A Song Across the Sea

by Shana McGuinn

  “Da!” she screamed. “Da!” She’d never run as fast as she did now, her bare feet not even feeling the sharp stones in the earth.

  She reached his side and turned him over gently. It gave her a shocking, sickened feeling to see his face suffused with a bluish tint, his mouth opening and closing weakly, as if he couldn’t draw in breath.

  “Tara,” he gasped. “Me chest…so tight.” Again his hands went to his chest in a futile gesture.

  It shook her to her core to see her father frightened. She tried to make her face a mask, showing only reassurance. She loosened his collar even though it was already loose, pulled off his cloth cap and lay it under his head, to cushion it a little.

  This couldn’t be happening. Her strong, vigorous father could not be felled like a tree cut down in a forest. It was happening, though. Her father lay at her feet, gasping helplessly.

  “Mother!” she screamed, without hope. The farmhouse was too far away for her cries to be heard there. The anguished wail welled up from inside of her again anyway. “Mother!” And then, in a desperate shriek: “For the love of God, SOMEBODY HELP US!”

  Her voice rang out over the empty fields. There was no one there. The horse, busily sampling some newly-cut hay, looked over at her curiously then resumed eating. Padraig was chasing a rabbit, which dodged from the toddler’s outstretched hands and darted back down into its burrow.

  Tara raged against her helplessness. She gripped her father’s hands fiercely. His fingers felt cool and clammy.

  “Rest yourself now, Da. I’ll go and fetch mother and we’ll get you back to the house straightaway.”

  “Tara, don’t—” He was struggling to speak. He tried to raise himself up on one elbow but fell back. When he spoke again, it was in a choked whisper.

  “Don’t…leave me, child. It’s…a terrible thing…to die alone.”

  Warm tears flooded her eyes. She knew death was close for him. She could see it in the waxy sheen of his skin, the gray hue of his lips, the eyes widened in pain. She felt as if her own heart were about to stop.

  “Tara,” he whispered.

  “I’m here,” she sobbed. “I’m right here, Da. You’ll be just grand, once we get you home and you have a rest in your own bed. That’s all you need. A rest.”

  His gaze was distant. He didn’t seem to hear.

  “Just remember…how much your father cared for you, Tara. And…and tell your mother…”

  Then he died. As surely as a candle flame being snuffed out, the life in him flickered and was gone.

  Sobbing uncontrollably, Tara threw herself on him, her tears dampening his shirt. She put her ear to his chest and listened for the generous heart that no longer beat there. After a long time—was it hours?—she sat up and gently closed his eyes with her fingertips, murmuring a prayer for his soul.

  Paddy wandered over and sat down next to his father. “Bread?” he asked hopefully.

  Tara felt herself giving in to tears again. At least she’d had a chance to know her father. To Padraig, he would stay locked within the small, dreamy scope of childhood’s memory. He would forever be just the big man who’d tossed the boy up into the air, who’d held him firmly in place as he sat proudly atop a horse, who’d scolded him gently when he’d caught him happily uprooting flowers in the garden.

  Padraig would never fully know this man. Tara vowed to tell him all about his father, when he grew old enough to understand.

  She stood up slowly, wearily, feeling a thousand years older than she had a few minutes earlier. She picked up the enamel bucket from where she’d dropped it on the ground. The tea had splashed out, soaking a small patch of earth around it. The cloth-covered lunch was, by now, a feast for the ants, no doubt. She didn’t bother looking at it. The bucket, the bread: her mind busied itself with details of no importance because she dreaded bringing her mother the news. Still, it would have to be done.

  “Come, Paddy.” Having gotten no response from his father, the little boy got to his feet and followed her without hesitation.

  Mechanically, she swung the bucket at her side as she climbed the hill toward the house. She saw the farm as if through a remote, unfamiliar lens. The hay still stood behind her, rustling in the tall breeze. Wildflowers peered at her from the hedges and the river still flowed implacably to the west. Yet the colors had drained from the day as if it were a painting left out in the rain.

