A Slip of a Girl Read online

  A clap of thunder,

  and sudden downpour.

  I open the half door,

  worried about the crop.

  The hens, wings flapping,

  flutter along the boreen.

  What’s happened?

  I throw my shawl

  over my shoulders.

  Head bent against the rain,

  I run to turn them back.

  But ahead of me,

  arms out, reaching,

  a man chases after them.

  Our hens!

  I’m desperate to catch them,

  but I trip,

  turning my ankle,

  losing moments.

  I scramble up.

  One hen is under his arm.

  He reaches for the neck

  of another.

  I yell,

  Can anyone hear me?

  But then,

  Mae Donnelly stands

  in front of him,

  arm raised,

  pitchfork over her head.

  The man drops the hen,

  and runs away

  across the Donnellys’ field.

  Mae stabs the earth

  with the pitchfork,

  and reaches for me,

  “Are you all right, Anna?”

  “The hens,” I say.

  “How can I thank you?”

  She helps me

  turn them toward home,

  then waves.

  “We have to take care

  of each other,”

  she calls after me.

  Last Day

  EVERY day,

  Mam weakens.

  Then, one morning,

  I kneel at the side of her bed.

  “Keep Nuala safe,”

  she whispers.

  “The house and the land.”

  For a moment,

  Da rests his head against hers.

  “Anna’s only a slip of a girl,”

  he says.

  “Ah no,” Mam whispers.

  “She’s more than that.

  Much more.”

  Da tries to smile.

  “True,” he says.

  “She has a lot to say.”

  Mam takes a breath,

  struggles for another.

  “Nuala will always need help,”

  she says.

  I see Nuala’s beautiful face,

  her light hair,

  her uneven teeth.

  My little sister is slow to speak,

  slow to understand.

  “I count on you, Anna.”

  Mam tries to grip my hand.

  “Read,” she says.

  “I’m sorry there was no time for school.”

  Hours later,

  she’s gone.

  There’s only the sound of crying

  in our house.

  Saying Goodbye

  MAE Donnelly comes

  to help.

  She opens the window.

  “To let her spirit

  roam free,” she says.

  Da stands outside

  with the men.

  The women bring food,

  along with memories

  and stories,

  and even laughter.

  Liam stands with me.

  He touches my cheek

  and shoulder.

  I lean against him.

  Later, we keen,

  Jane and I,

  and the Donnellys,

  the sound of our crying

  spilling out across the field.

  We listen for the beansidhe,

  one of those creatures

  who wail when someone dies.

  But it’s silent

  except for the sound

  of the night insects.

  People from town

  I hardly know

  come to the church

  for Mam’s Mass.

  I sit between Jane

  and Nuala,

  holding their hands.

  Father Tom tells us

  Mam was a good woman.

  He calls her Margaret.

  I close my eyes.

  Dad always called her Maggie,

  and sometimes, My Pet.

  Our eyes are dry.

  No tears are left.

  The Well

  MAM’S apron

  hangs on a hook.

  The sash is torn,

  I tear off the edge.

  Nuala comes with me

  to Patrick’s Well.

  Pieces of fabric crowd

  the tree branches overhead:

  faded collars, ragged hems,

  a bit of blanket.

  “Prayers,” I tell Nuala.

  “Begging for health,

  for a fine crop.

  Everyone needs something.”

  I reach up

  and add Mam’s sash.

  “Mam wants?” Nuala asks.

  “I want,” I tell her.

  “Peace for Mam.”

  I hesitate.

  “And to keep my promise

  to her.”

  A shrine with a holy well and a tree full of scraps of fabric left by pilgrims in Ragwell Glen, Clonmel, County Tipperary

  (This image is reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland L_ROY_08496.)

  St. Mary’s

  WE stumble through spring.

  I dress Nuala,

  pull burrs out of her hair.

  I try to be Mam.

  But the soup I cook is watery,

  the porridge thin.

  Ah, but the bread.

  Mine is exactly like Mam’s.

  I remember:

  the oats,

  the fermented potato yeast,

  scraping sugar

  from the tin,

  adding water.

