Gracelin O'Malley

by Ann Moore

  Brigid nodded. “Aye. For the great king.” She bundled up the linens and set them near the door. “’Tis a fine name that: ‘Michael Brian Donnelly.’ A strong name.” She went near the cradle and looked down into the baby’s face.

  Grace felt her eyes closing. “Can you take Mary Kathleen, Brigid? She’s done and I’m slipping away as I speak.”

  Grace fell immediately into a deep, exhausted sleep, even while Brigid was changing the rags for fresh and washing her legs. The room was quiet but for the breathing of three tired souls and the tick of the clock, and the snap of the fire now and then as the flame began to burn low. Brigid found herself drawn again and again to the cradle where the two babies slept. The girl looked well enough, but the look of the boy troubled her. Something was not right there, but she couldn’t see it, although she’d counted fingers and toes three times now. She’d never had early babies herself, let alone twins. She shook her head as Grace moaned in her sleep.

  “Sure and they’re a month early by the looks of them, but the boy’s head …” she mumbled to herself, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. “That’s what it is, all right. The head appears swollen.”

  She sat down in the rocking chair and pulled out her rosary, fingering the beads as she moved her lips in prayer, starting again when she’d finished, keeping a watchful eye on her charges.

  Bram was late coming in, and drunk. Having been met by young Nolan with the news of the birth, he’d begun celebrating immediately with a round of drinks at O’Devlin’s. His singing woke Grace and she listened as Brigid flew down the stairs and told him to hush now, mother and babies were sleeping. He had a son, she began to tell him, and a …

  “A son!” Bram’s voice boomed through the house. “I knew it would be! I’ll see for myself!”

  He brought with him the smell of fresh, cold night air and strong whiskey. His wet hair dripped on Grace as he bent to kiss her.

  “Out in the rain without your hat, were you, Squire Donnelly?” She smiled up at him, drowsy with warmth and contentment.

  “We’ve got a son.” His eyes filled with drunken, dreamy tears.

  “Over there.” She tipped her head toward the cradle in the corner. “A wee daughter, as well.”

  His eyes went wide with amazement. “A daughter? A boy and a girl?” He hurried to the cradle, peering in as if he’d never seen two babies in all his life. “Which is which?” he whispered.

  “The boy has a bit of light hair, the girl’s is thicker and darker.”

  He lifted the boy out and held him awkwardly before placing him in Grace’s outstretched arms.

  “He’s a fine-looking lad, young Michael.”

  “I thought. Michael Brian, if it’s to your liking,” she said shyly.

  He nodded. “A fine name.” He looked into the little boy’s face, lifting the tiny chin with one finger.

  “And the girl is Mary Kathleen after Granna and my mother.”

  Bram kept his eyes on the boy. “Fine,” he said softly. “She’s your daughter. Call her anything you like.”

  Mary Kathleen woke then and began to cry for her milk. Grace bade Bram put the boy back in the cradle and bring the girl to her.

  Bram brought her the red-faced girl and watched as Grace unbuttoned the top of her nightgown to nurse the child. His gaze was so intent as the baby began to suck that Grace became flustered and her nipple popped out of Mary Kathleen’s mouth. The baby screamed with frustration, her tiny fists flailing until Grace got her resettled.

  “Demanding, that one,” Bram said, but Grace heard approval in his tone.

  He stayed until she was done, took a last look at his son, then left to bed down in his own room.

  In the morning, Brigid brought her breakfast in on a tray, but Bram came up shortly after with his coffee. He was as polite and tender with her as in the early days of their marriage, and Grace rested peacefully for the first time in months. But two mornings later, she knew that little Michael was not well. Mary Kathleen had awakened regularly every two or three hours to nurse until she was full and milk dribbled out the side of her mouth. Michael had yet to give more than a few tentative sucks before whimpering and falling into a fitful sleep. She was anxious for him all that day and kept him tucked into the bed with her, putting him to her breast as often as she could and cooing to him to wake up now and eat.

