Again, that terrible pain in her expression. In her entire body.
“Damien was watching me rather than his own feet, the fool. His old boots were near falling apart, and they caught on the rail. Down he went like a stone. By the time I got to him, ’twas too late. He’d tripped on the rail and cracked his head…”
“Oh my God,” I gasp, imagining the scene. The panic, the exhilarating sense that they werealmost there, then… the shock. The horror. The loss.
She doesn’t appear to hear me. Her face lowers into her hands. “Just like Bianca, I had to leave him behind.”
I know I’m not the only one who cannot find words. I’m vaguely aware of Matthew shooting into action, handing out much-needed Kleenexes as unobtrusively as he can. Eventually, Rosie sits a little straighter, Kleenex bunched in her fist. From the determined look on her face, it’s like she feels a need to finish this story. None of us say a word.
“Mr. Carboni’s men were coming like dogs on a fox, hunting for me, and I’d no choice but to run. I did what Damien said we would do together. I got on a bus and went as far as my fare paid, which was North Bay. I was hired on at a hotel, and for a while everything was all right. The Milnes, the couple who owned the hotel, they was kind as saints. They let me stay and work after my baby was born. But then one day, a man checked into the hotel,and I knew his face in a flash. ’Twas one of Mr. Carboni’s men. I grabbed my little Mary and fled, but sure enough, he came after us. Oh, ’twas awful. We lived in a shack for a couple of nights, and I imagined him everywhere, coming for us, and then there was a fire…”
We all hold our breath until she raises her eyes to mine. “Hiding and running, that’s all I was good for. Hiding and running. On my toes all the time. And ’twasn’t only Mr. Carboni. I was frightened of the police as well, for he’d told the police I was the killer, and no one asked him twice. I prayed every moment that God would help us, all the time holding my Mary, my angel. Ah, she’d fix me with those big green eyes, so full of trust that I never earned. Eyes too good for the likes of me.” She lets out a long sigh. “?’Tis no excuse, mind, but listen, I was eighteen. I was on my own in a place I didn’t know, running from divils who’d see me dead or in prison. From the start, I knew I couldn’t give her the life she deserved.”
Rosie is no longer watching me. I’m not sure she is even aware that we are in the room anymore. She looks lost. If it’s possible, she looks even older.
“And so, I took my baby to the church. Father Charles was the priest there, and he was grand. I knew he could find her a good family. I bundled her in blankets and put her in a basket, then I wrote a little note and kissed her goodbye. Sure, and I knew. I knew I’d never see her again.”
I ache to ask more, but she has jammed on the brakes, and I see it in the set of her jaw.
Grandma does the same thing when she decides something. I will bring this conversation back to Rosie’s baby eventually, when that jaw loosens.
“What happened after that?” I ask softly.
She seems embarrassed, the corners of her mouth quivering a bit. “You’ll forgive an old woman’s memory. I moved maybe a dozen times over the next few years, but I cannot remember where. Every day was anxious. I was always looking over my shoulder, always living in fear.” She exhales. “Strange, isn’t it, how years fly by, but days last forever. Four years after I left Toronto, three after I left my Mary, I heard about a farm outside of Corbeil, near North Bay. The headlines were full of news about a woman there who had quintuplets.Five darling girls, dressed like little princesses with bows in their hair, and the whole country was fussing over them. I would sit and stare at the photographs of those girls, and I would think, ‘My Mary is three. Does she have a mommy? Does she have a pretty dress?’?”
Her faded eyes are slightly unfocused once more, and I know she is envisioning those newspaper articles about the Dionne quints. How heartwrenching that must have been for her.
Finally, she smiles. “In 1940, the newspapers announced that Mr. Carboni was dead. I thought, ‘Well, would you look at that. Good news at last.’ I’d thought the divil couldn’t die, but I was wrong. The paper also said Mrs. Evans’s murder investigation was closed, since it hadn’t led anywhere. I’ll tell you, ’twas like I grew wings that day, I felt so free. After ten years of running and hiding, I packed up my life and moved back to Toronto. I got work at a women’s dress store, and I quite enjoyed that. I became manager, and I worked hard. I’ve always worked hard. I never spent much, and I can make a penny do the work of two, so I did all right.”
Her bony hands wave like she is presenting herself. “And here I am. In the end, I lived a good life, like I’d dreamed. I kept quiet in case anyone remembered me, but no one seemed to.” Then she crumbles once more. “But ’twasn’t all it seemed, for every night I came home to an empty place. No Damien, no Mary. How tragic to have it all, and yet not have anything that truly matters.”
“And you never married?”
“Oh, no. Why would I? I never got over Damien. And I never wanted another baby. Not after Mary.” She sighs. “Do you know what, I still wonder, all these years later, if I did the right thing. Did Mary find a loving home? I still pray to God every night that I made the right decision.”
I can’t hold it in any longer.
“You did,” I blurt out, leaving behind any misgivings. It’s not fair for me to keep this truth to myself any longer. Rosie has been tortured all her life. My grandmother might never forgive her, but I already have.
Rosie slumps. “Sure, there’s no knowing.”
“But there is.” I reach for her hands, tears rolling down my face. “Miss Ryan, my name is Bridget Kelly. My mother was Laura Kelly. My grandmother is Mary Byrne.”
She hasn’t registered. I can tell from the uncertain smile on her face. “That’s grand, love. Good Irish names, those.”
I give her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Miss Ryan, I’m trying to tell you that my grandma, Mary Byrne, was the baby girl you left at the church in 1930. And yes. She was adopted by a good family. The Davis family. They gave her a… a grand life.”
Her lips are quivering, and her chin. She’s not crying, but trying to make sense of what I just said.
“I’m sorry, dear. I don’t…?” She regards me intently, willing me to explain better.
I, on the other hand, am pouring out tears as fast as they’ll go. “Mary Byrne is your daughter. I’m your great-granddaughter.”
It hits home, and now her tears come, trickling from crystalline blue eyes. “Holy Mother of God. Oh, my dear,” she whispers, dropping my hands so she can touch my face with fingers as soft as silk and dry as tissue paper. “You? My great-granddaughter? But how? How did you find me? How—”
“I have so much to tell you.”
Matthew shoves a fresh Kleenex at me, and I read the message in his gaze. It’s his turn.
