Chapter 1: 1877 – 1880, Dora and Reese
Outside of Kilkenny, Ireland, 1880
Dora was humming softly to herself, holding firmly to the broom as she swept last night's dusting of snow from the steps on the porch. Winter refused to leave this year, though it was already nearly June, and the cool breeze had tinged her cheeks to a rosy pink, which only assisted in helping her glow as she swayed, her skirt moving with her as she swayed, with the exception of the material covering her very pregnant belly.
From one of the bushes that ran along the side of the small farmhouse, the song of a bird carried towards Dora and she stopped her movement to listen, a contented smile on her pouting lips.
"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, her right hand dropping to her belly, and her eyes following. With a smile, she rubbed her great stomach. "Go ahead. It doesn't hurt. Kick, and kick, and kick – Toss your wee fists against me."
The babe had apparently heard, for she felt the kick within her, and sighed. "Yes. It's when you stop I get frightened."
Dora leaned the broom against the porch railing, listening again to the sweet song of the bird. After a moment she touched her hand to her belly again, and spoke to it gently. "Listen! It's Mr. Robin. Wouldn't you like to wake up in the world every morning and hear that?" She laughed as there was a kick once again.
"What if we was like that, and laid our babies inside eggs? What a great large egg you'd have to be!" she paused for a moment, thoughtful, and giggled. "And what a silly thing I'd look like sitting on that."
"And what a silly thing I am to think such a thing. It's no wonder they all lose patience with me. "Go down and sleep in the kitchen," your father says to me, "I'm black and blue from you thrashing around all night!"" Dora sighed, sitting on the top of the steps, and reaching to pull her thin shawl around her shoulders a little tighter. "All I remember when I woke up is that I was running away from something wild from out in the woods."
She took a moment, inspecting her baby bulge, and taking in the size of it. "But you feel so hearty. Much heartier than the first one, the girl – "Ruth" I called her, because I love that story. My mother told it to me time and again. The part when Rush says to Naomi, "For whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God." And I'll tell you that story, too, I promise. Just be a good baby and live." Dora gave a quiet "Oooh!" as the baby flailed again.
"But you feel like you've got the fists of a boy – no name like Ruth for you, ruffian." She laughed. "I'll call you Aidan, yes. Because that is your uncle's name, too, your father's brother, and we should curry his favor." Leaning back against the railing, Dora continued. "But maybe you've got the fists of a girl like my great-grandmother. She was a tough one, they say. And my father was the apple of her eye. He named me for her, his grandmother, Dora Ann. Your great-great-grandmother. Father says that she kept the family going when this was still a wild place before civilization come, when there was nothing but unkempt moors and wild animals. "Here we will build us a house and make the best." That's what she said."
"She lived two centuries, she did. And so will we, God willing. And if you live as long as her, you'd live until… nineteen hundred and eighty… something." Dora's pale blue eyes got wide with excitement as she exclaimed, "Imagine! And your children might live in a century that starts with a two, not a one. The twenty-first it'll be. And she was born in the eighteenth century. And I'm in the middle, looking forwards and back."
Dora stopped, as she spotted a man walking up the pathway to the house, and stood, brushing herself off. She smiled, and waved as he came closer into view. Reece, her handsome Reece.
He walked towards her, in his work clothes with his pack over one shoulder, and his axe in his left hand, his right pulling a wagon that had chopped wood piled onto it. Reece left the wagon beside the steps, climbing up towards her, and with a weak smile, kissed her on the cheek silently, and disappeared inside.
Dora looked after him, her hands on her belly, and the smile from before gone. After a moment, she picked up the broom, and returned to sweeping. She mustn't let his tiredness affect her. He would be fine after his nap, surely he would.
"Here we will build us a house." She murmered.
"And I'm like a house myself, aren't I, with you living inside of me, a house of flesh and blood—" Dora stopped, her breath catching in her throat, and lay the broom down, wrapping her arms around herself. "You must not die! Don't follow your poor sister. Ruth was born before sunrise, and gone before midday. She was too tiny, like a bird. And already you've outlived the other one, who much have loved heaven so much that this earth had no appeal at all.
"It looks like nothing," she says, "It wasn't all that far along." And she wrapped it up in a cloth and took it away in a basin."
"But you'll be born fat and happy and fully formed." Dora's lilting voice began to raise in pitch as her desperation increased. "You won't be like wee Ruth and die in my arms. You'll live and be a strapping young fellow or a beautiful girl. And then your father will not be making me sleep in the kitchen after something chased me in my sleep."
She paused, taking a moment to breath in the cold air, and sighed deeply. "I don't mean to say that your father is unkind or – But they do lose patience with me. The very first morning he showed up in church – wasn't he the most handsome thing I'd ever laid eyes upon!"
Church of Canice, Kilkenny, Ireland, 1877
Dora followed her mother down the aisle of the church as the other people of their community filed in. They took their usual place in the third row on the left, right near the center aisle, and sat. Dora removed her jacked carefully, and adjusted her bonnet over her long blonde curls, and folded her hands over her lap carefully to wait for her father to begin his sermon.
