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“Man, wouldn’t I love that,” she said, and she meant it. “Maybe I’ll win the Irish Sweepstakes and come take it off your hands.”

She got a job at Eisman’s, back in the neighborhood where she’d grown up, taking the Gardenville bus to the Fruit Belt every

day. Only instead of picking apples, she now had the knowledge and skills for a bigger role. Mr. Eisman had expanded his operation

to offer Concord grape juice and cider, and maple syrup from local producers. He must have seen something in Mairin, because

he paid for her to take classes through the Cornell Cooperative Extension program.

Classes. She never thought she’d study anything, except how to survive from one day to the next. The nuns had robbed her of an education,

but this was a new opportunity. To her surprise, she thrived when learning about cultivation, soil health, tillage, crop management,

profit and loss.

There was another surprise the day she entered a new class on berry cultivation. The room hummed with the soft murmur of voices

as she found a seat and began flipping through her notes. She looked up to see Flynn Gallagher coming through the door. He

paused, scanning the room, and he grinned when he saw her.

“Miss Mairin O’Hara. It’s been a while. This seat taken?” he asked.

She smiled back, drawn to his rugged charm and easy smile. “Fiona said you were taking some classes.”

“When I can.”

“She said you’ve been busy.”

He nodded. “Added a couple of trucks and drivers to keep up with demand.”

“That’s good, Flynn. Really, it’s great. I’m working for Mr. Eisman now.”

“Farm life didn’t suit you?”

“It did, actually. I loved the farming part of it. The commune? Not so much. The owner says he wants to sell the place.” She

sighed. “It’s a good farm, but it needs a lot of work. It’s kind of a wreck, and he owes back taxes. Makes me nuts to hear

him say that, because it could really be productive.”

“I ought to buy it, then,” said Flynn. “I’m not afraid of hard work. Are you?”

Mairin didn’t know what to say. He ignited something in her, something new. Talking with him awakened a sense of possibility.

A part of her that had been numb ever since her ordeal at the laundry started to tingle with feeling.

After class, they lingered by the doorway. She sensed he might be as reluctant to part ways as she was. Flynn had a new way

of looking at her, his gaze warm as he took in her corkscrew curls that had finally grown out, her low-cut jeans and Pink

Floyd T-shirt. Could be he regarded her as something more than his kid sister’s friend.

“You’re serious?” she asked softly. “About Jax’s farm, I mean.”

“I might be. Are you?”

“Absolutely.” She offered a wistful smile. “And I’m absolutely broke. But I can dream.”

Mairin went to the house on Peach Street for the first time since being sent to the Good Shepherd. She stood on the sidewalk,

gazing at the old place where the memories of her father had lived, missing him with fresh waves of grief. It occurred to

her that the whole ordeal would never have happened if only Patrick O’Hara had lived.

She had come here because she needed her birth certificate in order to get a driver’s license. She wasn’t sure how she’d feel

when she saw her mother. Did she expect an apology? Maybe, she thought, an explanation would suffice. Really, she just wanted

to understand why her mother had packed her up like an unwanted parcel and delivered her to the nuns. Fiona said it was because

of both their mothers’ blind loyalty to the Church. Always the Church. Mairin couldn’t comprehend how a mother could put the

Church above her child.

There was no car in the driveway, a hopeful sign that Colm was away. Drawing a deep breath, Mairin let herself in, the snap

of the screen door announcing her arrival. “It’s me,” she called. “You home, Mam?”

A heavy thump came from the kitchen. Mairin found her mother standing at the ironing board, the pillowcase she was working on starting to smoke as she stared across the room, her eyes and mouth round with shock.

Just the smell of the scorching fabric awakened nightmare reminders of the laundry.

She rushed forward and grabbed the iron, setting it upright.

Then she stood across from her mother, her feelings a jumble of contradictions—affection and resentment, yearning and revulsion,

love and disappointment. Her mother had always been pretty, with her auburn hair and light eyes, but she looked thin and tired

now, her face webbed by lines of anxiety.

“Ah, Mairin,” she said. “Jesus in the garden, and here you are entirely.” Her eyes filled, and then the tears slipped unchecked

down her cheeks.

“I wanted to see you, Mam.” Mairin’s voice broke. For a long time, she had nurtured a hard ball of anger at her mother, but

seeing her now only brought a wave of sadness and regret.

“Come here, my girl. Is ceol mo chroí thú .”

It was the soothing voice of Mairin’s childhood— You are my heart’s music. She stepped into her mother’s arms and they held each other. Mairin inhaled the familiar scent of Jergens lotion and Aqua

Net.