  It would never be the same to her. Tara sensed that much. She strode slowly toward the house, her little brother trailing behind her, with no inkling of just how different it would be.

  Chapter Three

  1912

  Tara fumbled with the twine. Her chilled fingers would not work properly, but there was still too much to be done before she could go back to the house and wrap them gratefully around a steaming cup of tea. She glanced back over the meager rows of potatoes she’d already set and realized, miserably, that she was nowhere close to being finished. Struggling, she succeeded in tying the twine around a jute bag that protected the spud. Another one done.

  Had it always felt this way, she wondered distantly. Was it just that when she’d been working alongside her father, she hadn’t noticed how sharply the bitter wind cut through a person on these broodingly dark spring days?

  She moved further down the row, her knees protesting as they came in contact with sharp stones embedded in the earth. Thick clods of mud clung to her heavy boots and frayed tweed skirt. The bucket of potato sections next to her seemed to be growing no lighter.

  She thought about what other 16-year-old girls were doing at this moment. Sitting in schoolrooms, no doubt, listening to a classmate read aloud from a history book and getting a sharp rap on the knuckles with a long wooden pointer if they were caught woolgathering. Well, she had plenty of time for woolgathering.

  Her mother had insisted that she stay on in school, though there were long absences in the spring planting and fall harvesting seasons. Tara had reluctantly agreed to it, although schooling only added to her backbreaking workload. There were still the farm chores to be done when she arrived home each day. Missed days of classes such as this one would leave her studying late into the night to catch up.

  Still, Sister Regina understood. She wrote down lessons for Tara, and lent her the necessary books when she couldn’t afford to buy them. Tara sometimes saw a worried expression on the nun’s face when she looked at the exhausted girl. She was grateful that Sister Regina cared.

  Tara finished with another row. Her empty stomach rumbled insistently and she tried to fix her mind on other things. What would Her Duchess Miss Connelly be after doing right now, in her grand mansion in America? It was a game Tara played often in her mind, to ease the drudgery of her work. Would Miss Connelly be lounging on satin pillows, having strained her neck from looking upward at buildings so tall they reached to the sky? Or, might she be riding around in one of those new horseless carriages?

  Tara didn’t half believe the stories Brigid Connelly had told about America on that long ago day in their wee parlor, but the place still loomed large in her imagination. Anything could happen there. Anyone could be anything, it was said.

  She took out one of her favorite fantasies, turned it over in her mind, dusted it off and replayed it. In it, she was standing on a magnificent stage in a cavernous hall in America, singing to an appreciative audience. She wore a gown of sea-green silk shot through with gold thread, a low-cut gown that hugged her figure and made her look like a princess. Her long mass of wavy hair was caught up on her head with gold combs encrusted with pearls. The glow from the footlights made it look burnished, brought out the glints of auburn in it—a far cry from the tangled, mud-smeared mop it was at this moment. The audience stretched in front of her, rows and rows of elegant people, their faces pale blurs. They hung on her every note. Her long, slender arms swept out in front of her in an expressive gesture, instead of reaching forward into muddy ground.

  Offstage, in the wings, a man waited for her. He stood in
the shadows. She couldn’t make out his features, but she could glimpse his outline. Her song took on an added luster and her voice nearly caught in her throat at the overwhelming love she felt for him, a love she knew was returned. When the performance was over he would sweep her into his arms and together they would exit through the stage door into the night, to be together always.

  It was a grand dream.

  At last she stood up and surveyed her work. She’d done enough for today. More could have been done if her mother had worked beside her, as she sometimes did. In the four years since her father’s death, however, her mother’s health had grown fragile. She slept for long periods of time and ate little. Her once pleasantly rounded figure was now painfully thin. It seemed as if every cough and ague found its way to her. She tried to help with the field work, but Tara usually ended up sending her back to the house to rest.

  Could a person die of sadness?

  Little Paddy, at six, wasn’t able to be of much help, though he did feed the chickens and the cows. When Tara plowed the land in late winter, then harrowed it and made the drills ready for setting, he was always on hand, eager to offer helpful suggestions. The lion’s share of the work, though, fell to Tara.

