Thank you so much to all of you who have reviewed, followed and favorited this fic already! I feel extra nervous with this story because I do hope that I am treating the issue with respect and a measure of realism, so I really appreciate all of your comments. Keep sending them!
This chapter, like the last, will begin in the "present" time, picking up right where the story left off and then move on to another flashback. Another note will follow the chapter.
Enjoy!
Sybil looked at Tom for what felt, to him, like an eternity but what was really only a brief moment, before standing up and walking over to him. Her steps were slow and determined, but Tom noticed a tension in the way she was holding her hands together, as if she were trying to keep nerves in check.
She looked down as she approached and made almost as if she was going to walk past him, her left shoulder coming close to touching his right when she'd stopped.
"I don't think this is such a good idea," she whispered, looking at the door he'd just walked through. "We mustn't worry Granny."
Tom felt his heart leap into his throat. She had stood at this precipice before and balked. But even in her retreat she had said that she would stay true to him and he'd believed her. He believed her still. Her expression, when her eyes finally met his, did not suggest doubt. But, once again, loyalty to her family was goading her into questioning, not her feelings perhaps, but her willingness to act on them.
Would she abandon him here, in this room, as she had at the inn?
Tom looked past Sybil and into the faces of her family, the truth now beginning to dawn on them before it had even been spoken.
"You . . . you . . . you've mmasked mmme . . . to come mmmand—"
Tom clenched his fists and squeezed his eyes shut in frustration.
Sybil put her hand on his forearm. "Tom?"
He opened his eyes at her quiet plea and looked at her again. Her eyes asking a question she'd never had to ask before. Not once, not in the many years that he had loved her had she seen him—heard him—like this.
Why didn't I tell her? Tom thought, holding his breath in an effort to fight back tears.
They were used to conveying emotion to one another in silent, stolen glances, but there was so much more to say now. Too much. And his words were failing him, at this of all possible moments. Their audience, growing more tense by the second and awaiting answers to different questions, wasn't going to let them.
Please don't let this change things. Please don't let this change things.
"Is there something wrong?" She asked quietly.
"Is there?" He asked in response.
Sybil looked over her shoulder for a moment, then back at him, the love in her eyes a salve to his nerves and his too-fast-beating heart.
"No."
He continued to look only at her. "You've asked me to come, and I've . . . I've . . . I've . . . I have come."
Sybil nodded. Then, she let go of his arm and turned so they could face her family together.
XXX
Ireland, 1898
"We all had to do it!" Sean Branson yelled at his sister. "I don't see why he should get special treatment!"
"It's not special treatment," Caitlin yelled back. "It's harder for him than the rest of us."
"Oh, right," Sean said rolling his eyes. "Let him do everything at his own pace. You realize when he's gone from this house, nobody's going to let him do anything at his own pace. You're only setting him up to fail."
"HEY!"
Both Caitlin and Sean turned to see Tommy standing in the doorway to the room he shared with Sean and Michael, who along with Kieran, was now old enough to work alongside their father on the farm and usually was out with him until dinner. Kieran had moved out the previous year into a small flat he took with two friends to be nearer to town, so Tommy had finally been allowed to leave the cot in his sister's room and move in with his older brothers.
"I, I . . . I . . ."
"Oh, just spit it out!" Sean yelled.
"SHUT UP!" Caitlin screamed back pushing Sean down onto the floor. "Leave him alone!"
"STOP!" Tommy came into the room and tried to help Sean up, but Sean fought him off and stood up on his own. Once Sean was up, Tommy leaned over and spit on Sean's shoes.
"There, I spit it out," Tommy said. "Are you . . . . mmm, um, mmmhappy?"
Caitlin pulled Tommy by back toward her by the shoulders in an effort to save him from the pounding that she was sure was coming. But instead of taking a swing, Sean stared at his little brother for a long moment and then burst out laughing.
Tommy and Caitlin looked at each other, wondering what had come over Sean. When the latter had finally collected himself, he looked back and forth between them and said, "See! You don't need to keep babying him. He can take care of himself."
