Longing for Home: A Proper Romance

by Eden, Sarah M.

  But Katie had been entirely certain she’d die herself if she went to the factories; she’d be crushed to death inside an enormous machine. If one of them had to die, Katie didn’t want that someone to be her. So she’d shaken her head quite firmly and told him again. “I don’t want to go, and I won’t unless you make me. Not unless you tie me up and toss me on the boat screaming all the way. I’ll not go.”

  Father’s expression hardened. His shoulders grew tense beneath his ragged coat. “You disappoint me, Katie. You full disappoint me.”

  The passage of more than eighteen years hadn’t dimmed the pain of that moment. Katie looked out at the silhouette of the distant mountains but saw in her mind that pitiful plot of land with its rotten potatoes. She saw her father’s disheartened face.

  She brushed at her wet cheeks with the palm of her hand. Her thoughts didn’t stray far from those weeks of arguing with her father. That was the beginning of the darkest time of her life. She’d discovered a selfish part of herself she could only look back on with shame and regret. She’d worked hard to overcome that failing in the years since. Every wish and want she’d had from that time forward came up against rigorous evaluation. She hadn’t so much as purchased thread for mending without asking herself if she did so out of selfishness or pride.

  She’d lived her whole life attempting to clear her heart of her father’s disappointment in her. How she wanted him to know she had become a better person, for him to tell her he was no longer disappointed in her.

  She wanted that so badly it ached inside her. But he was dying. Her father was dying.

  “Katie?”

  Even in her distraction, she instantly knew the sound of Tavish’s voice. Slowly she let her thoughts return to the present and focus once more. She’d reached the clump of trees where she often went to play her music and think. Tavish stood at the river’s edge, watching her.

  Katie swiped the tears from her eyes.

  She fully intended to offer a simple hello. But what emerged was, “My father’s dying, Tavish.” Her voice broke with the quiet words.

  “I know, darlin’.” He stepped closer to her. “And I’m sorry.”

  “I was supposed to fix things with him. I was supposed to make things right. But I’ve run out of time.”

  Tavish stepped around her so they stood facing one another. “Your mother seems to think you’d have enough time to get there.”

  Katie shook her head. “But he won’t want me there. Not yet.”

  “Katie.” He cupped her face with his hand. “Of course he would want you there. You’re his daughter.”

  “I have a debt I need to pay, a terribly heavy debt. He’d not want me back until I pay it.”

  “You owe him money?”

  She turned to face the water, her heart tearing inside. “I need to buy back his land, Tavish. The land he lost in The Famine. I can’t face him again until I can give him back his land.”

  “A lot of people lost land in The Hunger,” Tavish said. “He’d not blame you for that.”

  “No. It was my fault. It was entirely my fault.”

  He only sounded more confused. “What was your fault? I don’t understand.”

  She felt torn between wanting him to know and fearing what he’d think of her if he had the whole truth. Perhaps losing his regard was part of her penance.

  “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, things I’ve not told to another soul.”

  “You told me about your father’s fiddle. Surely you can trust me with this, as well.”

  Katie wrapped her arms about herself. “This is different. You’ll hate me when you hear what I’ve done. You’ll walk away from me and never look back.”

  He set his hands on her shoulders from behind. “I never would, Katie.”

  She stepped away. In her tension and regret and guilt, his touch was nearly unbearable.

  “Trust me this far. See if I can’t bear some of this burden with you.”

  Katie looked back at him, uncertain. ’Twas almost as if the words came to her mind fully formed. She needed to tell him. If he despised her for her past, she’d know her guilt had not yet been washed away.

  He held a hand out to her. “Trust me, Katie? Please?”

  She’d told him of stealing her father’s fiddle, and he’d not scolded nor condemned her. If she could trust anyone with the rest of her story, she could trust him.

  She took his hand and allowed him to lead her to the canopy of trees. They sat side by side on the cool grass.

  She took a moment to collect her thoughts and calm her nerves. “When first we met,” she said at last, “I told you of my older brothers.”

