And then abruptly a door wrenched open in my mind. The material of her dress was familiar. Beneath its high ruffled collar, enough of the bodice was visible that I could see the pattern: columns of flowerlike bows trailing long ribbons intermixed with clusters of leaves and rosebuds. In the untinted photograph the material was light gray. In my memory it was pale yellow, dotted with pinks and greens—the only such patch on Grandma’s quilt.
As my blood careened I tried to tell myself it was doubtless a popular design, had gone into any number of dresses and quilts. But I didn’t believe it. A patch of that fabric had somehow become part of the quilt I knew as a boy. I was certain of it. And finally I had found the clue I’d been seeking to explain why I had come back in time: to deal with the person in that daguerreotype.
“Everything hunky?” Andy touched my shoulder. The expression, which I thought stupid, came from the slogan of a breath freshener named Hunkidori. He teased me with it frequently.
I pointed. “Who is she?”
“That’s Cait, my other sis—”
Margaret!” said Mrs. Leonard sharply. It came out “Mair-ghread.”
“Mother, she doesn’t go by Margaret now.”
“We have no Caitlin,” said Mrs. Leonard firmly, pronouncing it “Cat-LEEN.” “Margaret’s the name my Andrew picked, God rest him”—she crossed herself—“and as Margaret she was baptized in Holy Mother Church.”
Andy stared at the floor.
“‘Twas only weeks before her marriage that the lovely portrait was made,” chirped Mrs. Leonard.
Andy started to speak, then checked himself.
Marriage? Was a message intended? I turned reluctantly from the photograph. I wanted to steal it.
Time was short before we had to leave for the game. With long-handled utensils Brighid served pork and “praties” from iron pots suspended in the high open fireplace that had blackened the walls on either side. Gavan’s spirited jeremiad on inflation accompanied the meal. I understood him better by then. Later I tried to reproduce a sample of his brogue in writing:
When we first landed, yer honner, I made divil a cint but four dollars a week and find mesilf. But it was aisy livin’ in a manner of spakin’, as the troublesome prices din’ keep eleva-tin’ higher each time a soul turned aroun’. Be jaber, they’ll soon drain all o’ me heart’s blood!
Charmed by the lilt of it, I found myself following sounds and rhythms more than words. But I paid attention when Mrs. Leonard announced, “General O’Neill stopped in to pay his respects with that handsome Captain O’Donovan”—Andy stiffened in his chair—“close by ’im, as ever. Sure an’ they’re two noble samples of manhood, Andy. The captain said that he was watching over Margaret, out in the West.”
O’Donovan. The name resonated strangely in me.
“I wish he’d leave her the hell alone.”
“Your tongue, Andy!” She crossed herself. “The leadership’s travelin’ about the country these days,” she said. “Since the St. Patrick’s circular from Head Center, it’s been speechifyin’ and money-raisin’.”
Andy said sharply, “You didn’t give away what I sent you, did you?”
She pursed her lips.
“Just a pittance of it, lad,” said Gavan. “It’s her joy, Andrew.”
“It’s a shameful scheme, is what it is!” He set his fork down with an impact. “They come sniffing in here and leave with—”
“Andy, don’t,” she wailed. “They’re strugglin’ for our homeland. Yes, yours as well—if ye’d but know it!”
“Even the Church can’t stomach ’em,” he said maliciously. “The whole lot’re to be excommunicated.”
“But it hasn’t been done yet, has it?” she retorted, her tone equally spiteful.
“Mother, our lives are here now. We’re not going back to Ireland. I’d like for it to be free, same as you, but I don’t think it’ll come by throwin’ parades and wearin’ emerald sashes and epaulets and phoenixes and sunbursts and shamrocks, and makin’ endless speeches. I send money to you, for the family.”
“You’re a fine one to talk, with your fancy pantaloons and shameful stockings!” Her voice choked with sobs. “I want to go home, my work’s done. You’re the last one—and somebody I scarcely know. I don’t want a life here, as you call it. I want to be with my Andrew, lyin’ in the sweet ground beside him.”
There was embarrassed silence.
Andy said tensely, “We shouldn’t do this, with my friend here.”
“Sure, an’ as it is I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “But ’tis God’s truth I’m not long for this life, and it’s me wish, son, to go home.”
Andy looked wretched. Gavan shifted uncomfortably.
“There isn’t money, Ann,” he said softly. “The cost is divilish high. Even steerage’d require a year o’ me wages.”
“It’s me wish! Sister Clara Antonia told me—”
“Oh, no,” Andy interjected. “You’re feedin’ her again, too?”
“She has the gift—seventh daughter of a seventh daughter.”
“I’m sure she took the worm test for you,” he said sarcastically.
“No need of that,” she replied calmly. “Though it’s well known I gave it to every soul in this house. Small wonder the wee thing thrived with you!”
Andy threw up his hands in surrender.
“She said there’d come a deliverer. To release me from this life and send me to my Andrew—forever.”
“Fine,” Andy said wearily. “Did she offer to foot the expense?”
“That she didn’t.”
“Well, how about the society? Surely O’Neil’d jump to help a good Irishwoman in her time of need.”
She said nothing. Her eyes met mine across the table. For a moment they were not filmy. Something happened between us. It was as if she’d asked a specific silent question.
“Your daughter,” I said, fumbling for words. “Your other daughter . . . ?”
“Yes, my daughter,” she agreed, smiling vaguely. Her eyes were filmy again. The subject seemed concluded.
As we rode the horsecar east toward the township of Irvington, I asked Andy why his mother’s wish to return to Ireland upset him so much.
“Wouldn’t it rile you,” he answered, “if your mother wanted to leave, just when you were makin’ something of yourself? Something for everybody to be proud of? Here I’m the only one earnin’ money worth speakin’ of, and she thinks I’m playin’ a boy’s
