Galway Bay (65 page)

Máire and I clutched hands.

“Surely you know more,” I said.

“A cold night to stand out here,” Peter Casey said. “Being in the southern heat makes me feel the cold.”

“Come in,” I said. “Come upstairs. A cup of tea?” I said.

“A glass of whiskey?” said Máire.

“I wouldn’t say no to a drop—a time like this.”

Peter Casey talked on and on, telling us we should be proud to be mothers of such great lads. He told us the name of the battle place, Mission Ridge, near Chattanooga on the Chickamauga River. “Chickamauga—River of Blood. And it was,” he said. Dear God.

During the following week, the
Chicago Times
printed story after story describing the fighting. In the three days of the Chattanooga battle, eight hundred Union soldiers were killed, four hundred Confederates were killed. The combined total of wounded was seven thousand. But the paper gave no names, no casualty lists. Other Irish families had received letters: “I am fine, I’ll survive.” But nothing for us.

“Wait and pray,” Father Kelly told me. As chaplain of the Irish Legion during Vicksburg, he’d seen the chaos that follows a battle firsthand. What he’d thought were dead bodies would lift their heads, call out to him, ask for the last rites. Some miraculously recovered, while others . . . “No record keeping in the fog of war,” he’d said. One thing I could be sure of, he told me—our brave boys would never desert. A comfort for me and Máire, he said. As if we cared—better living deserters than dead heroes.

I went into the office every morning but spent most of my time watching out the window. Newspaper messenger boys picked up telegrams from the reporters covering the war over at the telegraph office across the street. They always came to Mr. Comiskey if there were any stories about the Brigade or Legion. But no reports came.

Then it was Christmas Eve—a month and no news. I spent the day writing addresses on the food baskets that would be delivered to soldiers’ widows, mourning mothers. So many of them. Alderman Comiskey and Mr. Onahan spoke to me with quiet voices, as if I were sick. They think the boys are dead, I thought. They gave me a ham to take home and a bonus—twenty-five dollars added to my wages, “to make your Christmas a little brighter,” Mr. Onahan said.

But Máire and I had agreed not to have our usual Christmas celebration. The children understood. How could we, with the boys missing? Or dead. I doubled all my prayers, but to what end?

Jamesy is dead. Admit it, Honora. You’d have heard something by now. Jamesy and Daniel are dead. If he were alive
. . . That voice, the fairy woman come back, whispering to me as I started home from downtown.

I’ll walk home along the Lake. Cold there, but the wind’s force and the noise of the waves might drive her voice from my head.

I stepped over a brittle bank of dirty snow and moved closer to the water, whitecaps rushing toward the shore.

But the fairy woman’s voice kept after me until I thought: If Jamesy is dead, then I want to die, too, plunge into the icy Lake.

I started keening into the wind, no words, howling.

For Jesus’ sake, Honora, what’s wrong with you?
Not the fairy woman’s whisper. This new voice roared at me, louder than the wind and waves.

Granny. Granny, I’m so frightened. If Jamesy’s dead . . .

Ná bí ag caint, Honora. Don’t be talking nonsense. Keep those words out of your head.

How? I try to pray. I’m afraid God’s turned a deaf ear to all my prayers and pleading. Oh, Granny, Michael was the love of my life, the father of my children. To even consider another man, especially one forbidden by the Church. I want to be good so God will answer my prayers, keep my boy safe, but . . .

You’re making God very small, a stór. Look out at this grand expanse of water. Do you think the Creator of all that’s worried about your faults and failings? God’s mercy is wide, Honora. Now go. You’ve a crowd of children waiting for their dinner. Get busy and you’ll keep the fairy woman away.

And I didn’t hear that voice as I walked as fast as I could back to Bridgeport, holding the ham close against me.

Máire opened her door as I passed. “I’ve been watching for you, Honora. Come in. The others are up in your house.”

I sat down at her kitchen table.

“We made a mistake,” she said. “We need to get a Christmas tree, presents. Cook a big dinner.”

“But how can we? We agreed to wait until we knew the boys were—”

“We have to,” she said. “Gracie and Bridget told me they feel like we’ve gone into mourning, given up hope. Can’t do that. If we despair, the fairy woman will come creeping in.” Máire took my hand. “After Johnny Og died, I almost let her take me over entirely. But I had this little sister kept tugging on me, wouldn’t let me go.” She patted my knee.

“Thank you, Máire,” I said, and covered her hand with mine.

