Chapter One

Chapter one

Summer 1935

………………………

“Momma this is crazy!” Colleen Bishop cried. Her mother ignored the wails and continued to pack everything that hadn’t been sold into their family truck

“Momma!” 

“Colleen! It is not your decision nor is it up for discussion.  If we don’t leave we will not survive here”

“This is not what Daddy would have wanted at all.” She sobbed, looking up at the house that she had spent her entire life in. The idea of leaving it was almost as heart wrenching as it had been to lose her father.

“That is where you are wrong dearie.  This was all your father’s doing. “

“ I don’t believe you”

“Well you can believe what you want but you still have to help me load up this car”

Colleen just stared at her mother.  How could she just leave this place? Each room contained a piece of her father.   The living room where he would always lug a too-tall Christmas tree and then curse that next year would be different and he sawed the top off the tree.  The kitchen where, on Sunday mornings and holidays he would make “Thomas Bishop’s World Famous Breakfast Buffet” .  Colleen loved to lovingly question whether or not it was truly world famous, but it truly should have been.  Colleen’s small bedroom that she had helped paint as a little girl, or at least her father had made her feel like she had helped.  It was more like she sat on the bed and giggled when he got  paint on his nose.  

God she missed him.  How was she supposed to leave all of this behind.  She sat on the stairs leading up to the front porch and stared  vacantly out at the dirt road that they would soon be driving down.

Glancing up from her overfilled truck Maura sighed at her daughter .  She lifted her tired body out of the bed of the truck and worked her way to an open seat next to Colleen.

“ Lovey I know that this seems cruel.  This is our home.  We’re leaving everything that we know and love behind.  But if we want to make it without your father this is something that we have to do.  I cannot afford to keep this house and take care of the land it sits on and your father knew that this is how it would be”

“I can get a job, I can help you with the money!” Colleen interjected

“No Sweetie” Maura said with a small smile, the first she had managed in days. “ Daddy made me promise you would not do that.  He wanted you to have a chance in life not be stuck taking care of this place.  He wanted you to be able to go to school if you wanted it.  He had such faith in you.”

“ But what if I wanted to take care of the house;  what if I wanted to take care of you? Did anyone think of that before we went and sold the house and our things and got ready to leave it all behind!  No you made all the decisions  without even considering me”

“No.  We did this because of you Colleen.  No one understands more than I do how hard it is to leave some place that you love so much.   But sometimes, if you sincerely love the person who is attempting to do the best they know how to do, you just have to trust their gut.  I followed your father across the ocean because he truly believed that our future was here in this country and not at home. I left everyone I knew and loved and haven’t seen them since but he was right.   We have had a wonderful life here.  And now, because I trust your father’s instincts , we are on the move again.  This time it is he that I am leaving behind and it hurts worse than the first leaving did but I believe in him and so I agreed to do this for him.  His last wishes were that I sell the house and move on and provide the best start for you that I could manage since he would not be around to do so.”

Colleen just shook her head.  She was sobbing and couldn’t make it stop.  Maura just held her 17 year old the way she had since she was born until the heaving of her shoulders slowed, humming a familiar tune quietly under her breath.  She would make this okay, she wasn’t sure how she was going to do that but in the end it would all be okay.  Thomas had promised her that she was strong enough to pull this off and she sincerely hoped that he was right.  

“Are you ready to help me get the rest of this stuff into the truck” She asked her daughter  in a soothing tone.

Colleen wiped her eyes. “Yeah”

Mother and daughter walked back over to the pile of boxes and random pieces of furniture sitting next to the truck.

“You know, since we have lived in this house it never seemed like we had a lot, enough, but not a lot.  Now…I wish we had a little less.” Maura said with a smile.  The truck already seemed overloaded but everything they had kept from the sale were the things that seemed most important.  

Colleen giggled and grabbed a piece of rope in order to tie on some of the furniture to the top of the pile in the bed of the truck.

It would be a slow, tentative drive across 2 states to temporarily live with Colleen’s uncle, Michael Bishop.   He had rooms ready for them above his restaurant until Maura and Colleen could save enough money to buy a place of their own. 

Aside from the death of her husband this might be the part of the plan that Maura dreaded the most. Thomas and Michael had had a falling out years ago and there hadn’t been much communication since.  Both men were stubborn to a fault and that had cost them any hope of reconciliation now that Thomas was gone.  Michael was the only remaining family she had in the country though, and aside from running back to her mother and Ireland he was her last hope of being able to survive on her own.  Fear of the unknown spread itself  out on the road in front of her.  She had always been the one who wanted to stay where they were.  Had it been up to her she and Thomas would have remained in their little village in Ireland and raised their little girl there.  It was only because of his impulsiveness that they ended up thousands of miles from home.  It was only because of him that when the plan didn’t proceed exactly the way they had envisioned that they continued to have a beautiful home and a wonderful life together.  

“And now it is because of him that I am driving this godforsaken truck into God only knows what” she though aloud angrily

Colleen was asleep beside her .  Emotionally drained she had fallen asleep almost as soon as they hit the road. 

She had to think of Colleen.  Almost a woman, but still so much a child.  She had held out hope until Thomas took his last breath that her father would wake up one morning, miraculously back to the same strapping giant of a man that had always looked after her.  They had been so close.  Maura was often jealous of the relationship that father and daughter shared but it was as it should have been.  Colleen had lost her best friend the day that Thomas died.  Maura knew that she wouldn’t be able to fill the hole that Thomas had left but she could certainly do everything in her power to try.