  She walked toward the house, thinking about her brother. The least affected by Brendan McLaughlin’s death, Paddy was the one joy in the house, the happy spark that could make his mother and sister smile through their fatigue and gloom. He was off to school these days, and at mealtimes they were entertained with droll stories of his classmates’ antics. Himself, of course, always managed to avoid the wrath of the nuns. Tara wasn’t surprised. With his cheeky grin and glib way with words, he was probably able to charm them as easily as he jumped over the stone garden wall on his way home from school.

  As she neared the house, Tara noticed that its thatched roof was sagging. She would need to repair it soon. Spring’s heavy rains could wash away sections of the roof and spill water into the rooms below.

  Wearily, she straightened her thin shoulders and opened the back door, trying to put a cheerful smile in place for her mother.

  • • •

  “They’re havin’ a gatherin’ over at Hennessey’s next week,” her mother said, over supper. “I’m thinkin’ we should go to it.”

  Tara chewed thoughtfully on a turnip. “I’ve too much to do. There’s still the back field to be planted. I may not be finished with it by then. And Maggie is due any day now. I don’t like the look of her. The calf could be turned ’round wrong.”

  Padraig looked interested, but it wasn’t in Maggie’s plight.

  “I want to go to Hennessey’s!” he shouted excitedly.

  Tara knew he was looking forward to seeing his friends outside of school, on a purely social occasion. These “gatherin’s” were, indeed, family affairs. The country people came from miles around. The villagers turned out in full force as well. From new babies carried in their mothers’ arms to the eldest grandmother, everyone would be there. It was a chance to gossip with neighbors, renew old acquaintances and make new ones and forget the cares of labor for an evening.

  Her mother helped herself to a boiled potato.

  “You’ve been workin’ so hard, Tara. A young girl like you should have a little enjoyment once in a while. And I doubt that the lads in the village would mind a chance to dance with you. I saw Timmy Fagan lookin’ at you in church last Sunday. He was tryin’ so hard to catch your eye he nearly tripped goin’ up to receive the Holy Communion.”

  Padraig snorted, nearly choking on his milk. He wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand—the hand that still bore a puckered patch of scarred skin.

  “Though I think,” her mother added darkly, “he might have chosen a more fittin’ place to ogle you than church. Padraig! Use your napkin.”

  “Who says I want to be ogled at all by the likes of Timmy Fagan? In church or elsewhere?”

  Her mother smiled indulgently. Tara realized how seldom she saw that smile these days, how it softened the sad lines in her face and warmed the brown eyes.

  “It wasn’t just him I was thinkin’ of,” her mother said. “I hate to see you spendin’ all your time in the fields, workin’ hard as a plough horse. You should have a pretty new dress and a chance to show it off. An evening with nothin’ more to do than laugh and be a lovely young girl with no cares in the world. If I could be more help to you… If only your father hadn’t…left us…when he did…” Her words trailed off.

  “I can do more,” Paddy put in helpfully. “I don’t have to go to school. I already know how to read!”

  Tara laughed out loud at Paddy’s offer. Ah, the unbounded enthusiasm of a six-year-old!

  Paddy’s dark blue eyes flashed impishly and he smirked at her, pleased with himself for making a joke. With those eyes and that thick, tousled chestnut hair, he resembled Tara more every day. He’d grow to be a fine-lookin’ man, she thought. Already he showed signs of his father’s rangy build.

  She turned her attention back to her mother, grateful that Kitty McLaughlin was concerned about her daughter’s future, but feeling almost as if it placed an additional burden on her. It was true that Tara felt isolated from her old friends, yet she hardly had a chance to miss them. Days full of unending work left her with little taste for their silly chatter. Her mother’s mention of a new dress was another matter altogether. There was no extra money for such frippery. Tara’s few dresses were well worn and hopelessly out of date. In the past few years she’d grown taller and blossomed in a way that embarrassed her. Her rounded breasts and womanly hips strained against the thin fabric of those old dresses.