“They came looking for you,” her mother said, stepping back and wiping away a tear. “What could you have been thinking, running

away like that? I didn’t have the first idea where you’d gone.”

“What do you suppose I was thinking, Mam?” Mairin said. “It was terrible there. Do you have any idea how terrible it was?

And just so you know, I’m not going back. Ever. I know how to keep myself safe.”

Mam looked Mairin up and down. “You’ve grown. You look good.” There was a note of pride in her mother’s voice. “A fine, grand

girl, strong and sturdy.”

“I’ve been working.” Mairin surveyed the bins of laundry stacked on the kitchen table. “What’s all this?”

“This is how I’ve managed to support myself,” her mother said.

“What about Colm?” Mairin asked.

Mam shrugged. “He was let go from the power company. Said he’d find work at the docks, but he doesn’t come around anymore.”

Colm. Gone. “When?” Mairin asked.

“Since last spring.”

“You’re better off without him,” Mairin said.

“Am I, then? I can barely keep up with the bills.”

“You can divorce him now, right?” Mairin said. “He’s abandoned you—”

“Ah, Mairin. You know I’d never.” Mam’s shoulders slumped. “I would have brought you back home after he left, but you’d already

run off. I had no idea where you’d gone. Why wouldn’t you have called me, just to let me know you’re all right?”

“I was afraid you’d make me go back. I wasn’t all right at that place, Mam. I wasn’t.”

Mairin couldn’t bring herself to commiserate with her mother. She unplugged the iron and moved the laundry bins. Then she

put the kettle on. “Sit, Mam. What do you hear from Liam? I tried to send him letters from the Good Shepherd, but the nuns

censored everything and I have no idea if he ever got them. Since I left, I’ve been writing to him, but I haven’t heard back.”

“He’s not much for writing a letter, your brother,” Mam said. “He was on patrol on some river called the Bassac, over in Vietnam.

He’s been sick with the malaria, and he said a Vietnamese lady doctor saved his life. He’ll be discharged soon. So I’ve that

to look forward to.” She sank down into a chair and folded her arms on the table. She gazed at Mairin with a faraway expression,

her eyes unfocused.

“You shouldn’t have done it, Mam,” Mairin said. “You shouldn’t have sent me away.”

“I had no choice. I was afraid for you, Mairin.”

“Because of Colm,” Mairin said, not bothering to suppress a shudder.

Her mother didn’t respond for a moment. “A man in his cups can’t be trusted,” she said.

“Then you should have sent him away,” Mairin said.

“You think that was an option? A man can’t be sent from his own home.”

“This is your house,” Mairin said. “Yours and Dad’s.”

“Not according to the law. It’s a man’s world, Mairin. A woman can’t even get a bank account or a charge card on her own.”

“Mam, I was fifteen. Fifteen. ”

“Aye, and I didn’t want you to wind up like... Fiona, having a child that would be stolen from you.”

“The worst thing I ever did was go to the movies with a boy. Why would you assume I’d get pregnant?”

Mam flinched at the forbidden word. “Because that’s what happens to girls who...”

“Girls who what? Have sex? Girls who get raped by their stepfathers?”

Another flinch.

A sigh of exasperation blasted from Mairin. “You can’t even say it, Mam. But you’d rather throw me in prison than admit you

didn’t trust your own husband around me.”

Her mother fell quiet again. The kettle whistled. Mairin got up and filled the teapot to brew. Mam got out a box of gingersnaps

and put a few on a plate.

Then she looked directly at Mairin. “’Twas for the best. Those places—the Magdalene laundries—they exist for a reason. I had

my time there as well.”

“You mentioned that to Sister Rotrude when you took me to that place. You knew what it was like, then,” Mairin raged. “You

knew how bad it was.”

“Some things are worse.” Mam spoke quietly. “And I’m glad you never discovered that on your own.”

“Worse?” Mairin asked, incredulous. “What could possibly be worse?”

“I fell pregnant with a Protestant boy,” Mam said.

“What?”

“I was seventeen, and he was a soldier, and it was a great scandal and a shame on the family. My da wouldn’t look at me. Wouldn’t

let me back into the house. I had to walk all the way by myself to the Clare Street laundry in Limerick. It took me a right

full day.”

“Wait. You had a baby in Ireland?”

Mam rubbed her thumb at a nonexistent spot on the Formica table. “They tried to tell me the babe didn’t survive, but I didn’t

believe them. ’Tis a fact that the agencies were not above deceiving a girl or pressuring her into adoption. One of the sisters

told me the truth. She let me hold my baby one last time.” She got up and went to the hall table and took something from a

drawer and handed it to Mairin. It was a tiny bootie of white wool. “I had a little boy.”

“ Mam .” Mairin was rigid with shock.