BooksBarbecue
Back Before My Actual Heart Breaks
Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. 2007
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 1973
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. 1982
  14. 7
  15. 8
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. 12
  20. 13
  21. 14
  22. 15
  23. 16
  24. 17
  25. 18
  26. 19
  27. 20
  28. 21
  29. 22
  30. 23
  31. 24
  32. 1998
  33. 25
  34. 26
  35. 27
  36. 2004
  37. 28
  38. 29
  39. 30
  40. 31
  41. 32
  42. 33
  43. 2007
  44. 34
  45. 35
  46. 36
  47. Acknowledgements
  48. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

He’ll be biding his time until they don’t need a mother stationed at the range from 6am until 10pm every day. Then he’ll be able to let me go. I’ll be set free but where will I fly? The very thought of it makes roots grow out of my feet through the concrete in front of the range, through the hundreds of feet of good clay and still further into the granite bedrock.

This is my life, I thought: children, farming, Carncloon, the five hills I feel I can touch. Even the Troubles – the rattle of Saracens and the Chinooks chopping across the cloud-filled blue skies – flowed in my veins. The joys of Bridie, Eileen, Kathleen, Bernie, Matthew; the sorrows of Daddy and Mammy. The sights and sounds of Lizzie Magee. The taste of John Johns.

This is my life and only a fool would keep running away from it. What I needed was a way back, a crosspiece, something to yoke me and their father together more securely so that I could stay on Johns Farm. Something that no man, priest or not, could put asunder.

24

John Johns kept his word. He would not look at me in case I made him more weary. The way he blocked me out made the children’s eyes wide with worry. Bridie could see it too but she kept her counsel and talked louder and laughed more to take the edge off the hostilities. More tea than ever was stewed, more cakes bought, more treats laid on as she did her level best to sweeten the air. The boys were half taken in when their mouths were stuffed with chocolate eclairs and jam tarts, but not Serena. Serena knew something had started to rip.

She pulled us together every chance she could. She held his hand and mine and dragged us closer to her on the couch; when she was kissing us goodnight she pulled our heads together, her little muscly arms roping our necks. She insisted that every bit of the book she was reading aloud needed both our attention.

I could just about stand it in the daytime when I had them all as a buffer but in the bedroom he kept his back to me. The salve of our kind of loving in the nights at Johns Farm was wearing thin. The panic started in my toes and threatened to boil up all the way to my eyes. He didn’t touch me for a month, a whole month. I longed to creep my hand across the sheet but I didn’t. Instead I lay rigid, arms by my side like a demented soldier. I wouldn’t buckle first, No Siree Bob! I could wait him out. This was a siege.