  “He’s not well,” she said right away to Bram when he came in with her dinner tray. “He cannot suck.”

  Bram shrugged, tired from the long days and sleepless nights, damp and muddy from the constant drizzle that had fallen since the babies were born.

  “They sleep a lot in the beginning, women tell me. He’ll wake up hungry any day now.”

  “But his color’s odd—he’s gone yellow in the face and hands. And he whimpers in his sleep.” She set her jaw and looked up at Bram. “I think we should call Doctor Branagh.”

  Bram frowned and rubbed a hand over his face. He needed a shave.

  “We’re not going to call in the doctor for every little thing. Especially that hayseed Branagh. I don’t want everyone knowing our business.” He looked at her with irritation. “Besides, I thought you farm girls knew all about babies.”

  Grace stared at him, then picked up Michael and held him in her arms. She said nothing.

  Bram relented. “Well, anyway, he’s gone to Cork City. I passed him on the road yesterday afternoon, and he asked about the babies.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That they were fine.”

  Grace’s eyes filled with tears.

  Bram shifted in the chair. “Well, they were fine then, weren’t they? You’re overwrought, is all. Tired from being up all night with that greedy one over there.” He glanced toward the cradle where Mary Kathleen slept. “What does Brigid say?”

  “That Mary Kathleen might be taking most of the milk. She says keep him in the light and the yellow will go away, and then he’ll wake up enough to suck.”

  “Do that, then.” Bram stood and walked to the window.

  “I have! But it’s been so dark!”

  As she spoke, clouds gathered and rain began to spatter against the glass. Bram stared at his reflection.

  “Send the girl out to nurse,” he said and Grace’s heart lurched. “There’s a woman, out toward Agahmore, nurses newborns. Husband’s dead, so it pays her rent. Have Brigid take the baby to her tomorrow.”

  “Send her out?” Grace could not hold the tears and they spilled over her cheeks. “Oh, Bram. I couldn’t send her away from me. How could I do that?”

  Bram turned and gave her a hard look. “Send her out or lose our son.” He softened his voice, trying to convince her. “It won’t be for long, Grace. You said so yourself. A few days in the light and he’ll start in. Give him a week or so to put on some weight and get the best of your milk, then you can bring the girl back and care for them both.”

  “Can we not bring the woman here?” Grace pleaded.

  Bram shook his head. “She’s got children of her own and a home to tend. And other babies in her care. I’ll pay her well. The girl will get plenty of milk, and she’ll be well looked after.”

  Grace bit her lip and looked down at her quiet, yellow son. “All right, then,” she whispered. “If you think it’s best.”

  “Good girl.” Bram came and patted her on the head. “I do think it’s best. And if young Michael hasn’t improved in a few days, we’ll have someone out to look at him.”

  “Doctor Branagh,” Grace said firmly, eyes down.

  Bram sighed with annoyance. “Or the midwife, or someone who knows something about babies, and can keep their mouth shut.”

  Grace slept not at all that night. Michael sucked fitfully, but never opened his eyes. Mary Kathleen looked so healthy next to him, with her pink cheeks, dark hair, and bright, shining eyes. She cooed and nursed with as much vigor as always and Grace cried each time at the thought of letting her go. Morning came and she nursed the baby one last time, holding h
er so tightly that Mary Kathleen yelped and scowled. Brigid stood silently nearby, then scooped up the baby, bundled her, and took her out into the cold morning air. Grace got out of bed, made her way to the window, and watched until the carriage was out of sight. When Brigid returned an hour later, she reported that the baby had taken enthusiastically to her nurse and was doing fine.

  Grace dressed herself, then sat by the window, rocking Michael and praying fervently for sunlight to break through the dark clouds. She sang to him, whispered love to him, begged him to open his eyes and suck, and he would, but never for very long and never so much that his mouth overflowed with her milk. Bram came in the evening and said to give it a few more days, he was getting all the milk now and would soon be fine. In the end, however, it wasn’t Doctor Branagh they called, but the casket maker.

