“Come on, little ones, we are going to go visit Margaret. I need to help Paddy with something; I will be back as soon as I can.” Riordan coughs, his eyes blinking open and revealing the haze of fever in their depths. I cannot leave him like this.
But Paddy…
“Jakob, run to the kitchen and grab the blue bottle for coughs and a teaspoon.” He nods, his small shoulders squared and ready for battle. My boy. “Gabriel, go fetch Margaret.” I pat his little tushy and send him on his own mission. I pick up Noemi and place her at my breast while I pace back and forth.
Jakob rushes back up the stairs holding the blue bottle and a teaspoon high in the air. “I got it!” I reach to take it from him, but he holds it to the side. “I got it. Just tell me how many teaspoons. I take care of Riordan. I am his big brother.”
“Yes, you are. Thank you for being such a good big brother.”
Jakob nods, but focuses on pouring the tincture on the spoon, careful not to spill a drop, his pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. My heart feels like it swells to twice its size as I watch him tend to his brother.
“Trinli?”
“Up here, Margaret!” She crests the top of the stairs moments later. Her eyes welled with tears.
“Trinli, I heard what happened, I am so sorry.”
“Yup. Sad. Can you watch the kids here? Riordan has a fever and cough, and I must go out for a bit.”
“You want to grieve alone, I understand. A loss like this—”
“Mutti? What did you lose?”
Margaret kneels in front of Jakob and grabs his hands. “Your da died this morning.”
Jakob and Gabriel cry out. Jakob releases Margaret’s hands and hugs Gabriel tight. Riordan stirs from his sleep, his bottom lip quivering. “Da is dead?”
Margaret tries to console them, but I shake my head and put a hand on her shoulder. In a solemn tone, I clarify, “Darragh died in the mine this morning. Paddy was injured but he will be alright after he has rested. I am going to see him now.” Jakob and Gabriel rush me, wrapping their arms around my legs.
“Give Da this hug,Mutti, so he knows we want him to get better.” I blink away the tears that threaten my eyes and pat their heads. Margaret stands, her expression one of absolute bewilderment.
“They call Paddy ‘da’?”
“He is our Da!” Riordan states emphatically, breaking into a coughing fit when he’s done.
“He plays with us and showed us how to water the weeds with our trouser snakes and makesMuttismile.” Jakob’s little shoulders tremble with emotion.
Margaret glances at my babies, then at me. Her smile grows slowly. “Then let us bury the reprobate and—”
“There is no body to bury…it is under too much rubble from the collapse.”
“Even better!” Margaret laughs. “I will stay here with the little ones; you go check on Paddy.”
“Thank you, my friend.” I hug her briefly and kiss her cheek.
I feel her grin against the side of my face before she whispers, “You can thank me by letting me know all about his trouser snake…once you are well acquainted.”
Paddy 9.
Feckin’ hell. My arm hurts, my leg hurts…my heart hurts. Today went sideways and I do not know what to do moving forward. Trinli’s husband is dead. Very, very dead. Magnus Mining Company pays almost nothing out when a miner dies, but what little they might assist with would surely be denied if they knew just how drunk Darragh was. I found him staggering, slurring his speech, and laughing without cause. He yelled at me, accused me of coveting his wife, then tried to fight me. My attempts to calm him down fell on deaf ears. The things he said about her, it took everything I had not to punch him. Honestly, I knew that if I hit him, he would be knocked out, and I did not relish the thought of dragging his lard ass out of the mine.
He shoved me, told me to leave him alone and let him do his job. I turned to leave, was almost out of the corridor, when I heard him swing his axe and hit something metal. I spun around, saw his face drain of color, and rushed back to pull him out. It takes seconds for a life to change…for a life to end. Whatever he hit, whatever he broke, rippled through the corridor and every repurposed piece of structural support I warned management would fail without proper precautions failed in seconds.
I reached out to grab him as the roof collapsed, large sections of hard earth fell around him, landing on my arm and leg. Blood spurted from the crushing impact as Darragh lay buried beneath thousands of pounds of earth, metal, and debris. Several armslatched onto me roughly, dragging me from the corridor and depositing me topside. The sunshine seemed so out of place, blinding in its intensity after the darkness of the mine, the life of a bad man so easily snuffed out.
I cannot figure out how to tell her. How to look her in the eye and tell her I allowed her husband to die. He was not a good man. But did he deserve that end? Did Trinli? The babes?
I lay here in my home, my arm and leg bandaged by the company physician, throbbing with the constant reminder of my heartbeat while Darragh’s remains silent.
