And so Moira tried to make ends meet, cleaning houses, cleaning anything for anyone that was dirty, bringing the children along when they weren’t in school. Some people hired her because they needed the help, most because they felt sorry for her, because she had a husband who didn’t provide for his family. It was as if he didn’t know how. His mother had done everything for him while he was growing up, at least in a material sense. He’d been the only son in the family, a rugby star in school, catered to, adored. And then his father died when Cillian was seventeen, and his mother went off to Dublin and married a contractor, started a new life. They lived in the Algarve now, bought the grandchildren toys that broke within minutes or were too expensive to maintain, the scooters and bikes outside, a small junkyard, needing to be hauled away, fixed, something, the house too, the kitchen tap dripping, the fridge clunking, everything falling apart.
Moira put the soup on to simmer. Sorcha had dealt with the dishes, as Moira had asked her to do, but she’d forgotten the laundry. Moira thought about calling her in to finish the job, then changed her mind. The girl already did too much, saw too much. She was only twelve. She hardly ever went out and played with the younger ones, let herself be a child.
Moira hummed to herself, straightening cuffs and collars, crossing sleeves over chests, bending trousers at the knee, smoothing the worn cottons and knits and linens.
“What’s this, then?” Cillian’s voice was quiet in her ear. Where had he come from? He hadn’t been on the couch when she walked in. Maybe he’d been in the garage, dabbling with another half-finished project, and heard her when she’d come up the drive, waited until she’d been lulled into complacency.
She felt the size of him behind her, filling the room—he was a big man, still built like the athlete he’d once been, though more flaccid now in the belly. He could move stealthily, as if he weighed nothing at all, when he wanted to. She froze, a creature seeking camouflage—a chameleon in Madagascar, an arctic fox in Alaska (The children had been studying them at school. “Will we go there someday, Mam? Will you take us?” the little ones asked. “Someday. Someday,” she said)—finding none. Only walls so gray it seemed as if the ceiling would rain on them any minute, the weak-hinged cabinets, banged one too many times, the light fixture spitting and flickering above, the wiring all wrong, casting a long shadow behind them, him looming over her, the scene a page torn from one of Rory’s comic books depicting a harrowing episode before the hero arrives.
“Just the lace,” she said.
He dangled the lingerie in front of her face, straps looped like nooses, big enough to slip around her neck, tighten. “Who’ve you been tarting yourself up for?”
“No one. I told you. It’s just the lace.”
“Sure, sure it is.”
Outside, the finches shook the hedgerow, quarreling over nigella seeds, last year’s pods desiccated, shattering. Riordan shrieked from the field. He’d been found. He was it now. He counted: One, two, three, four…
“Cillian, please.”
“What’s this got to do with handkerchiefs and tea towels, I’d like to know?” She’d lost count of how many times he’d raised a hand to her. “What happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors,” he told her, and she agreed, because these were private matters, weren’t they, misunderstandings. He’d hold her close. He’d be sorry. He didn’t mean it. She knew that. It was only his temper. He’d always had a temper, especially when he’d been at the drink. He had a passionate nature; it came with the territory.
“I was going to surprise you.” She tried to charm him. “I was going to wear them for you.”
“A likely story.” His face was expressionless, but behind the mask he seethed, his right hand balled into a fist, the other crushing the lace.
“We’ve each been taking a turn.” If she could only explain—
“Whores, every last one of you.” His voice pitched lower still, the violence in him building.
“It’s not like that. If you’d only listen—”
He didn’t, wouldn’t. He wasn’t a man easily persuaded of anything once his mind was made up. “Do you think I’m fecking stupid? Do you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He threw the lace across the room and was on her in seconds. She couldn’t twist away. He held her firm. He could catch rabbits with his bare hands, her too. He squeezed her arms, skin oozing between his fingers like dough, rising, pale. Neither of them spoke. They were locked in a wordless place, filled with grunts and whimpers, feet sliding and scuffling on the floor. She mustn’t fight him. She’d tried that once with near-disastrous results. All she had to do was survive the next few moments. She went limp, focused on her breath, in, out, in, out, thinking it would be over soon, but it went on longer than usual, on and on and on. She glimpsed the children as he dragged her past the window—back and forth she and Cillian went in their little dance—heard their laughter, their joy, out in the world, out there, as she finally hit the wall and crumpled to the floor, a heap of skin and bone.
