On this particular Sunday I had planned to take the two little ones to church in their father's absence, then maybe out for an ice cream. Those plans were thwarted when I arrived home on Saturday afternoon to find bedlam reigning in my own room. Shamey and Bridie were there, as were their three boy cousins, Malachy, Thomas and James, and they were leaping over my furniture with feathers stuck in their hair.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph! What's going on here!” I clapped my hands and the children froze.
“We're playing red Indians,” Bridie said, giving me her most innocent smile. “Aunty Nuala plucked a chicken and there were feathers.”
“If you want to run around like savages, you go outside and find the nearest park,” I said, wagging a stern finger at them. “You know better than to play that kind of game indoors, and especially in my room.”
“Sorry, Molly.” Shameyboy tried an endearing smile.
As they shuffled out, I heard one of Nuala's boys mutter, “She's going to be a right old tartar, isn't she? Is she like that all the time?”
I smiled to myself as I straightened up my bedclothes and the pillows that had fallen to the floor. I had just taken off my new costume jacket and was hanging it on the peg when my door burst open and Nuala herself came in. “You've heard the terrible news then?” she demanded.
“I thought I told you to knock first,” I said, glad that she hadn't come in two minutes later and thus caught me in my undergarments. “What terrible news? It's not Seamus, is it? He's not taken a turn for the worse?”
“Seamus is on the mend, thank the Blessed Mother and all the saints. He'll be up and walking again in a week or so. No,‘tis Finbar and myself that have suffered misfortune. With me not around to keep an eye on them, things went from bad to worse. The long and short of it is that Finbar lost his job at the saloon, lazy no-good bag of bones that he is, and the boys were up to such mischief that we've been thrown out of our apartment.”
“Dear me. That's terrible. I hope you've found a new place.”
She gave me a sly, sideways look. “What with looking after our poor cousin being such a full-time job, I'll not have a chance to go looking, and anyway, Seamus has graciously agreed that we can move in with him for the moment, until he's on his feet and Finbar finds himself new employment.”
“All of you? In that one room?” I demanded. “Mrs. O'Hallaran would never agree.”
“Oh, but she has agreed. I spoke to her myself. We're fellow Irishwomen. We understand each other. She told me I was a saint, giving up my own thoughts of happiness to nurse my sick cousin. And she knows it will only be for a while. Just until things straighten themselves out again.”
What could I say? It was, after all, not my house, even though I had rented the top floor and invited Seamus and the little ones to join me. I could hardly go down to Mrs. O'Hallaran and demand that she not let Nuala, Finbar and the three horrors move in without seeming unfeeling and hard-hearted.
“So I'll be keeping Young Seamus and Bridie with me a while longer then?”
“And I thought I'd move in here too,” she said, giving me what passed for a friendly smile. “Then we can have one room for girls and one for boys. It's up to young Seamus which one he chooses. Maybe he'd rather stay with his sister and you.”
“I'll try to make you as welcome as you made me,” I replied smoothly and she got my meaning.
“It won't be for long,” she said. “With the good food you've been buying, we'll have Seamus back on his feet and working again in no time at all.”
The smile she gave me was one of triumph as she closed the door behind her. I stood in my own room wanting to hit somebody, so frustrated was I feeling. I had little doubt that she had been working up to this the moment she set eyes on the place. And I knew it wasn't going to be easy getting rid of her again. I just had to pray that her boys would drive Mrs. O'Hallaran crazy within the week.