Blue Mercy: A Novel. by Orna Ross Read Free Book Online

and had Star baptized Maria Bernadette, the name she took through school and college and out into the world, but to us she was always Star.
    And though she got plenty of Jesus, Mary and holy St Joseph at school, at home we counterbalanced it with our secular view of life.
    She moved from the church as from all aspect of her childhood, became angry and rebellious, but also a thinker, intelligent and introspective. A punk rocker for a while.   How could somebody like that sign up for the self-serving, conservative and duplicitous Roman Catholic Church? Her father would have cried to hear   of it, and I couldn't help but think it was just another way to get at us. At me.
    "I'm always surprised when young people sign up for organized religion," I said.
    "I'm not asking your permission, Mom. I'm just telling you."
    "I didn't mean..."   I let my explanation trail away. It wasn't important, not beside our other differences. I would also ignore this insistence that she had to leave today. She had said that yesterday too, but I had managed to get her to stay on.
    "You'll be interested in where we are going then," I said. "Glendalough was once the Christian capital of Ireland."
    We began our descent into the sheer-sided, wood-covered valley that cups the two elongated lakes that give this ancient place its name. As Star and I emerged from the parking lot by the lake, the mountains seemed to have reared up around us. The distant, humming rush of Poulnapass Waterfall underlined the hazy silence. It settled on me and I felt my muscles unclench.
    Star was finally impressed. "Wow! This place is something."
    We set off. My daughter was no walker. Because of her size, she was propelled not by her legs but by her belly, her steps somehow delicate as well as full of effort, as if the force of gravity was precarious for her. I knew each pace she took brought her discomfort and that, in a few moments, her forehead would be lined with a sheen of sweat.
    Yet it was good for her to walk, surely? Not to give in to her disinclination? I fell into slow step beside her.
    Groups and couples passed us in their colored rainwear, their faces ruddy with fresh air, nodding and smiling. I took her up the back way, through the ruins, the remains of cloisters and chapels left over from the monastic heyday.
    "That round tower is something," she said, as we stood at the base of it, looking up. "What was it for?"
    "A beacon for pilgrims. A bell tower. A refuge when the Vikings came to plunder."
    "Hard to imagine plundering Vikings now. It's so peaceful."
    And it was. That's why I want to write about it here, now. We walked around the sacred stones put down to mark the ground we walked upon as holy and, for more than thirty minutes on that morning before she left, before the worst became known and the police came calling, the two of us were wholly at peace.

    But then, on the way back, I made the mistake of driving home through Laragh.
    "Laragh," Star said, as we passed the road sign. "Laragh...?"
    "Yes. If you drive on through the village and turn --"
    "Laragh? Isn't that where Dad came from?"
    I had forgotten she knew that. I had half-forgotten I knew it myself. "Yes, it is."
    "Oh my God, Mom, you are unbelievable!" She jerked the car to a stop, making the car behind us hoot.  
    "Star!"
    "Don't you think, Mom," she was speaking slowly, like I was a child. Or an idiot. "Don't you think I might be a tad interested in seeing the house where my father grew up?"
    "Gosh, honey, I don't think I even know where your dad's home place is. Once before I tried to find it, from his description, but I couldn't be sure..."
    "But not to even say."
    "I'm sorry." Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry... "All right then," I said. "Let's try. Let's see if we can find it."
    I directed her to turn at the bridge, near the old mill, and we drove up to the house that I believed might have belonged to Brendan's family. We parked a little beyond, walked back to look at it. A bungalow, low and