Dear Inmate, page 1
Dear Inmate
Book Two of The Paddy Series
Lisa Boyle
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Author’s Note
About the Author
Dear Inmate
Copyright © 2021 by Lisa Boyle. All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Unless otherwise mentioned in the Author’s Note, names, characters, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-1-7366077-2-5 (Ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-7366077-3-2 (Paperback)
Copy Editor/Proofreader: Constance Renfrow
Cover Designer: Rafael Andres
Dedication
This book is for my niece, Faith. I’m so proud of you. Thank you for supporting me. In my writing, in my decision to go for a third plate at the dinner buffet. All of it.
* * *
And for my sister, Megan. Thank you for always believing in me. And for creating aforementioned human.
Chapter One
The tolling of the church bells could only mean one thing: They were coming for us. For our church. For our school. For our girls. We listened in horrified silence. They were truly coming. I looked up at the man atop the bell tower, who had been keeping watch, staring through his spyglass into the distance. He used all of his weight to pull down on the rope, his body bobbing up and down in a frenzy. I glanced to Mairead next to me. Her black curls bounced as she looked all about her in panic. Her eyes were wide and full of fear. I stepped closer to her. I tried to be steady. Confident. Strong. I hoped she could feel it in me.
“We can do this,” I whispered.
She breathed loudly out of her mouth in long gusts of air. She nodded once, and I watched her focus on me, burying her fears elsewhere.
I heard scurrying feet in the distance and imagined Sister Celeste, Sister Hunna, and Sister Edith slipping out the back of the church as they had been instructed to do at the chime of the bell. They would be carrying their most personal and intimate belongings. Diaries, letters, rosary beads, undergarments. Things they couldn’t bear to see picked through, looted, or destroyed.
I squinted, and in the distance, I could see the mob, very small and moving through the streets, turning this way and that, all together, like a school of fish. My heartbeat drummed loudly in my ears. I tried not to picture their faces. People who I might have seen on the street, at the bookstore, at an antislavery society meeting. Their silent disgust failed to affect me anymore. But this was not silent. This was loud and forceful and violent, and I could not ignore it.
I bent down to pick up my weapon. Mine was a stone, but next to me, Mairead held two bricks, one in each hand, and Fiona gripped a club. Beads of sweat trickled down my back. I looked at Mairead again, biting the side of her lip. I tried to slow my breathing.
Behind us were the men—Emmett, Dennis, Frank, Patrick, and Mr. Joyce. Out of the corner of my eye, I could even see Quinn nervously toeing the dirt. Emmett, Dennis, Frank, and Patrick all had weapons, too. Chains, clubs, rocks, concrete slabs. Mr. Joyce carried nothing. He stood like an oak tree, eyes focused ahead, and his thick, strong arms crossed over his chest.
This was the fourth day we had come. We came when our shifts at the mills and machine shops and canals ended, and formed a human wall of protection.
The sun was starting to set, but the heat hadn’t given way. Fiona practically bounced in place. I imagined that she’d been waiting for the chance to tear these people from limb to limb. Yankee, abolitionist, Know-Nothing, it mattered not. To her, they all meant the same thing: enemy.
The mob was approaching the bridge when I heard a sound, piercing and wild. It didn’t sound human, but it was coming from Fiona’s open mouth. Still gripping the club, Fiona ran for the bridge. Quinn stared at her in horror.
But then, another woman yelled, “Let’s get the bastards!”
More yells rose up and the barricade of human bodies began to lurch forward. At first one by one, then by groups of many more. I looked around, not sure what to do. Should I hold the line at the church? Or should I go fight? This wasn’t what we had planned.
I looked to the men. Frank had shoved past me right away, but Dennis, Patrick, Emmett, and Mr. Joyce stood strong. My eyes met Emmett’s, and he smiled at me. A small, secret, close-lipped smile. I knew what he meant by it, and that amazed me. That sometimes, we didn’t even need to speak to understand each other. That smile was my approval. My encouragement to do what I needed to do.
Mairead was also looking around frantically. She had taken half a step forward and then back again.
“Mairead,” I said, commanding her attention again. “What will we do?”
She looked at me, and I knew she heard the steadiness in my voice. She knew I was with her. No matter what.
“We fight,” she said, staring straight ahead.
And then, we ran.
