Read Online When Light Breaks by Patti Callahan Henry - Free Book Online

them between her fingers: one by one. Her lips move in the familiar cadence of the Hail Marys that surely my mouth memorized even when I didn’t know what I was saying. ‘God rest their souls,’ my mam says. I grab her. ‘What do you mean, their souls?’ I lunge forward. My shawl falls to the wood floor; the fringe lands in the fireplace. My voice lifts higher and higher until I am screeching at Mam. ‘What do you mean their souls ?’
    “My mam closes her eyes and tells me: Richard’s parents have passed on. My legs crumble beneath me. I fall to the wooden floor. Pain spikes through my knees as I ask what happened.
    “My da places his hand on top of my head, and anyone who saw us might have thought he was a priest who had come to bless the child. He tells me, ‘They were caught up in the trouble at the pub in Galway. Someone recognized their eldest son who was with them.” I calculate backward from Richard, the youngest, to the fifth and oldest child, who was in his twenties and widely known to have been involved in the Easter Rising.
    “I stumble to stand. ‘Where’s Richard?’ I ask, and move toward the door. Mam grabs my wrist, hisses, ‘Don’t you dare go out there and let the neighbors think you are . . . part of this, that you are involved with the family. The Garda Siochana—the Irish police—will come question us, involve us. Stay in the house.’
    “ ‘What will they do with Richard?’ I cry when Mam steps forward, places her palm on the side of my face. ‘Maeve, you know we have Industrial Schools.’
    “I push at Mam’s hand, run for the front door, shove it open and spring across the street faster than I believed I knew how to run. The cart sits flat and cold, angry and black underneath my hand as I run into it, stop myself with an open palm. The cart rocks against my weight.
    “A garda emerges from the other side of the hearse, his club raised high, his face angry and red, splotched and faded around his nose. When he looks at me, he lowers his club, then leans down to me. ‘Child, go back to your home. This you do not need to see.’ I straighten my shoulders. ‘Where is their youngest son? I need to see him.’
    “The garda nods toward another long cart, wet and glistening like the humpback of a whale just rising from the sea, one that had blended into the waves until someone pointed it out. ‘All the sons are taken care of—don’t you worry about that. He will be safe. Much safer than he was with his ma and da.’ But I don’t believe this man. I run toward Richard’s house. The garda grabs my arm and pulls me back toward him. ‘No, child.’
    “I pry myself loose from this man as Da comes from behind. ‘Maeve . . . no.’ Da wraps his arms around me as the chaos increases. Neighbors come out as the sun ascends. Women scream, run toward the home of their friend. Men come up behind them, hollering at their women and children to go back into their homes.
    “I push free of Da—for the first time ever—and wind my way, low and crouched, through the crowds to Richard’s house. One small thirteen-year-old girl is inconsequential as they try to push back the others.
    “I shove Richard’s door open with a forward momentum that carries me across the room to land by the fireplace hearth. I stumble and fall in a heap in front of the dead ashes. The ashes sadden me with the knowledge that no one was there, or would ever be there, to light the fire, to keep it going so these boys would wake to a warm house as we did.
    “I struggle to stand, choke on my tears at the sight of the barren hearth. Richard stands erect, his back to the wall, a fifteen-year-old boy staunch as a man.”
    Maeve paused in the middle of her story. Her eyes glazed over, perhaps from medication, or perhaps once again she’d returned to the land of the lost love. But she turned to me, and it was only pain and sorrow, not confusion, that lay in a fine mist over her eyes.
    “He is the most beautiful child. He