Leaving Lucy Pear(69)

Caleb paused. The Murphy boys didn’t look at him, but that’s not what made him stop—most of the men didn’t look at him. It was something else, a fleeting doubt that made him think of Berenice. She had been so small, like a child, so finely jointed at her wrists and knees, so tiny at her waist you could hook an arm round her and reach the same hand into your own pocket. Even Caleb could manage this. It was the pose of a carefree man, an adventurer.

Maybe it was his longing for his bride that made him turn to watch the Murphy boys depart. Maybe it was the steaming line, his exhaustion, his feeling that the men might rise up at any moment, light torches, run shrieking through the sheds. Generally, as a boss, Caleb did not abide doubt—in another era he would have gone on to the next man without hesitating. But he hesitated, and turned, and saw what he must somehow have sensed: that Johnny Murphy’s cap was bulging in the back, and that there, just above her collar, one dark curl had escaped.

? ? ?

Emma’s first thought was that the car sounded almost but not quite like the Duesenberg. Her second, seeing the small man she recognized as Caleb Stanton jump from a Rolls-Royce in her yard, was that the boys had been involved in some way with the strike. Watching Liam and Jeffrey climb out of the car, she felt a seam of pride, thinking of her father nailing up his Land League posters along the main road in Banagher.

She wasn’t expecting another boy to follow them, and she didn’t understand, at first, why the boy’s hair was so long, or why someone else’s child had been brought to her, until it struck her that Lucy Pear wasn’t standing with Janie and the others, who had come out of the perry shack to watch. Emma had arrived home from Sven’s half an hour ago—she hadn’t checked on the children yet.

Mr. Stanton pushed Lucy toward the house. “The quarry’s not a place for a girl,” he said as he deposited her in Emma’s arms. His voice was gentler than Emma would have guessed, nothing like his cold blue eyes.

“Emma?” Roland called.

“Everything’s fine!” she called back.

“Her father should know,” said Mr. Stanton, striding for the door, but Roland was already there, on his one leg, the first Emma had seen of him in sunlight in the month since he’d come home. His beard, she saw, had grown to be wider than his ears. Bits of crumbs stuck to his shirt. He was out of breath from hopping. “What’s going on?” he asked, but no one answered. He stared at Lucy in her costume. “Get inside!” he shouted. “Get your arse inside this house!”

It was shameful, how glad Emma was that Roland could not climb down from the step. She said, “I’ll bring her in, Rolly. Go sit.”

“What the f*ck’s been going on?”

“Rolly! Boys, help your father get back to his chair.”

“I don’t need help getting anywhere,” sneered Roland. He would not move from the doorway, Emma saw, and no one could move him—even on one leg, he was like a mountain.

Mr. Stanton said, “Mr. Murphy, if I may . . .”

“You may not,” Roland mocked back.

“Thank you,” Emma said to Mr. Stanton. “Thank you for bringing them home. We’ll manage from here.”

Mr. Stanton took off his hat. His eyes were wet, Emma saw. “It’s not such a crime,” he said, “a girl wanting . . .” Then he trailed off, got into his car without looking again at Roland, and drove back down the hill.

“Was there leather on the seats in there?” asked Joshua.

Liam and Jeffrey nodded, but their eyes were on their father, who stared at Lucy as if repulsed.

“Is like a galloping sofa!” Joshua cried.

“Here,” Emma said, taking pennies from her pocket and giving one to each child. “Go down to the store, buy a piece of candy.” She led Lucy into the perry shack, where she sat her down on the potato bin, sat herself down on the “turnip bin,” and took Lucy’s hands into her own. It was a way of comforting the girl and steadying herself. Emma was frightened by Roland, in the doorway. And she didn’t know what to make of Lucy in her brothers’ clothes, an old cap in her grip (and now in Emma’s), her curls in a plantlike tangle around her head. Emma felt closer to understanding something about Lucy’s behavior all summer—her itchy glances, her pleas for Emma to go back to work—but also farther, because why? Why would the girl want to do such a thing?

Before Emma could speak, Lucy started to cry. She shook silently, then let out a soft wail, her mouth opening to a raw, shocking size, her fingers pulling away from Emma’s. The cap dropped to the floor as she hid her face in her hands. Emma leaned forward, taking the girl into her arms. “It’s all right,” she said. “Shhh. You don’t have to explain.”

This was true, she realized—she didn’t need to know, if it meant having Lucy back, the way she’d been. But Lucy was already explaining, through her tears: “I wanted the money . . . I thought the pears . . . but then I . . . This year . . . I just wanted . . .”

Emma put the snotty, broken parts together. The pears. Lucy was falling apart over the pears, the change of plans since the Mendosa, the neglected Schedule of Ripeness pinned to the shack wall. The children played jacks in the perry shack now, or marbles—they passed time here to avoid Roland. The fruit they had harvested was nearly pressed and there would be no more—despite Roland’s urging, they had been too rattled by the Feds to go out again. But not Lucy, Lucy was saying. Lucy was not afraid of those men! Lucy wanted to finish what they had started. They had made a plan and they should stick to it!