  He nodded.

  “I didn’t tell you I had a sister.”

  “No, you didn’t. You said you only had older brothers. You were very specific about that.”

  Katie dropped her gaze to her hands, her fingers fussing with each other. “I lied,” she whispered. “I’ve been lyin’ about her for years.”

  Tavish’s silence didn’t bode well for the much larger confession she had yet to make.

  She pressed on, knowing the tale needed to be told regardless of the outcome. “Eimear was born during the earliest years of The Famine. She was always small and frail. My parents worried over her a great deal, spending what little money we had keeping her fed as much as they could. Each of my brothers left home for Manchester and jobs in the factories there in order to save the family the cost of feeding them, allowing more to be spent keeping Eimear alive.”

  “Aye,” Tavish said quietly, “such things happened a lot during The Bad Times.”

  Katie nodded. “It wasn’t enough. The praties were rotting in the ground again, and years of scarcity had driven high the price of what little food could be bought. The family either needed fewer mouths or more money, and we all knew we’d never manage the latter.”

  She clasped her hands tightly, pushing herself on. “There was nothing for it but to send me to Manchester as well, only I didn’t want to go. I was afraid. Afraid of being killed in the factories, of growing ill as I heard so many did. I was frightened of being away from my family, away from Ireland. I couldn’t imagine being happy anywhere but at home.”

  “I think that is understandable.” Tavish spoke hesitantly, as if he could sense the history was growing worse.

  “I refused to go,” Katie said. “I argued over and over and over with my father. He’d have to force me to go, I said. He’d need to drag me there, I said. He told me again and again, in words I understood plainly, that if I stayed, the food would run out and the money would run out. I’d seen us come close before with my brothers. And I’d watched other families we knew lose their homes. I knew people who’d died of hunger because their food ran out. I understood exactly what he meant.”

  For a moment her thoughts were filled with the memory of sunken eyes and swollen bellies, of tiny frames shrunken to nothing but bones. How well she’d known the fate of those left to starve.

  “If I stayed, we’d be destitute. There’d be no chance of payin’ rent; we’d lose our home and land. Without food, we’d suffer greatly. But Eimear wouldn’t merely be miserable, she’d die. She was too frail to survive such suffering. I knew that. I knew it as surely as I knew the sun rose in the east every morning.

  “A good-hearted child would have thought of her sister first, would have endured the worry and the work and the separation for the sake of her sister’s life.” She shook her head in firm disappointment with herself. “I knew just the arguments that would pierce my father’s heart. I knew just what to say to burden him with such guilt he’d not send me away. Staying would cost us our home and put my sister’s very life in danger, but I refused to go.”

  Katie rose swiftly to her feet. She couldn’t keep still while recounting those days. “He finally relented. ’Twasn’t long after that the food ran out. Father took what little money we had and bought more. But the rents came due, and he couldn’t pay. He begged the land
agent for time and received his answer in the darkest hours of night.”

  “When your house was burned down?” Tavish asked.

  Katie nodded. “We lost our home and the land Father’s family had worked for six generations. If I had gone to Manchester, we wouldn’t have lost our home. He’d be there still. I need to give that back to him, but I don’t have the money yet. I hardly have enough for . . . for Eimear’s . . .”

  She took a deep breath. “The history grows worse, Tavish,” she warned.

  “I haven’t left yet, Katie.”

  She rubbed her arms. Though the night was warm, she felt chilled to her core.

  “’Twas the beginning of winter, cold and bitter, and we had not so much as a roof over our heads, nor anything more than the clothes we’d slept in and the blankets we’d dragged out with us. We didn’t even have shoes.” They’d stolen clothes off clotheslines along the way, shoes off back porches. They’d gone from a family humbled by want, but honest and upright, to a family of thieves.