  The first time,

  I saw my bread rise,

  I threw my arms around

  Mam’s waist,

  smiling,

  so proud.

  And Mam said,

  “Teaching you how to do it

  was the best part,

  passing it on.

  You’ll always have it now.”

  One afternoon,

  I walk to St. Mary’s,

  where Mam rests under the sod.

  She’s not alone.

  Baby Aiden lies in a box

  next to her,

  my tiny brother

  who never opened his eyes.

  He’d be older than Nuala now,

  younger than Jane.

  Mam and Aiden together.

  Maybe they comfort

  each other.

  “I’m trying,”

  I whisper to Mam.

  Her voice comes back to me.

  “Read. Read.”

  The Rent

  DA hears about a tax

  on glass.

  That night,

  we board up our one window

  with splintery pieces of wood.

  In the morning,

  the Englishman’s agent pounds

  on our door.

  He’s an ugly man,

  with blue eyes that bulge.

  His voice is sharp.

  It’s not like our soft Irish.

  “The rent will be raised this quarter,”

  he says.

  Da points to the boarded window.

  The man shrugs.

  We co
uld have saved ourselves

  the trouble,

  our bruised fingers.

  “Not fair,” I yell.

  The agent frowns,

  and Da shakes his head at me.

  The English want us out,

  their sheep to graze on our land,

  or strangers to pay higher rent

  for houses built by Irish hands.

  Later, we pry the wood

  from the window.

  Torn nails,

  but it’s lighter inside.

  We don’t talk about the new rent.

  But we know we can’t pay,

  unless the weather is fine

  and the crop is huge enough

  to sell most of it.

  Above me, a streak of lightning.

  I climb my hill

  to quiet the fear in my chest,

  and look down at our house.

  The walls need a whitewash,

  but if the house looks cared for,

  there will be more tax.

  Wait.

  Is that Nuala I see?

  She’s opening the half door

  to go outside.

  Where is Jane

  who should be watching her?

  “Go back,” I call.

  Nuala can’t hear me.

  She dances around

  on feet that fit in the palm

  of my hand.

  She wants to chase the hens

  and gather up the feathers.

  Jane leans against the door now,

  curling her hair in her fingers.

  She’s dreaming of our brothers,

  dreaming of America.

  She grows thinner every day,

  as Mam did.

  Her face is the color of milk.

  Her hand that sliced the potato

  never really healed.

  If only I could give her

  more food.

  If only I could give her

  that dream.

  But she’ll never sail away

  on a ship

  that costs more than we have.

  I hurry down the hill,

  to scoop Nuala up.

  I take a feather out of her mouth,

  and tuck it between her fingers.

  Another Promise

  LIAM comes down the road,

  pushing a cart

  that holds their few things.

  His mam walks beside him,

  her shawl pulled over her head

  in shame.

  Liam stops when he sees me,

  but his mam walks on slowly.

  “We’re for the road,”

  he says.

  “Someone will have our house.”

  His voice is bitter.

  Nuala knows something is wrong.

  She hugs Liam’s legs.

  “Ah, ah,” she whispers.

  “Where will you go?”

  I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  “A long way from here,

  to Cork in the south.”

  He reaches for the cart handle,

  but he turns back.

  “One word isn’t enough, Anna.

  Remember the schoolmaster.

  Ask him to help you read.

  He’s a good man.

  He won’t say no.”

  “Maybe,” I say,

  remembering Mam’s voice.

  He takes both my hands

  in his.

  But not to swing me

  as he usually does.

  He holds them tight.

  “I’m coming back, Anna.

  Look for me.”

  “I will,” I say,

  and call after him.

  “Don’t forget me.”

  “Never,”

  he calls back.

  Oh, Liam.

  An evicted family in County Donegal in Western Ireland

  (This image is reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland L_IMP_1507.)

  Reading

  HOW can I ask the schoolmaster,

  a girl like me,

  who never had time for school,

  who writes her name with an X?

  But Liam is right.

  One word isn’t enough.

  I’m desperate

  to know all of them.

