Min was glad to see him go. There would be peace now, for a while. She didn’t like to see him getting into these states where he talked so much. All that raking up of the past was a bad sign. She would have asked the priest to come in and talk to him, but she knew Martin would fight the priest’s coming until he could fight no more. Martin didn’t want the priest in the house. His mind was made up to that, and there was no use arguing with him. Min only hoped she would be able to get the priest in time, when the time came. She didn’t want her brother dying without the Last Sacraments. She didn’t understand Martin’s bitter attitude toward the Church. Polly went very much the same way, of course. Min would never forget Polly’s blasphemous language when the third-eldest child died, the little one they called Mary. Min was trying to comfort Polly by telling her the baby would be well taken care of in Heaven, when Polly burst out laughing and crying and saying she could take care of her own child better than God and His Blessed Mother and all the saints and angels put together. “They might have left poor little Mary with her own Mammy!” Polly said. “They must have seen the way she was holding on to my hand, wanting to stay with me. They have very hard hearts up there, if you ask me.” Martin had never gone that far in his talk against the Church. At least, as far as Min knew he’d never gone that far, but she knew she was going to have to do a bit of scheming to get the priest into the house. “The springs of affection are rising.” She didn’t like to hear him talking like that. What Min remembered of that day in the garden by the Slaney was that she felt worn out and dried up, and trapped, crushed in by people who were determined to see only the bright surface of the occasion. They could call it a wedding or anything they liked, but she knew it was a holocaust and that she was the victim, although nobody would ever admit that.