“Get up.” His shadow engulfed her. “Get up.”
She couldn’t move, arms and legs splayed as Sinead’s rag doll, angles all wrong.
He stood over her, panting, shoulders squared, hands ready, bouncing lightly on his feet, still keyed up, and yet awareness began to dawn in those few seconds, the fear in his eyes growing at the realization of what he’d done. He turned and smashed his fist into the door frame, cracking the wood as he lumbered out of the house. She heard the car start, tear down out of the drive, wondered where he was going, if he was coming back.
He left her there against the wall for someone to find, later, as the lace lay tangled and dinner burned on the stove.
Her sister. Her baby sister.
Aileen could see it already: The swollen face. Misshapen lips. Broken arm. And worse, worse.
She knew this was coming. She knew.
A hundred little bruises scattered over the years, and now this.
Sorcha had called her on the phone, no sound at first, just breathing. Then: “Mam’s not moving. She won’t open her eyes.”
“What’s wrong?”
“He did it, Aunt Ailey. It was him. Da. I saw him through the window. I should have done something—”
“Is he still there?”
“I don’t think so. I’m scared. She won’t move. I think she might be dead. Is she dead? Is she—?”
“No. No, she isn’t.” She can’t be. She can’t. “I’ll be right over. I won’t let him hurt you—”
She’d nearly crashed the car, she drove so fast down the lane she’d traveled countless times before, tears streaming down her face, half blinding her. The minutes, the minutes, each one counted, each one passed—Couldn’t the car go faster? She stomped on the accelerator, sped around a corner, up on two tires, then slammed back down, fishtailing, straight again, mud splattering the driver’s window, puddles everywhere. She hit the steering wheel, bruising her palms, screaming. You bastard. If she’s dead, I’ll kill you. I swear to God I’ll kill you.
Scenes flashed like jumbled snapshots, loose and torn, flying before her eyes, what had been, what was, what would be: the sun on the road where she’d walked Moira to school every day, practicing the Gaelic words for colors, so she wouldn’t forget, would win the prize: fionn, dubh, dearg, corcair, gorm, glas; the buttercups Moira ate as a little girl, thinking they’d make her hair yellow; the night she’d burst through the door, telling them she was getting married, her face flushed, hair wild; there was no stopping Moira in those days, when she had a will of her own, such a strong will in some ways, such insecurity in others.
Aileen screeched into the driveway, gravel spewing from the tires. She fumbled with the car door. Her hands wouldn’t work. She felt as if she didn’t have any bones, but she had to move. Every second counted, every blessed second. She ran up the front walk, passing a single skate, scraggled daffodils; a bike lying on its side like a dead horse, wheel spinning slowly in the wind; the old nets, hanging on
the side of the cottage, catching only dead leaves and spiderwebs since Cillian had sunk the boat he inherited from his father, too drunk to navigate the shoals that night three years ago—three years, and he hadn’t gotten a steady job, Moira doing everything, he couldn’t lift a finger, except to her. The welcome mat on the step, unreadable, worn down from the weather, the feet. The wreath Moira made for the front door from dried turf flowers and artemisia, weeping, scattering seeds Aileen crushed beneath her boots as she pushed her way into the silent kitchen, spattered red, the noise of the kids still playing outside, because Sorcha had kept them away. Come out, come out, wherever you are… The blood. Her face. Moira’s face.
Aileen picked up the phone, called the Garda, then a neighbor to stay with the children, one of Moira’s friends, Dee-dee, a nurse, who came running, who tried to help, but it was beyond her, beyond all of them, the brokenness.