  I’m afraid of the schoolmaster,

  even though he knows my name,

  and nods

  when we pass in the village.

  But Da says,

  “I wanted school

  for all of you.”

  He raises his shoulders,

  spreads his hands.

  “But the fields,” he says.

  “The planting.

  The house.”

  He takes a breath.

  “Why not at the end of the day?”

  “Why not?” Nuala echoes.

  I might.

  The Schoolmaster

  IT’S late.

  Still he’s outside the school,

  staring up at the gray sky.

  My throat is closed,

  my teeth hidden behind my lips.

  But at last, I begin.

  “I found a book on the hill.”

  I hold it out.

  “Horse,” I say,

  pointing to the picture.

  He nods,

  this white-haired man,

  whose head is filled with knowing.

  He takes me inside

  to a room with a banked fire

  in the hearth.

  Books line a shelf.

  I take a quick look

  behind the fall of my hair.

  Ten books?

  Twelve?

  I drop my glance

  to the floor.

  “Sit,” the schoolmaster says,

  but I shake my head.

  He dips a writing tool

  into a pot of black dye,

  and writes letters inside the book.

  “Anna Mallon,” he says.

  “Your name.”

  He spells out the letters,

  his fingers running along

  underneath.

  I stare at them.

  A, a mountain, begins my name.

  M, two mountain peaks, begins Mallon.

  I won’t forget.

  The National School, Drumlish, Co. Longford, Ireland

  Hungry July

  THERE’S not much to eat:

  handfuls of oats for bread,

  cabbage, the outer edges dark.

  The potato bin is less than half full.

  There’s so little to get us

  to the next harvest.

  Our hens are slow

  to lay eggs.

  I count on one for Da.

  He needs strength

  to work in the field.

  And Jane, so pale,

  must have one too.

  But Nuala cries for food,

  her fingers in her mouth.

  “Alannah, my Anna,” Da says.

  I know what he’s thinking.

  I spring up from the table,

  and step over one of the hens.

  We leave Nuala with Jane,

  our dreamer.

  Da and I steal through the trees,

  around the bramble bushes,

  as quiet as whispers,

  and pry open the iron gate.

  We hear the trickle of water

  before we reach the stream.
r />   This ribbon of river,

  teeming with fish, was ours,

  the Mallons’,

  before the English came.

  They own it all now:

  the road, the house,

  the soil itself.

  We hurry through the land

  they think is theirs,

  and crouch at the river’s edge.

  How clear the water is.

  Pale sand and stones gleam

  underneath.

  Da makes small waves

  with his cupped hands,

  as I hold out my apron.

  A fish swims in,

  and then another.

  Caught!

  Da squeezes my shoulders.

  “Supper,” he breathes.

  We’re happy with our work.

  The fish will make a fine meal,

  crisped and surrounded

  by greens and white mushrooms

  from the side of the boreen.

  If only Mam were here to share it.

  My throat burns.

  She taught me

  which mushrooms to gather,

  which of the wild greens.

  If only I could see her

  for just one day,

  even for a moment.

  Da and I hurry away.

  We can’t take chances.

  How terrible to be caught

  like a pair of fish.

  What would happen to us then?

  Shapes

  MOST late afternoons,

  I study letters

  with the schoolmaster.

  Once, on the way,

  I pass Mae

  digging in her field.

  She smiles at me.

  “Reading again?”

  I nod.

  “So lucky,” she says.

  I wave and keep going.

  I know I’m lucky.

  I can say the letters

  as quickly as coins spilling out

  of a jar.

  The schoolmaster is patient,

  friendly.

  Why was I ever afraid of him?

  I tell him my thoughts

  about letters.

  “The h is like a rush chair,”

  I say.

  “The o is a potato.

  The r is a shepherd’s hook,

  the s, a fish.”

  The schoolmaster says it’s good

  to imagine.

  It’s what writers do.

  “Right here in Longford,”

  he says,

  “A woman wrote a book

  about poor farmers.

  And in Dublin,

  A man wrote about a giant.”

  Imagine that.

  Rain

  I climb my hill,

  head down against

  the spitting drops.