The Irish Family Secret: Completely gorgeous, tear-jerking Irish women’s fiction (Emerald Isles) by Daisy O'Shea

Author:Daisy O'Shea [O'Shea, Daisy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2024-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

‘Dada!’ Molly cried, pulling at his arm. ‘Stop it – I won’t go!’

She turned to her mother, who was packing a small wicker shopping basket, scarcely able to speak for the tears and the hiccups that filled her throat. ‘It’s been decided.’

‘But, Mam, I can stay here. Davan will marry me. Dada just has to give his consent. And even if the baby comes before we are married, God will understand that we will be joined in holy matrimony.’

Her mother’s face looked even more haggard than usual as she supported her husband. ‘The baby would be born out of wedlock, Molly! It will be a bastard even if you marry after. The neighbours would all know! We would bear the shame! How could you do this? And you, barely fifteen. Davan should not have… What he did was evil!’

‘He’s not evil, and I love him,’ Molly cried. ‘I won’t be put away in the convent! I won’t!’

‘You will do as your father tells you.’ Tears ran down her mother’s face even as she dictated. Already her parents were distancing themselves, saying ‘your father’ and ‘your mother’ rather than the childhood diminutives.

‘But, Mam, they will take my baby away!’

‘They will. Then you will come home, and your father will find a good man for you to marry. He might have to pay someone, of course, and that’s not going to be easy.’ She sits back and thinks. ‘We will say that you went to visit your aunt, in Cork, for the education. And when you come back, I want no word on your lips of babies and Davan.’

‘I won’t go.’

‘You will get in the cart, if the boys have to put you there,’ her father butted in sourly. ‘Father Mooney organised it. It will be here soon. It’s your own fault, anyway.’

‘Davan will come and find me and bring me home,’ she said mutinously.

‘No, he won’t.’

Her father said it with such certainty, Molly’s breath stilled. A cold breath flooded her – made her light-headed. ‘Dada, what have you done?’

Her father glanced away, so her mother answered. ‘Davan will never come near you again, child. He ruined you. He ruined all of us! You must forget him.’

Molly was aghast. ‘No! You cannot mean it. You’re thinking about the neighbours, about yourself, not me and Davan?’

‘We have to live here. How could we live with the shame? And you, my only daughter.’ At that her mother wailed into her apron again, and Molly’s distress turned to anger, because her family cared more about what the neighbours would think than about her own happiness. Everything she’d ever known about her family was undone in that moment. Her parents would send her away and let the nuns steal her precious child that had been conceived in love. Her brothers, who had treated her like a princess up to now, would force her into the cart if she resisted. They would stand by and allow it to save their own standing in the community.

‘I hate you,’ Molly said slowly, her very tone filled with the promise of a curse.

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