Free Ashes of Fiery Weather by Kathleen Donohoe Page A

the inscription, focused more on Sean’s warm hand than on the words.
    Â 
PATRICK DEVLIN
    A SON OF IRELAND
    WHO BRAVELY FOUGHT FOR THE UNION
    AND FOR 30 YEARS BATTLED FIRES FOR
    THE CITIES OF BROOKLYN AND NEW YORK
    Â 
    Two headstones lay flat against the ground in front of the monument. One said
Patrick Devlin
and the other
Brigid Cavanaugh Devlin, Beloved Wife.
    â€œThey’re my great-grandparents,” Sean said. “My mother’s grandparents. The ones from Ireland.”
    Norah thought for a second. “The nun’s parents?”
    â€œYeah. My mom’s dad is here too. Jack Keegan. Right over there.” Sean waved a hand. “But you don’t have to meet my whole family on our first date.”
    Norah laughed.
    â€œActually, it’s not the whole family. My mother had two brothers who died in 1918, before she was born. They’re not here, and Mom’s not sure what happened to them. It was the influenza epidemic, and she thinks maybe the city was cremating the dead to try and get it under control. Even if you were Catholic.”
    â€œThat’s awful.” Norah rubbed her arms.
    â€œI’m probably boring you,” Sean said.
    â€œNo, no,” Norah said. She kept wondering what it meant that he would bring her here and tell her about his family. Surely he didn’t do this with every girl he met.
    â€œDo you want to go get something to eat? Somewhere besides Lehane’s? I’ll know everybody in the place. Nobody’ll leave us alone.”
    Norah agreed and they started the walk back. The ground didn’t give beneath their feet. The trees were still bare, though it was already April.
    â€œWorking at the travel agency’s what you want to do?” he asked.
    Norah had been hoping he wouldn’t ask. “It’s a good enough job, but travel agencies don’t get in the blood, like being a fireman.” She tried to laugh but he took it seriously.
    Sean rested his hand on her lower back. “Something’ll come to you,” he said.
    Â 
    The heat startled Norah when it arrived in early June. In Ireland, if it went to eighty degrees, people complained they were boiling. She was not prepared for ninety-degree afternoons and nights that didn’t feel much cooler. All through the summer, she lay on Sean’s bed, facing the fan.
    Norah shouldn’t have been in Sean’s room. In Ireland, she’d believed that what her parents thought counted more, but she understood now that she was old enough to do what she liked. Still, it was Delia’s house. Each time she and Sean went out, Norah told herself she would have him leave her at the door of Helen’s building. Yet again and again she followed him inside the silent brownstone and up the stairs, trusting the sound of his footsteps to hide her own.
    Together, they got into his bed. Mornings, Eileen went downstairs to distract Delia, usually by picking a fight, so Norah could slip down to the parlor floor and go out the heavy double doors that opened onto the stoop. Which was the same as climbing out a window, Eileen said wickedly one night when they were drinking together at Lehane’s while Sean was behind the bar. Don’t think the neighbors don’t notice. Though, to be fair, there were only a couple of families they knew left on the block. All the other houses were chopped up into apartments. Norah tried to summon a sense of shame but couldn’t.
    When she arrived back at Helen’s in the morning to shower and change her clothes for work, Helen never said anything, except on the Fourth of July. Irish Dreams was closed. Norah, Sean, Eileen and a group of Eileen’s friends were going to Breezy Point Surf Club, in Rockaway, which was in Queens. Later, when it got dark, they’d be able to see the Macy’s fireworks from something called A Court.
    On the Fourth, after Norah showered and changed, she was ready to rush out the door, but Helen had