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Mo and her Family. 

The baby had come early, Christy and Catherine’s little girl, a crown of hair like an angel. The delivery had not been difficult in the dark bleeping room except for the usual torture of anyone brought to this world. Mo and Christy stood outside the ward where Luciana had fluttered and yelled. The intense screens, the women’s hospital, the calm lilac walls in contrast to the fevered beating of the sheets the night before. Christy fingered a cigarette. Mo was tempted after thirteen years. Later, she gave thanks to everything, the trees and river, the sky and beyond the western ocean. Eileen Bannon’s promise that everything would pass off fine. A baby born without complications or stitches or being cut, every woman’s prayer. And now here they were, a Sunday morning on Upper Parliament Street – celebrating that quiet and easy time after the roar and sweat of last night’s performance. An early baby, a Sunday in late September, a capital of culture year.

 “She’s a miracle, a miracle in our lives,” said Mo and forgot for a moment of that other place where her son lay resting.

Protection you can have too much and you cannot have enough. How could she deal with Bella when she had her own sons? What did she know about Bella and her protein, protein for her well being, protein for her ovaries like the malt and milk and orange juice they gave the kids after the war? How did he know then the harm when her ma smokes her self stupid on Senior Service or her Da’s Capstan Full Strength out of blue tins when the money ran low?