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DECEMBER 31, 1992

Lizzie

“A RE WE THERE YET ?” I ASKED FROM THE BACK SEAT OF D ADDY’S CAR . S TRAINING MY NECK , I tried to look over the boxes that were piled around us, but I couldn’t see my parents.

“If you ask that question one more time, I’m going to open your door and throw you out,” my sister grumbled, elbowing my side. The car was so packed with boxes that we had to sit right next to each other. Caoimhe was wedged so close to me that her elbow was resting on top of mine. “I think I preferred it when you were a mute.”

“Caoimhe!” Mam and Dad both scolded from the front seat.

She elbowed me again before switching on her Walkman and resting her arm on top of mine. She turned the volume up so loud that I could hear the song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” blasting from her headphones.

Narrowing my eyes, I elbowed her back and rested my arm on top of hers before turning my attention to the window.

“It’s snowing,” I cried out excitedly, eyes glued to the white snowflakes falling around us. “Are we there yet?”

“Give me strength,” Dad muttered under his breath, while Mam laughed softly.

“Do you see that signpost, sweetheart? Look out the window.”

I searched until my eyes landed on a huge signpost on the side of the road.

Ballylaggin

County Cork

“I see it,” I exclaimed, bouncing on my seat. “Is this it? Are we here?”

“Nearly,” Mam replied, sounding happy. “Just another few minutes in the car.”

Pressing my face to the window, I looked out and smiled. The snow was sticking to the ground. It was beautiful. “This is where you’re from, Mammy?” I asked, spotting a group of children throwing snowballs at each other in a park.

“Yes, sweetheart,” Mam replied. “I was born and raised here in Ballylaggin.”

“Ballylaggin.” I repeated the word slowly, making sure I said it right.

It was a big town, with long streets of shops and pubs. Christmas lights were everywhere, in the windows of the houses and hanging over the streets. Red-and-white flags hung from all the shops and some of the houses, too. The Cork flag, I remembered. That was Mammy’s flag. Daddy’s flag was blue and yellow for Tipperary.

“There’s a cinema!” Caoimhe yelped. Ripping off her headphones, she leaned over me and pressed her face to the window. “And a leisure center.”

“I know,” Mam laughed, sounding happier than usual.

“Does it have a pool?”

“Yep,” Mam replied. “And a bowling alley.”

Daddy kept driving until we were out of the town and back in the countryside. He turned down a smaller road and then slowed down in front of a giant gate.

“Whoa,” Caoimhe gasped, and then started to read the shiny plaque attached to the ginormous stone pillar. “Old Hall House, Robin Hill Road, Upper Northwest, Ballylaggin.”

“Robin Hill Road,” I snickered, watching as the gates creaked open. “That’s funny.”

Dad drove through the opening, and I could hear gravel crackling beneath the tires. He drove up a winding lane, with trees on either side, until we reached the house.

“We’re here,” Mam announced with another happy sigh when Dad parked the car. “Welcome home, girls.”

I opened the car door, but Caoimhe climbed over my lap and got outside first. “Whoa,” she breathed, twirling around in a circle. “This is ours, Dad?”

“No,” Dad said quietly, rounding the passenger side to open Mam’s door. “It’s your mother’s.”

“Well, it sure beats the hell out of the farm,” Caoimhe laughed, still twirling. “Lizzie, come and look.”

Scrambling out of the car, I raced over to my sister, kicking gravel as I rushed to get to Caoimhe, who was climbing over a wooden fence.

“We have a courtyard and a meadow,” she called back excitedly. “And barns and stables.” She climbed over another gate and screamed out. “Omigod, we have an orchard!”

“Is it a palace?” I asked, still trying to climb over the first gate.

“No, it’s an estate,” Caoimhe called back. “And it’s all ours!”

“Girls!” Dad barked. He was standing in front of the big house with his arm around our mother. “Get over here now!”

Jumping down from the wooden gate, I rushed back to my parents, too happy to care that Daddy was cross again.

“This is it, girls,” Mammy said with a bright smile when she turned the key in the giant door and Daddy pushed it open for her. “Our family home.”

“Holy crap,” Caoimhe said, pushing past me to get inside the big house before I could. “We’re rich!”

Hurrying inside, I skidded across the tiled entrance hall, running through room after room in search of my sister. There were so many rooms. Too many to count. In our old house, we had one staircase that went up to our bedrooms, but in this house, there was a staircase going up and another one going down, and then another one going up even farther.

I didn’t know what to make of it.

Lost in a maze of rooms and hallways, I finally found my parents in the kitchen. It was the biggest one I’d ever seen in my life. When I spotted them sitting at the kitchen table, I moved to go to them, only to stop when I realized that Caoimhe was there, too, and she was talking about me.

Hiding behind the door I had come through, I listened carefully. Their voices were hushed, but I could still hear them.

“She’ll be in junior infants, and you’ll be in sixth class,” Mam was saying. “You won’t be anywhere near each other.”

“I have sacrificed everything for my family, but I draw the line on this,” Caoimhe replied. “I’ve done everything you guys have asked of me. You packed us up and moved us down here, and I didn’t put up a fight. But this is where it stops.”

“Caoimhe, please .”

“I love my sister, I do,” Caoimhe argued. “And I understand why we’ve had to do what we’ve done, but you guys need to put me first this time. I don’t have a chance of fitting in if you send her to Sacred Heart with me.”

“I agree,” Dad chimed in.

“Michael!”

“Caoimhe’s right,” he said in a hushed voice. “This is the least we can do for her given what we’ve put her through.”

“And what about Lizzie? Hm?” Mam argued, sounding upset. “When school starts back up, we just don’t send her?”

“Exactly.”

“But I’ve already enrolled her at Sacred Heart.”

“Then I will unenroll her,” Dad replied. “It’s for the best, Catherine. You know it is.”

“She needs to be in school, Michael.”

“And what about when she attacks another child?” Caoimhe strangled out. “And I’m the one everyone’s staring at because I have a crazy sister.”

“She’s not crazy.”

“She’s not normal, either, Mam,” Caoimhe argued. “If you really want to help Liz, you should listen to Dad about finding a residential school for her. One that can help with her—”

“Over my dead body!”

“She can start in September, when Caoimhe has gone off to secondary school,” Dad offered. “That’ll give us plenty of time to get you back on the mend and get Elizabeth the help she needs.”

Mam started to cry then. “This is all so unfair.”

“No, what’s unfair is our lives being pulled apart,” Dad said with a weary sigh. “We’ve done things your way so far, Catherine, but I’m with Caoimhe on this. Elizabeth stays home.”