With a twist of her hips, she shifted her lie beneath him. Now he was settled perfectly between her thighs, his bare cock nudging at her mound. The feel of it sent a tremor through him.
“Every wee bit of you is mine now, husband. You’d best bring it all back in one piece.”
“I will. I promise.” He pushed in.
Mo sucked in a noisy gasp and arched her back at once, and oh God, he felt it, too. He’d been bareback before, but never with Mo. Never with so much need and love setting off firecrackers inside him already.
“Fuck, Irish. Oh fuck, oh fuck.” He heard himself yammering and couldn’t stop.
“Brian, please!”
He didn’t know what she was begging for, until her hands clutched his ass and she flexed beneath him. Overcome with the feel of her, seated inside her as far as she went—and God the feel of that, the way she was clamped around him—he’d frozen in place. She needed him to move. And he needed it, too.
With the first flex of his hips, they fell into a rhythm that had become theirs, and yet this was entirely new. No dog tags, no rubber, no family waiting up at home. There was only them. The past, the future, the pain that had been and was yet to come—for now, this brief moment, none of it mattered. Just them.
They had this one night to build a life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
1970
1 Jan 70
Hey Irish,
I don’t have a lot of time to write today, but I’m trying to write every day as long as I can. I never wrote too many letters last time I was here, but then I didn’t have you to write to.
It’s New Year’s Day. A new year, a new decade. We were able to have a little party last night, and it was pretty good.
There’s not too much to say about things here. They’re like they always are. I’m doing okay. You don’t need to worry about me.
I go for mail call every day, hoping for a letter from you, but nothing yet. I know the mail isn’t so reliable here, but I would be so happy to get a letter from you. Just a word to let me know you’re okay.
I hope you’re doing good. I miss you so much, sweetheart. You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing when I go to sleep. I dream of you all night, and have you with me in my head all day.
I love you. I love you. Please forgive me. Please write.
I love you.
D Brian
~oOo~
“Mo?” Aunt Bridie called as she knocked on the bedroom door. Mo folded Brian’s most recent letter and slid it back in its envelope. It had arrived yesterday, almost two weeks after he’d written it. She’d already read it at least a dozen times. Just like all his other letters.
There was a smudge on the envelope, a dark ghost of a thumbprint. It could have been anyone’s who’d touched it during its long journey from the other side of the world, but Mo brushed her fingers over it and felt Brian there.
“Aye,” she answered. “Come in.”
The door swung open and her aunt stepped in. “Not dressed yet? When’s your first class, love?”
“Not until ten.”
Mo opened the drawer in her desk where she was keeping Brian’s letters. She’d been receiving them almost daily since about a week after he’d left her. They never had much news in them. He didn’t tell her much about his day, or the people he was with. On Christmas Day, he’d written more, but it was about them, memories of their first, and so far only, Christmas together. Sometimes he asked about her family or his, and always he told her he loved her. Always he asked her to write. But he never told her of his days.
She’d yet to write him even once.
Every time she tried, the pen hovered over the page, and not a single word would come. Her head filled with a crashing, staticky roar of pain, anger, and betrayal, mixed with a steady thump of love and longing, and through that noise no words would come.
She hadn’t even been able to keep a journal. Journaling had saved her sanity in her first years away from Belfast, but now, she couldn’t begin to make an entry. What she was feeling was too big for words.
For Christmas, Maggie had given her a beautiful set of stationery—pale pink sheets perfumed with roses, some plain, some with sprays of roses in the corners. It was a set expressly for writing love letters, but not one sheet had been used yet.
She’d thought she could forgive him. When she’d said goodbye, she’d told him she had.
But now she was without him, and she could not.
Her love for him was deep as ever, her desire to build a life for him as true. But right now, all she could feel was abandoned. A few lines of ink on paper a day could hardly balance the scale. He’d gone back to that war. He hadn’t even considered her first. That wound bled freely every moment and wouldn’t close until he was home.
As Mo placed this most recent letter in the drawer, Aunt Bridie closed the door. “How are you feeling today?” She came over and felt Mo’s forehead, though neither of them thought she had a fever.
“A little tired.” She’d missed her period in December, and right before New Year’s, when her time was about two weeks past, she’d seen her doctor for a test. They were expecting the results any day now, but now her period was nearly a month late, she was ill in the mornings and tired all day, and her breasts ached. Aunt Bridie was positive that Mo was pregnant.
She’d wanted Brian to leave his baby behind, and he had.
Tipping Mo’s chin up and giving her face a keen study, Aunt Bridie said, “You’re pale. I’ve some time today, if you’d like me to drive you to campus. It’s no bother.”
“Ta, but I can drive. I want to go to the library after class, and I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“It’s the first week. Could you have such work already?”
“We got our first assignment in Child Psych on Monday. I want to get started on it right away.”
Her aunt smiled and brushed a motherly hand over Mo’s hair. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve had your head down for your studies all your life. And you did so well last term, even with the tumult.”
