Whiskey Island (32 page)

“Not the baby?” Her voice broke. “Not Laurie or Annie?”

He cleared his throat. “There’s…there was an accident in the hold. A…the pulley snapped, you see. Terence had just filled the bucket and sent it up….”

She could hear his voice, but she could not make sense of his words. “Terence?”

“They took him to the hospital. I’ve come to fetch you and take you there.”

She wanted to tell him he was wrong. Not Terence, who was never reckless, never careless. Not her Terry, who worked tirelessly. Terry, who would be purchasing passage from Ireland for his parents this week, the first tiny step on the road away from poverty.

When she didn’t speak, he answered the question she couldn’t ask. “It’s not good, Lena. You must be prepared. Someone’s gone for Father McSweeney. He’ll be there waiting for us.”

20

December 1882

K
atie helped as much as she could, arriving nearly at dawn each morning with her children to help Lena continue making dinners to take to the docks. Lena knew Katie was staying up too late every evening to finish ironing the laundry she took in, but her friend refused to be deterred. With Terence injured, what Lena earned was the only money the family had. Katie was growing increasingly drawn and sharp with her children, and Lena knew that she herself had aged ten years overnight.

Terence’s right leg had been shattered in four places when the ore bucket tumbled back and pinned him to the pile behind him. The ruptured chain had lashed the side of his face and nearly severed his left arm. The arm had been saved, but it lay at his side as useless as his leg, which was rigidly immobilized. His cheek was healing, but he couldn’t smile, nor did he want to.

“And what did the doctor say last night?” Katie asked Lena, three weeks after the accident. She was kneading enough dough to make a dozen loaves of bread. In a basket in the corner Neil cried to be fed, but Katie stoically ignored him. “Does he have news?”

Lena ached to hold Neil and comfort him, but her own hands were full. Neil, like the rest of them, was learning that life was not always kind.

“He had no news.” She kept her voice low, although she thought Terence was probably sleeping. It was all he could do.

“He has nothing to say about when Terry will recover?”

“He tells us to have courage, that it’s nothing short of a miracle Terry kept his arm. But what sort of a miracle will it be if he can’t use it, Katie? Or if he can’t walk when the splints come off?”

“We’ll hear none of that. The Blessed Mother holds you in her hands. And you’ll have no doubts, do you understand?”

Lena thought faith was all well and good, but unfortunately, doubts were free and one of the few things she could partake of at will. “While she’s watching over us, do you suppose she might help me find work? We can’t continue this way any longer, Katie, you and I. We’re both exhausted, and I earn so little. And soon enough there’ll be no ore to unload until spring.”

“What else could you do and still care for Terence?”

Lena had given this much thought. Thinking was free, as well. “Here’s the trouble. I’m selling food to poor men who can barely afford to pay me. I can’t raise the cost of my dinners, because then they can’t afford to buy them.”

“But would richer men buy food from a simple wooden cart? And how would you bring it to them?”

Lena had considered this, too, but no way had presented itself. Besides, she suspected Katie was right. Men who could afford to pay what her meals were worth would prefer to dine in comfort at a restaurant off Public Square or in the privacy of their own homes or office buildings.

“I have to go into service,” she said at last. “I can no longer work for poor men.”

“And live in?” Katie sounded shocked.

“Of course not. I have to find work as a cook, work in a house where I’m allowed to go back and forth. Rowan patrols the Avenue. He knows people in most of the houses there. He can help me.”

“And what about Terence? Who’ll care for him?”

“You will,” Lena said. “And I’ll pay you for it. You can come three times a day to help him until he doesn’t need you anymore. And I can pay you from my wages. You’re helping now, for many more hours, worse hours, with no pay at all.”

“Terence needs
you.
”

Lena dried her hands on a towel before she turned to her friend. “Katie, before the accident we had saved enough for the Tierneys’ passage and to help tide us over winter. It’s all gone now, every last bit. The hospital and doctor took most of it, and the rest went to Ireland this week. We send money home every month, and I dread what will happen if we don’t. Terence needs me, but so do his parents and my own mam. We have to begin to save again. Until Terence can work, I’m the only hope we have. Don’t you see?”

