She roared across the plate of Blue Ribands that everyone knew that priests were just men too, everyone knew they had their fun, but no one had the right to let on. If that hussy had just kept her mouth shut, like most women who had enticed men of the cloth to give in to their MUCKY ways, it would be business as usual instead of this devastation of the Church’s power. Bridie nodded and said, is that so? I’d never been gladder that John wasn’t in the room. He might have picked Sadie’s head off her shoulders like a wild strawberry and popped it in his mouth.

I’d half a mind to tell her that her local hero Father O’Brien, the man she lived to worship with her dusters and mops, had played his own part in covering up another fallen soldier of God. My old friend Father Martin O’Hara had been passed along and hidden in several parishes thanks to his inability to say no to hussies but he’d served me well when I’d needed a scapegoat.

In another week, another letter landed. It was when I saw the postmark read Donegal that I slipped the envelope into my apron pocket before John Johns came back for the mid-morning tea. I had no big idea what I’d do with it but Father Pat O’Connell had done me a favour once. He had come into The Hill and chastised my mother when she was at the height of her powers. He had told me that I wasn’t what he expected and I’d felt special for five minutes which was better than nothing.

The letter got hotter and hotter where it lay in my apron but I kept it there until John and me were alone in the bedroom. I delivered the lines I’d been rehearsing for hours.

–  This came for you today.

–  Why have you brought that up here? I’ve no interest in it and you know it!

–  Why don’t you just read it? It’s been posted in Donegal.

There was no range up here so he’d hardly stomp the whole way to the kitchen to make a point and sure enough he didn’t. Though his face was like thunder, he read it from top to bottom and turned away from me to put it on the bedside table. His big back was hunched and I was suddenly sorry for getting involved.

–  He’s not well …

–  Who?

–  Don’t be coy, Mary. It doesn’t suit you.

–  What does he want?

–  He wants to set things right with his long-lost son!

–  I think you should go. You only get one father in this life.

Serena picked that moment to shout out goodnight to us and he raised an eyebrow at me. Her Dada hung in the air, a mosquito.

–  What about you, Mary? Are you feeling confessional?