Chapter Two
Far ahead of us, Fiona had not slowed. I could barely see her now but knew she was still leading us. We were approaching the bridge when we heard a loud groan over the noise of our labored breathing and quick footsteps. Mairead went faster, elbowing her way through the crowd. I followed. I could hear the Know-Nothings now. The shouting and spitting.
We were nearly at the front, the small stone ledge lining the bridge to our left. I could see only a wall of bodies in front of us. Irish on one side, Know-Nothings on the other, swinging and pushing and falling on one another. Fiona was directly in front of me now, her auburn hair tied back, but flailing wildly as she fought. She still held tightly to her club, but the man across from her had grabbed it, too. They were locked in a tug-of-war for only a moment before he ripped it from her hands. She grabbed him by his shoulders and yelled again. This time, it was a deep, vibrating yell. And then, she threw the man with all her might, and he fell, stumbling over the ledge and into the canal.
A wave of water followed, splashing us all. Then, a stillness. A few laughs rang out. We stared at the men across from us. We all breathed in and out, not knowing what to do next. People began to back away from one another. Some gathered at the ledge to watch the man in the canal.
Fiona’s hands were at her side, opening and closing, grabbing air and releasing it. She was as sturdy as the bridge she stood on, staring at the Know-Nothings, daring them to try again. Frank stood next to her, ready to fight for her. Some of the men in the mob pointed at her.
“It was her!” a man yelled from the front.
“Can’t have us revealing your secrets, can you?” another sneered.
She spat in his face, and he swung at her. Frank caught the man’s fist and twisted his arm until the man crumpled to the ground. The crowd started to swarm forward again, but just then, another man pushed his way through to the front.
“Stop!” he yelled as loud as he could. I recognized him. It was Reverend Edson, breathing hard. “Stop all of this!” Clearly the men recognized him, too, because they did indeed stop, though they looked at him with irritation.
“Please,” he said, “go home. The church is a sacred place. Leave theirs be.”
“They’re hiding things in there,” one of them shouted. “Plans!”
“Plans to ruin this country!” yelled another.
I stepped forward, next to Frank.
“Ruin this country?” I asked. “How? We barely have anything to call our own.”
“You have enough,” another said.
The man on the ground rolled to his side, still clutching his shoulder. Someone helped him up. The injured man glared at Frank.
“We came to this country for a better life,” I said. “The only things you’d find in our church are Bibles.”
“Catholic Bibles!” a man directly in front of me said. “Americans listen to God only, not some tyrant with a foolish hat giving commands from an ocean away. We will not be bound by Italian chains! This is a Protestant nation. If you don’t like it, you should leave!”
“We’ve heard that before,” I shot back. “We’ve been told we can’t be Catholic. But we still are. And we will continue to be. And we’re not leaving.”
“Yah!” a woman behind me yelled.
The man before me stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“I’m patient,” he said. “We can make things very difficult for you and your kind. And we will.”
I examined his thick eyebrows and crooked teeth. He was an ugly man, and I thought about telling him so. But instead, I said, “You won’t break us.”
His thin lips curled into a sinister smile.
“Is that a challenge, Biddy?” he asked.
Frank lunged. I put out my arm to stop him.
“It’s all right, Frank,” I said. “We’re done here.”
Reverend Edson breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Rosaleen,” he said.
“Follow the good reverend home now,” I said.
The man in front of me chuckled.
“I don’t take orders from you or from this old man,” he said. “We told you already. We have no pope.”
Then he leaned even closer and whispered in my ear, “We’ll be back,” before turning around to address the rest of them.
“Let’s get some supper, boys!” he yelled. “We’re done for tonight. They’ve clearly hidden or destroyed their damning documents. We’ll come again when they aren’t so well prepared. This isn’t over!”
“Yea!” a few of them shouted.
They started to walk back to where they had come from. To the other side of Lowell. Where people had fair wages and respectable occupations and one house was for one family.
Reverend Edson came up to me and patted my shoulder.
“The Know-Nothings have gotten out of control,” he said.
“It’s only going to get worse now that Mayor Ward was elected,” I said. “He encourages it.”
People were going up to Fiona now. Rubbing her back, asking if she was all right, congratulating her on her bravery and strength.
“Thank you for your assistance tonight, Reverend,” I said to Reverend Edson.
He gave me a half smile. “Good night,” he said, before walking back to his church.
