Read Online The Stone House by Marita Conlon-Mckenna - Free Book Online
Authors: Marita Conlon-Mckenna
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for it. Babies sometimes fallasleep and forget to breathe or wake up. Thereâs nothing you or anyone could have done.â
It didnât matter what the doctor said. Moya had no doubt in her mind that in some way she was partly responsible for what happened. If she hadnât been distracted, tidying her room, dealing with Romy, her little brother might still be alive.
Mrs Costigan came across and brought them over to her house while Uncle Joe and Dr Deegan waited to tell the news to their parents.
Sometimes Moya found it hard to remember the church and the funeral and all the cards and flowers from the people of Rossmore, and their family friends and her fatherâs business acquaintances and all the girls in school, the walking in the gusting wind afterwards to the place where they buried baby Sean aged only nine months and eleven days and the people back in their house afterwards drinking wine and whiskey and saying what a good baby heâd been.
The impact of their small brotherâs life and death was immeasurable, for none of them could or would ever forget him. Their mother had cried and cried, a torrent of tears, eyes swollen in her puffed face until her eyes were so dry and red and sore, they could produce no more tears. She stayed in bed, lost in her misery, often forgetting to get dressed or to wash her hair. For months she took tablets to make her sleep and then tablets to make her wake up, Aunt Vonnie the only one who could seem to reach her.
Moya still blamed herself. She was seventeen, the eldest, and had been in charge; over and over again sherepeated the pattern of that day once her mother had left the house â her fatherâs going off on business, her attempts to follow what Sister Breda had suggested, and Romyâs crazy attempt to cut the dogâs hair.
âI shouldnât have left him,â was her motherâs constant refrain as she pretended that Moya had done nothing wrong, saying only, âWe have to accept it was Godâs will.â
Maeve Dillon found some consolation in prayer and mass-going and attending novenas and prayer meetings.
Kate said that God was a bastard and were there not enough old people dying in the world and starving children in Ethiopia and round the world to do him without taking little Sean?
At night lying in their beds they couldnât help but overhear their father pleading with their mother to come and lie with him and give him another child, but Maeve Dillon firmly closed the door on him. Months later she moved into Seanâs old room, leaving their father to sleep in the big bed on his own.
Their father was lost and lonesome, and soon reverted to his old ways, staying out late, going to meetings arranged in local bars and pubs and hotels and coming home late smelling of drink. Moya hated it when he began to cry and talk of âthe little fellaâ and what might have been.
âYou know you still have us, Daddy,â sheâd gently try to remind him as she made him tea and scrambled eggs on toast.
âMoya girl, youâd not understand what it feels like for a man to lose his son,â was all heâd say, staring into the bottom of the blue and white mug. Moya pitiedhim. Witnessing his raging grief, she felt that she was partly to blame for what had happened and the awful sadness that Seanâs death had caused.
Chapter Eight
THE SUMMER OF the wasps was one all of them would remember. Instead of their parents coming together in their grief and sorrow, a gaping void of anger, blame and coldness had grown between them as Maeve and Frank Dillon went through the day-to-day small family rituals unable to comfort or be kind to each other.
Moya distanced herself, as she studied for her Leaving Certificate, closing her bedroom door as she focused on French and English and Art, losing herself in the works of the Renaissance artists, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello. Kate knew that Moya still blamed herself
It didnât matter what the doctor said. Moya had no doubt in her mind that in some way she was partly responsible for what happened. If she hadnât been distracted, tidying her room, dealing with Romy, her little brother might still be alive.
Mrs Costigan came across and brought them over to her house while Uncle Joe and Dr Deegan waited to tell the news to their parents.
Sometimes Moya found it hard to remember the church and the funeral and all the cards and flowers from the people of Rossmore, and their family friends and her fatherâs business acquaintances and all the girls in school, the walking in the gusting wind afterwards to the place where they buried baby Sean aged only nine months and eleven days and the people back in their house afterwards drinking wine and whiskey and saying what a good baby heâd been.
The impact of their small brotherâs life and death was immeasurable, for none of them could or would ever forget him. Their mother had cried and cried, a torrent of tears, eyes swollen in her puffed face until her eyes were so dry and red and sore, they could produce no more tears. She stayed in bed, lost in her misery, often forgetting to get dressed or to wash her hair. For months she took tablets to make her sleep and then tablets to make her wake up, Aunt Vonnie the only one who could seem to reach her.
Moya still blamed herself. She was seventeen, the eldest, and had been in charge; over and over again sherepeated the pattern of that day once her mother had left the house â her fatherâs going off on business, her attempts to follow what Sister Breda had suggested, and Romyâs crazy attempt to cut the dogâs hair.
âI shouldnât have left him,â was her motherâs constant refrain as she pretended that Moya had done nothing wrong, saying only, âWe have to accept it was Godâs will.â
Maeve Dillon found some consolation in prayer and mass-going and attending novenas and prayer meetings.
Kate said that God was a bastard and were there not enough old people dying in the world and starving children in Ethiopia and round the world to do him without taking little Sean?
At night lying in their beds they couldnât help but overhear their father pleading with their mother to come and lie with him and give him another child, but Maeve Dillon firmly closed the door on him. Months later she moved into Seanâs old room, leaving their father to sleep in the big bed on his own.
Their father was lost and lonesome, and soon reverted to his old ways, staying out late, going to meetings arranged in local bars and pubs and hotels and coming home late smelling of drink. Moya hated it when he began to cry and talk of âthe little fellaâ and what might have been.
âYou know you still have us, Daddy,â sheâd gently try to remind him as she made him tea and scrambled eggs on toast.
âMoya girl, youâd not understand what it feels like for a man to lose his son,â was all heâd say, staring into the bottom of the blue and white mug. Moya pitiedhim. Witnessing his raging grief, she felt that she was partly to blame for what had happened and the awful sadness that Seanâs death had caused.
Chapter Eight
THE SUMMER OF the wasps was one all of them would remember. Instead of their parents coming together in their grief and sorrow, a gaping void of anger, blame and coldness had grown between them as Maeve and Frank Dillon went through the day-to-day small family rituals unable to comfort or be kind to each other.
Moya distanced herself, as she studied for her Leaving Certificate, closing her bedroom door as she focused on French and English and Art, losing herself in the works of the Renaissance artists, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello. Kate knew that Moya still blamed herself
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