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When she got home, Mairin realized with relief that it was fourth Sunday, which was when the Irish Catholic Women’s League

met in the church basement. Mam never missed a meeting since she was the club’s secretary, writing down all the details of

their projects, from schoolbag St. Christopher medals to communion stamps. It was basically her entire social life, sitting

around with the other ladies, most of them from the old country. They reminisced about Ireland with such yearning, it made

Mairin wonder why they had left in the first place. They were all on about the green rolling hills and the old ways, the food

and the pubs and the songs everyone sang late into the night.

Mairin had asked about the old country a time or two, wondering what it was really like. Mam had simply brushed away the question

as if swatting at a mosquito. “It was a hard place to be” was her vague answer.

Back when Dad was alive, he’d praised Mam’s cooking and her singing voice. She never sang much at home anymore. Most of the

time, she just seemed to worry about things.

No one was home when Mairin got there. Liam was working at his part-time job as a pinsetter at the Eagles Lodge bowling alley.

Colm usually met up with his buddies at Kell’s, which was fine with Mairin since she had no interest in seeing her stepfather.

When Mam had first married him, he’d made an effort to be friendly, tossing a baseball with Liam and asking Mairin about her day. Mam had married him in the hopes of filling the void left behind after the accident that had taken Dad from them.

As time went on, Colm lost interest in trying to play that role. Lately, he usually only showed up to nag Liam about changing

the oil in the car or to tell Mairin her skirt was too short or her knee socks looked sloppy with her school uniform.

Mairin went to the kitchen and made herself a Fluffernutter, slathering peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff on a single slice

of white bread, folding it over, and taking it to her room. She put on Bookends , her current favorite album, and sang along with “Fakin’ It,” holding her sandwich like a microphone and singing “When she

goes, she’s gone...” along with Simon and Garfunkel.

Afternoon light filtered through the curtains of the window and fell on a framed picture of Mairin’s dad, his head thrown

back in laughter as he relaxed in a lawn chair in the backyard. He was so handsome, with his thick red hair and twinkling

eyes. He was frozen now, forever young, unreachable, except in her dreams.

She had turned her room into a haven where she could escape and pretend to live a different life. She wasn’t always certain

what sort of life that should be, but sometimes she was filled with a sharp yearning she barely understood. She just wanted

to be a person of consequence living a life that mattered. A person making her mark on the world.

The walls of her room were decked with pictures and posters that told the story of her dreams and aspirations, her yearning

to escape one day and find her life. There were faded pennants from St. Joe’s—her father’s high school—and from her favorite

sports team. She was stubbornly loyal to the Buffalo Bills, even though they’d been on a losing streak the past couple of

years. Her love of football was all bound up in Mairin’s memories of her father. When he was alive, he had been the team’s

biggest fan. In the dead of winter, when the snow piled up so high it kept them indoors, Dad would make popcorn with melted

butter and salt, and he’d let them eat it in the living room with a root beer float. She still remembered the way he would

roar with approval when there was a good play, or clutch his chest in despair when the team failed.

Mairin had never been a fan of the wallpaper in her room—fading duck hunting scenes, for no apparent reason—so she turned her walls into a collage of things she hoped and longed for.

She put up posters of her favorite musicians and groups, carefully pried from magazines or extracted from the slipcase of a record album.

Even without the music playing, the room seemed to pulsate with the rhythm of her dreams, and the images on the walls transported

her to a world beyond the only place she’d ever known. Herman’s Hermits, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones dominated the

collection, their handsome faces and shaggy hair making them look as though they belonged to a different species—rare and

exotic. Mairin had also pinned up pictures of Linda Ronstadt and Janis Joplin, because she loved their voices and the daring

way they dressed, with headbands and beads and fringe, a look that tended to give Mam conniption fits.

Mairin sat on the bed to finish her sandwich while paging through last month’s issue of Tiger Beat , which she’d already read to death. The pictures and short articles breathed life into a world she could only imagine. She

could look at a photo and unleash her imagination, constructing a fantasy world that somehow always involved an achingly cute

boy, a beautiful scene in nature, and music coming from some unseen source, far from the neighborhood, and schoolwork, and

brothers going to war, and girls getting in trouble.