“Where is he?” Sorcha tucked herself as far into a corner as she could get, samplers on the walls on either side, cross-stitched with sentiments of happy homes. “Is he gone? The phone rang right after. Do you think it was him, calling to see if she was all right? I was too scared to answer. You don’t think he’ll be angry, do you? He doesn’t mean to lose his temper. Mam says he doesn’t mean to—”
Aileen held Sorcha close and hushed her, told her everything would be fine, though she didn’t know if it would.
The lace lay on the floor, the lace Aileen thought too fancy all along, coiled as a snake. She’d told the women, hadn’t she? But her friends hadn’t listened—and now…She nearly threw the knickers and bra away, but it wasn’t her place. She tossed them into a drawer instead, slammed it shut.
Beaten over a bit of lace.
People had died for less.
Aileen trailed the ambulance to the hospital, took a seat by the bed as soon as the nurses let her, the hours flowing into each other, the hands on the clock moving too slowly. She spoke to Rourke on the mobile. He asked if she wanted him to come and sit with her.
“No,” she said, “head straight home and stay with Sile. I’m okay.”
He was just getting back into Glenmara after having been on the road. “I’m here if you need me.”
Yes, he was. Even if it felt that they had drifted apart. He was still there. Her Rourke. She pressed a hand to her chest. She must not cry. Must not cry. She prayed to every saint in the book, regardless of their specialty. She needed them to come together, needed Moira to heal. She stared down at her boots, drab green Wellingtons, muddied as if she’d come in from weeding the garden, except there was a smear of her sister’s blood on the toe.
She shouldn’t have let Moira go back to the house. She should have offered to keep the lace. She should have known what Cillian would do.
None of them had. Maybe he hadn’t even known himself, what he was capable of.
Moira was lucky, the doctors said, as 4:00 a.m. came and went and a garbage truck rumbled down the alley, taking away the waste. The damage wasn’t as bad as it looked. She’d be able to walk. It could have been a different story. Aileen’s hands shook then. She tucked them between her legs to make them stop, blinked away tears. The medical staff filed out of the room, continuing their rounds, the residents, the interns, the doctors, studying the sick, the broken, how best to mend them, send them home.
The hospital was all brick and mortar and lino and halls and cubicles and rooms and machines and tubes, cramped, claustrophobic, the statues flanking the front entrance chip-nosed, as if they’d been in a fight. Aileen didn’t like hospitals, not since visiting her mother years ago. Her mother had been admitted for shock treatments; they left her looking stunned and betrayed, and young Aileen so frightened that she swore she’d never get sick enough to be put in that place.
And yet there she was, keeping watch over another relative: Moira. Aileen counted the dots on the ceiling, the tiles on the floor, the buttons on the monitors, watched the bubbles of liquid in the lines going in and out of her sister’s body. “When will she wake up?” she asked the nurse.
No one could give a definite answer. “Time will tell,” they said, as if time could speak.
She studied Moira’s face for the slightest change, the rise and fall of her chest—she was breathing, at least there was that—the twitch of a lip, an eye, a hand. She took that hand, held it, as she had when Moira was a child and she guided her, reassured her, skipped down the road side by side, singing silly songs when no one was around to see, because Aileen was too old for such things by then, though in some ways she didn’t want to be.
Aileen fell into a light sleep, waking with a jerk every time her head dropped to the side. She was exhausted, but she couldn’t rest for long. The lights flickered. She and Moira were in a shadow world, a place of waiting and uncertainty, nothing clearly defined. It went on this way until the sun dragged itself over the horizon and brought light, or a version of it, back into the world.
“Ailey?” Moira murmured, finally coming around.
“Thank God you’re awake,” Aileen said.
“Have I been asleep?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Aileen had to make her understand this time. She chose her words carefully, turning each phrase over in her mind first. She rarely spoke in such a measured way, and that alone seemed to get Moira’s attention.
