by Don Reilly
It was half past five. The sun was just after rising. Meaghan was standing over the sink, having her tea and brown bread, so she could hear the knock when it came. She stopped mid-bite and listened. That was a knock for sure. She ran to the door for the third time this morning. As she reached for the brass handle, her hand froze. Was she having a stroke? She wiggled her fingers. Urged them forward. On the other side of the door, there could be no one else but Mrs. Quinn, a neighbor from two doors down. A second urgent knock broke the spell.
“I saw your sitting room light on,” she said when Meaghan opened the door.
“I couldn’t sleep, Mrs. Quinn.” Meaghan reached for her throat and struggled to catch her breath. “Did the hospital ward call?”
“Aye,” the older woman said, reaching out to hold Meaghan’s hand. “Liam’s taken a turn for the worse. The doctors want you there now.”
The word “now” cramped Meaghan’s stomach, like she was about to vomit. She swallowed hard. Breathed deeply. “Thanks, Mrs. Quinn.”
“Be strong, dear,” Mrs. Quinn said.
Meaghan closed the door. Be strong? So easy for people to say. Her mother-in-law had been spewing these miserable words at her for weeks. From her, it felt like an indictment. “Be strong, love. Honor Liam’s wishes.” What about Meaghan’s wishes? The children’s? She was sick of people telling her that there was strength in letting him go.
She felt dizzy. Her thoughts whirled. She had to get ready. Feed the children. Get them off to school. They couldn’t go with her. Couldn’t see their father . . . Her throat tightened again. She ran to the kitchen window and wrenched it open. Maybe the earthy smell of the Bog Meadows Reserve would calm her. The cool air. The lush green landscape. Breathe, she commanded. She reached for the sill to steady herself, stared at the treetops and the dim red glow behind the dull pewter sky. A flock of brown skylarks pumped their frenetic wings as they flew toward the outskirts of town. How odd that their flight should bring her peace.
She spun away from the window when her mother-in-law’s bedroom door screeched open from above. After five heavy steps, Geraldine’s feet thumped down the stairs. “Was that Mrs. Quinn? Did she get the call?”
“Aye,” Meaghan said, looking down at Geraldine’s thick calves. “Her phone’s a blessing for sure.” She paused. “Liam’s in a bad way. Can Patrick drive me to Long Kesh?”
“He’ll be driving us both,” Geraldine said. “I’ll not be left behind. He’s my son, you know.”
Geraldine had repeated this regrettable biological fact during the last fifty-nine days. She always added, And I’ll see to it that his wishes are honored. Liam expected them to let him die. Daily, Meaghan and Geraldine argued about this. “Liam’s chosen his path,” she said. “We can’t interfere.” For weeks, Meaghan fought back, asserting her right as Liam’s wife to make the decision when the time came. She wanted her children to grow up with a father. Her father-in-law, Patrick, was on her side.
“But the children,” Meaghan said to Geraldine when she insisted on going to Long Kesh this morning. She fought the urge to push her mother-in-law. “We can’t take them with us. If this is the end, I don’t want them there.” She paused and hugged herself. “They must go to school.”
“And what am I? The bus driver? Fiona Quinn will take them to school, for sure. You know how she likes to rub her nose in everybody’s business.”
They were in the car, now, heading to Long Kesh. Patrick was at the wheel, muttering under his breath, his knuckles white, as they raced along the the A55 in Belfast. Their normal route was under construction. Geraldine was in the back seat. There was traffic ahead. The car slowed. “Nothing’s ever easy,” he said aloud.
Neither Meaghan nor Geraldine responded.
There was even more traffic at the first roundabout. Patrick took long deep breaths. Banged his thick fingers on the steering wheel. He rolled down his window, stuck his head out, and craned his neck to see how far ahead the backup extended. Over the next ten minutes, they inched forward. Patrick kept shaking his head. “I hope he holds on.” The women were silent. “You’ll sign when we arrive, won’t you?” he asked, turning to Meaghan.