Caitlin crossed her arms and looked away. She never liked losing an argument. "He's got to stand up in front of the entire school and lead this week's rosary. What's he supposed to do if he can't get through it? Spit on everyone?"
Tommy and Sean both laughed, and Caitlin herself couldn't help but crack a smile.
"Every kid has to do it once," Sean insisted. "If Tommy wants to be treated the same as everyone, he's got to do it too."
"He'sm, um, mmright," Tommy said quietly.
Caitlin sighed. "All right, let's go practice it then."
Caitlin took Tommy by the hand and pulled him into her room. She went to her chest of drawers and from the bottom drawer pulled out her mother's old rosary.
Handing it to him, she asked, "You've got them memorized? The mysteries?"
Tommy nodded and went to her bed to sit down.
"Oh, no, you don't!" she said with a smile. "You'll be reciting it while standing up in the middle of the yard with the sun beating down on you. I can't have the sun in my room, but at least you can practice standing up."
Tommy rolled his eyes as he pushed himself off the bed and walked to stand in the middle of the room, facing the door. Caitlin sat down cross-legged in front of him, and as she and Tommy made the sign of the cross, Sean came into the room and sat down next to Caitlin. He crossed himself too, and the sight of it made Tommy smile. He knew how much Sean hated praying the rosary.
Tommy looked at the worn beads in his hands, and took the cross into his right hand to start.
He began with the Apostles' Creed.
"I . . . I . . . believe in mmGod, the Father Alm-almm-almmmighty, Creator of heaven and mmmearth; and in Jesus Christ, mm, His . . . His . . . His only Son, our mmmLord;
Who was conceived mmmby the Holy Spirit, mmmborn of the Virgin, um, um, mmMary, suffered under mmmPontius Pilate, was crucified, d- d- mmmdied, and was mmmburied. He descended into hell; the third day He mmmarose again from the dead. He ascended into mmmheaven, and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to, um, um, judge the living and the mmmdead."
Caitlin and Sean, who'd been hanging on his every word, careful not to react every time he stammered, joined him for the response, "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen."
Sean smiled when they finished the response. "Hey! You said that same as us!"
Tommy shrugged. "You know that it com-com-commmes and, um, goes."
"But if we're all saying it together, you're all right?" Sean asked.
"I suppose," Tommy answered.
"So why don't you just pretend we're always saying it with you?"
"It's not that easy," Tommy said. "I don't really um, um, mmknow, when it's going to happen."
"He's right, though," Caitlin said. "You do better with us than at school."
"That's mmmbecause you're you."
"Well, anyway, get on with it," Sean said. "We're going to be here all afternoon as it is."
Caitlin gave Sean a shove, but Tommy laughed. He liked it when his brothers teased him. It made him feel like he was one of them, like he wasn't so different that they couldn't relate to him, like he wasn't the freak for whom his mother had to make excuses. He, like Caitlin and Sean, knew that Claire had gone to the school with them that morning to ask the nuns that Tommy be excused from having to lead the rosary—a "privilege" afforded to every student of his year at least once during the year.
Tommy knew it would be hard and that the other kids would hate him for taking twice as long and would tease him for not being able to say recitations that to them came like second nature. But that humiliation seemed at times easier to handle than the reminder that he wasn't like everyone else and couldn't be expected to measure up. He didn't know what answer his mother had been given, but he knew he'd do it anyway.
Tom took a deep breath and began the next prayer, "Our mmfather . . ."
ooo
He was about halfway through the rosary—and swaying slightly as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other—when his mother made it home from her afternoon of delivering the laundry she'd spent the previous day washing.
"And what are you three doing?" She asked as she came into Caitlin's room.
Sean turned and answered for them, "Tommy's practicing for next week."
"Unless . . . were you able to get him out of it?" Caitlin asked.
Claire looked past her daughter, and without answering her question, asked Tom, "Which decade are you on?"
"The third," he answered. "Do we need to um, um, mmst- mmstop for dinner?"
Claire smiled. "No, we've plenty of time for that." She sat down next to her two other children. "Go on."
In case you're wondering where I got the idea that kids would be required to lead a rosary in front of their whole school, that was the practice at the Catholic school I attended. It was exhausting and embarrassing for all of us.