Not as well as she’d hoped. Three Bs and two As. Her freshman year, she’d gotten straight As, and she’d planned to keep that going until she graduated. But her most recent finals hadn’t gone so well, what with Brian abandoning her only a few weeks before them.
This semester, she meant to turn all her energy to school, and not only get perfect grades but make sure her professors sat up and took notice. The baby would be born in the late summer; it might mean she’d have to lay out a semester, but that was a worry for later. For now, she would focus on her studies, and her family, and nurturing this new life, and she would excel.
Mo slid the drawer closed.
“Have you told him yet?” Aunt Bridie asked.
“No.” It was likely her aunt knew, or at least strongly suspected, Mo hadn’t written Brian yet. One of Aunt Bridie’s daily chores was a trip to the post office for the store, and everybody threw their own mail into that pile. Those keen eyes had certainly noticed no letters were going to war.
“What he did, he shouldn’t’ve done it that way. But you couldn’t’ve kept him home, love. The man you love’s a warrior in his heart, like your da. Even if he’d stayed, that need in him, it’d be there. But he loves you, and he’s your husband. Now you’ve got his baby. That’s a choice you made. You’re in this together, no matter how you’re ragin’ in your heart. How will you feel if somethin’ happens to him, and he thinks he’s lost you when he goes? Could you live with yourself knowing in his last moments you denied him the love you feel?”
The thought of him dying over there haunted her nights and her days. She thought of that big, ugly scar on his chest, how close he’d already come to dying, and shuddered. “I’m not trying to punish him. I don’t want to hurt him. But I don’t know what to say.”
“All you need to say is truth. You love him, and you’re here waitin’. That’s all he needs to hear.” Her aunt squeezed Mo’s
hand. “You are hurtin’ him, love. You’ve a man at war. You’re holding back at a time he needs most to feel your reach. If you want the man you love to come back to you as he was, don’t leave him alone now.”
~oOo~
Mo’s favorite place on the OU campus was the reading room of the Bizzell Library. A vast, towering space with gorgeous arched beams crisscrossing the dark wood ceiling, where even whispers carried a soft echo. Everyone was reverently quiet, opening their books softly, unzipping their packs one tooth at a time. Turning each page thoughtfully. Every act in that space carried a worshipful kind of weight. This was church for lovers of books.
It also reminded her of home. Her memories of Belfast were growing faded and sepia-toned with time, but she kept the dearest ones close to her heart and away from the erosions of her American life.
Her father had been a maintenance worker at the university, and Mo and her mother often brought him his tea when he worked into the late evenings. After sharing a meal with him, sometimes she and her mother would stay on campus, waiting for his shift to end so they could return home together.
They’d wander the library, sometimes choosing a book or two to keep their interest, and other times simply wandering. They had a game where they’d randomly pick a place in the card catalogue and hunt up that book, and see what fascinating things it might be shelved with.
Like this one, that library was a beautiful, silent old thing, with high, high ceilings and dramatic architecture that swooped from side to side over one’s head. It smelled of rich wood polish, leather bindings, and ancient papers. It was a place of imagination and mystery, that held worlds untold. Every library was, of course, but that one was truly fit for the job.
Though she’d spent considerably more time with her mother than her father, Mo’s recollections of the woman who raised her were fading more quickly. She’d loved her mother and mourned her, but she was like a shadow of her father.
That was what Mo mainly remembered: a quiet woman, who supported her husband in everything. Who kept their house and raised their child. Always, she followed Mo’s father, who’d taken up all the air and light of every space he’d stood in. Even her memory was absorbed into his.
Except in the library. That was Mo and her ma’s special thing, and when Mo sat in the Bizzell reading room, with similar fantastical architecture, those memories of her mother pulsed with life.
Today, Mo meant to continue the research she’d started the day before, for her first Child Psych assignment, but before she went to the stacks or the card catalogue, she opened her leather bookbag and slid out the box of stationery Maggie had given her for Christmas. The sweet scent of roses wafted softly out with the box.
There had been a message waiting for her when she’d arrived home after classes the day before. From the doctor, with the test results. She was pregnant. She would be a mother herself.
Now she had to write to Brian. Even if all she managed to put on paper was that single sentence, she had to tell him he was going to be a father.
So in this place, where she felt closer to her own parents than anywhere else, she slid a piece of pink paper from under a white satin ribbon and set her pen on it.
Dear Brian,
For another few moments, a minute, maybe two, she couldn’t write more than that.
Just one sentence. If nothing else, just that.
She formed an I, intending to write I have news. Instead, her heart fell out.
I’m sorry I haven’t written. I’ve tried every day, but words haven’t come. I love every letter you’ve written and read them over and over and over, but I haven’t been able to make words of my own. I’m sorry.
I miss you so much. I’m so lonely, even surrounded by my family I’m alone. There are days I’m so sad and mad I can hardly stay in my skin. But I love you. I love you so very much. I don’t understand what it is you’re doing, but I do understand you need to do it. I know you wouldn’t have left me if you didn’t need to be there. I do forgive you. Truly, love. You told me once that I’m your whole future, I’m all you see. So see me here, waiting for you to come back and start our future.
