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Through her nose, she inhaled deeply before correcting me. “Motorcycles, lass.”
I nodded as if appreciating her setting me straight. “Motorcycles.”
Her big eyes drifted shut. “Their sound reminds me of home.”
That was exciting. “Like our home?”
She exhaled… “Like the love we share, yes.”
There was no other way to tell a child that the walls that trapped us were the furthest from the warmth of a real home. So, the sweet woman didn’t try.
I’m grateful. Her kind answer spared me—bought me more time—from the gruesome truth I would one day come to learn.
Until then, more time passed…
I was seven years old when I asked, “Where did my name come from?”
Sitting on the carpeted floor, my back to the small section of wall under our one window, I was facing the bedroom door directly in front of me. I gazed at the wall to the left, admiring the many drawings of mine that Mammy had taped up. The wall and ceiling to the right of the door were decorated with my favorite artwork. They covered the corner that cradled the bed Mammy and I shared. Drawn branches and leaves, on different-sized sheets of scrap paper, creatively made that corner feel like a green canopy of nature that Mammy and I slept under. To fill the spaces not covered with treelike imitations, Mammy had taped our drawings of night stars.
With the one blanket we shared, Mammy was making the bed as she heavily sighed, “That was my mammy’s name.”
I gasped. “You have a mammy, too?”
Abandoning the bed, Mammy came to me, her eyes slipping shut. “Oh yes, and she was beautiful.” She sat in front of me, exhaling and hugging her knees to her chest.
Not that I had much to compare, since my mother was the only woman I had ever been in contact with, but I admired her blonde hair and smooth, light skin. “You are beautiful, too.”
Slowly, her wonderous eyes opened. There was a sadness present now. “Yes. I am.”
Due to my age—and my entire life being utterly limited, I didn’t understand that her beauty had cost her dearly. Instead, I assumed she was sad because she didn’t get to be with her mammy anymore. “You miss her?”
Mammy peered over her shoulder and at the door that Eejit-Da kept locked. “Very much.”
“Do you have an Eejit-Da, too?”
That actually made her smile, showing her true beauty. Her spirit. “No, lass. He was a prideful Holy Joe who hurt no one unless they hurt his family.”
By the way her voice sang his praise, he sounded like he was bigger than life. “Did he ride a motorcycle?”
Her smile faded as she appeared to get lost in thought. “Yes. Maybe still does.”
“Did he look like you?”
“Lass, him being on this earth first means I’d have to look like him.”
“Ohhhhh… Well, do you look like him?”
She picked at a string from a hole in her pants. “No, this caílíni took after her ma.” She began to smile again. “Da had… grey eyes of a Viking.” Her shoulders lifted and fell… “The size, too.” She then glared at the door. “Not gammy like some.”
With that, more time passed…
I was eight when I asked, “Mammy, do you know what that tree trunk feels like?”
The tree, now so full of leaves it blocked the view of other houses, was still a wonderous mystery to me. I wished the window opened so I could reach out and touch a leaf, just like the ones I had drawn so many times.
After taping my drawing of a grey neighborhood cat I had seen in the tree, Mammy came to kneel next to me at the window so we could be in awe together. Her voice sounded as excited as my imagination. “Lass, the tree trunk feels… gritty against bare toes when trying to climb it. The branches feel strong when you grab on to hang from them. The leaves feel smooth but sound like rustling paper in the wind.”
Delightfully bewildered, and innocently entertained, I exhaled, hoping someday I’d get to touch something so amazing as a tree.
