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.“Private detectives.They have an office in Manhattan, but according to the papers, they spend most of their time tracking down bank robbers and locomotive bandits.Surely he has better things to do than annoy us.”“Can he do that, Mrs.Hawkins? Can he get this house shut down?”Tears came to the woman’s eyes.“I do not want to turn anyone away, love.I asked God to send me those he wants me to provide for and encourage.It is not for me to decide who is worthy, but if the other aid societies suspect someone in this house is operating in an immoral capacity, it could possibly happen even without that Pinkerton sticking his nose in my business.” She plopped down into her chair.Annie didn’t know what Kirsten might have done, but if the aid societies knew that the housekeeper had once been sent to a Magdalene Laundry, they might think ill enough of her to cause trouble.It was Neil’s fault.Well, Aileen’s truly, but the whole mess followed Annie, haunting her dreams.She could still remember that day clearly.“Oh, I’ll send her.Don’t think I won’t, Cora.”Aileen was the cause of Neil’s discontent, or at least she added fuel to it with her account of what happened after Da’s burial.Annie wished she could have had a fair chance to explain what really took place.A fisherman’s son, Johnny Flynn, followed behind her as the mourning party left the grave.Annie had only met him a day earlier when folks stopped by her father’s wake.“Say, Annie, I’m awfully sorry.”She turned around.The lad’s face drooped the way someone’s does when they feel helpless trying to cheer you up.She forced a wee smile.The other mourners passed them by on the road to the O’Shannons’.Neil was expected to feed them all, and she knew he wasn’t happy about it.She wanted to take her time getting back.Johnny leaned against a standing stone and waved her over.He showed her the flask in his pocket.She shook her head.“Aw, I wish I could make ye feel better, Annie Gallagher.”“I wish you could too.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but she’d done it.He pulled her close and pressed his lips hard against hers.She did not want to be kissed like that, but she felt so weak and hurt and limp that at first she did not push away.He dug his fingers so hard into her arms that even if she’d had the strength, she might not have been able to escape him.She leaned as far away from his clutch as she could when he suddenly let go.She gasped, feeling the need to pull her arms across her chest like a shield.He smirked.The smell of whiskey hung like a cloud.She stepped backward.“Ye liked that, didn’t ye, lass? Well, there’s more—”She spun around to see what had interrupted him.Aileen O’Shannon stood on the road glaring not at Johnny Flynn, whom she’d said was her sweetheart, but at her.Annie pulled her cousin aside.“Your man is an eejit.What are you thinking taking up with him, Aileen?”“Is that the way of it? You trying to force my lad to kiss you?”“What?” Annie dropped Aileen’s arm and took a step back to be sure it was Aileen herself she was looking at.“My poor da is fresh in the grave.Why would I do such a thing?”But Aileen held tight to her story, saying Annie was a loose woman as her mother must have been.The pain of hearing those words still stabbed needles in Annie’s heart.Then, not long after her father’s burial, Annie prepared to bring in the morning’s milking and paused outside the front door, listening to shouting within the house.“Not there, Neil.Say you won’t.Poor Kate’s daughter.”“Kate’s daughter has got more than you know.Look here.”She peeked in the window.Her father’s writing desk lay on the table.Neil clutched her accounting book.How dare he.There was only a wee bit of cash in there, but he had it in his grimy hands.She was about to barge in when Neil shouted again.“Ever since I heard she was Kate’s daughter, I knew this day would come.She and Johnny Flynn, right there in a sacred churchyard.No shame at all, that one.No telling how she let him touch her.”“Aw, Neil, have ye no mercy?”“Mercy, ye say? For women like her? She’s the spawn of my sister, and she’ll be turning out to be just like her, mark my words.Don’t ye know she’s been on the road with that Protestant tinker father of hers, Cora?”Annie shook her head in an attempt to dislodge the memory.Mrs.Hawkins was correct.Men should not be allowed to bully innocent women.Aileen might have been her accuser, but it was Neil who had stolen Annie’s freedom.Who knows what folks might choose to believe, though she’d been innocent enough.A private detective could find out things.That’s what they did.Mrs.Hawkins tapped her fingers together.“Tonight I’ll wait up for Kirsten.This is my fault for not being more heedful.She’s been coming in after I’ve gone to bed, and I cannot allow that.I will speak to her boss if I must.”Annie returned to her chores.As she wiped down the kerosene lamp globes, her hands trembled.One Pinkerton man should not be allowed to make them turn Kirsten away.Not only was America a place where a leader could be assassinated; it was also a place where people could lose their homes over mere hearsay.Seek your place of refuge.“Did you say something, Mrs.Hawkins?”“No.Why?”She waved her hand in front of her face.“’Twas nothing.” Just something she’d heard somewhere that had popped into her head.Worry does terrible things to the mind.The message boy who sometimes ran errands for them knocked at the kitchen door wearing brown cotton knickers and matching jacket, the ragged uniform of a hardworking lad.Annie opened the door to speak to him.He bent at his waist to catch his breath.“Here to tell Mrs.Hawkins, miss, that the ship she’s waiting fer just arrived on Ellis Island.”Mrs.Hawkins came up behind her.“Thank you, Jules.” She reached around Annie and put a few coins in the lad’s outstretched palm.“Now straight to your mum with that, you hear? You don’t want to be walking about the streets with money in your pocket.”“No, ma’am.Thank you, ma’am.” He bounded down the steps.“And don’t be stopping for lemon drops and licorice,” she called after him.Annie shut the door.“Aileen is here.” Could things get any worse?“Not quite here yet.She’s at Ellis Island.You know how long that can take.We’ll go down to the docks before supper.She will be expecting you, I suppose.”“She will be quite uninformed, Mrs.Hawkins.”“Well, I’m sure someone will explain things to her.Don’t worry
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