* * *
—
Rachel was supposed to fly home that evening, but the flight got canceled. The pain was still blurring the edges of her vision, so she was glad. She called her best friend, Sorcha, from the phone in the hotel room she’d booked from the airport.
“Oh my God, Rachel,” was the first thing Sorcha said. “Donal’s mam’s told everyone.”
“Told everyone what?”
“About your—” Sorcha lowered her voice. “Abortion.”
The pain in Rachel’s abdomen came in waves, rocked her like a boat. “Everyone who?”
Rachel could hear her best friend’s hesitation.
“Everyone who, Sorcha?”
Finally, Sorcha said in a rush, “Mrs. Cleary had us praying for your soul in homeroom. I’m sorry. She told everyone.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“He swears he begged her not to tell anyone. I cornered him the second I heard. He says she freaked out when he told her, kept saying she would’ve raised the kid or whatever, like that was even the point. So then when he said you were already on your way to England, she went and told the school.”
“I’m going to kill her.”
“Want me to do it for you?”
Rachel gave a hollow laugh. “Thanks, but one of us breaking Irish law is enough.”
There was silence on the other end for a moment. “You know you didn’t do anything wrong, right?” Sorcha said softly.
Rachel sighed. “I know.”
“Aisling O’Donnell out of Ms. Simmons’s class had one last year. And Gary’s older sister.” Gary was Sorcha’s boyfriend. “And I’m pretty sure Sarah’s aunt Jenny did too.”
“But Mrs. Cleary’s praying for my soul.”
“And the baby’s.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
Rachel watched the city settle into evening outside her hotel room window. She wrapped her arms around her legs, drawn up to her aching abdomen. She wrapped her arms around the bones of her life plan. Virginity, exams, university, breakup, studies, journalism, career, marriage, eventual babies. She could still do this. She could keep to the plan. So what if the whole class was praying for her soul? In a few short months, the exams would be over and she’d be on her way to the rest of her life.
“You still there?” Sorcha’s voice came through the phone, over the Irish Sea, under the airplanes, over the ferries.
“Yeah,” said Rachel. “Yeah. Can you do me a favor, before I come back?”
“Anything,” said Sorcha.
“Just make sure my dad never finds out.”
31.
The funeral that felled the family tree
Dublin, 1995
Sorcha was true to her word. She threatened Donal until he told everybody it had all been a big misunderstanding, that Rachel had been studying with her best friend all weekend. He somehow even managed to convince his mother because, sure, wouldn’t Dr. Jones, the local GP, who was his mother’s uncle, know if Rachel had been pregnant? It couldn’t possibly have been true. Not studious, hardworking Rachel. Good girls didn’t get abortions after all.
At Monday morning assembly, Rachel led her fellow prefects in a prayer for the unborn. She held her head high and her hands clasped: a carbon copy of her father. She talked about the constitutional right to life of the unborn and about the sanctity of motherhood, and she hated herself every second, but knew this was the best way to protect herself. She was extremely convincing.
Only Rachel knew how much she bled and how long the cramping lasted, how the exhaustion became a large rock inside her ocean, holding her down.
She still kept hold of her plan. She was no longer pregnant. Her exams were coming up. If she could get through this, she could get through anything. She could have the life she’d always wanted. If she just focused on sticking to the plan.
But all this was leading to a funeral: the funeral that felled our family tree, that sent our father running, that broke the two sisters apart, that changed everything. There was no plan in place for this.
* * *
—
Our mother had had a small stroke the week before, had recovered in the hospital before coming home, had insisted our father not tell their children how bad it was. That was who our mother was, to Rachel. The peacemaker, the mediator, the quiet force that balanced the family (just about) and that above all didn’t ever want to worry anybody. Worry wasn’t worth it, and besides, what would the family think?
“I’m fine,” she told her husband. “Stop fussing.”
But the only reason our father stopped fussing was that Mandy showed up suddenly after four months away, the day their mother came home from the hospital.
“The Mandy drama-wagon,” Rachel told her friend Sorcha. “Every time she comes home, I could parade around the living room naked and nobody’d ever notice.”
There was always a lot of shouting and slammed doors when Mandy was home, so Rachel made herself scarce the moment she heard the telltale sounds of a fight, before even seeing her sister. She stayed over at Sorcha’s house, where she could study in peace. Her mother would still be resting, and Rachel didn’t particularly want to see Mandy.
The day after Mandy returned, Rachel came home just to get a book and a change of underwear, presuming her parents would hardly notice her absence when Mandy’s presence filled the house with all its might.
When she walked past the kitchen, her father called her in. He was sitting at the table in his flannel dressing gown and slippers, drinking a tall glass of whiskey.
He said, “Your mother’s had a baby.”
Rachel was sure she’d misheard. “A what?”
“A baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yes. A baby. A baby, I said. Are you deaf?”
“I’m not deaf—I just don’t understand. How could Mum have had a baby?”
He chugged his whiskey. “The feckin’ stork came,” he said gruffly. “And now your mother’s had a baby.”
“But how could Mum have had a baby? She wasn’t pregnant. She’s almost fifty. That’s not possible.”
Our father placed his whiskey glass down carefully on the table. “Now you listen here, lass,” he said slowly, enunciating every word. “Your mam has had a baby. A baby girl. A little sister for you. She’s tired after the labor and you’ll have to mind her, and mind the baby. You hear me?”