Chapter 4: Butterscotch

I was kneading rye dough at Cathal's kitchen counter when his uncle let himself in the back door.

I had found flour and yeast in a cupboard at seven.

My hands needed work, and the dough did not care whose house it was in.

"Look at this," said Phelim Dwyer.

"A girl who bakes."

He was a heavy, handsome man in a camel coat, with white hair combed straight back and a gold Mummers pin on his lapel.

He kissed my cheek before I could turn my face.

He smelled of aftershave and peppermint.

"Phelim Dwyer," he said.

"Uncle Phelim to anyone I like, love."

Cathal stood at the stove with his arms folded.

He had not said a word since his uncle came in.

Phelim sat down at the kitchen table without being asked and set a white box in front of him.

"Paczki," he said.

"From the place on Allegheny where you work, love."

"I stopped in Christmas Eve to see what you cost."

My hands went still in the dough.

He took a butterscotch candy from his coat pocket, unwrapped it and set it on a saucer in front of me.

"I knew your mother," he said.

"A lovely woman with a lovely voice."

"She stood outside the club on Richmond Street one night that March in the sleet.

"She was on her knees, begging me to say her husband was no rat."

He said it warmly, with a smile.

"I told her the Table doesn't speak to the wives of rats," he said.

"I felt sorry for her, love, I did."

I did not move.

He reached into his coat and laid a small card on the table.

It was a Mass card with a gold border, and my mother's name was printed on it in black.

"I had a Mass said for her on the anniversary," Phelim said.

"I thought you'd want to know."

Then he stood and took hold of my braid between two fingers and let it run through them.

"Good hair," he said.

"Uncle," Cathal said.

It was one word, and Phelim stopped smiling.

"I'm only admiring," Phelim said, and let go.

"Eleventh of February, nephew."

"If Dennis Mulcahy isn't on his knees in St. Colman's, I take her to the Table myself."

"That's the vote," Phelim said.

"You'll hold her till then, and you'll hold her like a Dwyer."

He ate his own candy and left by the back door the way he had come.

I took my hands out of the dough and gripped the counter edge, white to the wrists.

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