  She thought longingly back to the dress she’d made so long ago, when she was a child of twelve. Apple-green, it was, with blue flowers that eventually faded from many washings. She wished she could fit into that dress again. Put it on and become the coltish 12-year-old who’d been free as a bird, with no worries in the world.

  But it wouldn’t do. She’d grown too tall for the dress long ago. It had been given to the cousins. Sheila had immediately declared it to be her favorite and had worn it constantly until she, too, outgrew it. By now, it would have been handed down to one of the younger girls.

  Another dress would have to be chosen, and altered. She was still handy with a needle, but did she need an extra task right now?

  “I don’t mind workin’ in the fields, mother,” Tara lied. The work had to be done or they would surely starve, so what was the point of sayin’ otherwise? “And you are a big help. And wee Paddy here will be takin’ on more and more as he gets older.”

  She wondered, with a pang of fear, if there would be anything for Paddy to “take on.” In spite of all her hard work—and some occasional help from neighbors, the little farm was barely sustaining them. She could feel it slowly slipping from her grasp. Soon would come the time when they’d have to approach Mr. Brady about selling off some of their fields. It made her miss her father all the more.

  She’d often thought that maybe they should sell the whole lot and move into the village. It was no real solution, though. How could they earn a living there? Once the money from the sale was gone, they’d be destitute. The few jobs to be had didn’t pay well.

  Tara studied her mother, more than a little worried. Kitty had always had fair skin, like Tara, but now her face seemed unnaturally pale. The dark shadows under her mother’s eyes troubled Tara.

  She was being selfish. Her mother could use a lighthearted evening herself. They both could.

  As long as the future pressed down on them unrelentingly, why not dance and laugh for a few hours before returning home to a house that might not be theirs much longer?

  “Your Aunt Bridey and Uncle Kevin will be there, too. It’s not often you get to visit with your cousins.” This her mother said as if it were a selling point. Tara smothered a retort and smiled wearily.

  “Sure and I could use a bit of dancin’, I suppose,” she said. “As long as Maggie has done her maternal duty by then. I th
ink she’ll be ready soon.” Tara sighed. “I’ll have to look through me dresses, though…”

  Her mother brightened suddenly. “Leave the matter of a dress to me,” she said, some of the old enthusiasm back in her voice. “I’ll fix up somethin’ special for you.”

  “What about me?” Paddy demanded.

  “What about you, little man?” Tara asked him. “Do you want a new dress as well?”

  He flicked a sliver of potato at her, missing her left ear by inches.

  “I want a new suit! Like Jerry Clancy has!”

  “You’ll wear your old one and be glad about it!” Kitty said sharply. “And you’ll not be wastin’ food in this house. Throwin’ potatoes at your sister, indeed!” Her expression belied her tone: she couldn’t contain her smile as she picked up the dirty dishes and carried them over to the sideboard.

  Tara wondered which of her shabby dresses her mother would resurrect. Maybe those skilled hands could make one of those relics presentable. Tara had her pride, after all. She did not like to suffer the scorn of someone like Mary McCarty, whose father owned a dry-goods shop in the village. Mary was always turned out in fashionable attire, not that she needed to be. Her blond curls, wide blue eyes and pouty, china-doll face seemed to be enough to turn the heads of all the lads in the village and provoke envy among the girls. “Why do you farm girls wear such plain clothes?” she’d once asked Tara. “Is it because you have to shovel cow dung in them?”

  Well, if the dress didn’t turn out grand enough to suit Mary McCarty, Tara would simply hold her head high and carry herself like a queen. And maybe “accidentally” kick Mary in the shins during a spirited reel!

  She was Tara McLaughlin, daughter of Kitty and Brendan McLaughlin. She had nothin’ of which to be ashamed!

  • • •

  Maggie cooperated by delivering herself of a calf the very next night. The chill wind blustering outside the cowbarn carried the promise of rain in it, but inside, all was dry and snug. The swallows nesting up in the rafters bestowed an air of contentment on the old barn.