Mam never wanted to hear about Mairin’s dreams of a life beyond the boundaries of the Fruit Belt, where people went to their

jobs, yelled at their kids, complained about the heat in the summer and the cold in the winter, and expected every day to

be the same as the last. But Mairin was stubborn in her refusal to let herself be defined by her circumstances. Miss Baxter,

her favorite teacher, said that the most important steps a person takes in life are the steps in the direction of their dreams.

Mairin chose to listen to music that inspired her, and to think about possibilities like going to college, or taking a plane

or a bus to the coast to see the ocean.

She finished off her sandwich, and then unfastened the buttons of her Sunday best. She could still feel the weight of the day pressing down on her.

What should have been breathless good news to share with her friend had simply shattered into shards of misfortune.

She’d wanted to talk about going to the movies with Kevin, but instead, she was worried about Liam going to war, and Fiona going away to have a baby.

Unwilling to let one of the final days of summer get away from her, Mairin picked out a sleeveless blouse and pedal pushers

as she made a plan to cheer herself up. A bike trip across the Peace Bridge would take her mind off things. It was a long

ride to Crystal Beach, but she was a good rider, fast and steady, because she rode her bike everywhere. She’d probably find

some of her friends over on the Canadian side, soaking up the last of summer on the sandy shore and cooling off in the clear

blue waters of Lake Erie. Maybe Kevin would be there, although she was too shy to call him and ask. Someone might even spot

her an admission ticket to the amusement park, and she could ride the breath-stealing Comet one last time before the park

closed for the season.

She heard the front screen door creak open, then snap back on its springs. She recognized the heavy footsteps as Colm’s. After

he’d downed a few beers, there was a certain leaden cadence to his gait.

“Mairin? Mairin. Where’re you, girl?” he called. “Your mother’s fit to be tied, but me and the guys, we had a laugh over your performance

at mass. In fact, I brought you a sugar donut from Sturdy’s. You want a sugar donut?”

They were her favorite. Sometimes Colm tried to get along with her and Liam. Maybe this was him, trying. She yanked on the

checked pedal pushers and put on the summer blouse. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons. “Thanks! I’m just getting changed,”

she called. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

The door opened, and Colm stood there, holding out a white bakery sack, a lopsided smile on his face. “Brought you a little

something.”

“Can’t you knock? I said in a minute ,” she told him, annoyed that he thought he could just barge into her room. She picked up the dress and took her time placing

it on a hanger.

“Hey, I was just doing something nice for you.”

“Fine, I’ll be down in a minute,” she repeated.

“Don’t take that tone with me. Maybe your mother was right. Maybe that was a lousy stunt you pulled in church this morning,” he said. “You’re in big trouble, girlie.” His eyes turned dark and filled with something hard and mean. He pushed the bedroom door shut behind him.

A shiver ran down Mairin’s spine. The record track switched to “A Hazy Shade of Winter,” and Colm reached over and swiped

the needle off the turntable of the record player.

“Hey,” she said, incensed. “You’ll scratch it.”

“Buncha hippie noise anyway,” he said, dropping the bakery bag on the floor. “Dumbass guys singing la-la songs for brainless

girls like you.”

Consumed with a mix of fear and confusion, Mairin darted a glance at the door, weighing her chances if she made a dash for

it. Lately Colm had been weird around her at odd moments, his attention making her uncomfortable.

Mairin and Colm used to tolerate each other. She’d put up with his teasing, and more or less steered clear of him whenever

she could. Now she backed away, edging to the far side of the bed.

“I’m sorry about what happened in church,” she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “I’ll apologize to Mam when

she gets home from her meeting.”

“Well, that’s more like it,” he said. “You know how to be a good girl, after all, doncha?”

“Uh, sure.” She squared her shoulders and headed for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, blocking her path.

“Out,” she snapped. “ Excuse me.”

“Don’t you get cheeky with me.” He smelled of sweat and stale beer. “And look at you, with peanut butter and crumbs on your

face like a baby.”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist as she tried to skirt past him. His hand shot out and grabbed her arm. “You