“We’ll see what the doctor says.”
“We’ll see?” Patrick stuttered. He clamped his lips shut and exhaled. In a moment he said, “What do you mean we’ll see? I thought that was the plan.”
“That’s not Liam’s plan.” Geraldine said. She clawed at Meaghan’s headrest and pulled herself forward. “It’s not what he wants.”
“I don’t care what he wants. He’s not in his right mind.” He twisted to see her. His big belly pressed against the steering wheel. The car swerved.
“Da,” Meaghan screamed.
Patrick spun as quickly as his large body allowed. Steered the car back into the lane. He looked at Geraldine in the rear-view mirror. “He’s been without food for two months. How can he know what he wants? We have to save him!”
“I’m so tired of your holier-than-thou attitude,” Geraldine said as she pulled even closer to the front seat. Her hot breath was hot on Meaghan’s neck, the smell of tea still on it. “You were in the IRA. You know how this works,” Geraldine added.
This was the screw that Geraldine often turned. Patrick grew quiet, slouched in his seat. Sighed deeply. “I was a different person, then,” Patrick said.
Meaghan slid her hands under her blonde hair and massaged her neck. They had been having the same argument since Liam was arrested. Meaghan was tired of it, especially how Geraldine kept throwing Patrick’s former membership in the Irish Republican Army back into his face. She turned away from them and watched the Black Mountains pass. During better times, she and Liam hiked there with the children. On their last outing, Meaghan had twisted her ankle. Liam, ever the hero, carried her piggyback down to his father’s car. Three miles! The children were star-eyed. “Da could carry all of us if he wanted,” her son screamed as he skipped after his father, pulling his sister behind him, her arm trailing behind her like a tail. The children giggled as Meaghan kissed Liam’s neck, complaining that he tasted of salt. “Let me taste,” her daughter said. Liam spun around and swept the girl up with his left arm. Meaghan wrapped her legs around his torso to stay on his back. Her son grabbed Liam’s other arm. “Me too,” he chanted as he bounced on his toes. That was the life she wanted: the life Liam had promised her before they were married.
The traffic cleared. Patrick put his foot to the floor and raced onto the southbound ramp of the M1 Motorway. The sign said, “To Lisburn,” where Long Kesh Prison was located.
At the first security stop, prison guards in bomb suits interrogated them about their business at “Her Majesty’s Prison Maze,” their name for Long Kesh. They pushed mirrors on long poles under their car to check for explosives. The guards made Patrick unlock the boot of his car and demanded to see inside the suitcases. Patrick opened them and removed each garment, one by one. Meaghan was embarrassed for him as tried to avoid holding up her panties. The guards hooted. At times like this, Meaghan felt Liam’s rage at the way the British Army treated Catholics in Northern Ireland. She had the urge to grab one of them by the neck and squeeze.
At the next security stop, the guards demanded identification even though they knew who Meaghan was. They ordered her out of the car. As they frisked Meaghan, Geraldine shouted “Now why would she be carrying a weapon with my son lying on his death bed. Have you no heart?”
“Maybe the Mrs. would like to remain outside,” the guard said to Patrick.
If only, Meaghan thought.
Once inside, they were escorted through the cement walls and iron bars of H Block. Irish Republican Army prisoners screamed their support for Liam. “God love him. Tell Liam to hang on. We’re right behind him.” Some said, “Be strong Meaghan!”
She entered the hospital ward with its beige walls and subdued lighting. Heart monitors and IV stands stood unused. At the nurse’s station, two women recorded their notes. They looked up when Meaghan entered. It all seemed so normal, like any hospital in Northern Ireland save the bars. Liam was in bed, lying on a sheepskin blanket. There was a metal frame over his body. The nurses used it to support a pile of woolen blankets that were too heavy for his thinning skin. Even with this tent over his body, Liam was shivering. How could he look so much worse than he did just a day before, Meaghan thought? His eyes had sunken in his balding head; the skin of his face was pulled taut. Every breath was a struggle. He looked three times his thirty-one years.
