Dear Inmate, page 2
“But you were there!”
“I’m older and bigger, and I don’t have a brother.” I agreed with Nessa, but I couldn’t tell her that. Frank and I already had enough problems getting along.
“You have Emmett, though,” she said, plopping back down on the bed.
I studied Nessa. I wished I could pull her into my cause. Any of my causes. She had a good heart and loads of energy. Every girl did at her age. I remembered having it. But I’d felt a little bit slip away every year, and in its place, I was left with more and more frustration, which I tried to keep from turning into resignation.
“Maybe there are some ways you could help,” I finally said.
Nessa popped up onto her elbows. “How?”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “But you can’t tell your brother. Whatever it is. Do you promise?”
She nodded her head furiously. “I promise.”
I still slept in the same bed as I always had at 17 Burn Street. Mrs. Durrand and Hattie and little Benjamin—who was not so little anymore—were still on the first floor below me, and Sarah still slept in the adjacent bed. I slept on the side of the bed where Julia used to and thought of her still every night when I put out the lamp.
Berta, who was also from Germany, had replaced Frieda. Frieda had left during the mill layoffs a few years back, and her family headed West, looking to start over one more time. This time in the new territories, where they hoped their newspaper would be a voice of freedom.
Berta was a much better roommate than Frieda. Berta and Sarah had become fast friends. They were quite opposite in most ways. They were both German, but Berta was Catholic. Berta didn’t mind sticking up for her friends, even if it meant getting into a fight. She was very smart and, I think, enjoyed arguing. But they were both kind and caring, and Berta knew not to push Sarah too far. They both admitted that they wouldn’t have been friends in Germany. It wouldn’t have been possible. But here, it didn’t matter that Sarah was Jewish. Neither of them were Protestant, so to the Know-Nothings, they were both suspicious foreigners.
I lay in bed that night staring at my most recent letter from Marie. Nessa had fallen asleep, but I kept the lamp lit, reading my letter over and over and feeling a deep guilt in the bottom of my stomach. I hadn’t been to visit in nearly a year, and Marie was asking again. Miss Susan would even make a room available for me. Free of charge.
I missed them terribly, but seeing Marie always reminded me of my failures here. I wanted something to show her to prove that I was being the good abolitionist she knew I could be. But beyond the four Irish people that I was closest with, I had failed to bring about any sort of meaningful change here. If anything, many more Irish had grown resentful of Black people. And more abolitionists had grown resentful of Irish people.
Working conditions at the mill hadn’t improved much, either. There had been multiple fires over the years. Another death. Various hands and fingers and arms torn off. An Irishwoman named Orla had started a women’s association for better working conditions. I helped her organize strikes, but it was always the same. Some in the Acre would strike. Some would not. The strike-breaking men and women would quietly slip off to work in the mornings. I could tell which ones they were by their refusal to share a smile or a nod. They shuffled away, eyes downcast, trying their hardest to simply disappear. They were drawn to the sounds of the canal, the groan of the machines, the noise of wages. Their bodies rose from sleep before the sun, and their feet didn’t know another way to go.
I finally put out the lamp when the clock read 11 p.m. and dreamt of the man at the bridge. He called me a failure and laughed in my face. Fiona was there, too.
“And she’s a traitor!” she yelled, before picking me up and throwing me into the canal. I awoke just when I should have landed in the water. I gasped for breath at first and then laughed quietly at myself.
I turned one way and then the other, trying to get back to sleep. The man at the bridge still haunted me, and I finally let myself think about what he had said. He’d promised to make life difficult for us Irish. But how could it be any harder? We were already poor and sick and often out of a job. What else could they do?
Finally, I got out of bed and crept over to our desk. I quietly gathered some papers and a pen and tiptoed out of the room, careful to close the door gently behind me.
In the parlor, I started to write. Not a proper letter. My thoughts were too jumbled for that. I started to write a list of grievances. It helped spark ideas.
I started with the easy ones, the ones I had been writing about for years now. The Irish are denied jobs, housing. The Irish are paid less. Because the Irish do not have proper housing, they have no proper place to be sick. Their homes are cold, drafty, damp. The Irish are confined to the mill, the church, and the taverns, and their behavior at all of these places is scrutinized and criticized. Then I moved on to problems that had arisen as of late. The Irish are jailed more frequently, for longer periods of time. The Irish are denied public poor funds.
The moon was bright tonight, making it easy to read my list back to myself. In my head, I thought of the things a slave endured. Beaten, whipped, sold, forcibly separated from their family. If they escape, they are chased down, hunted. It didn’t match up. It wasn’t even comparable. But I had to make a connection somewhere. Somehow.
I sighed. I had made them all, and yet, as far as the Acre was concerned, this horror may have been happening on another planet. The colored people they knew seemed just fine. Perhaps even better off. They were paid better. Their homes were nicer. Sometimes I wondered if the Irish even believed the things I wrote. They didn’t see the fear within their Black neighbors. They refused to.
