Foster by Claire Keegan Read Free Book Online

cloves and honey, aspirin.
    ‘’Tis nothing but a chill, she has,’ I heard Kinsella say.
    ‘When I think of what could have happened.’
    ‘If you’ve said that once, you’ve said it a hundred times.’
    ‘But –’
    ‘Nothing happened, and the girl is grand. And that’s the end of it.’
    I lie there with the hot-water bottle, listening to the rain and reading my books, following what happens more closely and making up something different to happen at the end of each, each time. I doze and have strange dreams: of the lost heifer panicking on the night strand, of bony, brown cows having no milk in their teats, of my mother climbing up and getting stuck in an apple tree. Then I wake and take the broth and whatever else I’m given.
    On Sunday, I am allowed to get up, and we pack everything again, as before. Towards evening, we have supper, and wash and change into our good clothes. The sun has come out, is lingering in long, cool slants, and the yard is dry in places. Sooner than I would like, we are ready and in the car, turning down the lane, going up through the street of Gorey and onback along the narrow roads through Carnew and Shillelagh.
    ‘That’s where Da lost the red heifer playing cards,’ I say.
    ‘Is that a fact?’ Kinsella says.
    ‘Wasn’t that some wager?’ says the woman.
    ‘It was some loss for him,’ says Kinsella.
    We carry on through Parkbridge, over the hill where the old school stands, and on down towards our car-road. The gates in the lane are closed and Kinsella gets out to open them. He drives through, closes the gates behind him, and drives on very slowly to the house. I feel, now, that the woman is making up her mind as to whether or not she should say something but I don’t really know what it is, and she gives me no clue. The car stops in front of the house, the dogs bark, and my sisters race out. I see my mother looking out through the window, with what is now the second youngest in her arms.
    Inside, the house feels damp and cold. The lino is all tracked over with dirty footprints.Mammy stands there with my little brother, and looks at me.
    ‘You’ve grown,’ she says.
    ‘Yes,’ I say.
    ‘“Yes”, is it?’ she says, and raises her eyebrows.
    She bids the Kinsellas good evening and tells them to sit down – if they can find a place to sit – and fills the kettle from the bucket under the kitchen table. We take playthings off the car seat under the window, and sit down. Mugs are taken off the dresser, a loaf of bread is sliced, butter and jam left out.
    ‘Oh, I brought you jam,’ the woman says. ‘Don’t let me forget to give it to you, Mary.’
    ‘I made this out of the rhubarb you sent down,’ Ma says. ‘That’s the last of it.’
    ‘I should have brought more,’ the woman says. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
    ‘Where’s the new addition?’ Kinsella asks.
    ‘Oh, he’s up in the room there. You’ll hear him soon enough.’
    ‘Is he sleeping through the night for you?’
    ‘On and off,’ Ma says. ‘The same child could crow at any hour.’
    My sisters look at me as though I’m an English cousin, coming over to touch my dress, the buckles on my shoes. They seem different, thinner, and have nothing to say. We sit in to the table and eat the bread and drink the tea. When a cry is heard from upstairs, Ma gives my brother to Mrs Kinsella, and goes up to fetch the baby. The baby is pink and crying, his fists tight. He looks bigger than the last, stronger.
    ‘Isn’t there a fine child, God bless him,’ Kinsella says.
    ‘Isn’t he a dote,’ Mrs Kinsella says, holding on to the other.
    Ma pours more tea for them all with one hand and sits down and takes her breast out for the baby. Her doing this in front of Kinsella makes me blush. Seeing me blush, Ma gives me a long, deep look.
    ‘No sign of himself?’ Kinsella says.
    ‘He went out there earlier, wherever he’s gone,’ Ma says.
    A little bit of talk starts up then, rolls back and forth, bumping