My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. Annette Sills (free e books to read online txt) 📖

away five years. I trained to be a nurse at St Thomas’. That’s where I met my Jimmy, a Breaffy man who was working as a porter. He was given the home place and we moved back with the kids. So it didn’t turn out too badly for me in the end. We were married for fifty-three years and I’ve got six grandchildren.”

“You are a marvel, Kathleen Slevin.”

I glanced down at my watch. It was almost four thirty and she said her daughter was coming to collect her in ten minutes. I was driving straight to the airport for my six-thirty flight afterwards.

“My brother Donal . . . Tess’s baby,” I said. “Do you remember anything about him at all?

“Oh, he was a bonny baby and a good weight, a good weight. Lots of curly blonde hair. I remember him well the day they came for him.”

I sat up. “Sorry?”

“The day the two fellas came for him in the fancy car. It was a few days after Tess left for Manchester.”

I shook my head. “You must be mistaken. Tess’s baby died in the home when he was five months old. His name was on the list of the dead children from the home.”

Kathleen frowned. “There must be some mistake. I saw them take him away. Two fine-looking men, one dark and one blonde. I’d just arrived for my early shift. They often came for the babies early in the morning or late at night so the mothers couldn’t see them taking them away. The two men took him to a fancy car and drove off. The dark man was driving, the blonde one holding the baby. I knew it was Tess’s baby because of all the hair and the red cardigan your mother had knitted for him.”

“Are you sure, Kathleen?”

“I am, of course.”

“Can you remember anything about the car?”

“It was a blue sports car. The roof was down. I’d never seen the likes of it before. I remember thinking they were eejits for putting a baby in it with no bonnet on him. The poor mite would catch his death of cold.”

Chapter 21

My grandparents’ house in Mayo. A white fuzz of heat, blue skies and the sound of crickets. Tess and Dad were waltzing in front of the bungalow and Karen, Mikey and I were running through the adjacent field. Karen and Mikey were sprinting ahead. I yelled at them to stop and wait but they ignored me, their heads dipping and disappearing into the tall yellow grass. A sudden sharp pain. I stopped and looked down. Blood was oozing from the ball of my foot. A white bone that looked like a needle had pierced it. The grass around me started to roll back like a carpet, revealing a layer of black glistening soil that looked like tar. Piles of tiny white bones were scattered at intervals and more appeared as the grass rolled back further. I shouted for Tess and Dad and Karen and Mikey but they’d all disappeared. All that was left was the outline of the house on a shimmering horizon.

I woke up in a cold sweat with Joe leaning over me, a concerned look on his face. He said I’d been calling out in my sleep and flailing my arms. Joe went to the bathroom to get me a glass of cold water and I sat up and wiped my damp face with a pillow.

It was 5am, the morning after I arrived back from Mayo. Shafts of orange and yellow light filtered through the bedroom blinds. It looked like the world was on fire outside and the dawn chorus was alive.

When Joe returned I finally told him everything, about Dad’s letter, the mass grave, finding the list of dead children and all the things that had happened in Mayo including what Julia had told me and Kathleen Slevin’s sighting of the two men taking Donal out of the home. I told him I was now convinced my brother was alive and well somewhere out there in the world.

Propped up against pillows, Joe listened in silence. His face had remained expressionless and he hadn’t interrupted once or asked any questions. It was like none of it came as a surprise. But life with Tess and Mikey had always been turbulent and eccentric so to Joe it was probably yet another chapter in the life of my fucked-up family.

When I’d finally finished, he cleared his throat and stared at the wardrobe door where stripes of morning light flickered like light sabres. He looked at me, the corners of his mouth turned down.

“And you never once thought of telling me any of this?” he asked quietly.

I inhaled sharply. “You’ve been away so I haven’t seen you that much to tell you. And I was about to a couple of times but we always ended up having a barney.” A milk van creaked on the road outside and I slumped back on the bed. “You’ve hardly been the easiest person to be around lately.”

He pursed his lips and said nothing then he leant over and put his arm around me. “Sorry. Work’s pretty stressful these days. Poor Tess,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “And poor you, going through this on your own. So this Kathleen Slevin woman – what she said about the what men taking the baby away – you think it’s reliable?”

“I can’t think why she’d make it up. She seemed of sound mind to me.”

“She could be confused. From what you said, she’s getting on. We’re talking sixty-odd years after the event here.”

“I know. But something tells me she remembers everything about Tess’s story because it affected her directly. She escaped from the home and ended up being sent to England because she helped Tess out. Then there’s the blue sports car. As soon as Kathleen described it, I knew what she was saying had to be true. I rang Julia and said cars like that would definitely