It was a few seconds before she noticed the buzz of conversation that had begun. Small whispers, and hushed voices carried towards her, and she strained to keep facing forwards, so as not to upset her mother.
"Yes, Reece Conlon…"
"…back from Dublin this past week."
"It's Big Samuel's oldest son…"
"…It's been years, has it not?"
As quickly as the whispers had begun, they died down to a silence that was nearly more our of place than the whispers. It was as if the entire congregation was holding their breath. And then came the footsteps. On the old wooden floor of the little church, the slow and steady footfalls of a man were moving down the aisle, and just before Dora thought she would see the man, they stopped.
Her father moved up towards the pulpit and the music stopped. Joining with the throng, she rose, and took the opportunity of moving to look to her right.
Sitting perfectly across the aisle, and staring directly back at her with a pair of riveting green eyes, was the most stately and handsome man she'd ever seen. His dark hair was combed back in a manner appropriate for mass, but the ends around his ears and neck were curling, and his strong face seemed expressionless. All except for his eyes, which appraised her in such a way that she was left feeling as though all of her secrets were bared.
It took all the strength in the world for her to tear her eyes away from him, and as she sat with her mother, Dora could feel the burning in her cheeks that would not fade. Her fathers words droned on, and it was all she could do not to forget to say the appropriate responses with the rest of the congregation.
Occasionally she would steal a look at the new boy, and without fail, each time she did, he was gazing raptly at her. 'So bold,' she thought, 'As if we share a secret.'
The organ began to play her father's favorite hymn, the one her mother wished he would never pick because there was that line at the end that made the boys snicker. Dora hadn't understood why they snickered because her friend Ellie had explained it to her.
She rose, joining in with the voices of those around her, until she heard the voice of the boy across the aisle, and then stopped, turned, and watched him, smiling.
"Go labour on, spend and be spent.
Thy joy to do the Father's will…"
Her mother grabbed her wrist and turned her to the front and Dora sang softly, so she might still be able to hear the voice from the handsome gentleman. 'Would he snicker?' she wondered, and as the line drew near, she looked at him carefully out of the corner of her eye, and watched.
"Soon shalt thou hear the Bridgegroom's voice,
The midnight peal, 'Behold, I come,'"
And he winked, grinning at her.
Unable to control herself, amidst the snickers of the young boys and the last chords from the organ, Dora giggled.
Outside of Kilkenny, Ireland, 1880
"Then he winks right at me, right at that moment, and grins at me bold as brass, and in such a charming way. It was wicked, I know," Dora sighed, clutching the broom to her chest, "But it was so, so—well, are there even words to describe what I felt?"
"Then he spoke to me afterwards out front after church, and no one had ever spoken like that, like – well, like flirting, I suppose you would call it. Like somehow he and I were different from all the rest, not so stiff as older folks. New, somehow, modern."
Dora stopped, whistful, and looked at the door her husband had gone through. "He took my breath away. He was so handsome, and he still is. So you'll be good-looking! That's a good reason to live." She paused, quiet for a moment.
"Oh, I knew it was a sin, but your father said that he loved me so much. Afterwards, that first time – we were in a little dale in the woods – I was frightened and started to cry so he was very tender and silly. He kissed my ear and whispered that he had something important to tell me. "What?" I asked, and he said, "Behold, I come."
Dora's eyebrows furrowed as she thought hard, and looked down at her belly, and caressed it absently. "And my mother told me that I was a foolish girl and that all that was saving me from disgrace was the position of Reece's father in the church and in the town. That if I had sinned with near anyone else, that father could have disowned me. That if Big Samuel hadn't been such a powerful man that my life could have been over. So Reece's father and my father took charge and here we are." She motioned to the bleak landscape, the sparse trees and dusting of snow, and the rolling hills that went for miles.
"But if you live, all can be right again. My father would have another grandchild and you would be the apple of his eye maybe, just like he was with his grandmother. And I would love you, and make you so welcome in my life in a way that he could not welcome me in his." Dora pleaded, looking up at the sky. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes, and her words became a whisper. "He says I'm a useless thing, and that I tricked him into marriage with poor wee ruth and I'm good for nothing now. And I know it's because he's working so hard and is so tired and he doesn't want to be working for his father because his older brother's the one who'll inherit it all in the end and here I am waking him up because something's after me in my sleep! I'm just a silly girl, but –"
She stopped, her shoulders dropping as tears streamed down her cheeks. A few moments passed, and the only sound was her breathing and wiping at tears. Then Dora straightened, her eyes shining with something unknown. "But if you keep kicking, just kick and kick and come kicking right out of me – Then your father will look at me in that sweet way again, and my own father will truly forgive me for being a wicked girl, for bringing shame upon him and his ministry, and everything, everything, everything will be as happy as – as –."
In the bushes, the Robin began to sing again, and a new bout of tears welled in her eyes. She hugged her belly, and looked out at the setting sun.
"Oh, please!"