Torn Away by James Heneghan Page B

pictures of Pope John XXIII and the Sacred Heart hanging on the wall, Jesus with his long, sad, suffering face, left hand pointing to his burning heart, a prayer in the lower margin: “Come to Me, all ye who are heavily burdened and I will give you rest.”
    Mrs. O’Malley from next door comes in. “Are you there, Declan, love?” And when she sees him sitting there, his school bag still clutched in his hand, she says, “Oh sweet Jesus—they killed your ma and the child!” And starts crying and sits beside him and clutches him to her shoulder, weeping hot tears into his hair.
    Father Coughlan, the parish priest is next. He tiptoes into the house and makes the sign of the cross and takes Declan’s handsinto his own. “God be with you, boy, in your time of trouble.” And he blesses him and tells him he must be strong and does he wish for him to send Mrs. Moloney from the rectory to stay in the house with him for a week or so while he telephones his uncle, Matthew Doyle, in Canada? Declan is staring at the Sacred Heart. He shakes his head. He will be all right; Mrs. O’Malley will be coming in.
    When he gets rid of everyone, he locks the door and climbs the stairs. He opens his ma’s bedroom door and stands there, just looking. On the wall over the bed is another Sacred Heart picture. Suffering. The room is very empty. Then he goes to Mairead’s room which is his own room also, divided in two by a curtain strung up on a pair of wall hooks—the house, like all the others in the row, has only two bedrooms. The diary he gave her for her birthday is on the hurriedlymade bed. There is a pair of soiled white socks on the floor beside the bed. Her green blazer, part of her school uniform, hangs on the back of a chair. He picks up the diary and stares at the Victorian lady on the cover.
    He goes to his own side of the roomand lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling, the diary clasped in his hand, and he waits in the silence. He is waiting for them to come home, rattling and laughing through the door downstairs, tired and happy after their day in the city, waiting for them to dismiss this empty, tomb-like silence.
    But they don’t come.
    The funeral is on Monday. The IRA with their black berets and dark glasses make a political thing of it. The police are there in full force. The Brits too, in their armored six-wheeled Saracens. If they try anything, there will be a riot for sure. Schools are closed. All the victims. All the mourners. Hundreds attend. The coffins closed.
    It is the last he ever sees of his ma and his sister, two dark wooden boxes, one of them small, on the shoulders of the IRA pallbearers. He watches, his face pale in the cold spring sun. The pain he feels is unbearable, but he wants to guard it and nourish it so it will grow, and when it has grown powerful enough it will explode.
    He watches the coffins being lowered into the consecrated ground.
    He doesn’t cry.
    The Brits don’t try anything. There is no riot. Not this time.
    After the funeral he holds it in for two days at the O’Malleys’. All day and night and the next day. Then the next night, he climbs through the window into his own empty house and sits on his ma’s bed and weeps, weeps until he thinks it will kill him.
    He stops remembering.
    The wind keens in from the black Canadian sea and rattles his window. He pushes himself up out of bed and looks out at the dark night and the turbulent sea.
    He remembers again that picture of his mother’s—the Sacred Heart, that sad suffering Jesus face on the wall.
    It looks a lot like his Uncle Matthew.

Chapter Seventeen
    Matthew sat in the garage, cleaning a rifle.
    â€œLooks like an antique,” said Declan. “Did you bring it with you when you ran away from Ireland?” He watched Matthew carefully as he said this. Always, no matter how much he tried to needle his uncle, Matthew never got angry. Now, however, Declan