  Grace’s son died deep in the night of his eighth day, head swollen atop a thin body, his skin the color of marigolds. He lay next to his mother in the bed, her arm loosely around him, her ear near his mouth to mark his breathing. It had been steady, though light, and she had fallen into a weary sleep wherein she dreamed the dream that had saved her life so long ago on the night of her mother’s death. Again, Kathleen’s voice came singing down the hill with the choir of angels, again hers rode over the top of the others calling out, “Breathe, breathe!” and Grace awoke with a start, pulled the still bundle into her arms and cried out the same words, but it was too late, she had not been strong enough to anchor him in the world as Granna had anchored her. Unbelieving, she loosed the blanket around his tiny shoulders and chest, felt for the weak beat of his heart, touched the golden skin of his face, and willed him to open his eyes. When he did not, she sat up in the bed and cradled him in her arms, crooning softly to him every lullaby she knew. Her breasts ached from all the milk he could not drink, and she held him tightly, brushing her nose along his downy head, breathing in the sweet scent of him, rocking, rocking until the first light of morning crept quietly into the room and her vigil was ended.

  When Bram came striding into the room after his breakfast, Grace was still holding the dead child, singing softly, her voice now hoarse. She looked up and saw him as if from far away, watched as his rested, confident face paled with shock. She frowned when he reached for the baby, and shook her head. He sat down in a chair across from her and they regarded one another; she with great detachment, he with stunned bewilderment. And then he got up and left.

  He had always been, if nothing else, a decisive man, and in this he buried his grief. Brigid was ordered to Grace’s room, where she soothed the disturbed mother, and eased the child out of her arms. The casket maker was called, and the wood chosen.

  “He’ll have the best!” Bram insisted, then shut himself away with a bottle of whiskey. “He’s a Donnelly, by God!”

  The whiskey broke down his fortress, and he ranted and raged at God and his wife. The storm passed as quickly as it had come, and though new lines of bitterness marked his face, he seemed resigned to this latest blow of misfortune. He remained distant from everyone, especially his heartbroken wife.

  Grace could not lie in a bed that was empty of both husband and baby, and so she arose and dressed, resuming her duties mechanically. She knew that grief had made her numb, but she had no idea how to save herself. Perhaps the other child, the girl. But she was afraid of losing her, as well, and so left her where she was. Unable to cry, barely able to think from one moment to the next, she carried her son’s newborn gown through the house, becoming frantic when the smell of him began to fade. She folded the gowns he’d worn, the nappies, booties, and cap, wrapped each piece in tissue, and laid them in the bottom of her keepsake chest. The other clothes she sent to Mary Kathleen’s nurse. With nothing to hold now, nothing to fill her empty hands, she turned again to her needle and began to embroider a casket cloth. Her hands did what she wanted, but there was no light in her design. She could not remember joy. In despair, she contemplated her own death.

  Ten

  THEY all came to the wake—Ryan and Aghna, Granna, Patrick, and Sean, who suffered the cold, jolting ride in the wagon. It was he who finally calmed the waves of grief that smashed against her heart, quoting his beloved book: “And all wept and bewailed her, but He said, ‘Weep not, she is not dead, but sleepeth.’”

  He took her hand and led her out into the sharp night, away from the hushed voices in the sitting room. There was no loud keening as there had been for their mother—Bram’s proper English sensibilities would not allow for such an emotional scene—and now Grace understood what a relief it would have been to make that sound, to throw her apron over her face and let go of all the tight, burning pain that banded her heart. Instead, she had to restrain herself and act as though she had accepted this blow. She sat quietly in mourning, graciously offering tea or coffee or whiskey to her husband’s guests and nodding at their stories of other sorrows. Sometimes she thought she might burst out laughing as she looked at the ladies whispering over their teacups; other times she was shocked at the rage that welled inside her.

  “We’re all of us sick at heart for you, Grace,” Sean said when they were outside away from other ears, his voice full of anguish.

  “And what do you know of it?” she asked bitterly, hating the sound of her own voice, but unable to alter it. “You’ve never had to hold the dead body of your innocent child in your arms.”

