Born in Fire Read Free

boasted it was the last pub until New York. Tom’s spirits lifted at the sight, as they always did.
    “Shall we sail over to New York, Maggie, and have a pint?” he said, as he always did.
    “I’ll buy the first round.”
    He chuckled. A feeling of urgency came over him as she pulled the lorry to the end of the road, where it gave way to grass and rock, and at last to the windswept sea that spanned to America.
    They stepped into a roar of sound that was wind and water lashing furiously against the teeth and fists of black rock. With their arms linked, they staggered like drunks, then laughing, began to walk.
    “It’s madness to come here on such a day.”
    “Aye, a fine madness. Feel the air, Maggie! Feel it. It wants to blow us from here to Dublin Town. Do you remember when we went to Dublin?”
    “We saw a juggler tossing colored balls. I loved it so much you learned how yourself.”
    His laugh boomed out like the sea itself. “Oh, the apples I bruised.”
    “We had pies and cobblers for weeks.”
    “And I thought I could make a pound or two with my new skill and took me up to Galway to the fair.”
    “And spent every penny you made on presents for me and Brianna.”
    His color was back, she noted, and his eyes were shining. She went willingly with him across the uneven grass into the gnashing teeth of the wind. There they stood on the edge of the powerful Atlantic with its warrior waves striking at the merciless rock. Water crashed, then whipped away again, leaving dozens of waterfalls tumbling through crevices. Overhead, gulls cried and wheeled, cried and wheeled, the sound echoing on and on against the thunder of the waves.
    The spray plumed high, white as snow at the base, clear as crystal in the beads that scattered in the icy air. No boat bobbed on the rugged surface of the sea today. The fierce whitecaps rode the sea alone.
    She wondered if her father came here so often because the merging of sea and stone symbolized marriage as much as war to his eyes. And his marriage had been forever a battle, the constant bitterness and anger of his wife’s lashing forever at his heart, and gradually, oh so gradually, wearing it away.
    “Why do you stay with her, Da?”
    “What?” He pulled his attention back from the sea and the sky.
    “Why do you stay with her?” Maggie repeated. “Brie and I are grown now. Why do you stay where you’re not happy?”
    “She’s my wife,” he said simply.
    “Why should that be an answer?” she demanded. “Why should it be an end? There’s no love between you, no liking, if it comes to that. She’s made your life hell as long as I can remember.”
    “You’re too hard on her.” This, too, was on his head, he thought. For loving the child so much that he’d been helpless not to accept her unconditional love for him. A love, he knew, that had left no room for understanding the disappointments of the woman who had borne her. “What’s between your mother and me is as much my doing as hers. A marriage is a delicate thing, Maggie, a balance of two hearts and two hopes. Sometimes the weight’s just too heavy on the one side, and the other can’t lift to it. You’ll understand when you’ve a marriage of your own.”
    “I’ll never marry.” She said in fiercely, like a vow before God. “I’ll never give anyone the right to make me so unhappy.”
    “Don’t say that. Don’t.” He squeezed her hard, worried. “There’s nothing more precious than marriage and family. Nothing in the world.”
    “If that’s so, how can it be such a prison?”
    “It isn’t meant to be.” The weakness came over him again, and all at once he felt the cold deep in his bones. “We haven’t given you a good example, your mother and I, and I’m sorry for it. More than I can tell you. But I know this, Maggie, my girl. When you love with all you are, it isn’t unhappiness alone you risk. It’s heaven, too.”
    She pressed her face into his coat, drew comfort from the scent of