“And now I’m going to pull
you
back, Honora. Listen to me. I’ve been sitting here all afternoon thinking about Johnny Leahy and Johnny Og—fishermen, both of them. I remembered a story Johnny Leahy told me right before our wedding. Fadó,” Máire said, and winked at me. “Johnny was out fishing where Galway Bay meets the sea. They’d caught nothing, no fish, all day. When the sun sank beneath the waves, some boats turned back to shore, empty. But Johnny and his da stayed on. A slip of a moon rose, then disappeared. Complete darkness and still they waited. Then, long after most would have given up, the mearbhall—a kind of glow—started up from the deep, lighting up the sea. And suddenly all manner of fish—whiting and herring and great creatures Johnny couldn’t put a name to—came swimming up through the mearbhall and into the nets. The glow lasted until the morning star appeared. At the dawning of the day, they saw they’d netted a great catch.

“Mearbhalls come, Johnny told me, only on the darkest night. But no fisherman is able to say when or where. A gift, he said, like life itself.” Máire paused. “When Johnny Leahy died, I thought I’d never be happy again. One reason I stepped in for you, Honora. Might as well be miserable at the Scoundrel Pykes as anywhere, I thought.”

“I know why you saved me, Máire,” I said.

“Quiet now, Honora. Let me get to the point of my story. When Johnny Og was born, I was happy. And when that fool Father Gilley tried to shame me, something reared up inside. ‘Johnny Og’s my mearbhall, you old fool!’ I wanted to shout at him. Now, I hated old Major Pyke and had little use for Robert. Hard years those were, but I had Daniel and Gracie for joy, and Thomas, too. He could make me laugh! And then Johnny Og was taken. Only darkness around me. But you brought Colonel Mulligan’s letter. Johnny Og would be remembered—a mear-bhall. And so’s working to help other soldiers. Those four upstairs are children, for all their size and years, and their mothers are going to give them Christmas—a mearbhall.”

“And their dinner,” I said, lifting up the ham. “Granny told me to feed them.”

Every store in Bridgeport was closed this late on a Christmas Eve, but we walked to Brighton Park and didn’t we see a light shining from the window of John Larney’s store. He had one last scraggly tree left. We bought it, and I got a new pen for each of my children and Gracie. Máire had her gifts already bought.

My almost grown sons and daughter and their cousin Gracie became children again when we tied candles onto the little tree. Bridget and Gracie teased Stephen about being baby Jesus that first Christmas Eve in Chicago. Máire sang her carol, and Michael harmonized with her. “Remember Jamesy and the tin whistle and what a treat it will be to hear him play the pipes,” I said.

“We’ll all have to learn to call Daniel Danny O,” Máire said.

We opened the presents, each one delighted. Thank you, thank you.

We were all trying so hard to be happy, and no one disagreed when I said we wouldn’t attend Midnight Mass, but would go at noon tomorrow, with ham and pratties afterward.

Just as well to stay home. A storm was coming. The snow started at midnight.

Full morning when I woke up, after my first full night’s sleep for ages. I could have slept on but for the pounding and shouting at the ground-floor door.

Could it be news? Not on Christmas morning. Probably only Molly wanting to borrow sugar. I went down.

When I opened the door, the glare of sun on snow blinded me for a moment. I saw the outline of three men in uniform. And then . . .

“Mam.”

“Jamesy!” I grabbed him and rested my head on his shoulder.

“Aunt Honey.”

I looked up. “Daniel. Oh, Daniel.”

And Patrick Kelly.

It was my joy undid me. My knees buckled and it took the three of them to help me up the stairs to Máire’s door.

Gracie raced up to get Bridget and the boys. Such a reunion!

Of course, we wanted the story then and there, but all three were tired and hungry and dirty. Jamesy said the tale deserved a good telling and could they wait, and Patrick said food and a bed first. I’d said Máire had space for him and she’d looked a question at me but said, “I do, of course.”

We ate eggs and rashers in Máire’s kitchen. I had to tell Stephen and Michael to stop pounding the boys on their backs. “Let them eat!” Bridget and Gracie kept patting the boys’ arms.

“Now to bed, Daniel,” Máire said. “I’ll be sitting by your bed, watching you sleep.”

Patrick took Thomas’s room and we went upstairs.

Bliss to sit in my own kitchen and listen to my soldier son snoring in the next room. Thank you, Lord. A mearbhaill.

I did turn Jamesy out of bed in time for Mass. Have to show our gratitude. Granny was right, God. I’d made You too small. Jamesy and Daniel dressed in their own clothes. The pants and shirts they’d arrived in were beyond repair, though each had a heavy sheepskin jacket. Patrick wore a uniform that looked brand new. When had Patrick traded his buckskin for this?