To that point, I’ve some news. Your first child is due at the beginning of August. It appears I’ll be taking the fall term off, and when you come home to me at the end of the year, you’ll have a fine wee babe to meet.
Thank you for giving me a piece of you to keep forever. Now be a good lad and bring all your other pieces home, all assembled as they should be and ready to hold me. I miss you so very much. Every moment of every day.
My ma and da called each other “mo chuisle,” the way you call me Irish. Mo chuisle means “‘my pulse,” and I understand now the feeling they had for each other. My heart pounds with love for you, and aches with longing.
Brian, mo chuisle, you are my heartbeat. Please come home.
Your Irish
15th January 1970
~oOo~
3 Feb 70
My Irish!
I can’t tell you how good it was to get your letter yesterday! It was by far the best thing that’s happened since I’ve been here—and that was before I read the news! We did it on the first try? Look at us go! If we’re that good at this baby-making business, then we’d better be careful we don’t end up making a football team of our very own! (Not that I’d mind trying, haha!) What a fierce mama you’re going to be. My little mama bear!
How are you feeling? Faye was pretty sick with Kristy. Are you feeling okay? Did you tell her and Lenny yet? I bet Bridie’s in hog heaven. How about Dave? Or is that a sore subject? He’s not in my fan club right now, I know. I wouldn’t be, either, in his shoes. But with him at your back, I know I don’t have to worry about you keeping safe while I’m away.
I’m okay. Doing what needs doing, watching my back. I was home long enough that most of these boys are new to me, and I’m a hell of a lot older than they are, but they respect me, I think, and not just because I’ve got more stripes on my sleeve.
My CO from before is here at Bong Son. I’ve been doing a lot of desk jockey work for him when we’re on base. I can tell you for a fact I don’t want to be pushing papers all my life.
I love you, Mrs. Delaney. Thank you for loving me. And thank you for this letter. I don’t have the words for how much it means. I’m sorry I left you alone with all that sad and mad. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m damn glad to have it.
You are my heartbeat, too. Knowing you’re waiting for me, there’s nothing that’ll stop me getting home.
I love you, little mama.
I love you.
I love you.
Brian
Ps how do you say mo chuisle?
Pps I love you.
~oOo~
You say “macushla.”
Someone set a large, heart-shaped candy box adorned with a ridiculously elaborate spray of plastic flowers on the counter and tossed a greeting card on top, pushing the box toward Mo and overlapping the page she was writing on. She barely missed drawing her pen all the way across the paper.
She sighed and looked up. Clearly, trying to write to Brian at work had been a silly decision, especially the day before Valentine’s.
The last few days before Valentine’s Day were always extra busy at Quinn’s Drug and Sundry. They stocked candy and greeting cards as a matter of course, and beginning a week or two after the new year, Uncle Dave, a sucker for romance, turned the whole store red and pink. He built a large display, front and center, of heart-shaped candy boxes of varying size and ornateness; pink, white, and red stuffed teddy bears of different sizes; perfumes wrapped in red cellophane; and arrays of red and pink greeting cards twinkling with foil and glitter. Maggie, Mo, and Aunt Bridie decorated the rest of the store, festooning the place with swags of crepe paper and dangling hearts.
They were just a little local drugstore, offering nothing particularly special for the holiday. No expensive jewelry or fresh-cut roses, and the perfume was drugstore quality. Coty,
not Chanel. Even the candy was only Russell Stover—exactly what you’d expect to find in any similar shop. None of the family understood why Valentine’s was such an important retail event at Quinn’s, beyond the obvious: that Shayton and its neighboring towns were made up of simple people, with thin wallets and simple tastes. Still, other holidays were boom times as well, but not even Christmas approached the frenzy of the middle of February.
The customer before her was a stranger. Pasting a bright smile on her mouth, Mo set aside the letter she’d been trying to write and checked out the man with the terrible taste in candy gifts.
“Well, these are lovely,” she lied. “Must be for someone very special.”
He didn’t answer, or even smile, so Mo stopped trying to be friendly. As a neighborhood business in a small town off the well-trod bath, Quinn’s served mainly neighbors, and Uncle Dave’s philosophy of customer service was that people shopped where the clerks cared about them, and that strangers might become new friends. But this man’s glower while he bought romantic gifts stilled Mo’s tongue. She rang his sale and wished him a good day.
As he went out the door, she picked up a small red teddy bear from the counter display and made like she meant to throw it after him.
“Maureen,” her uncle warned gently. “Put the bear down and step away.” His beefy arm came around her shoulders. “Do we need a wee break, love?”
“I’m fine, Unca. But I don’t like rude people.”
“Most especially not these days, eh?”
She turned in his hold to face him and drew her brows tight. “Are you suggesting I’m difficult, Uncle David?”
Her uncle formed his features into a funny-papers version of shocked innocence. “I? Never! You, sweet lass, are a vision of sweetness and light at all times.”
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