  “I should have regretted then what I’d done to bring us so low. I should have felt repentant. As we walked the roads, my only thought was that at least I wasn’t in the factories. My feet were burned in the fire, and every step I took was excruciating. I wept in agony but didn’t regret saving myself from going to Manchester. I saw my parents stooped and aged with worry. I watched my sister grow thin and quiet, weak to the point Father had to carry her because she could no longer walk. And still I didn’t regret it.”

  Katie rubbed a hand over her face, fighting the pain growing inside. She shook as though exposed to the bitter Irish winter once more, pushed back more tears at the memory of her poor sister’s suffering.

  A self-loathing she’d not allowed herself to feel in a decade or more surged inside. What a horrible child she’d been, an unfeeling and cold-hearted girl. She looked over the river, the sting of wind only adding to the tears forming in her eyes.

  “We lost the only home my family had known for nearly two hundred years, just as Father had said we would. My sister was dying, just as Father said she would. I’d known what would happen, and still I’d done everything I could to keep from being sent away.”

  “You were very young, Katie.”

  She knew that argument wouldn’t stand. “How old were you, Tavish, when The Famine taught you to know death?”

  “I was seven.” Something like resignation sounded in his voice. Katie didn’t look back at him to see if his expression matched his tone. “A neighbor family lost two little ones.”

  “And, young as you were, you knew what death meant and that dying of hunger was a real thing, did you not?”

  “I did,” he said quietly.

  “So did I.” Katie rocked back and forth, from her toes to her heels, unable to hold still in the least. “We slept in abandoned barns and roofless skeletons of houses with hardly a bite to eat as the weeks dragged on. Day by day death crept into Eimear’s eyes. I knew then I’d made a terrible mistake, but I realized it too late.”

  “What happened to her?” Tavish’s voice was so quiet Katie hardly heard it over the sound of the river.

  “’Twas nearly six weeks after we lost our home.” Katie wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. “Father found us a barn for shelter, one hardly standing but better than huddling against a stone wall like we’d been doing. He laid Eimear down in the musty straw and told me to care for her while he and Mother walked to the nearest town, hoping to find a bit of bread or a day’s work.

  “‘Look after your sister,’ he said. ‘She’s in your charge and your care.’ And I promised him I would. I was wrong to have put my worry over Manchester above Eimear’s well-being. I vowed to my father I’d take care of her.” For the first time since their house burned, Father had looked at her without disappointment.

  “We lay there in that barn as still as could be. We were trespassing, after all. Eimear kept saying she was cold. ‘I’m cold, Katie. I’m so cold.’ She said it again and again. I was afraid we’d be found, so I shushed her, telling her to keep quiet.”

  She heard Tavish rise behind her, but his footsteps didn’t trail off. Her gaze fell to the river bank directly in front of her.

  “I covered her with as much straw as I could, our blankets were too worn to be of any use. She just kept saying how cold she was.” Katie closed her eyes. ’Twas, perhaps, her clearest memory of Eimear. “‘I don’t want to be cold anymore,’ she said, so quiet and so miserable. We’d all been freezing for six weeks. All on account of my selfishness.”

  Tavish didn’t argue that point. He made no sound behind her. She only knew he hadn’t left because she hadn’t heard him go.

  Katie lifted her eyes to the nearly dark horizon stretching out before her. She let out a slow breath. Best finish her story and let him go if he meant to.

  “Hours passed before she stopped saying how cold she was. I lay there beside her, looking at the stars peeking through the missing pieces of the roof. I was relieved when she finally grew quiet. Relieved. Eventually I fell asleep. When I woke up, Eimear was still sleeping. I tried to nudge her awake.”

  For a moment Katie couldn’t speak. Too much pain filled her. She trembled from deep within, tears falling from her eyes.

  “She was so cold.” Katie whispered. “So very, very cold.”

  A salty tear rolled over her lips. Katie brushed it aside, but another immediately took its place. Her lungs clenched. Only with great effort could she pull in the tiniest bit of air.

  Tavish’s hands settled gently on her shoulders. He didn’t speak a word, simply stood behind her, silently listening.

