A Song Across the Sea Read Free

fire for the evening meal.
    Tara, trying to regain her balance on the chair, heard Padraig’s screams and jumped down, terrified.
    Paddy howled in pain. He held his right hand out in front of him as if it were an unfamiliar object, not belonging to him. The boiling water that had splashed on it had already turned the skin an angry red. He lifted his arms up beseechingly to Tara. She snatched him up and held him close, near tears herself.
    Her mother and Aunt Bridey hurried in from the parlor and her father from the cow barn, to see what all the noise was about. Even Brigid Connelly stood in the doorway, gaping. Having lost her audience, her haughty composure had slipped out of place.
    Tara’s mother sized up the situation quickly. She took Padraig from her and plunged his hand into a bucket of cool water standing at one end of the table.
    “There, there, little man,” she soothed him. “You’ll be all right.” After a time, his sobs began to subside.
    Tara spun around and glimpsed Sheila. The clumsy girl was crawling on the floor, picking up the potatoes that had spilled from the pot.
    “You wicked, stupid girl!” Tara said, so choked with anger she could barely speak. “Look what you’ve done!”
    Sheila looked up at her, mute. Tara felt just a little sorry for her harsh words. Sheila’s face was pale with contrition, her lips bloodless. Tears coursed slowly down her cheeks.
    “That’s enough, Tara,” her father said. “I’m sure it was an accident. Your cousin didn’t mean any harm.” He took Padraig in his strong arms and rocked him rhythmically.
    “I was only after helping you get the jam pot down from the shelf,” Sheila mumbled hoarsely.
    Aunt Bridey looked at her sister in consternation. “Kitty, I think we’d best be leavin’.”
    •  •  •
    And so it hadn’t been a perfect day, after all—not one to be captured in a glass paperweight and stored in the shadows for later. There’d been tears, angry words, and pain.
    Tara thought about it all as she leaned back in the big timber tub that had been dragged in front of the fireplace. Her bath water was getting cold.
    “Will there be a scar, d’ya think?” she asked her mother.
    “There will. It was a bad enough burn.” Her mother was tatting lace in the soft glow cast by the peat fire. Tara knew with pride that her mother made the finest lace in two counties. She would take it into the village next market day and sell it to a shopkeeper for a little extra money.
    Tara made swirls in the tepid water with her hand and looked over at her brother. Padraig, asleep now in his cot, seemed not to be overly worried about a scar. His burn had been lovingly tended to. Tara could see the white dressing on his hand from across the room. Exhausted from crying, he’d allowed himself to be put to bed soon after supper.
    Tara finished her bath and went to bid goodnight to her father. She found him sitting in the big leather chair near his bed, peering at a newspaper through spectacles perched precariously on his nose. He lowered the paper when he saw her.
    “Ah, well, here’s me lass,” he said, and offered her a windburned cheek to kiss.
    Unwilling to go off to bed just yet, she sat at his feet.
    “Did you hear what Miss Connelly was sayin’ about America?”
    “Missus told me all about her extravagant stories, and I don’t believe the half of it.”
    “But it sounds so grand!”
    “No better than a fairy story. And no more truth to it, either.” He reached down and gently lifted her chin so that her eyes met his. “You’re not thinkin’ of leavin’ us to go off to America?”
    She giggled. “Sure and I’m off tomorrow. I thought I’d swim there, carryin’ me clothes in a bag on me head.”
    He smiled and took his newspaper in hand again. She stood and hugged him, whispering in his ear: “I’ll never leave you, Da.”
    But as Tara carried her candle in its tin sconce up the dark stairs toward her bed, her mind buzzed with