Liam’s body was the last weapon he had left in his protest to force the British government to treat Irish Republican Army soldiers as prisoners of war who had fought to liberate Ireland from colonial rule and not as common criminals. Today was the fifty-ninth day of his hunger strike. Four other men had already died in the same protest.
Meaghan followed Liam’s gaze. His head was turned toward a barred window where a skylark was perched on the ledge, pecking at the cloudy plexiglass. “What’s that?” he asked.
“’Tis only a skylark,” Meaghan said. Liam jumped at the sound of her voice as if he were pulled back from another world.
“Aye,” he said. “’Tis only yourself.” He swallowed. Took a shallow breath. Seemed to be gathering strength. “It won’t . . . be long now.”
“Don’t talk like that, Liam.”
“We’re behind you,” Geraldine said.
Patrick shook his head.
Liam reached out. “Ma,” he said.
Geraldine lunged to his bedside. Her green and white polka-dotted dress rose up on her calves, revealing a cobweb of varicose veins. Her gray hair fell onto Liam’s face. She caressed his chafing skin and kissed his cracked and bloody lips. “My brave son,” she whispered. Geraldine had deep Republican roots. Her father was an IRA soldier as was his father before him. But she was proudest of her own membership in women’s branch of the Irish Republican Army.
Geraldine pushed a straw into Liam’s mouth. He took long sips of water, the only thing he’d ingest. Until a week ago, he’d insisted on watching the nurse fill water pitchers from the tap so he’d be sure she didn’t add any nourishment. Almost immediately after his sips, Liam wretched. Meaghan elbowed Geraldine out of the way. “He has to take water in small sips.” A nurse rushed over. Together, Meaghan and the nurse rolled Liam over. He cried out when they touched him. Meaghan jerked her hand away as if his body was a raging flame. His skin was so thin she could have pushed her fingers through it. He heaved into the pot at the side of his bed.
When he was done, Liam reached for Geraldine again and whispered, “Don’t let her.” His voice trailed off, too weak to say more.
By this point, Meaghan knew better than to be insulted by the alliance Liam had formed with his mother. It’s what four mothers and sons had done during the last few months. Four mothers had allowed their sons to die on this hunger strike. Eulogists at their funerals called these mothers the backbone of the revolutionary movement. But those men were unmarried. Meaghan was Liam’s next-of-kin. The law was on her side. She’d make the decision about life-saving intervention.
Before the strike, Meaghan fantasized about what life could be like after Liam’s release. He had less than three years left in his sentence. They’d have another chance. Maybe move to Sligo, where Meaghan was born. They’d escape the war-torn north, the Troubles. Thirteen years ago, this had been their plan. It was what Liam had promised when he proposed, but Meaghan was hesitant. “Being an IRA wife’s not for me,” she told him. If that was the life he was offering, she couldn’t do it. But Liam begged her. Promised that he’d leave the IRA, wildly nodding his head up and down when she asked, “You’d do that for me?”
She turned away from Liam and Geraldine, grabbed her suitcase, and walked out of the ward. The medical staff had arranged for family members to stay in vacant cells so they could be there when the end was near. The strikers were against this. With family members nearby, there was a chance that someone would break and sign the affidavit that would enable doctors to provide life-saving measures if a striker lapsed into a coma before death. Then the strike would be over. And the British would have won. Again.
Alone in her cell, Meaghan sat on the bed. The bars of the bedframe bled through the thin mattress, and she twisted her hips to find comfort. She unpacked her clothes, some toiletries, and placed them on a metal nightstand. She looked around. The walls were bare. A bulb, encased in a small, barred dome, forced a bright light upon her. There was a single window, barely one square meter in size, a thick sheet of plexiglass behind the bars. It was so scratched she could barely see the sky outside. When she stretched out her arms, only a short distance separated her fingertips from the nearest wall. They began to close in on her. She shut her eyes. Shook her head. This must have been awful for Liam. And for what? To get a bunch of concessions from the Brits? Without warning, tears streamed down her face. This had been happening more and more, like she had no control of her body.
