1923
Easter fell early and the schools started their holidays on the day before St. Patrick’s Day. On the first morning of her break, Peg came in from a long walk and found her father in the kitchen, leaning over the fire. In the stoop of him, she could see how Barney’s death, the manner of his going, had permanently affected him.
“Are you all right, Daddy?”
‘Just a bit tired, a ghrá. Your mammy had a bad night.”
“Again. You must be weary.”
He didn’t deny it and she could feel it in him, beneath his bones. Born of lack of sleep, yes, but also of taking wrong turnings all his life. He began as a boy full of fear, for he had a father who was very hard on him, and he never outgrew it, that fear. It left him not knowing how to make his own life in his own image.
Everyone else had always
