Minding Frankie Read Online Free Page B

Perhaps she had been wrong to have encouraged them to be freethinkers. “Wasn’t he rather a long time ago?” She was careful not to throw any cold water on Josie’s plan, especially when she saw Charles light up with enthusiasm.
    Josie waved this objection away. “Oh, that’s no problem. If he’s a saint, does it matter if he died only a few years back or in the sixth century?”
    “The
sixth
century?” This was even worse than Emily had feared.
    “Yes, he died around A.D . 540 and his Feast Day is June sixth.”
    “And that would be a very suitable time of the year for a little procession to his shrine.” Charles was busy planning it all already.
    “And was he from around these parts?” Emily asked. Apparently not. Jarlath was from the other side of the country, the Atlantic coast. He had set up the first archdiocese of Tuam. He had taught other great holy men, even other saints: St. Brendan of Clonfert and St. Colman of Cloyne. Places that were miles away.
    “But there was always a devotion to him here,” Charles explained.
    “Why would they have named the street after him otherwise?” Josie wanted to know.
    Emily wondered what would have happened if her father, Martin Lynch, had stayed here. Would he have been a simple, easily pleased person like Charles and Josie instead of the discontented drunk that he had turned into in New York? But all this business about the saint who had died miles away, hundreds of years ago, was a fantasy, surely?
    “Of course, the problem would be raising the money for this statue
and
actually earning a living at the same time,” Emily said.
    That was apparently no problem at all. They had saved money for years, hoping to put it towards the education of Noel as a priest. To give a son to God. But it hadn’t taken. They always intended that those savings be given to God in some way, and now this was the perfect opportunity.
    Emily told herself that she must not try to change the world. No time now to consider all the good causes that that money could have gone towards—many of them even run by the Catholic Church. Emily would have preferred to see it all going to look after Josie and Charles, and give them a little comfort after a life of working long, hard hours for little reward. They’d had to endure what to themmust have been a tragedy—their son’s vocation “hadn’t taken,” to use their own words. But there were some irresistible forces that could never be fought with logic and practicality. Emily Lynch knew this for certain.
    Noel had been through a long, bad day. Mr. Hall had asked him twice if he was all right. There was something behind the question, something menacing. When he had asked for the third time, Noel inquired politely why he was asking.
    “There was an empty bottle which appears to have contained gin before it was empty,” Mr. Hall said.
    “And what has that to do with me and whether I’m all right or not?” Noel asked. He was confident now, emboldened, even.
    Mr. Hall looked at him long and sternly from under his bushy eyebrows. “That’s as may be, Noel. There’s many a fellow taking the plane to some faraway part of the world who would be happy to do the job you are meant to be doing.” He walked off and Noel saw other workers look away.
    Noel had never known Mr. Hall like this—usually there was a kindly remark, some kind of encouragement about continuing in this work of matching dockets to sales slips, of looking through ledgers and invoices and doing the most lowly clerk duties imaginable.
    Mr. Hall seemed to think that Noel could do better and had made many positive suggestions in earlier days. Times when there was some hope. But not now. This was more than a reprimand; it was a warning. It had shaken him, and on the way home he found his feet taking him into Casey’s big, comforting pub. He vaguely recalled having had one too many the last time he’d been here but he hesitated for only a moment before going in.
    Mossy, the son