Ashes of Fiery Weather (34 page)

“She'll never let it go if it's subpar, no matter how much money she's offered,” Delia said without looking up.

The phone rang. Delia got up to answer it.

“Oh, Daniel. Hello.”

Maggie shook her head. Delia said, “Yes, she's here. Just a minute.”

Maggie shoved back her chair and glared at her grandmother as she crossed the room to take the phone. Delia started to leave the kitchen.

“You don't have to. This won't take long,” Maggie said to her, and then, into the phone,

“Hey.”

“Hey? What the hell is going on? You move out of your house and don't tell me?”

“It's a couple blocks away. I didn't leave the state.”

“Everything okay?” Danny asked.

Over the phone she sensed his frustration and the deep effort to be patient.

No, she wanted to say. Clearly everything was not okay, and would not be okay until the end of August. Instead, she said, “It's just quieter here. I don't have to share a room with an eight-year-old.”

That was good: blame Rose, who'd taken to climbing into Maggie's bed early in the morning and pressing against “the baby.”

“What time is the Mass next Sunday?”

“I imagine all the Masses are at their usual times,” she said.

“Come on, Maggie. My dad mentioned it. He's off, so he's going. He told me to ask you what time.”

“The ten o'clock,” she said.

This year, the ninth anniversary, was a Sunday, so the ten o'clock would be her father's memorial Mass. Maybe if it were winter and she could keep her coat on, she would go.

The guys still at the Glory Devlins knew, but the others who'd retired, transferred or got promoted out of the firehouse would find out that morning. Some men would pay a visit to the firehouse first and hear about it there, and others would go straight to the church and be filled in before Mass. Guys she hadn't seen since she was a kid, and their wives, would greet her heartily. They'd say, “Hey, sweetheart!” but be thinking, Poor Norah. Poor Grace, God rest her.

Maybe she could get Noelle to go to the Mass as her stand-in. They were the kind of first cousins who could pass for siblings. Noelle had arrived in New York last September to attend NYU for a year.

“Maggie? Are you still there?” Danny asked. “I'm coming over.”

“I'm working. I have a paper due this week.”

“Can I come by in a couple hours, then?”

She gave in. “Yes, okay.”

Danny hung up right away, before she could change her mind.

Maggie looked at her grandmother. “I'm not going to the Mass.”

“That's your prerogative,” Delia said. “But I will tell you that Daniel has the right to make decisions about what happens to his child.”

“The decision has already been made by both of us.”

“You might feel differently when he's born. If you do, we will—”

“I'm not going to change my mind!” Maggie said. “I have a life to live.”

“All I'm saying is that giving up a baby might be more difficult than you seem to be anticipating.”

Maggie still had the phone in her hand. She turned her back to hang it up and saw the rosary, which had hung on the nail beside the phone for as long as she could remember.

She'd never touched it before, but now she plucked it from the nail. “Why don't you ever use this keychain? Because it's rosary beads?”

“It's not a keychain. And be careful, it's old.” Delia held up a hand.

Maggie had intended only to change the subject, but her grandmother's protectiveness piqued her interest.

“What is it, then? How old?”

“It's called a penal rosary. Have you ever heard of that?”

Maggie shook her head.

Delia explained as if she were lecturing a student, perhaps also relieved to be talking about something else. When the Penal Laws were passed by the British government in the 1700s, it became illegal for the Irish to speak their language, have Gaelic names, practice their religion, own property and so on.

“The penal rosary was invented so the Irish could pray in secret. You put the ring on your finger and pray on each bead, like a regular rosary. You slip them into your palm. It's tricky to do. It takes practice.”

Maggie found it odd: Delia never went to church on Sundays, and though she used to go to Mass with them on Christmas Eve, she hadn't since before the fire. It was hard to imagine her saying any kind of rosary, much less one that required practice. Delia would, however, go to the memorial Mass, Nathaniel beside her.

Maggie held up the penal rosary. “So this is from Ireland, back then?”