“Why am I in hospital?” Moira asked.
“Don’t you recall?” Aileen wanted to know what she remembered, or what she chose to remember.
“It seems like a dream,” Moira said, her voice faint.
“Dreams don’t break bones.”
Moira fixed her gaze on a corner of the room. “No, I don’t suppose they do.”
Aileen paused before continuing. “The police are looking for him now.”
“Are they?”
“They haven’t found him yet.”
“He could be anywhere.”
“Yes.” Outside, in the parking lot, looking up at that very room. Or on a ferry, crossing the sea.
“Will you press charges this time?” Aileen asked. “For the children’s sake.”
“Did they see?”
“Only Sorcha.”
A tear slid down Moira’s cheek. “Is she all right?”
“I called Dee-dee. She’s with them now. Sorcha’s frightened. She needs to know she’s safe,” Aileen said, adding, “Will you do it?”
Moira shook her head. “There’s no need. He’s gone. He knows what he’s done, and he’s gone.”
Aileen looked up at the ceiling, asking God for patience. What would it take for Moira to turn him in? “He’s always come back before.” And Moira had taken him in, saying things would be different, were different, the pattern repeating itself.
“Not this time. I saw it in his face. He went too far, and he knew it,” Moira said, not meeting her eyes. One moment, she’d say she’d settled, that she’d made a mistake marrying him, the next, she contradicted herself, would hear no advice. He was her husband. It was her life. Hers. No one could tell her how to live it. “You don’t understand. You weren’t there.”
Aileen saw a hint of regret pass over her face. “You won’t take him back again, will you?” she asked, seizing what she thought was an opportunity. “Promise me you won’t take him back.”
“He isn’t bad. He’s just—” She and Cillian might separate, she’d said before, but she swore they’d never divorce. Never.
“I know, Moi. I do,” Aileen said. “But he nearly killed you this time. If you could only see yourself—” She was tempted to put a mirror in front of Moira, forcing her to look at her bruised face, broken arm, but even then, could she be made to see things as they were? Aileen doubted it. “You can’t keep defending him. Not after everything he’s done.”
Oh, but her sister could. She’d done it before. She’d made a vow. She’d make the marriage work if it took the last breath she had left in her body. She was, in some ways, the most Catholic of a very Catholic family, adhering to a strict form of the faith
that cut to the bone. “We said ‘till death do us part.’”
“That meant natural death, not one at his hands. You’re beyond reach of any vow.”
“Is that what the priest says?”
“Who cares?” Aileen snapped. “I’m so exhausted after sitting here all night, wondering if you’d wake up, if you’d walk again. Stay married to the bastard, for all I care. Just don’t let him set foot in the house. Don’t let him come anywhere near you. Your children need you. I need you. Alive.” She buried her face in her hands. There. She’d said it, and now perhaps their relationship would be irreparably damaged along with everything else, but she had to speak, she couldn’t not speak. Things had gone too far.
“Ailey,” Moira said finally. “Listen to me: I won’t. I won’t let him come back. Not this time.”
Aileen wanted to believe her, but she knew there were no guarantees, that he could beg and sweet talk, because he needed Moira, because he loved her, he did, even though it came out wrong. And Moira, yes, Moira, needed him too. “All over the damn lace,” Aileen muttered, turning her attention to something she could influence. The anger and fear came in waves, had to go somewhere. “I knew no good would come of it. It’s all because of Kate. This never would have happened if—”
“Yes, but don’t you see? He’d still be there, wouldn’t he, if this hadn’t happened, if Kate hadn’t come into our lives,” Moira said. “It changes everything—for the better.”
“How do you figure that? You could have died. You were lucky to come away with a concussion, a broken arm, and some cuts and bruises.” Aileen shook her head. “I knew changing the lace like this would be our undoing. It has to stop. We have to stop.”
The Lace Makers of Glenmara Page 18