Emma on the tops of their heads before leaning down to the twins.

  Vangie thought she would surely strangle on her grief as she watched him say good-bye to his little brothers.

  “Be men for our mother, Seamus. Sean,” he said, using their Irish names as he almost always did. “She will need you to be fine, good lads.”

  The two boys, similar in appearance though not quite identical, gazed up at their older brother with solemn, freckled faces. Johnny—Sean—whose hair was more golden than the copper fire of his father and two brothers—was clearly about to burst into tears, while James—Seamus—was already weeping. Even so, each of them managed to shake Aidan’s hand.

  And then the lad straightened and again faced his father. Vangie thought she would not survive the pain that knifed through her as she watched her son and her husband stand there staring at each other in unforgiving silence. In their pride and hotheaded stubbornness, they were so much alike, though neither would ever admit to it.

  “Conn—do something!” she cried.

  But he merely turned away, his face a mask of stone.

  A swell of despair overcame Vangie, and she closed her eyes, unwilling to watch this final, heartless farewell between her husband and her son. When she again opened her eyes, Aidan had turned and was walking away, without so much as another word or a backward glance.

  In that moment, a ray of light died somewhere in Vangie: the light that had been born with her eldest child, her darling boy. In its place remained only a cold, suffocating darkness, and she wondered how long it would take before it swallowed her whole.

  Then she looked at Conn and realized with dreadful clarity that a light had gone out in her husband as well. It struck her that Conn’s suffering might actually be more grievous than her own, for the bond between a man and his son was a fierce tie, more than blood and birthright, more than name and honor. A man saw in his son his own hopes, his dreams—his future. When Aidan turned his back on them this day, he not only rejected his father’s authority, but he renounced Conn’s dreams and brightest hopes as well.

  Her head thundered as she watched her son walk away, his back erect, his shoulders squared. The ship’s whistle sounded again. Her glance went to the busker girl for an instant. Then, ignoring the shrieking agony inside her, she made a decision.

  “Conn,” she choked out, “there is nothing left to do about Aidan. We can only pray that in time he will come to his senses and join us. But there is something we can do for that frightened child.” She motioned toward the busker girl. “I think we should take her with us.”

  “For the love of heaven, woman!” he began to rail at her. “That frightened child stole my watch. Have you forgotten that? She’s a thief, and who knows what else!”

  “You don’t know but what you did drop the watch, just as she said, Conn. All you know is that the girl returned it.” Vangie gripped his thickly muscled forearm even harder. “And she is frightened! Look at her! Oh, Conn, listen to me—please! It’s wrong to waste Aidan’s passage, I tell you, wrong not to help that girl when we have it in our means to do so. Let her come with us.”

  He stared at her in open disbelief.

  “I don’t mean to simply give her the ticket for nothing,” Vangie pressed. “We will see that she earns her way. She will work for the price of her passage.”

  He went on studying her, his eyes still brimming with bewildered anger. “You’d actually do this? You’d let a guttersnipe like her use our son’s passage?”

  Anger flared up in Vangie. “Our son doesn’t want his passage! The girl does. She’s begging to go. I say we take her. Let something worthwhile come of all this!”

  “You mean it,” he said, looking at her as if he scarcely knew her. “You actually mean to help the little thief.”

  “I do,” Vangie said evenly. “What can be the harm?”

  He let out an ugly laugh. “Oh, no harm, I’m sure, so long as she doesn’t murder us all in our beds!”

  “She’s a child,” Vangie shot back. “And perhaps a thief. But not a murderer, I think. She’s just a poor girl looking for a future. Looking for some hope. We have it in our power to give her that hope, and I believe our Lord would have us do just that.”

  She pressed his arm, refusing to let him turn away from her. “I want to do this, Conn. We need to do this.”


  Conn’s eyes brimmed with resentment as he glanced from Vangie to the girl. “What does it matter?” he said, giving a shrug. “Do as you like. Our son has gone mad, so why shouldn’t the rest of us follow after?”

  His tone was laced with bitterness as he went on. “But don’t be expecting any thanks from the likes of her. And you would do well to forget any notion of her earning her way, I’ll wager. She will no more step foot on deck before she disappears to work her mischief elsewhere; you wait and see if she doesn’t.”

  “You may be right,” Vangie said, too heartsick and exhausted to argue any further with him. “But at least we will have done what we could to help her. ’Tis not for us to take responsibility for what she does with that help. That’s for our Lord to deal with.”

  He pulled his mouth into a hard line. “ ’Tis not for me to take any responsibility for her at all. This is your idea, not mine, Vangie. I will have no part in it.”

  A chant played over and over in Renny Magee’s mind as she watched the two of them, MacGovern and his woman. Let him say yes…let him say yes…

  Renny had reached the point where she believed her entire future might very well hang on what the MacGoverns decided. Despite the fact that she would have preferred to put Nan Sweeney completely out of her mind, she had not exaggerated her present situation. In truth, no one crossed old Nan and got away free. Nan would never let up until she had her justice. And old Nan’s kind of justice was an ugly thing, as everyone knew. She was a terrible woman entirely.

  This Mrs. MacGovern, now, she was a different sort, that much was clear. A good woman, Renny could tell. A tall, fine-looking woman with skin of rich cream and a grand head of hair the color of the bay at sunset. She had kind eyes, she did, but the way she was squaring off with her thickheaded husband gave Renny high hopes that for all her kindness, she was more than a match for the man.

  Even so, Renny cautioned herself not to be too hopeful. MacGovern had no reason to go easy on her, not with the bad business of the watch and all.