A Woman's Heart

Like her Irish Volunteer forefathers who’d refused to give up a good fight, Fionna refused to surrender what she’d come to view as a holy war.

She slanted Nora a look. “If I die before the Vatican comes through, you’ll have to carry on.”

“You’re going to live forever,” Nora said quickly. Firmly.

“No one lives forever, dear,” Fionna said mildly. “Not in our mortal form, at any rate.” Then, as if understanding Nora’s reluctance to discuss the subject, she returned the topic to its earlier track. “I’m off to Derry to hear another story next week. Is there anything you’d like me to get for you?”

Although the prices were often lower in Northern Ireland, Nora wasn’t at all eager to hear that her grandmother would be traveling there. But she also knew the futility of arguing.

“My Sunday blazer is getting too holey even for church, thanks to the moths dining on it,” Nora said. “Perhaps, if you have time, and find one on sale…”

“On sale or not, it’s yours.”

“Remind me to give you the money before you go.”

“That’s not necessary. And it’s not a gift,” the older woman insisted before Nora could argue the point. “Consider it payment. For continuing my work after I’m gone,” she tacked on slyly.

Knowing when she was bested, Nora didn’t even try to protest. As she watched the mist-shrouded landscape flash by the window, she wondered if the American writer would expect dessert every night after his supper.

Nora heard the wails before she even got to the kitchen door. Since her older brother, Michael, was away in Kerry, selling his wool, her younger brother, John, had been stopping by Michael’s farm after school to tend to the milking. Which had left the younger two children in Mary’s hands this afternoon.

Despite the fact that her sister suffered the usual mood swings that came with being sixteen, Mary was, for the most part, a good dependable girl.

“Another boy crisis,” Fionna guessed.

“You’re probably right.” Nora hoped that whatever it was that was making her sister keen like a banshee was not as serious as it sounded. She felt guilty when the first thought that came to mind was an unplanned pregnancy, but then again, Nora knew all about teenage desires.

And wasn’t Mary’s best friend, Deidre McMann, about to become a mother? The father was a college boy Deidre had met at a fair in Limerick.

“Jack broke Mary’s heart,” Rory ran up to announce, his wolfhound at his heels, as always. Blue eyes, the deep-sea shade of his father’s, held seeds of worry. His dark hair, again so like Conor’s, had fallen over his forehead.

Feeling a familiar rush of love for her son, Nora brushed the hair back. “I’ll tend to Mary. Meanwhile, why don’t you go finish your chores? I brought Maeve a nice juicy bone,” she said, handing him a package tied with a string. “She can chew on it while you feed your rabbits.”

“Thanks, Mam!” He was off like a shot, seemingly relieved to leave matters of the heart to the female members of the family. Uncharacteristically, Maeve, emboldened by the smells emanating from the waxed white paper, began barking excitedly and nipping at his heels.

Enjoying the carefree sight of boy and dog, Nora said a quick prayer that she wouldn’t have to take her son from the life here that fit him so well. Then, unable to avoid this latest problem any longer, she went with Fionna into the house. She put the grocery bags on the wooden counter and turned to her sister. “So. What did Jack do now?”

Since her mother had taught her there were very few problems that couldn’t be solved by a cup of tea, Nora put a kettle of water on the stove to boil.

“He broke my heart!” Mary wailed, echoing Rory’s explanation.

“And how exactly did he do that?”

“He asked Sharon Fitzgerald to the May Dance.”

“Is that all?” Fionna asked.

“You don’t understand! Everyone’s already coupled up. I won’t have a date!”

“You could always go to the dance alone,” Fionna suggested.

“Grandmother!” Mary shot a desperate look at Nora. “Would you please explain that these days only the wretched homely girls destined for spinsterhood go to dances alone?”

“I doubt you’re destined for spinsterhood,” Nora replied mildly as she noted the black trails of mascara running down her sister’s cheeks.

While she understood a teenager’s natural impulse for rebellion, she did wish that Mary hadn’t taken to emulating what had become known in Dublin as the Gothic look. The black tortured-artist’s clothing, white Kabuki-dancer powder and maroon-painted lips Mary favored on weekends away from school detracted from her natural beauty.

At least the nuns had forbidden the fluorescent green or orange spiked hair sported by the city teenagers. And, needless to say, body piercing was out of the question. Nora decided to be grateful for small favors.

“I realize it hurts,” she tried again. “But it’s not the end of the world, darling. There are still three weeks until the dance, and perhaps Jack will change his mind—”

“He’s not going to change his mind,” Mary sniffed. “Because the only reason he dropped me for Sharon is ’cause she puts out. She’s probably slept with half the boys in school.”

There it was again. That ever-threatening sex issue. Lately, Nora had finally come to understand all too well why her mother had worried so during the days she’d been stealing off to hidden meadows with Devlin Monohan.

“A man won’t buy the cow when he can get the milk for free,” Fionna said sagely. “You’re right to hold on to your virginity, Mary, dear. When you’re with your husband on your wedding night, you’ll look back on this day and be glad you held firm.”

“I’m never going to get married!”

“Of course you will.” Nora handed her a tissue.

“No, I’m not.” Mary blew her nose with a loud unfeminine honk. “I’ve decided to become a nun.”

“You’ve certainly got the wardrobe for it,” Fionna muttered, casting a derisive look at the flowing black skirt and ebony tunic sweater.

“You can’t be a nun,” seven-year-old Celia, who was coloring in a book of Irish Grand National winners, piped up. “You have to have a vocation. Then you go off to be a missionary in the Congo.”

The kettle whistled, allowing Nora to turn away to hide her smile. The Nun’s Story was a perennial favorite on television, broadcast every season during Lent.

Mary turned on the youngest Joyce sister. “That’s just a stupid movie.”

“I know that.” Celia lifted her small pointed chin. “But Sister Mary Anthony is reading us the lives of the saints, and they all had vocations. Like Saint Theresa who walked on thorns and didn’t flinch. And Joan of Arc who was burned at the stake and never even cried.”

“And let’s not be forgetting Saint Maria Goretti who died rather than submit to a man,” Fionna said pointedly. “She didn’t even lose courage when her attacker started stabbing her with his dagger. Now that’s a vocation.”

“I didn’t say I was going to be a bloody saint!” Mary’s palm hit the kitchen table with enough force to send crayons rolling off onto the floor. “I said I was going to be a nun.”

“There’s no need to swear.” Nora put the teapot on the table.

“You just don’t understand!” Mary jumped up, knocking over her chair with a loud clatter. “None of you understand!” she cried as she ran from the room.

There was the sound of footfalls on the stairs. Moments later the slam of a door reverberated through the farmhouse, causing the calendar from Monohan’s Mercantile, with the lovely photograph of wildflowers, to tilt on the wall like a drunkard.

Appearing unfazed by the histrionics, Celia returned to her coloring, carefully filling in the lines of a flowing mane with a crayon that was nearly the same color as her russet braids. “When I’m a teenager, I’m not going to have anything to do with boys,” she vowed.

“I, for one, would be very grateful if you stick to that decision,” Nora said, even though she knew it would never happen. Boys and tears were just part of growing up.

Wanting to calm things down before the American writer arrived, Nora followed the pitiful sound of sobbing upstairs. Although she tried her best to sympathize with Mary’s upsets, it was difficult when they occurred so often. Granted, Jack’s behavior was just cause, but usually Mary’s bleak moods were triggered by far less.