“Lord, it's not that old,” Delia said. “It belonged to my mother. I don't know where she got it. Some religious goods store, I guess. Maybe one of those Irish gift shops that sell squares of peat.”

Maggie slipped the ring on her index finger. She was wearing short sleeves, so she gathered the beads in her palm. “You'd think a rosary would be the one thing you'd take if you were going into a convent.”

Delia laughed. “I used to think the same thing. My mother wanted me to have it for some reason. She told me to give it to my firstborn daughter.” She shook her head.

“Really? Will you give it to Aunt Eileen?”

“I hardly think Eileen would be interested.”

“Maybe Quinnie will want it,” Maggie said doubtfully. Her cousin was only two.

“You're my oldest granddaughter,” Delia said. “When I die, you are welcome to it. For now, put it back, please.”

Maggie hung the rosary back on its nail.

The phone rang again. Maggie stepped aside. “I'm not here if that's Danny.”

Delia sighed and answered the phone. “Oh, Norah, yes.”

Maggie sat down and went back to reading the
Times.
After which she would get to work, because she really did have a paper due.
Due.
She tried to imagine that the word had meaning only in its college context, but pushed the thought away.

Maggie had formulated her plan before she'd even told Danny. She would take the spring semester off and wait out the pregnancy in Brooklyn. Her due date was August 21. College resumed on September 8, the Tuesday after Labor Day. Credit-wise she'd still be a freshman, but she'd take courses over next winter break and next summer too. Start next fall a full-fledged sophomore. Go abroad for her junior year.

Then her grandmother suggested she take classes at Brooklyn College, ones whose credits would transfer. Maggie couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to her. She'd lose less time than she'd thought. At first she figured she'd get math and science out of the way, but Delia told her to pick something she could focus on easily. Again, sound advice. Maggie had chosen two literature courses.

Delia hung up. “It seems your mother's going to be stuck at work for a bit. She asked if you could pick up Rose and bring her over to Brendan's baseball practice.”

But Maggie did not want to sit with the parents of Brendan's teammates and whoever else might stop and watch the boys play. There had been an article about her scholarship in Holy Rosary's newsletter last summer, and in the
Irish Eagle.
Though her family was hardly going around announcing the news, the neighborhood knew why she'd come home. She didn't need stares and cheery inquiries about how she was doing.

“Maybe instead, you can—”

“I don't think so, madam. You may be pregnant, but I'm old.”

“You're not that old.”

“You're not that pregnant.”

“Very funny,” Maggie said. And it was, sort of.

Maggie arrived at Irish Dreams to see her mother slam the phone down and spin her chair to talk to Marian, who was standing nearby, clutching a coffee mug with both hands.

“Double-booked, that's what they're saying. I'm telling them I've got a group of ten coming in next week, and where am I supposed to put them? And they're saying sorry, it was a clerical error!” Norah pushed a hand through her hair.

“I know you don't want to, but we'll have to split them up between the two B&Bs,” Marian said.

“If they were a younger bunch, I'd say fair enough, but these are God's classmates, Marian. Five couples who've been married nearly half a century. They don't want to talk to each other. The men want to drink with the men, and the ladies want to gossip with the ladies about whichever one of them just got up to go to the loo. Maybe we can send the husbands to Farraher's and the wives to Coyne's.”

“Can we do that?”

Norah laughed. “If only it were that easy.”

Maggie grinned as well. She loved Marian. Eileen once said if someone told her it was raining cats and dogs, Marian would get an umbrella and a can of cat food and head outside.

Marian said, “I thought you were serious.”

“I'm desperate, that's what I am,” Norah said.

Maggie cleared her throat.

“Maggie!” Rose called from her perch on the edge of their mother's desk. “There's a group of old people with no place to sleep in Wicklow.”

“Tragic,” Maggie said.

“Not tragic,” Norah said, “but certainly a problem, as they've paid us a lot of money to make sure their trip goes smoothly.”

