Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
2023
Saoirse
“How often did he hit you?” I ask, finding it hard to align the glamorous lady sipping white wine from a paper cup with her pinkie extended with the young woman in her story.
“Not often,” she says. “Christy actually believed himself to be a good man.”
“Good men don’t hit their wives,” I say.
“I know. But he saved lives every day. He was a good doctor if nothing else. I will always admire him for that.”
“Were you afraid of him?”
“Sometimes,” she says, raising the glass to her mouth, and her lips curl into a satisfied smile. “This is nice, especially for train wine.”
I don’t think train wine is a thing, but I sip from my cup and agree that the wine is lovely. If I’m honest, I don’t overly notice what it tastes like, my mind still racing from the day’s chain of events.
“You think I should have left him,” Maura says, putting her cup down on the table in front of us.
“I would have.”
“Would you? I don’t think you realize how different times truly were. If I couldn’t talk to my mother about something as simple as sex, I certainly couldn’t open a conversation about domestic violence. Even if I had left my husband, even if my parents had fought the stigma it would have brought on our whole family and welcomed me back with open arms, I would still have been a married woman in the eyes of the law. All the restrictions that came attached would still have been there. I wouldn’t have been allowed back to work. Much as it pains me to admit it, I needed Christy.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been,” I say.
“Without hardship, how can we ever know how strong we truly are?”
“S’pose. But wouldn’t it be nice if every now and then we could raise our hand and take a break? Life is exhausting sometimes.”
Maura’s eyes burn into me as if she’s searching for what I’m not saying. “You’ll have plenty of time to slow things down when you’re my age. But for now, enjoy being young. Trust me, it passes in a blink.”
“Oh, I know.” I sigh, deflated. “One of my colleagues told me last week that my biological clock is ticking.”
Maura doesn’t reply. She sips her wine and waits for me to say more.
“I’m thirty-five, so technically she’s right. But the thing is, my fiancé is the same age as me and no one has said anything like that to him.”
“Do you want a baby?” Maura asks.
“He does.”
“But what about you?”
Her question shocks me. No one has ever asked me outright like that before.
“Everyone just sort of thinks I’ll get around to it, you know? Like when I finish my exams, or get that promotion. Or when Miles and I get married. And I know he can have babies forever and I only have a window, but that’s not why people say it. It’s just the way people think. They assume I’ll become a mam at some point, but they don’t automatically assume he’ll be a dad.”
To my surprise, Maura’s smile widens. “A baby isn’t the right fit for everyone.”
“I love Miles,” I say. “It’s breaking my heart that he wants a baby so badly and I keep denying him that.”
“The women of Ireland fought hard for choice, Saoirse. But no one ever said choosing would be easy.”
“Maybe I should just have a baby and be done with it.”
“Oh, love,” she says, lowering her wine. She places her hand on top of mine and a huge breathy sigh tumbles out of me. “You know someone who would tell this so much better than me?”
I shake my head.
“Bernie,” she says with a warm smile. “My gosh, could my best friend tell a story. She could have been a writer, you know. It’s all here. All here in her scrapbook. But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.” Maura flicks to the second page of the scrapbook and slides it closer to me. There’s a black-and-white picture of a young woman with her hands on a pram. A bundle that I can only guess is her baby is tucked away under some blankets. My eyes are drawn to the wheels of the pram. They are huge, almost like the tires on a toddler’s bicycle, and I can just about make out the branding in the center of each wheel that says SILVER CROSS . There are two little girls in the photo, too, standing to each side of her. They wear their long hair in pigtails and they can’t be much more than five or six.
“Bernie was a mother. And I was not,” Maura says, with a soft exhale. “And yet it was no easier for either of us.”