It dawns on me how true those words are. I want Rosa to know everything about me, just as much as I want to know everything about her. It should trouble me how much I need to tell her every little secret I have. And it should trouble me even more that I want to share such intimate information with a woman who doesn’t belong to me. With a woman who is married to a man I vowed to follow and obey until the end of my days. The word betrayal flashes in my mind, making the acrid taste of my treacherous feelings tough to swallow down.
“Okay,” she replies, giving my hand a comforting squeeze, bringing me back to the conversation at hand and away from my duplicitous thoughts. “Tell me. I want to know.”
“Aye.” I take a deep inhale before continuing on. “That night, I had another row with my Da. It got so bad that he kicked me out of dinner and sent me to my room like I was a five-year-old in need of discipline. And like the unruly shite I’d become, I locked myself in my bedroom, cursing him and everyone else around me that had a hand at keeping me from the war. Little did I know that the war was going to come to me.”
I clear my throat as if I can still smell the smoke all around me. I close my eyes, comforted only by Rosa’s tender hand in mine, silently urging that I continue.
“Sometime during the night, I must have dozed off in my tantrum, only to wake up startled by the heat in my room. When I opened my eyes and saw my room up in flames, I panicked. I forgot all the lessons my father taught me about dropping to the floor and crawling my way out to safety. Instead, I ran towards the flames, screaming my parents’ and my sisters’ names as loud as I could while trying to make my way up the stairs towards their bedrooms. It was only when a burning joist fell on top of me, pinning me to the floor, that I honestly believed we were all going to die that night. The fire on the wooden beam kissed my skin, and blistering heat began to claw its way through all my facial bones, muscles, and tendons, leaving its permanent mark and damaging every nerve ending. Whether it was the smoke inhalation or the pain of my third-degree burn, I must have passed out. It was only when I felt someone covering my face with a wet blanket and pushing the beam away from my chest that I came to.” I swallow dryly.
I got you, Col.
I got you.
“It was Patrick who pulled me out of the fire that night. And once he made sure I was safely outside, he willingly went back into that hell. I just sat there on the lawn watching my home burn down as my cousin ran back into the burning inferno, in the hopes he could save someone else. I was so petrified with fear and pain that I couldn’t move. I tried to tell my legs to get up, to save my family, but they wouldn’t budge. It must have been only a few minutes until Patrick made it out of the house again, but to me it felt like hours. As he drew in closer to me, I could see he had my baby sister cradled in his arms, wrapped in a blanket.”
My body trembles so hard at the memory, Rosa has to wrap her arms around me just to keep me steady.
“She didn’t make it, did she?”
The sob that escapes me is all the answer she needs.
“Patrick, is that Ciara? Where is Da and Ma? Where is Aoife and Riona?!” I cry out, my tears stinging my raw flesh.
The smell of burnt skin churns my stomach, but as I try to move closer to my cousin the awful stench heightens. Patrick shakes his head, pain and misery coating his light blue eyes as he steps away from me.
“Give her to me! Give Ciara to me!”
“I’m sorry, Col. I’m so sorry,” he cries, hugging my sister’s small body to his chest.
“I said give her here,” I yell. “Ciara!”
“I tried. I tried,” he repeats, gripping the blanket.
“Give her to me, Pat. Please. Give me Ciara.”
My arms shake as I stretch my arms out to him so that he can hand over my baby sister. Reluctantly, he places her in my arms as delicately as one would a sleeping newborn. He does it with such tenderness that my heart flicks with a speck of hope that she’s alright. It’s only when I lift the blanket off Ciara’s sweet face that I have confirmation that she’s not sleeping at all. All that’s left of her is a mangled burnt corpse.
The scream that ripped through me afterwards must have been heard all throughout Ireland, coast to coast, and still it didn’t reflect the pain I was experiencing. Nothing could.
“I lost my whole world that night. These scars can’t even begin to truly depict the horror of watching everyone I ever loved go up in flames and turn to ash right in front of my eyes. I’d suffer a million scars like these ones if it meant that they wouldn’t have had to.”