“Maggie, hi,” Marian said. “How are you feeling?”

“Better these days. Okay. Tired.”

Rose jumped down from the desk and threw her arms around Maggie. Then she lifted Maggie's shirt.

“Look, Marian, she can't button her pants anymore.”

“Rose!” Norah said. “You do not do that in public. Don't do that anywhere!”

But Maggie, who had grown resigned in the past week, thought it was funny. Or at least her mother's horror was funny. She straightened her shirt. “Who's here but us?”

“Did you notice, Marian?” Rose asked.

“I did. Right when she walked in.”

“Did you really?” Maggie asked. “I know from the side, but I thought—”

“All right then,” Norah said. “I am sorry to do this to you, Maggie, but I've got to sort this out. This group is scheduled to fly out in two days. Wicklow is their second stop.”

“Well,
then.
” Maggie unclipped Rose's pink barrette, smoothed her hair and refastened it. “Time to go.”

At Rose's request, they took the route to their grandmother's that led them by the firehouse.

Rose paused before the two memorial plaques hung side by side to the right of the apparatus doors, which were open.

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
FIREFIGHTER JAMES WALSH
BORN IN IRELAND FEBRUARY 1861
DIED DECEMBER 28, 1884

Rose touched the letters of his date of death. She paid no attention to the plaque beside it, unveiled in a ceremony on a rainy April morning when she was less than a year old.

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
LIEUTENANT SEAN PATRICK O'REILLY
WHO DIED IN THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS DUTY
NOVEMBER 27, 1947–APRIL 5, 1983

Rose peered inside and waved.

Maggie looked. “Who're you waving to?”

“The fireman,” Rose said.

“Nobody's there.”

“He's right there.” She pointed, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Rose had long insisted that there was a ghost in the firehouse. A fireman in “oldie” clothes. It was easy to dismiss it by saying she'd heard the story of James Walsh from Brendan once too often, but Maggie remembered her going on about it when she was as young as three. Once, when Maggie asked him, Brendan said scornfully that he wouldn't have told Rose any ghost stories when she was that little; Aidan would have killed him. Maggie had it backwards. Rose told Brendan about the fireman, and he told her about James Walsh.

Maggie didn't even pretend to look. “Okay, whatever you say,” she said, waiting for Rose to sulk, the way she did whenever she sensed she was being humored. Rose wasn't easy to fool. But then she also had a short attention span. She put a hand on Maggie's belly. Maggie resisted the urge to push her hand away.

“Will the baby's last name be O'Reilly or Grady?” she asked.

“Rosie, you know the baby isn't coming home with me.”

“But why not?” she asked, as she had been since Maggie first explained it to her.

Because of you, Maggie thought. And Bren. Because if I didn't know what it was like to have an infant in the house, maybe I'd be dumb enough to think I could do it.

“Because I have to finish college. I can't take care of him now.”

“I'm her aunt, though?” Rose asked.

“I guess you will be. Technically.” Maggie hadn't thought about that. Her mother's grandchild. Her grandmother's great-grandchild. Eileen's great-niece or -nephew. Cousin to Quinn. Uncle Aidan. Uncle Brendan. Aunt Rose.

“Hey, girls.”

Joe Paladino was standing just inside the doorway. He held up a hand and Rose slapped her hand against his in a noiseless high-five. Nine years ago, he and her father had studied for the lieutenant's test together. But when it came time to take the exam alone, after Sean's death, Joe decided not to. He did take it eventually, and just last month got promoted off the list.

When Maggie remarked that it was about time, Aidan told her Joe had put it off because the promotion to officer would have meant being transferred out of the firehouse and away from them. Still, Maggie had said. Still.

“How are you doing?” he asked Maggie, not quite meeting her eyes.

“Oh, never better.”

“She's having the baby in August,” Rose volunteered.

He grinned at Rose. “Isabel was born in February, but her middle name is May.”

Rose laughed. “Does Christopher have a middle name?” she asked.