“Keely Katherine McClain, I asked you a question! Have you finished your homework?”
“Yeah, Ma,” Keely shouted. Yet another lie she’d have to confess to, though it paled in comparison to the lipstick.
“Then get ready for bed and don’t forget to brush your teeth.”
Keely groaned. “Bloody hell,” she muttered, instantly regretting the curse the moment it left her lips. She already had enough on her curse list for Friday night confession. Lying and stealing would probably be worth at least five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. And Father Samuel was particularly harsh with foul language, although “bloody” couldn’t possibly be a curse word, since her mother said it all the time—at least, when she thought Keely wasn’t there to hear it.
“Bloody, bloody, bloody,” Keely muttered as she undressed and hung up her school uniform precisely as her mother required. Then she slipped into a flannel nightgown and jumped into bed. When she realized that she hadn’t brushed her teeth, she reached into the drawer of her bedside table and pulled out an old tube of toothpaste she’d hidden there. She put a dab on her tongue, then winced at the taste.
The trick always worked—unless her mother checked to see if her toothbrush was wet. It was just a tiny rebellion, but Keely felt that her teeth were her own and if she wanted them to turn black and fall out of her mouth when she was twenty, it was certainly her choice.
She leaned over the edge of the bed and reached beneath her mattress to pull out her journal. Sister Therese, her fifth grade teacher, had urged her students to start keeping a journal, hoping to perfect their penmanship and their grammar skills. And since that very first little clothbound book two years ago, Keely had written in her journal every night.
At first it had been a diary of sorts, but now that Keely had something truly interesting to write, she couldn’t possibly write it, for fear that her mother might read it. So instead, she filled the book with drawings and stories, each one another tiny little rebellion. She drew wedding cakes, wild, crazy designs, decorated with colored pencils and markers. And designs for sleek, sexy dresses with high hemlines and daring necklines. And she wrote passionate, romantic stories and poems. And though she gave her heroines a different name, when Keely read them, they became stories of her own future.
And sometimes she wrote stories about her father. Her mother had always been tight-lipped about Seamus McClain, and Keely suspected that his death was still too much for her to bear. So Keely had been left to create a past for them both, a wonderful, romantic past. Fiona McClain became the most tragic of heroines, grieving so deeply that she couldn’t keep a photo of Seamus around the apartment.
“Seamus,” Keely murmured, scribbling his name on the corner of a page. It was an odd, but exotic name to her ears. In her imagination, he had dark hair, nearly black like her own. And pale eyes that were a mix of green and gold, the same eyes she saw in the mirror every morning. A vision of her father flitted through her mind. He was dressed in a fine uniform with shiny buttons and gold braid on the shoulders. And his fishing boat was really a huge sailing ship that crossed the ocean.
“One night, as Seamus’s ship was nearing New York Harbor,” Keely murmured as she wrote in a haphazard script, “a terrible storm blew in from the north. Being a fine sea captain, Seamus ordered his men to take down the sails to protect his ship from crashing on the cliffs near the harbor. He stood in the driving rain, his hands fixed to the wheel, his only thoughts of the important passengers sleeping below.”
Keely reread what she had written and smiled. “But as lightning flashed, Seamus noticed debris floating around the bow of his ship. Another ship had crashed against the cliffs! Through the dark and rain, he could hear a soft and plaintive cry.” Keely covered her mouth with her cupped hand to make the cry more realistic. “Help. Help. Save me.”
Vivid images focused in her mind. “Seamus turned the wheel over to his first mate and ran to the bow. There, in the water below, was a woman, struggling to hold on to a jagged piece of the broken ship. ‘Do not fear,’ he called. Seamus tore off his jacket and linen shirt, his broad shoulders and strong arms gleaming in the rain.” Keely pressed her hand to her chest to feel her heart beating a bit faster. “And then he dove into the icy water and swam toward the drowning girl.”
This would be the best part, Keely mused, when they spoke for the first time. “‘What is your name?’ Seamus asked as he brushed her long, flowing hair from her eyes. ‘I am Princess Fiona,’ the girl said. ‘And if you save me, I promise to marry you and love you for—”’
“Are you in bed, Keely McClain?”
Keely jumped, startled from her dreaming. “Yes, Ma,” she called, glad that she didn’t have to lie officially. That saved her at least one Hail Mary at confession.
“And then Seamus took Fiona’s hand and swam for the ship,” Keely continued in a whisper, scribbling as she went. “Waves crashed around them, but Seamus would not let Fiona drown. For the moment he looked into her eyes, he knew he loved her. His crew dropped a rope ladder over the side, but the ship pitched and rolled and—”
“Did you brush your teeth, Keely?” her mother called.
Keely sighed dramatically. “Mary, mother of—” She stopped herself. Taking the Lord’s name in vain was one of those things that might get her an entire rosary. “I’m going to do that right now,” Keely shouted.
She tossed the quilt back, scrambled out of bed and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. She brushed up and down twenty-five times on each side and thirty in the front.
After she’d spit and wiped the paste off her mouth, Keely smiled. “And as Seamus carried his new ladylove up the ladder to the safety of his ship, the rain suddenly stopped and the moon broke through the clouds. And beneath the starry sky, Seamus leaned forward and kissed Fiona, sealing their love forever and forever.”
“It’s nearly ten and you should be in bed.”
Keely looked in the mirror and saw the reflection of her mother standing at the bathroom doorway. She held a dish towel in her hands and slowly wiped her fingers. Even though her hair was pulled back in a tidy bun and she wore a plain housedress, she still looked like the princess in Keely’s mind, with her bright green eyes and her mahogany tresses.
“Sorry, Ma.”
Fiona McClain sighed, then stepped into the bathroom. She reached out and smoothed Keely’s long, dark hair, staring at their reflection in the mirror over Keely’s shoulder. “You’re getting to be such a grown-up young lady. I almost don’t recognize you.” She flicked her hands through Keely’s bangs. “We need to cut these. They’re gettin’ in your eyes and I won’t have you goin’ to school looking like some shaggy mutt.”
Fiona’s lilting accent was soothing to Keely’s ears, like one of those pretty Irish love songs that her mother played over and over on the old stereo in the front room. Keely had tried so many times to imitate her, but her tongue just couldn’t get the sound right. “Do I look like my da?” Keely asked. “Do I look like Seamus McClain?”
“What?”
She saw the flash of pain in her mother’s eyes. But then it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Over the past few days, her mother had been in one of her “moods.” She’d grown silent and sad, her expression distant. She’d stare out the window for hours, her attention fixed on the front walk of their flat, as if she were watching for that someone, waiting for that person’s arrival. And Keely’s conversations about her day at school went unheeded and unquestioned. Today was one of those sad days, a day when Keely was certain that Fiona was remembering her long-lost husband.
“Have you said your prayers?” her mother asked.
“Yes,” Keely lied. “Three Hail Marys and an Our Father.” Forget the lie. She’d do penance later. “Tell me about him, Ma.”
Her mother’s