Conor

Prologue

THE WIND HOWLED and the rain raged outside the tiny house on Kilgore Street in South Boston. The nor’easter had battered the working-class neighborhood for nearly two days, the pleasant autumn sunshine giving way to the first sting of winter.

Conor Quinn tugged the threadbare blanket around his youngest brothers, sleeping three to a bed. The twins, Sean and Brian, were already half-asleep, their eyes glazed with exhaustion. And the baby, three-year-old Liam, lay curled between them, his breathing gone soft and even, his dark lashes feathered over chubby cheeks.

But Dylan and Brendan were still wide awake, the two of them perched on the end of their bed, listening raptly as their father, Seamus Quinn, spun another tale. It was well past eleven and the boys should have been asleep. While his father was away, Conor made sure bedtime was strictly adhered to on school nights. But Seamus, a swordfisherman by profession, stayed in port only a week or two before heading out to sea for months at a time. And with winter coming, his father and the crew of The Mighty Quinn would be heading farther south, following the swordfish into the warmer waters of the Caribbean.

“This is a story of your long-ago ancestor, Eamon Quinn. Eamon was a clever laddie, so clever he could build a nest in your ear.”

Conor listened with half an ear to Seamus’s colorful tale, wondering whether he’d ever find a proper time to bring up Dylan’s failures in math class, or Brendan’s habit of pinching candy from the local market, or the immunizations that Brian and Sean still needed for school. But one subject had to be discussed, a problem his father refused to acknowledge.

Mrs. Smalley, their neighbor and regular baby-sitter, was up to a quart of vodka a day. Concerned for the safety of his three youngest brothers, Conor had been anxious to find another person to watch the little ones while he and Dylan and Brendan were at school. Social Services had already paid a surprise visit and he’d managed to hustle them off with an elaborate excuse about Mrs. Smalley’s allergies. But if the social workers realized he cared for his five brothers almost entirely on his own, they’d declare neglect and send them all to an orphanage.

“One fine day, Eamon was fishing off the Isle of Shadows. As he passed by a rocky shore, he saw a beautiful lass standing near the water’s edge, her long hair blowing in the breeze. His heart swelled and his face shone, for Eamon had never seen a more lovely creature.”

Conor had every confidence that he could keep his family together. Though he was only ten years old, he’d been both mother and father to the boys for over two years. As Mrs. Smalley’s drinking problem escalated, he’d learned to do the laundry and shop for food and help his brothers with their schoolwork. They had a simple life, complicated only by Mrs. Smalley’s binges and infrequent visits from Seamus.

Whatever time Seamus didn’t spend with his sons was spent at the local pub where he frittered away his take from the catch, buying drinks for strangers and gambling against huge odds. By the end of the week, he usually handed Conor just barely enough to pay household expenses for the coming months, until he and The Mighty Quinn chugged back into port with another holdful of swordfish. A few days ago, they were dining on week-old bread and soup from dented cans. Tonight, they’d enjoyed bulging bags of takeout from McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

“Eamon talked to the lass and, before long, he was enchanted. All the village said that it was time for Eamon to take a bride, but he had never found a woman to love-until now. He brought his boat ashore, but as Eamon set foot on land, the lass turned into a wild beast, as fierce as a lion with breath of fire and a thorny tail. She snatched Eamon between her great jaws, splintering his boat into a thousand pieces with her giant claws.”

Though Seamus Quinn wasn’t much of a parent or a fisherman, he did have one talent. Conor’s father could spin a beguiling yarn-rich Irish tales filled with action and adventure. Though Seamus always substituted a Quinn ancestor in the hero’s role and often combined elements of two or three stories, Conor had come to recognize the bits of Irish myths and legends from books he’d sought out at the public library.

Conor preferred the stories of the supernatural-fairies and banshees and pixies and ghosts. Eight-yearold Dylan liked tales of heroic deeds. And Brendan, a year younger than Dylan, hoped for a story of adventure in a far-off land. And the five-year-old twins, Brian and Sean, and baby Liam, really didn’t care what tale Seamus spun; they only cared that their da was home and their tummies would be full for a while.

Conor sat down beside Dylan and watched his father in the feeble light from the bedside lamp. At times, listening to his father’s thick brogue, he could picture Ireland in his mind-the misty sky, the emerald green fields lined with stone fences, the pony his grandfather had given him for his birthday, and the tiny whitewashed cottage near the water. They’d all been born there, save Liam, in that cottage on Bantry Bay. Life had been perfect then, because they’d had their da and their ma.

“Eamon knew it would take all his brains to trick the dragon. Many fishermen had been captured by this very dragon and held prisoner in a great cave on the Isle of Shadows, but Eamon would not be one of them.”

