Woman of the House by Alice; Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

as children and Peter was almost grown up. When the sobbing eased she put her arms around him and asked, “Is that a wake downstairs?”
    “Yes,” he said bitterly, “where they all come and tell you that they are sorry for your troubles and they are thinking, ‘Thanks be to Jesus that’s not me.’”
    “It’s like when Nana Nellie died,” Nora said.
    She remembered the “Sorry for your trouble” from when Nana Nellie had died and people saying it to Mom. She remembered thinking that it was no trouble to Mom because Mom had never liked Nana Nellie anyway.
    “I think that I’d like to go down,” Nora said. “I want Mom.”
    “Are you able?” Peter asked, turning back the bedclothes to help her out.
    “God! Norry, you’re frozen stiff,” he said when he felt her cold legs. “Will I rub you like Dad does the greyhounds? He says that it’s good for the circulation and warms them up.”
    “Try anyway, but go easy ’cause I’m awful sore.” But she felt that no amount of rubbing would warm her because she was frozen inside too. Peter rubbed her legs firmly, but when he touched her arms she winced with pain.
    “I must be all scratched,” Nora said.
    “Aunty Kate and Doctor Twomey spent half an hour picking thorns out of you and cleaning you up, but he said that you had nothing broken and that the worst thing was the bump in your head.”
    “So that’s why I’m sorest up there,” Nora said, feeling the lump at the side of her head. “And what about you, Peter, are you hurt anywhere? And what about Mom?” she asked anxiously.
    “We’re all right,” he said, and added, “If they knew downstairs that you were awake there’d be somebody up like a bullet.”
    “Why are we all all right and Dada is not?” she wanted to know.
    “Do you remember, Norry, he was standing up to go out to lead Paddy by the head, so he fell down by Paddy’s legs.I wish that I had been watching the road like he was,” he added desperately.
    “Pete, will you help me to get dressed?” She did not want to remember that scene on the road.
    She clambered painfully out of the bed; it felt as if the hinges where her bones connected were refusing to turn. Peter helped her to put on her stockings and, slowly, the rest of her clothes. He moved very quietly on the floor.
    “I don’t want them to know down below that you are awake or they’d be up like a swarm of ants. Aunty Kate or Nana would be all right. They were here all evening but are gone down for a cup of tea,” he told her.
    “Why are the rest of them annoying you so much?” she wanted to know.
    “Wait till you go down and see.”
    After half an hour downstairs she found out what Peter meant. All the talk made the pain in her head worse, and people talked about her and above her as if she was not there, and her mother sat in the middle of them like a statue as if in some way she was not there at all. Nana Lehane and Jack were the only two who were more like themselves. Nana took her by the hand and, sitting on Dad’s chair by the fire, put her on her knee.
    Close up, Nana’s face was as white as her hair that was caught up in a knot on the top of her head. Even though she tied her hair up firmly little curly bits escaped and Nora usually enjoyed running her finger through them. But now she clung to Nana, feeling that of all the people in the kitchen she alone was the nearest to having Dada here. Though Nana was Mom’s mother Nora often felt that she was more like Dada. Mom and Nana did not even look like each other. Mom and Uncle Mark were tall andquiet whereas Nana was small and dainty and was always telling stories. Now she wrapped her arms around Nora as if she could breathe some warmth into her.
    “You’re like a lump of ice, child,” she said.
    “There is only one cure for that,” Jack told her. “Can she come with me for five minutes?”
    Nana and Jack exchanged glances.
    “All right,” Nana conceded, and Nora thought that Nana sounded doubtful,