We paraded up the middle aisle of St. Bridget’s. Máire, in a new hat and coat, leaned on Daniel’s arm.

A few women—newcomers—frowned at her feathers and fur collar. But our Bridgeport neighbors, well used to Máire now, admired her spirit and spunk and her war work. She’d arrived that first morning in a red silk shawl and never sailed under false colors. And weren’t we all the same, really, the women said to one another. Mothers. She had lost one son, but the other had been restored to her—a victory for the Holy Hour. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

The rest of us followed Máire and Daniel, walking in a cluster around Jamesy, smiling. I caught Molly Flanigan’s eye, saw Lizzie, heads turning all along the aisle. Some young fellow stood up to look past us to our honor guard—Patrick Kelly, holding St. Grellan’s staff on his shoulder. Kellys Abu. Ireland Boys Hurrah. We took up the whole side pew, right in front of the crèche. There was one special addition to the usual figures of Mary, Joseph, the Christ Child, shepherds, Wise Men, and assorted animals. St. Bridget stood next to Mary. She’d been Our Lady’s midwife, so Irish tradition said. Traveling back through the centuries. Why not? All a miracle anyway. And such a lovely statue of St. Bridget.

After we’d finished Christmas dinner later that afternoon, guests crowded into the parlor—James and Lizzie McKenna, Barney McGurk, Molly and two older fellows from the boardinghouse, no young men left there. Michael fit a few boys from the Hickory Gang in the corner, and Stephen had brought Nelly and the Langs.

“Now,” James McKenna said, quieting the chat. He raised his mug of whiskey punch, and we all did the same. “To the heroes. Sláinte.”

Jamesy frowned at Patrick, but he nodded and drank from his mug and Jamesy and Daniel did the same. I allowed myself a sip.

“To the fallen members of the Irish Legion,” Patrick said.

I saw Jamesy nod. “The real heroes,” he said, and took a long drink.

“We were only lucky,” Daniel said after we all had drunk the toast.

“So. Now tell us, Daniel. The story,” Barney McGurk said.

I sat next to Jamesy on the sofa, Máire and Daniel with us. Patrick stood against the wall near the kitchen.

“Uncle Patrick, will you?”

But Patrick shook his head.

“Go on, Jamesy,” I said. “Fadó.”

“All right. Fadó—if Daniel helps.”

“He will,” said Máire.

“After the siege was broken and Vicksburg taken . . . ,” Jamesy started.

“Good tactics,” Barney interrupted.

“Well, we’d won, but the Legion moved to relieve the fellows surrounded at Chattanooga. Anyway, there was a lot of back-and-forth fighting, and then we had to take this ridge—Mission Ridge, Missionary Ridge, I’ve heard it called both.”

“Tell them how you piped us into battle,” Daniel said.

“I did give out a few blasts of ‘The Minstrel Boy,’” Jamesy said, then glanced over at Michael and the Hickory Gang fellows. “But really, I was scared. I mean, the Rebs had dug in up above. We had to climb this steep grade, with the enemy shooting us. The first line of us was to fire and fall back. But there was no safe place to fall back. We decided the only way to stop those guns was to get up that hill and knock them out. So we charged. Went after the enemy to save ourselves. Daniel and I stayed together, but there was no real order to any of it, only fellows running and shouting. Daniel, tell the next part.”

“It got crazier,” said Daniel, “the nearer we got to the top. Rebs were coming at us with bayonets, so much smoke and mess that a fellow from your own side might shoot you by mistake. Jamesy had his pipes tied to his back. We wanted to find some rocks, set ourselves up. We only had a few cartridges left.”

“After a while,” Jamesy said, “most of the firing stopped, but we could still hear shots. So we thought we’d wait. Dark by then. All of a sudden, a Johnny Reb is coming straight at us, his gun pointed right at my chest.”

“We lifted our guns,” Daniel said.

“And we would have fired, Mam,” said Jamesy. “We were ready and he was aiming at us; we couldn’t see if there were more behind him. I thought of Johnny Gilroy and Frankie McGee, two fellows who’d been hit, and—”

“We heard this god-awful yell and then a blast of gunfire,” Daniel said.

“And then, ‘Cease fire!’ And there he was, in his buckskins, standing in front of us,” said Jamesy. “‘You can’t shoot the neighbors!’ he said. ‘What would people think?’ Uncle Patrick! And the Reb was James Mulloy!”