The Last Bride in Ballymuir by Dorien Kelly

Author:Dorien Kelly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: dingle, romance, dorien kelly, irish romance, ireland, irish contemporary romance, contemporary romance, county kerry
Published: 2012-08-18T09:27:25.277280+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Possession satisfies.

—Irish Proverb

Feet slamming down the stairs, Michael bellowed, “Vi, pick up the damn phone!” Five rings now and she hadn’t bothered to stop singing long enough to answer it. “Taking after Father, are you? Deaf as a post?”

By eight rings, he loomed over his sister. Vi lounged in her overstuffed chair in front of the empty hearth, singing an old song about family far across the sea. She paused only long enough to arch a brow in his direction.

“It’s not for me.”

Michael bit back an annoyed remark about the grim fate of witches. He’d settle for wiping that complacent grin off her face. Once he’d answered the damn phone.

“Hello.”

“Ah... is that you, Michael?” The voice was male—a young one trying to sound adult. City noises played in the background.

“It is. Who’s this?”

“Pat.” Relative silence was followed by the sound of nervousness being gulped back. “Your brother... Pat.”

Michael shot an incredulous look Vi’s way. Her smile grew until she found the good sense to hide it behind her morning mug of tea.

“ ‘Lo, Pat. Were you looking for Violet?”

“Uh, no... actually, I was looking for you.”

For him?

“I see,” he said. But he didn’t see at all. His memory of Pat was one of two matching carrot-headed boys crying, whining, and generally being dual pains in the ass.

“Tell him I’m here, too,” he heard someone shouting not far from the phone.

“I... uh, we—Danny and me—were wondering how you are.”

“Fine, and you?”

“Expelled from school for the rest of the week, but if Mam doesn’t catch wind of it, we should be right enough.”

Michael almost smiled, recalling his own early efforts to sneak behind Mam’s back. “I won’t be telling her.”

“We didn’t figure you would, especially since every time we mention your name, she tightens her lips down to nothing. I keep hoping that one day when she does that, her mouth’ll seal shut. Life would be easier then, wouldn’t it? Anyway, we were thinking maybe this is a good time to come visit. We picked up the bus schedule and so long as we’re careful we could be to Ballymuir and back before Mam ever knows we’re missing.”

Michael gazed down at the cold tile floor. The chill under his bare feet wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as this call. He didn’t want to hear about his mother. He knew her well enough. The twins, though, were strangers to him. Worse, they represented another link to the mother and father he wanted to cut from his life. As they had cut him.

Michael tried to keep his anger behind his teeth. “I’m working now, busy all day.”

“We don’t want to be entertained. We just want to see you.”

Couldn’t the boy take a “no” with some measure of grace? “If you go sneaking off without your mother’s permission, you can be damned sure it’ll be the last time you see me. Hell, you’d be lucky to leave the house for another year.”

“We’re seventeen years old and free to go where we want.”

“Then why are you

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