Free All Our Yesterdays by Robert B. Parker Page A

childhood. He could have been in Dublin.
It’s not whiskey
, Conn thought,
keeps the Irish from ruling the world
. The smell of incense, and the ringing of the bells, the impenetrable rhythmic Latin, the cassocks, and organ music, the dreadful martyrdom, the resurrection and the life, prayer, confession, contrition, the collection baskets passed by men in ill-fitting black suits that smelled of camphor, the flat wafer on the tongue, ohmygodIamheartilysorry. Conn smiled to himself.
Foolish bastards
.
    They walked afterwards through the red-brick-and-wrought-ironSouth End in the fresh June sunshine. He put his hand down beside hers and she took it.
    “Do you like going to Mass, Conn?” Mellen said.
    “Yes,” he said, and smiled down at her. He was nearly a foot taller. “You?”
    “Yes. It’s very comforting. I always feel closer to God when I’ve been.”
    “Yes,” Conn said. “And I like the sense of connectedness. People heard that Mass in Ireland when Hugh O’Neill was a boy.”
    “Who’s he?” Mellen said.
    “First earl of Tyrone,” Conn said. “The last great leader of Gaelic Ireland.”
    “I don’t know much about history,” Mellen said.
    “‘Tis a pity,” Conn said, “that you were brought up here, darlin’. Had you been brought up a proper Irish girl, you’d know more than you wanted to about Hugh O’Neill and Cuchulainn and the dear Battle of the Boyne.”
    Conn could go in and out of stage Irish dialect at will. When he wished he could conceal his brogue almost entirely, though he could never say
Massachusetts
quite right.
    “I know about Parnell,” Mellen said. “But the nuns told us he was an adulterer.”
    “He was that,” Conn said.
    “And Mr. De Valera.”
    “I knew him.”
    “Did you, now?”
    “Him and Michael Collins, Mulcahy, the whole bunch.”
    “Oh, my,” Mellen said. “I think I’m with a hero.”
    “I think you are,” Conn said.
    They took a subway together to Park Street andwalked past Brimstone Corner, along Tremont Street to the Parker House. Breakfast at the Parker House was something they had done for several Sundays after Mass.
    “Would you like to talk about the troubles?” she said to him over shirred eggs and broiled tomato.
    He smiled at her and shook his head.
    “I’d rather talk about you,” he said, “and maybe me.”
    “Why, Mister Sheridan,” she said, and cocked her head, like a proper virgin, the way her mother had no doubt taught her. When she smiled her cheeks dimpled.
    Conn’s face became suddenly solemn.
    “I know,” he said. “We’ve been so, sort of, you know,
carefree
, up to now, I guess it seems a little odd to suddenly start talking about, ah,
us
.”
    “Oh, no, Conn, dear. It’s not odd. I think about
us
too.”
    “Ah, Mellen, that’s good to hear.”
    “Have you doubted that I like you, Conn?”
    “I knew you liked me … as a friend. I guess what I have wondered is, if I was”—Conn shrugged and dropped his eyes slightly—“more.”
    She blushed. Conn’s face remained solemn. She put her hand across the table and rested it on his. She was quite red now.
    “Of course … you are more than a … friend,” she said. “I like you very much.”
    He raised his eyes slowly and met hers. They looked at each other for a moment.
    “Good,” Conn said. “I’m glad.”
    Their eyes held. Conn waited. He’d learned patience in Kilmainham Jail. The lesson had been valuable.He drank some coffee. She turned her attention to the eggs, eating properly, taking small bites, her back straight, bending forward slightly from the waist, her left hand in her lap.
Proper upbringing
. Conn drank some more coffee. Mellen took a tiny bite off the corner of a piece of toast and chewed and swallowed and patted her lips carefully with her napkin.
    “How could you not know that I care about you, Conn?”
    Conn put the coffee cup down. He nodded gently.
    “I know. It’s my own foolishness. But you’re so attractive, and I’m just