  “I sobbed with my hands over my mouth to stay quiet, afraid someone would hear and find us there. I wept alone all day. Mother and Father didn’t return until nightfall.” Her next breaths shook out of her. Her throat burned with emotion. “They knew before they even saw Eimear. My mother crumbled, dropped to her knees right there. Father—Father—”

  One of Tavish’s arms wrapped around her middle, holding her close to him. Katie wiped at her wet face. She struggled to regain control of her voice, to get even the smallest of breaths through.

  “Father looked at me. He didn’t speak to me again. Not ever.”

  She felt ill thinking back on those moments. The whole world fell apart that day.

  “Father carried Eimear to the nearest town the next morning and asked the priest if she could be buried in the churchyard. We hadn’t money for a casket or headstone or even a grave digger. Father dug the hole, and then we helped him fill it in.”

  More tears dripped off her face. Katie let them fall. With one hand Tavish gently caressed her arm, his other arm yet wrapped around her waist.

  “All I could think was how cold she would be in the frozen ground without even a blanket. I could hear her voice in my mind. Over and over. ‘I’m so cold, Katie. I’m so cold.’”

  She pressed her hand over her mouth, stifling her gasping breaths. Without a word, Tavish stepped around her and pulled her into a proper embrace. She buried her face against his chest, clasping his shirt tightly. If she let go, Katie knew she’d simply collapse.

  “If I’d gone to Manchester, she wouldn’t have died. She would have been warm and safe and alive. It was all my fault, Tavish.”

  “You couldn’t have known, love. Not truly.” His arms tightened around her. “You were only a child yourself.”

  Katie shook her head against him. “I knew enough.”

  His fingers threaded into her hair, holding her ever closer to him. “Oh, Katie.”

  “My parents didn’t speak to me again. Not the day we buried Eimear. Not all the way to Derry. They didn’t say a word. Not one single word.” Her tears had soaked his shirt front, and yet he didn’t pull away.

  “Have you been blaming yourself for this all your life?”

  “I know what I did, Tavish. My parents knew it.”

  He rubbed her back as he held her. “Is that why your father left you in Derry?�
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  “I killed his daughter.”

  “You are his daughter.”

  Katie slid her arms around him, leaning against him for support. “The night after we buried Eimear, I lay beside them in an abandoned cottage, pretending to sleep. They were whispering to each other. Father said, ‘I’ve lost everything, my land and all my children.’” She closed her eyes and concentrated on the warmth of Tavish holding her as he was. It did not stop the tears. “I was lying right there next to him and he said all his children were gone. All of them.”

  Tavish set his hands on either side of her face, raising her eyes to his. “I don’t think he meant that you were not one of his children anymore.”

  “He did.” She knew it.

  “And that is why you mean to go back? To give him his land so he’ll claim you as his own again?” Tavish shook his head. “Katie—”

  “I mean to give him his land because it is the right thing to do. He was punished for a mistake I made. I can’t expect any kind of forgiveness if I don’t make that right. And my sister never had a proper headstone, nothing more than two sticks tied together in the shape of cross.” She took a shuddering breath. “I mean to see to it she has a fine stone with her name on it. Years from now when people see it, they’ll know her name. She’ll not just disappear as if she never lived at all.”

  “My Sweet Katie.” He brushed his fingers along the line of her jaw. Such a tender gesture.

  “The only thing I can give him now is his fiddle. But that won’t be enough.”

  “Your mother said she wanted you to come home. Sounds to me as though just yourself would be plenty enough.”

  That set the tears falling again. “She didn’t, though. She told me time was short, in case it mattered to me. She didn’t ask me back.” She sniffled against the continuing tears. “And Father didn’t say anything at all. He never sends word to me. Never asks Mother to send his greetings or his love to me. Even dying he didn’t ask me back.”

  Tavish pulled her more fully into his arms. “So what do you mean to do, darlin’?”

  “I don’t know. I hate the idea of not seeing him again, of not even trying to make things right with him.”