I looked at the bright moon again and thought of home. Ireland was farther from me than the slavery of the American South, but sometimes it felt just an arm’s reach away. Da, Ma, our cottage, the sea. It was a different life, truly. One that I had lived a lifetime ago. And yet, it was inside of me. The smells, the sounds. When I needed strength to push through, I thought of Ma collecting those nettles. I had been wrong about Ma. She was a fighter. With time, I could see that.
I gathered my papers and walked lightly up the stairs, back to my room. I put them on the desk and fell into a deep sleep. I did not wake right away when the bell rang the next morning. My mind was slow, my thoughts moving as if stuck in molasses.
I splashed my face two extra times to wake myself. Mrs. Durrand had made egg and meat pies for breakfast with fresh strawberries. I was surprisingly hungry and ate mine quickly.
Even though summer was beginning, the mornings were still quite cool, and I hurried to the mill. Sometimes I walked with Nessa, but this morning she was eating slower than I, talking to her younger friends about the bridge incident. I thought of Nancy then and our walks together to work. I missed her and convinced myself I would visit her soon.
Work dragged on as it did on Saturdays when we were all itching to be done and have our day of rest. I stood at my weaving machines, watching over three of them for snags and jams. Sarah was to my left, and another young woman, Emily, was to my right. Mairead worked across the room. The room was scattered with men now, too. As more Yankee women left, Irishmen took their places.
As I walked out of work that sunny day, I noticed a woman sitting on a bench. That same bench I had first sat on when I came to Lowell. I’d wondered then whether I was making the right choice, coming here. But never again after. I looked again and realized I knew that woman sitting there. She shielded her eyes from the sun with her flat hand, peering into the crowd of women pouring from the mill. I ran to her and she smiled. We hugged each other tight.
“I was just thinking of you this morning!” I said to her.
“Of our walks to work?” Nancy asked. “I miss them, too.”
I nodded and squeezed her hand. “How is Calvin?” I asked.
“He is well,” she said. “He says this new police force needs work. He’s not quite sure what to do with them. He’s thinking of meeting with the Boston police officers. They just formed a department, and he thinks they could help him do the same in Lowell.”
“Tell him he could start by leaving the Irish alone,” I said.
She gave me a sideways smile. “You know I will,” she said.
Then she grabbed my hand, and her eyes narrowed. She looked at me intently.
“I have some news for you,” she said, glancing at the people around us. “It might be something . . . for your . . . you know.”
My Paddy letters. I had just about exhausted every inch of the Acre, leaving my letters here or there until Irish guards—hired by the taverns and other businesses—lined the street every night. The newspapers still published my letters, though, and the Lowell American even gave them a prime position.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Do you know of a colored man named George Moore?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Should I?”
Nancy shook her head. “I suppose you would have no reason to. He used to live here in Lowell. He only moved a few months ago. Maybe half a year at the most. I knew him briefly. When I started teaching, he was also a teacher at the school. But he left soon after to open his own barbershop.”
“What about him?” I asked.
“He was an escaped slave,” she said. “He left Virginia twelve years ago. And now, with this new Fugitive Slave Law, his old master is coming back to claim him. He sent his wife and children somewhere else. I don’t know where. And his community in Manchester raised money for him to go to Canada. He might be on his way there right now.”
My mind started racing, going over all of the details of the Fugitive Slave Law.
“This is important,” I said to her.
“That’s not all,” she went on. “His old master and those deputies have specifically threatened his friends in Lowell. They say they plan to bring the full weight of the law down on those who aided and abetted his escape.”
“No,” I said. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Yes,” she said. “Six months in jail or one thousand dollars! No one is going to give anyone up. And the city officials will shield the town from any consequences. But those slaveholders and Southern politicians intend to try to make an example out of us.”
“Oh, Nancy,” I said, the hot anger inching up my spine. “I’ll be up all night with this news.”
“Wait until after your date with Emmett,” she said. “He told me it’s a special one.”
“When did you see him?” I asked.
“I bumped into him earlier this week,” she said. “He seemed quite excited.”
“I’m glad you reminded me,” I said. “I almost forgot about our date!”
Nancy laughed. “I know how you get about writing,” she said. Then she winked. “I can’t have you neglecting our Emmett.”
Now I laughed. “It’s as if I share that man with all of Lowell.”
“You should appoint him ambassador of the Acre,” she said. “One meeting with Mayor Ward and the man would have to change his whole philosophy. They would be drinking rum together before the night was over!”
I smiled faintly. “I only wish it were that simple,” I said.
I hurried back to the boardinghouse and rushed through making myself pretty. I’d promised Emmett I would be waiting for him, and I intended to keep that promise. I hated to disappoint him.
As I waited on his steps, I watched some boys playing across the street. They had scratched themselves a hopscotch board into the dirt. One boy threw a stone, and it bounced off the board. The other boy laughed, and the first shuffled over to get his stone, shoulders caved, head down. The second boy threw his stone, and it landed squarely on a section of the board. As he hopped down the board, the first boy bumped his shoulder, throwing him off-balance. The two began to push and shove one another until a woman who had been hanging clothes on the side of the house thundered over. She grabbed each boy by the collar.
“That’s enough, you two!” she shouted. “I’ll send you right back to your ma, Brendan.”
