Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan

the soldier behind him whacked him across the head with the butt of his rifle and sent him tumbling to his knees. By this time, the whole village had gathered. We all called out “No!” in unison, and some of the crowd pushed forward.
    “Get back, get back, you Irish fuckers!” the soldiers shouted, as if they were being attacked. Then, clearly thinking better of conducting their business in the street, they marched the four young lads across into the barracks, training their guns on the boys’ backs and also at the crowd, as they shouted at everyone to back off. “It’s all right now, everyone,” the new curate called back to us, his voice high-pitched in terror. “Just a misunderstanding, e-everyone go on home and about your business now . . .”
    In the confusion, the soldiers left Mary behind. I persuaded her not to follow her son over to the barracks. “There’s no sense making it worse, Mary. He’ll be out in an hour when they realize he’s only a young lad.”
    “He was in the pub,” she said, “and he’s only fifteen. I’ve told him a thousand times he’s not to go near the pub. He’ll get us all in trouble . . .” Mary’s two brothers came to take her from me. I handed the elder one her shawl and they wrapped it gently around their shattered sister’s head, guiding her hands up to her chin that she might hold it in place. As I watched the two men take her off down the road, I still was not sure exactly what I had witnessed.
    The following day it was Maidy who came to tell me that Cahill Murphy had been beaten to death in the police barracks. “He’ll be out in an hour,” I had said to his mother. Standing in my kitchen, dry-eyed with disbelief at that innocent boy’s death—that was the moment my war began.
    That night, Padraig Phelan came to our house and asked John to captain a unit. “We need you,” Padraig said. He reached under his long coat and pulled out a rifle. John took it and, across the safety of our hearth, he looked for my permission. He was tall and broad, his waistcoat stretched across his ribs, his white shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. The gun sat across his chest as natural as a woman cradling a baby. He was born to fight. I didn’t want my husband in danger, but a child had been murdered. I took the gun from John, kissed the cold gray steel of its barrel and handed it back to him. “You’ll stay for dinner, Padraig,” I said.
    Later that evening, I sent John outside to fetch some turf and while he was gone I turned to Padraig. “I’m happy to do my part as well, Padraig, but feeding you all before left us nothing for the winter.” John came back into the room before Padraig could answer me, but I held Padraig’s eye as he rubbed his mouth and chin with his long, gentleman schoolteacher fingers, then finally gave me a small, serious nod. I knew John would be angry if he ever discovered I had put a proviso on our loyalty, but we’d be no use to anyone if we were hungry.
    In bed that night, I could not sleep. The moon glared through the window, casting a gray pallor over my sleeping husband’s face—it was a cold light, the color of death. I reached across and touched the broad softness of his mouth with my fingertips, then held the back of my hand to his cheek. His skin was warm and the fact of his aliveness leapt through me, and I had to take my hand away and bring it to my mouth to suppress a sob.
    Padraig helped us out. He lent us a few cows and sent his nephew—a skinny, pasty boy called Liam—to help me care for them, allowing John to captain his unit full time. For the next three months my husband left the house early in the morning and came back late at night. I did not ask where he was going when he left, or what he had done when he came home. I spent my days working in the house with only young Liam for company. Mid-morning I would call the boy in for a breakfast of bread and milk, and as the days passed his embarrassed silence gave way to easy