Katie looked miserable. She completed the kneading without answering, washed and dried her hands, then went to pick up the long-suffering Neil. She perched on a chair at the table to feed him, while the two girls, who had been playing quietly in the sitting room, gathered at her knees.

Lena watched, and the memory of the baby she’d thought she carried tore at her. Three days after Terence’s accident, her bleeding had commenced. Not a normal bleeding, but a ferocious one that had gone on and on, as if her body were mourning in the only way it knew.

If there had been a babe, it was gone now, but the memory of it lingered. All was for the best, of course. How could she have managed this ordeal with a baby in her belly or at her breast? But despite that, more than ever, she needed a piece of Terence inside her. She needed hope.

“Have you told Terence?” Katie said at last. “Have you asked him?”

“I’ve done neither.”

“What will he say?”

“What can he say? Until he can support us again, I’ve no choice but to take up the challenge. You would do the same, no matter what Seamus thought.”

Katie didn’t deny it. “I’ll accept no payment for looking after him. It will be my pleasure.”

Lena’s eyes filled, surprising her. “It’s no pleasure.”

“He suffers, Lena. Surely you understand?”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

“What won’t choke will fatten. He’ll be a better man for the suffering, and you’ll be better, as well.”

Lena felt tired and discouraged, certainly not better in any way. Her lover and dearest friend lay sleeping in their bed, but the suffering had not yet made
him
a better person, either.

Terence was angry both in brooding silence and in the rare moments when he spoke to her. He was angry when she changed the bed linen, angry when she tried to cover him against the cold. Angry when she fed him. Angry when she didn’t. Angry when she had to help with his bodily functions. His world had exploded with the chance snapping of a chain and the wild careening of a bucket of ore. His hopes for the future seemed dead.

“He won’t be easy to care for,” Lena said at last. “If you take this on, I’ll understand if you change your mind.”

“No cure for spilled milk, only lick the pitcher. Terence and I will make the best of this.”

One day was like another to Terence. Down in the hold, the same had been true until he quit for the day and came home to Lena. Then everything had seemed a new adventure. There was always something different for their supper, some small treat Lena had prepared or found at the market. Each evening was different, too. Lena in her rocker at the fireside, knitting woolen socks or a new scarf to wrap around his throat. Mending sometimes, occasionally working on embroidery to brighten their plain lives. They would talk about what they would do when they no longer had to send money home, about where they would all live and what kind of flowers Lena and the old women would plant in the garden.

She would tell him about her day, about what she had seen as she did errands, whom she had spoken to and what they had told her. He had contributed what he could, although there was little enough gossip in the hold of an ore boat. But he had described the small things, and she had listened with rapt attention.

And now what did he have to talk about? “Lena, I tried to move my arm today, but it’s no use. They might as well have cut it off for all the good it will do me. My leg pains me so badly I can hardly bear it. I saw your face when you looked at me this morning. You pity me now, and you find me ugly, with my cheek scarred and sunken. I’m told I was fortunate my eye was untouched, but how much worse to open it each morning and see the pity in yours.”

That his life had come to this.

The room was bitterly cold this afternoon, even under the heavy covers Katie had given them. He had lain here one entire month, and the little room where they’d once found such pleasure had become nothing more than a prison. He could sit up, and with Rowan’s help he could even drag himself into the sitting room to rest beside the fire in the evenings. But he rarely did. What had he to contribute? And his leg pained so terribly each time he moved it that sitting was hardly worth the effort.

Sometimes he thought that the worst part was having nothing to do. He had worked his entire life, yet now, sleep was his only recourse. He had never learned to read, although doing so had been his heart’s desire. But school for the son of a poor tenant farmer had been an impossible luxury. So there were no books to keep him occupied, nothing to do with his one good arm. Even whittling, a useless pastime at best, was denied him.