As day turned to night Maura began to look for some place, preferably cheap,  for 2 women to safely stay  without too many questions.  On top of everything else she didn’t really need to get the eye from some desk clerk.  

Colleen awoke, rubbing her eyes, taking in her surroundings.  She guessed what her mother was doing. “How about there Momma ?  It looks friendly enough and there’s a diner across the street.  I’m kinda starving” Colleen suggested

It still didn’t seem perfect but Maura realized that they were running out of options, and gas so she turned into the motel’s lot and the two exhausted women head for the office.

“May I help you Ma’am” a curious looking desk clerk inquired.

“Yes, My daughter and I are in need of a room for tonight…..nothing fancy just something to hold us over for the night?”  Maura replied a little too quickly and a little too nervously.  

The clerk eyed her and the teenaged girl with her suspiciously.

Colleen, noticing her mother failing miserably, jumped in “Sir, forgive my mother.  We’re on our way to stay with my uncle and clearly it’s not wise for us to travel all night.  We will be out of your hair in the morning…so please….if you have a free room….we only need one bed.” Colleen not quite begged but not quite demanded either.  She flashed him her big green eyes that she inherited from her father.

“Alright alright…5C is free.  It’ll be 2.50 for the night”

Maura handed him the money, smiled, and followed her daughter who was happily bounding towarding the door to their motel room.

What Colleen had done had clearly accomplished the goal of getting them a room to sleep in for the night but it was also eerie.  Had Thomas been alive she would have just laughed and shook her head at the similarity between he and Colleen, that ability to talk themselves through anything….but now…..with him watching over them from somewhere else…..it was just eerie.

“C’mon Momma!” Colleen whined, having already opened the door and thrown her suitcase on the bed. “I’m starving, put your things down and let’s get across the street!”

“Colleen! Shhh! It’a past midnight! You’re screaming loud enough to wake the dead” Maura chastised

“I know and I haven’t eaten since we left home so if we don’t get to that diner soon I will be among the dead” Colleen said flashing a toothy grin. She knew just how to get under her mother’s skin. 

Maura just sighed and threw her things on the same double bed inside the room and followed her daughter who was now running across the highway to the diner, lit brightly with a neon sign advertising that they were open 24 hours.

Finally able to sit and relax they ordered sandwiches and coffee.  

“So tell me again about Uncle Michael” Colleen probed her mother. 

Maura sighed “There’s not much to tell dear.  He’s your father’s older brother.  He came to this country before your father did to start the grocery and , well…to make his fortune.  Eventually they wanted different things and Michael moved on and your father stayed put.”

“I just don’t understand why I’ve never met him”

“Oh he has met you.  He was there when you were born.  The falling out happened about the time that you were 3. But there was a lot of bitterness about the split.  It was very hard when Michael moved on.  He loved you like you were his own.”

“I just don’t get it” Colleen said shaking her head “If they hated each other, why is Uncle Michael helping us now?”

“Hate is a strong word Lovey.” Maura said with a smile “I don’t believe that they ever hated eachother.  I think that  neither of them could admit that might be something to the other’s argument or goal.  They were still family and in the end that’s the most important thing.  I don’t know what your father said to your uncle before he died but I think maybe, just maybe, he may have finally conceded that Michael did what was right for himself.”

Colleen just nodded and sipped her coffee.

It was just all so much to process in such a short period of time.  She was sure that her father would have preferred her to do what she wanted, which was to stay home and help her mother keep the house. All of her life her father had told her to do whatever  her heart told her was right…..why now would the rules be different? 

“It’s going to be fine” Maura whispered to Colleen.  Somehow knowing what was running through her daughter’s mind. “I’m not gonna lie Lovey,  it won’t be easy but we will be fine.  Your daddy assured me of that and in all of the years that I knew him and loved him, this, he was never wrong in.  There were times I wanted to kill him for convincing me to do things but you know what?  He was always right….in the end we were fine and we were happy.  I can’t say that I didn’t second guess him even on this, but you know what? I believe in him and nothing can change that.  We will be fine”

Colleen smiled at her mother but inside she couldn’t help wondering at her mother.  Blindly following the instructions of someone who wasn’t even here was something she just couldn’t wrap her mind around.  It wasn’t that she doubted her father’s instincts.  Colleen knew to trust in those.  That was when he was alive though.  He was there anymore.  He didn’t know and couldn’t understand what they were going through.  How could he make decisions for them after he abandoned them?

“Momma do you mind if I head back to the room and go to bed?” Colleen asked distantly

“I would really prefer that you wait for me” Maura didn’t want her 17 year old daughter walking across the dark highway alone.  But, looking into Colleen’s eyes changed  her mind.  There was a melancholy there that would not be argued with.

Maura sighed

“Ok. If you must. I will finish up here and meet you there.  Don’t open the door for anyone besides me.”  She said as she fished the motel room key out of her purse

“I know that Momma.  I’m not a little girl anymore” Colleen said offering up something that almost resembled a genuine smile

“I realize that more and more every day, Lovey”

Maura watched every step that Colleen took from the diner door until she shut and locked the door to the motel room.  She wasn’t sure that she would ever be able to see Colleen as anything else but the little pig tailed girl being thrown into the air lovingly by Thomas but time clearly had other plans. 

Reviews

[Caradactyl]

I really liked this chapter, it grabbed me right away. The fact that the dad is gone makes me sad. But I'll continue reading!

[Chris38]

This captivated me from the beginning and I can't wait to read more. Love the period setting.