Foster by Claire Keegan Read Free Book Online Page A

between them for a while. Soon after, a car is heard outside. Nothing more is said until my father appears, and throws his hat on the dresser.
    ‘Evening all,’ he says.
    ‘Dan,’ says Kinsella.
    ‘Ah there’s the prodigal child,’ he says. ‘You came back to us, did you?’
    I say I did.
    ‘Did she give trouble?’
    ‘Trouble?’ Kinsella says. ‘Good as gold, she was, the same girl.’
    ‘Is that so?’ says Da, sitting down. ‘Well, isn’t that a relief.’
    ‘You’ll want to sit in,’ Mrs Kinsella says, ‘and get your supper.’
    ‘I had a liquid supper,’ Da says, ‘down in Parkbridge.’
    Ma turns the baby to the other breast, andchanges the subject. ‘Have ye no news at all from down your way?’
    ‘Not a stem,’ says Kinsella. ‘It’s all quiet down with us.’
    I sneeze then, and reach into my pocket for my handkerchief, and blow my nose.
    ‘Have you caught cold?’ Ma asks.
    ‘No,’ I say, hoarsely.
    ‘You haven’t?’
    ‘Nothing happened.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I didn’t catch cold,’ I say.
    ‘I see,’ she says, giving me another deep look.
    ‘The child’s been in the bed for the last couple of days,’ says Kinsella. ‘Didn’t she catch herself a wee chill.’
    ‘Aye,’ says Da. ‘You couldn’t mind them. You know yourself.’
    ‘Dan,’ Ma says, in a steel voice.
    Mrs Kinsella looks uneasy, like she was the day of the gooseberries.
    ‘You know, I think it’s nearly time that wewere making tracks,’ Kinsella says. ‘It’s a long road home.’
    ‘Ah, what’s the big hurry?’ Ma says.
    ‘No hurry at all, Mary, just the usual. These cows don’t give you any opportunity to have a lie-in.’
    He gets up then and takes my little brother from his wife and gives him to my father. My father takes the child and looks across at the baby suckling. I sneeze and blow my nose again.
    ‘That’s a right dose you came home with,’ Da says.
    ‘It’s nothing she hasn’t caught before and won’t catch again,’ Ma says. ‘Sure isn’t it going around?’
    ‘Are you ready for home?’ Kinsella asks.
    Mrs Kinsella stands then and they say their good-byes and go outside. I follow them out to the car with my mother who still has the baby in her arms. Kinsella lifts out the box of jam, the four-stone sack of potatoes.
    ‘These are floury,’ he says. ‘Queens they are, Mary.’
    We stand for a little while and then my mother thanks them, saying it was a lovely thing they did, to keep me.
    ‘No bother at all,’ says Kinsella.
    ‘The girl was welcome and is welcome again, any time,’ the woman says.
    ‘She’s a credit to you, Mary,’ Kinsella says. ‘You keep your head in the books,’ he says to me. ‘I want to see gold stars on them copy books next time I come up here.’ He gives me a kiss then and the woman hugs me and then I watch them getting into the car and feel the doors closing and a start when the engine turns and the car begins to move away. Kinsella seems more eager to leave than he was in coming here.
    ‘What happened at all?’ Ma says, now that the car is gone.
    ‘Nothing,’ I say.
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Nothing happened.’ This is my mother I am speaking to but I have learned enough, grown enough, to know that what happened is not something I need ever mention. It is my perfect opportunity to say nothing.
    I hear the car braking on the gravel in the lane, the door opening, and then I am doing what I do best. It’s nothing I have to think about. I take off from standing and race on down the lane. My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me. Several things flash through my mind: the boy in the wallpaper, the gooseberries, that moment when the bucket pulled me under, the lost heifer, the mattress weeping, the third light. I think of my summer, of now, mostly of now.
    As I am rounding the bend, reaching the