I watched him go, his head down, arms crossed. I thought about how much older he seemed than when I had first met him four years ago. His hair was now completely gray and he was thinner. The bones in his face at a sharper angle, yet his skin droopier.
Mairead grabbed my hand. We started back toward the Acre.
“You did good today,” she said.
I sighed. “Not good enough.”
“You made them leave,” she said. “Those men are plain evil. You’re not going to change their hearts.”
“I wish I could change someone’s heart,” I said. “People are so afraid and angry. They won’t listen. They won’t try to change.”
We walked for a moment in silence.
“Besides,” I said, “I think Fiona was the one that made them leave. They were afraid of her.”
We both laughed, remembering the soaking-wet man.
“I can’t believe she threw a man,” Mairead said.
“I can,” I said. “It was probably cathartic. I say we let her toss one Know-Nothing into the canal each week.”
Mairead laughed heartily now.
“It might bring everyone together. Yankee and Irish. Who wouldn’t like to watch that?” she asked.
“The man being tossed,” I chuckled.
When we got back, the men who had stayed at the church were listening to the others tell the story of what happened at the bridge. Emmett smiled big when he saw me.
“We did it, Rose,” he said. “We saved the day.”
“No,” I said. “Fiona saved the day.”
He nodded. “She is terrifying.”
Mairead let go of my hand.
“I’m going to find Dennis,” she said. “You kept him safe, didn’t you?” she asked Emmett.
“Not one hair on his beautiful wee head was harmed,” Emmett said.
“Ha!” Mairead said. “I knew I wasn’t the only one to think Dennis’s oddly shaped head is beautiful!”
I giggled. “Goodbye, Mairead!” I yelled after her.
“Frank said a man threatened your life,” Emmett said as we walked.
“Don’t they always?” I asked, smirking.
“I have something special planned for our evening tomorrow,” he said, “so don’t go biting the dust before then.”
I laughed. “You sure have a way with words, Emmett Doherty,” I said. “It’s no wonder I’ve been able to keep you to myself all this time.”
He made a shocked and hurt face, but I knew it wasn’t sincere. I smacked him playfully. We were at the boardinghouse now, and we stopped.
“I’ll be dressed and ready and waiting for you at your house when you get off work tomorrow,” I said.
He drew nearer.
“I’ll never forget when I saw you there, waiting for me that day you came to Lowell,” he said in a low, hushed voice. “Every time feels like that, you know. Fluttery stomach. Sweaty hands. Dizzy head.”
I smiled and bit my lip.
“Even still? After four years?” I asked.
“Even still. Even after one hundred years,” he said.
He kissed my lips softly.
“Good night,” he whispered.
“Good night,” I whispered back.
Inside, the parlor was empty. It was nearing curfew, and most of the girls were already settled in their rooms. Through the window, I watched Emmett walk down the street alone and longed to walk with him. To only have to say good night as I lay next to him. To watch his beautiful eyelashes close over his blue eyes. To watch his wide, strong chest move up and down in contented sleep. I wanted it so bad it hurt. I watched him cross the canal and turn down Merrimack Street where I couldn’t see him anymore. Then I went upstairs.
Nessa was sitting on the edge of our bed, one hand holding a book open and the other twirling her light-brown, silky hair that fell in loose waves over her shoulders. Her left knee bobbed up and down. When she noticed me, she slammed down her book and jumped to her feet.
“What happened?” she asked, excitedly. “How did it go? Tell me everything!”
I smiled at her enthusiasm. She had asked me the same questions every night for the last four nights.
“Fiona threw a man into the canal,” I said.
Nessa’s mouth dropped open.
“No,” she said.
“She did,” I said. “And your brother probably made them all soil their pants in terror. I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke that man’s arm.”
“Wow,” she nearly whispered in amazement. “Fiona is so brave!”
“Mmmm,” I replied, wanting to neither agree nor disagree with that statement.
“I wish she liked me,” Nessa said. “She’ll probably marry my brother someday and she barely even speaks to me.”
“Have you told her how amazing you think she is?” I asked. “She likes hearing that.”
Nessa cracked a smile.
“Why don’t you like her?” she asked.
“It’s not that I don’t like her,” I said. “She’s . . .” I paused, thinking of a compliment. “Brave, like you said,” I finally finished.
“I wish Frank would have allowed me to go,” she said.
“No, he’s right,” I said. “Things could have been much worse. Let Frank do the defending.”