  “No,” he said. “Nor will I know the joy of one that lives.”

  “Then you’re blessed, to be sure.” She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the hard, black ground.

  Sean stayed quietly beside her, the hushed voices of those inside the only noise around them.

  “You don’t mean that.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. They were the same height, brother and sister, and they looked eye to eye. “He must’ve been grand, Gracie, and I’m sorry I never knew him.”

  His words penetrated the fog of her pain, and suddenly she felt it so sharply, she thought she could not bear it. She clutched her heart, and he caught her as she began to fall, holding her tightly in his arms.

  “Weep, now, and never mind them inside,” he whispered. “What are they to you that you must hide your grief in front of them?”

  She began to wail then, blinded and choking as tears ran thick and heavy down her face, soaking her brother’s shoulder, shaking his body along with her own. The voices inside the house had fallen silent as her shrieks swept through the hills and echoed in the night.

  “Would you like me to call out your husband?” he asked gently when her sobbing ebbed and she was still.

  She shook her head against his chest.

  “Is he no comfort to you, then? Because the boy is lost? His heir?” He stroked her hair, felt the heat of her emotion in its dampness.

  She wiped her eyes on his jacket, then lifted her head. “He dares not say anything about it,” she said. “Because it may be he who weakened the baby.”

  Sean frowned. “And how would he do such a thing?”

  She studied his face, her beloved brother who should already know in his heart what had happened to her and not make her say the words.

  “Was he cruel to you, Grace?”

  “Aye,” she confessed, and the weight of it fell from her shoulders. “Early on, before Christmastime. It was only the once,” she added quickly. “And he was drunk, I’m ashamed to say.”

  “It’s not you should feel ashamed,” he said, his face hard. “What kind of man is it, beats a woman carrying his child?”

  She had no answer.

  “Why did you not tell us?”

  “What could you have done?” she asked plainly. “And after a while, it seemed as if it might have been just a bad dream. We never spoke of it.”

  “You should never have married him.” Sean glanced over his shoulder at the shadows of those inside. “He doesn’t love you.”

  “And how do you know that?” she demanded.

  “Because I’ve seen the fa
ce of a man who does, and the light in his eyes when he speaks your name makes the eyes of your one in there seem cold and lifeless as an empty hearth.”

  They stared at one another.

  “What are you saying?” Grace whispered.

  “Morgan loves you,” he said simply. “He’s the man you should’ve married.”

  Grace slammed her fists into his chest, knocking him back against the porch post, her face red with fur. “Damn you, Sean O’Malley,” she cried. “Damn you for saying that!”

  He caught her fists before she could strike him again. “Don’t you love him, Grace. Because God knows I think you do!”

  She shook her head, weeping.

  “Leave Donnelly,” he insisted. “You should never have married him in the first place. Leave him and marry Morgan.”

  She yanked her wrists out of his grip, and in the light that spilled from the window, he saw how terribly tired she was, how defeated and heavy with the weight of her life, and he realized he’d done nothing but pile on another stone. But he could not take back the words.

  She pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders and turned away from him. “It makes no difference who I love and who I don’t,” she said, her voice weary and far away. “I stood up before God and married Bram Donnelly. For better or for worse, I promised. Before God. I cannot break my promise to God, Sean. He’s already taken my son.”

  “God doesn’t cause the misery in our lives,” Sean said softly. “We do that ourselves. God is our path through it.” He pulled a ragged book from his pocket and put it into her hands. “Mam’s Bible. Take it now and use it to find your way, for who better than God can understand the pain of losing a son?”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  “And there’s something else. Not about Morgan.” He hesitated. “Though I want you to know that Donnelly will pay if he ever lays a hand on you again. I may be no match for a man like that, but nothing will stop Morgan from coming, mark my words.”

  “I know,” Grace said, remembering the night Bram had beaten her and the later vision of Morgan behind the looking glass. “He was there.” Her eyes cleared and she turned them fiercely on her brother. “And that will be the last time we ever speak of him this way.”