The letter from America had been the start of the bad times. Seamus’s brother had emigrated to Boston as a teenager. With grit and determination, Uncle Padriac had saved enough money crewing on a longliner to buy his own swordfish boat. He’d offered Seamus a partnership in The Mighty Quinn, a way out of the hardscrabble life that Ireland promised. So they’d moved half a world away, Seamus, his pretty wife Fiona, pregnant with Liam, and the five boys.

From the start, Conor had hated South Boston. Though half the population was of Irish descent, he was teased mercilessly for his accent. Within a month, he’d learned to speak in the flat tones and grating vowels of his peers and the occasional teasing resulted in a black eye or cut lip for the teaser. School became tolerable, but life at home was deteriorating with every passing day.

He remembered the fights at home the most, the simmering anger, the long silences between Fiona and Seamus…and his mother’s devastating loneliness at his father’s endless absences. The soft sobs he heard late at night behind her bedroom door cut him to the quick and he wanted to go to her, to make everything all right. But whenever he approached, her tears magically dried and all was well.

One day she was there, smiling at him, and the next day, she was gone. Conor expected her to come home by morning, as did Seamus when he stumbled in from the pub just as the sun was rising. But his mother never returned. And from that day on, Seamus would not speak her name. Questions were met with stony silence and when they persisted, he’d told the boys she’d moved back to Ireland. A few months later, he finally told them she’d died in an auto wreck. But Conor suspected that this was only a lie to end the questions, just revenge for his mother’s betrayal.

Conor had vowed never to forget her. At night, he’d imagined her soft, dark hair and her warm smile, the way she touched him when she spoke and the pride he saw in her eyes when he did well in school. The twins and Liam had just vague memories of her. And Dylan and Brendan’s memories were distorted by their loss, making her seem unreal, like some fairy princess dressed in spun gold.

“So this you must remember,” his father said in a warning tone, interrupting Conor’s daydream. “Like the clever Eamon Quinn who drove the dragon off the cliffs and saved many fishermen from a fate worse than death, a man’s strength and power is lost if he gives in to a weakness of the heart. Love for a woman is the only thing that can bring a Mighty Quinn down.”

“I’m a Mighty Quinn!” Brendan cried, pounding on his chest. “And I’m never going to let a girl kiss me!”

“Shhh!” Conor hissed. “You’ll wake Liam.”

Seamus chuckled and patted Brendan’s knee. “That’s right, boyo. You listen to your da on this. Women are trouble for the likes of us Quinns.”

“Da, it’s time for us to get to bed,” Conor said, weary of the same old cautionary tale. “We have school.”

Dylan and Brendan both moaned and rolled their eyes, but Seamus wagged his finger. “Conor is right. Besides, I’ve got a powerful thirst that only a pint of Guinness can quench.” He ruffled their hair, then pushed off the bed and headed toward the front door.

Conor hurried after him. “Da, we need to talk. Can’t you stay in tonight?”

His father waved him off. “You sound like an old woman, Con. Don’t be a nag. We can talk in the morning.” With that, Seamus grabbed his jacket and slipped out into the storm, leaving his son with nothing more than a cold draft and an uneasy shiver. Defeated, Conor turned and walked back to the bedroom. Dylan and Brendan had already climbed into their bunk beds. Conor turned off the lights and flopped down on the mattress in the corner, drawing the blankets up to his chin to ward off the chill.

He was almost asleep when a small voice came out of the darkness. “What was she like, Con?” Brendan asked, repeating a question he’d been asking nearly every night for the past few months.

“Tell us again,” Dylan pleaded. “Tell us about Ma.”

Conor wasn’t sure why they suddenly needed to hear. Maybe they sensed how fragile their life had become, how easily it could all fall apart. “She was a fine and beautiful woman,” Conor said. “Her hair was dark, nearly black like ours. And she had eyes the color of the sea, green and blue put together.”

“I remember the necklace,” Dylan murmured. “She always wore a beautiful necklace that had jewels that sparkled in the light.”

“Tell us about her laugh,” Brendan said. “I like that story.”

“Tell the story about the soda bread, when you fed it to Mrs. Smalley’s wee dog and Ma caught you. I like that one.”

So Conor spun his tale, lulling his brothers to sleep with visions of their mother, the beautiful Fiona Quinn. But unlike his father’s stories, Conor didn’t have to embellish. Every word he spoke was pure truth. And though Conor knew that love for a woman was a sign of weakness and trouble for any Quinn, he didn’t heed his father’s warning. For, in a secret corner of his heart, he’d always love his mother and that would make him strong.