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husband or her life?
    It had been an elaborate sham that she had unwittingly been a party to.
    For all Mary’s bravado she knew that he was capable of literally anything when he believed he was within his rights. Overnight, he had become like a stranger to her, to his daughter, who had been the apple of his eye until she had stepped out of line. A line that, until now, had never really been evident to anyone except him.
    Gerald was not going to Mass, he was drinking heavily, and he had an air of suppressed rage about him. It was as if her family was dissolving before her eyes. Even the boys were different; the atmosphere in the house was stifling, like a black pall hanging over their very existence.
    For the first time in her married life Mary didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to make it better. On top of all this was the knowledge that soon her daughter’s condition would be evident to the world, to all in their world at least, and the shame would be too much to bear.
    How many times had she stood outside the church, how many times had she enjoyed someone else’s misery, gossiped about other people’s children and their faults, their mistakes. Like her husband she had believed that nothing like that could ever happen to them. She had convinced herself that her daughter would be too bloody shrewd to let that happen to her in the first place. Now they were up shit creek without any kind of paddle whatsoever, and she had no option but to try and protect her daughter as best she could; she had to hope that Gerry came to terms with this sooner rather than later. Even though she didn’t hold out much hope.
    So many girls had babies now without the benefit of a wedding ring and, while it might be acceptable to the rest of the world, it was still seen as a disgrace by the Catholic community. But even that shame was to be borne, rather that than face the shame of an abortion, the taking of an innocent life. As the priest so rightly said, who knew what God’s plan was. One of those poor unfortunate babies might have been the person who discovered a cure for cancer, been a world peace leader. That was a stretch considering where the child was likely to be born, but it was the principle of the thing.
    And that whore upstairs wouldn’t even let on to Mary who the father was. At one point it had even occurred to her that maybe the bitch didn’t know. Imelda insisted that until her father calmed down she would not say a word and, in fairness, she had to admit the girl had a point.
    As Mary glanced around her pristine Hygena kitchen with its white melamine doors for easy cleaning, and the pale-green work surfaces, she wondered why they were suddenly incapable of cheering her up. Normally the look of the place eased her tired heart. Normally she felt as if she was in her own personal cocoon of comfort, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist outside of her four walls. Now though, it gave her no comfort. Mary’s life was suddenly in free fall and she didn’t know how to make it stop.
    Stoic was usually the word she would use to describe herself, she took whatever life handed out to her and she took it on the chin, whether it was the boys in court, or her husband’s questionable career. But she could cope with those things because they were part of her life, and part of the lives of the people around her. Her daughter’s wrecking of her young life was different though.
    A child was for ever, they were like a constant headache that occasionally brought a smile to your face, or a feeling of pride that washed over you and made it all worthwhile.
    There would be no abortion in this house, no murder of an innocent, no matter what her husband said. Fucking King Herod himself would not have been able to get her to do anything so deplorable, even with the threat of death hanging over her.
    Mary slipped her beads from her apron pocket, she would say a few decades of the rosary. Mary, her namesake, was a mother like herself.