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Back A Family Reunion
Chapters (66)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART ONE
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. CHAPTER EIGHT
  14. CHAPTER NINE
  15. CHAPTER TEN
  16. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  17. CHAPTER TWELVE
  18. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  19. PART TWO
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  39. PART THREE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  56. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  57. CHAPTER FIFTY
  58. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  59. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
  60. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
  61. CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
  62. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
  63. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
  64. EPILOGUE
  65. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  66. About the Author

When Marie-Claire had been born and Brigid had held her for the first time, she’d wept, overcome with emotion at the memory of the child she’d once carried. A child who would have been Keelin’s first cousin. She would have been a bit older than her niece – if it were a girl, and somehow Brigid had always felt her lost child had been a girl.

Holding Keelin’s new baby, her tiny fists waving in the air, her beautiful big blue eyes drooping in sleep, Brigid had had the strangest feeling that God was giving her a baby to replace the void left by the loss of her own, all those years ago. How precious were those moments whenever she got to cuddle her great-niece, and, after a few months, when she was weaned, give her her bottle.

On Friday evenings she would drive down to the Four Winds and stay the night, and Brigid could not describe the joy and balm to her spirit when she would take the baby to her room and sit in her rocking chair and feed her and change her and sometimes bathe her, cooing lovingly to her, pretending that she was her own child. On Saturday night she would return to the convent renewed by her joyful interaction with Keelin and Marie-Claire.

It had been a time of love and joy in the Four Winds, when Marie-Claire had been born. Una and Maura were young housemaids back then. Marie-Hélène, convalescing after a car accident, had been such a support to Keelin when she’d been most vulnerable. They had all rallied around mother and baby in the most loving and practical way and, in the process, had become a tight-knit little family.

She’d watched her fellow Sisters interact with the baby, some of them nervous at first, others hardly able to wait their turn to ‘get a go of her’, and seen their maternal instincts, which had been dampened by the way of life imposed on them, awaken. Marie-Claire had truly seemed a gift from God.

‘False humility is a sin, Sister Brigid. We feel you’re the right person to do God’s work in Limerick. So be it! Now go and pray and give thanks for the new opportunities He has given you to do that work.’ Brigid smiled, remembering the haughty tone of her spiritual director all those years ago. What would she say to her now, after Imelda’s revelations?