The Skye in June Read Free Page A

before continuing in a tight voice, “. . .you can bloody well go to Hell.”
    He clenched his fists as though preparing to launch them. He ’d been in many a fight and even the bravest men backed away from him. This was his wife and he meant to get his way.
    “ Jesus, woman! Don’t be cheeky with me! I’ve spoken! Her name will be Elizabeth!”
    They stared at each other. Unable to withstand his wife ’s steely glare, Jimmy was the first to look away. Cathy knew she had won.
     
    Jimmy stood outside the ward with his hands in his pockets, waiting for his wife and new daughter to join him. Cathy came out of the ward holding her small cloth bag in one hand and Baby June, swaddled in a pink blanket, in the other.
    As the MacDonalds turned to leave they saw Dr. MacFadden sauntering down the hallway of the maternity floor. The doctor adjusted his glasses as he came closer to them.
    “ Hello there, Mr. MacDonald.” He extended his hand to Jimmy. “You’re no leaving us already are you, Mrs. MacDonald?” the good doctor said with a warm smile.
    “ She’s better off at home where she’s needed.” Jimmy’s answer sounded gruff to Cathy. When she had told her husband the doctor said she needed extra bed rest and ordered her to stay a week, instead of the usual five days allotted new mothers, Jimmy had disagreed. Cathy knew her husband wasn’t too fond of “the big chucker ” as he called Dr. MacFadden. When he spat out the derogatory term for a county lad, it was on the tip of Cathy’s tongue to remind him that even though the doctor grew up on the rather isolated Isle of Skye, he was still smarter than Jimmy would ever be.
    The doctor motioned Jimmy to step over to a quieter place away from the busy corridor. Jimmy told Cathy to wait before he followed the do ctor further down the hallway. Dr. MacFadden leaned his shoulder onto the wall. The doctor, with his powerful build, youthful complexion and dark, wavy hair, didn’t show his age of forty-five-years. Jimmy, in his worn clothing and thinning hair, looked older than his forty-one-years. He straightened himself to match the doctor’s towering presence. It was useless. He was still a full head shorter than Dr. MacFadden. Jimmy leaned back and crossed his arms. “Is there a problem?” he asked tersely.
    “ Aye, sorry to say but there is, Mr. MacDonald. This birth was exceptionally difficult on your wife. I’m recommending that this be her last baby. It will be very dangerous for her health if she were to birth again. Something is not right with her and…”
    “ Aye, something is wrong with her, alright,” Jimmy interrupted him. “As for what happens with more children, I can’t say. God decides that. No you or me.”
    The doctor rose to his full height, accentuating every inch of their differences. Impatiently, he said, “Mr. MacDonald, if your wife gives birth again, she’ll be seeing God before you know it.”
    “ We’ll talk to our priest,” Jimmy responded with his arms crossed tightly on his chest.
    “D id you no hear me right? We’re talking about your wife. If it were my wife…”
    “ But she’s no, is she?” Jimmy argued. “I’ll make the decisions for us.”
    “ Good. Then I recommend condoms.”
    “Doctor! You being a Catholic, you ought to know better than to talk about that!”
    “ My God man, it’s 1950! We’re living in modern times. Give your children a chance for a better life.”
    “I take care of my family just fine.”
    Without waiting for a response, Jimmy quickly walked away while angrily rummaging throug h his pockets for a cigarette.
    * * * * *
    Chapter 3
    THE GYPSY FORTUNE TELLER
    FEBRUARY 1951
     
    A TINY GYPSY WOMAN walked through the mist in Partick, a working class neighborhood in Glasgow. When she came to the tenement house at Twelve Dumbarton Road. The sounds of the bells on her bracelets preceded her as she walked up to the first of the four landings in the building. Her craggy face peeked out of her