She let them go.
“Sorry, Mrs. Kelly,” the second boy said. “I’ll behave.”
“Yeh better,” she said, before turning back to her work.
I would have guessed that the boys were about ten years old, the same age as Ronan. I hadn’t seen him since last year, and it made me worry. I knew those men he lived with were no good for him, and it seemed his Aunt Maureen cared little. My guilt from last night came back, turning my stomach over. I was neglecting Ronan, too.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t realized Emmett was standing right in front of me. I stood up and hugged him.
“Should we go to the waterfall then?” I asked.
“Let me clean myself up a bit first,” he said. “I’ll be back in one moment. Don’t go anywhere.”
I nodded. Patrick went in after him, giving me a warm smile. When I turned back to the boys, they were shoving each other again. But this time they were laughing, too. It made me smile. The way children could forgive so easily. The way they trusted each other. Their comfort in closeness.
Emmett came down soon, face clean and shaved. His hair was brushed to the side. It had grown rather long lately, hovering just above his eyes, but I liked it. He grinned and took my hand, leading me toward the waterfall. We were quiet on the way, and I kept glancing at Emmett to see if anything was wrong. But his gaze darted from the sky to the road, avoiding mine purposefully.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked him.
“I feel wonderful, Rose.” He squeezed my hand.
“You seem worried,” I said.
He laughed a short, funny laugh.
“I can’t hide anything from you,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. I could feel his heart thumping fast.
“What is it?” I asked again.
“We’re nearly there,” he answered.
He brought me a little farther than usual, to a secluded spot. I could only barely see the water through the trees, bubbling up from its fall. Emmett put a blanket down under a canopy of trees. The sunlight peeked through the branches, but mostly it was cool and shady. We sat.
“This is nice,” I said. I leaned back between his legs, resting my head on his chest. His heart was still beating hard. He kissed the top of my head and then let his mouth rest there for a moment.
“Rose,” he finally said. “I talked to Mr. Joyce. And he gave me his blessing.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Will you please marry me, Rosaleen MacNamara?”
A warmth spread over my body, and my heart began to beat fast as well. I couldn’t help but to smile big. I turned to face him. He looked a little pale. His eyebrows were squished together in anticipation.
“It’s about time you asked,” I whispered. “I would love nothing more.”
His face relaxed, and he kissed me. It was a long, slow kiss, and I let myself enjoy it. Our lips felt like one. Our tongues knew every inch of the other’s mouth like their own. Eventually, he pulled away and shifted to pull something from his pocket. It was a gray cloth with something folded inside.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Open it.”
I carefully unfolded it to reveal a brooch. A Celtic cross with green vines and purple flowers weaving in and out of its arms.
“This is beautiful,” I gasped. “Where did you get it?”
“Mr. Joyce wanted you to have it,” he said. “It was Julia’s ma’s. Now it’s yours. And one day, you’ll give it to our little girl.”
My eyes welled up with tears. Emmett pulled me into his arms and I cried. Losing Julia still felt so close. Like I could turn into the past, reach out, and touch it. I knew Mr. Joyce felt the same, and yet, he was trusting me with her legacy. He knew I would honor her. Their whole family. My heart ached with joy and sadness all at once.
Emmett pulled away and wiped my tears with his thumbs.
“I thank God every day that we were together on that ship,” he said. “You are life to me, Rose.”
I kissed him again but more passionately this time, forcing all of my weight onto him. He grabbed my waist and moved his hands down my sides, onto my thighs, but pulled away still.
“Not yet,” he whispered, breathlessly.
I groaned a little. “You’re right,” I said, sitting back on my heels. I gave him a sly grin.
“Let’s talk to Father O’Brien right now,” I said. Emmett laughed loudly.
“If you insist!” He looked up at the sky. It was turning orange. The sun was setting.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “After Mass.”
He stood up and offered me his hand.
“Now,” he went on, “we need to get you back in time for curfew.”
Chapter Three
After Mass, I stood with Emmett and Mr. Joyce as we spoke with Father John O’Brien. Father Peter Purcell now headed St. Patrick’s, but Mr. Joyce had grown so close to Father O’Brien, he still went to him on all matters of faith. Mr. Joyce trusted Father O’Brien completely.
“And you give your blessing to this young couple?” Father O’Brien asked.
“Yes, Father,” Mr. Joyce replied. “I believe God brought Rosaleen into Julia’s life to be the sister she never had. Indeed, she feels like a daughter to me. And Emmett is a good man. Perhaps the best bachelor in all of Lowell. I could not want anything more.”
I squeezed Emmett’s arm and tried not to cry.
“And they will be wedded in your home?” Father O’Brien asked.
“Yes, Father,” Mr. Joyce answered. “And they will live there with me after they are married.”
Father O’Brien nodded in approval.
“You will be a steady guidance for them,” Father O’Brien said. “Steering them toward the Lord in all that they do. I will be happy to perform the duty of bringing them together as one. Two weeks from today, I will come to your home after Mass to perform the service.”
Mr. Joyce smiled and shook his hand.