Yet as terrible as the idleness was, there was something worse. His injuries denied him access to the woman he loved. He could not hold her in his arms. He could not make love to her for fear of further damaging his leg. Even if she still wanted him to touch her, useless arm and leg and battered face notwithstanding, he was denied this, as well.

There was a soft rapping at the door, and, as if his thoughts had conjured her, Lena stepped in, carrying his dinner tray.

“I’m on my way to the docks, Terry. Do you have any good words for me to carry to your friends?”

He had no good words for anyone, not even for her. And it angered him that she would ask. He didn’t answer, not trusting what he might say.

She moved closer. Rowan had placed a table beside the bed so that Lena could leave Terence’s food there. Before he was able to sit up, she had fed him herself, but now it was his job, and a difficult one at best.

She showed him the contents of the tray, although he couldn’t have cared less. “Please eat it all. You need to keep up your strength.”

“For what?” The words sounded rusty. As his cheek had healed, the scar had drawn up the corner of his mouth. His voice sounded different now, unpleasant and tentative.

“For getting better.” Her tone cooled. “Do you think we intend to let you fade away? You’re needed, you know. Even if you don’t want to get better so you can be a real husband to me again, you’ll need to get better to help support your family.”

She had never spoken to him this way, and her words inflamed him. “Get better? I won’t be getting better! And what can a poor man do to support his family if he has only one arm? Shall I sit in Public Square and beg for coins?”

“If you can’t think of anything else!” She dropped the tray on the little table and soup sloshed over the rim. “I’ll wheel you there myself in my dinner cart. Father in heaven! As miserably as you behave, Terry, you might earn enough coins and sympathy to buy a house on the Avenue!” Her hands flew to her cheeks, as if she’d just realized what she’d said.

He couldn’t respond. That she couldn’t understand how profoundly his life had changed, how impossible the remainder of it seemed to him, was the final humiliation.

She drew herself up straight when he didn’t answer. “Will you need anything else before I go?”

“Just go.”

She didn’t attempt an apology. She turned away. “That I will, then. And I’ll be gone a while.”

He didn’t want to care, but he did. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to Euclid Avenue to see about a position there.”

“What?”

She faced him. “You heard me right. There’s a position for cook’s helper at one of the mansions. The wages are nearly twice what I earn at the docks, and dependable. We’ll be able to get by until you’re earning again and winter is over. I’ve already made arrangements with Katie. She’ll come in several times a day to help you while I’m at work. I’ll get your supper when I return in the evening. From what I’m told, I’ll even be able to bring food home some nights.”

“No!” He pushed himself up, although it was a terrible struggle. “I forbid it.”

“You can’t. We have no choice.” She lifted her chin. “We can’t manage the way we are and still send money home. Would you like me to write to our families and tell them not to expect anything from us again?”

He felt as if he were choking. “What house?”

She hesitated long enough to confirm his worst suspicions. He exploded. “Nani Borz arranged this, didn’t she? Rowan asked her to put in a good word for you with the almighty James Simeon!”

Lena gave a short nod. “That she did, and I’ll always be grateful. They’ve agreed to talk to me first before they look elsewhere to fill the position.”

“James Simeon himself put me in this bed! Don’t you know? It was his ship that injured me! His ore!”

Lena blanched. “You talk as if he came into the hold and severed the chain.”

“He cares nothing for his workers! The equipment is old. There will be other accidents.”

“And sure but he’s no worse than the other owners. You’ve said so yourself. Now he’s agreed to help us by giving me this job if I qualify. It’s more than others might have done.”

“He knows who you are? He knows I was injured on his ship?”

“Nani made certain to mention it.”

“I want none of his charity!”

“But I do.” She folded her arms over her chest. “He pays his servants well. If I work hard, I want to be paid for it. I want to protect our families and take care of you—”

“I don’t want you to take care of me!”

Tears filled her eyes. “Would you rather I left you to starve?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I won’t.” She turned and went to the doorway. She was halfway through it when he spoke.