She needed to be held. Liam was too weak. Geraldine’s embraces felt like death. Patrick was down the corridor in his cell. Maybe a hug from him would help. He had been supportive when the strike began. Whenever Geraldine cornered Meaghan to “try to talk sense into her,” Patrick appeared. “I won’t let my son die like the others,” he screamed. “We won’t,” he added, wrapping his big arm around Meaghan’s narrow shoulders. She was strong then, ready to stand up to Geraldine. To assert her rights as Liam’s wife. Recently, though, Patrick came to her rescue less when Geraldine tried to turn her. Was he giving up on Liam? On her? Meaghan shifted her weight on the mattress and wrapped her thin, freckled arms around her body. An irresistible urge to see her mother gripped her. But just as quickly, she felt guilt.
Meaghan’s mother had begged her not to marry Liam. But Meaghan followed her heart. After a small ceremony, no fanfare, just the two families, the newlywed couple settled into a Belfast flat. “Temporarily,” Liam said, so he could tie up loose ends. Soon, Meaghan was pregnant. As her belly swelled, she hoped it would push away the bombings and the killings of the Troubles, the fire and death that was all around her. The baby felt like a contract. Liam would leave the IRA. Give up on the revolution. Settle down. The news of her pregnancy turned her father soft. He offered them a plot of land in Sligo, so Liam could have a start in life. Raise sheep. Maybe dairy cows. Chickens even. But most of all, they’d be safe.
But the Troubles worsened. Catholics were burned out of their homes by Protestants who feared the IRA. Pubs were attacked and Catholic churches set afire. The IRA retaliated with ambushes and car bombs. Liam got sucked in. Thirty thousand British troops arrived to ‘keep the peace’ and encircled Catholic neighborhoods in open-air prisons. Checkpoints and watch towers grew all over Belfast like weeds. The British Army arrested hundreds of men and women suspected of IRA activity. No charges. No juries. No justice.
When Liam was arrested, Meaghan prayed that it was all a mistake. His sentence shattered her dreams. At first, she refused to visit him in prison, but the children wanted to see their father. She took them until the protest grew radical. When Liam started his sentence, he refused to wear a prison uniform. It would confirm his status as a common criminal and would recognize the authority of the British government. Instead, he wrapped his naked body in a gray woolen blanket, like hundreds of other IRA prisoners. When prison guards refused to let Liam wear his blanket as he walked barefoot down the long cold corridor to the freezing bathrooms to shower, Liam, like his comrades, refused to wash. The guards retaliated by refusing to empty his chamber pot, so Liam spread his feces on the walls of his cell when the pot filled. His visiting privileges were reduced to thirty minutes every month. Meaghan was relieved. Visits were unbearable. He looked like a caveman with his long and tangled hair. A scraggly beard covered his face. His smell was awful. How could the man she loved live like this? With each monthly visit, he became more and more unrecognizable. Like she was unknowing him.
As Meaghan sat in her cell, under the glare of the naked bulb, she had the urge to pray. She lifted her skirt. The cement floor was hard and cold on her knees. Again, Meaghan thought of Liam, who was forced to sleep on the floor after he destroyed his cell furniture, enraged by how the guards dragged naked men out of their cells and into bathrooms where they were sprayed with liquid disinfectant and hurtled backward into tile walls by the force of firehose water.
She made the sign of the cross and tried to pray. “Lord, I know it’s been a while since I’ve been to church.” He knows that she thought. Doesn’t he? She started again: “It doesn’t seem right of me to ask you . . . after all this time . . . when I could have asked . . .” That didn’t work either. She tried an “Our Father.” That got her lips moving, at least. She knew those words. But when she tried to use her words, to ask for something, she couldn’t.
Meaghan rose from her knees, pushed her arms into a black sweater, and returned to the ward. The head doctor stopped her and led her back outside, his hand gently cupping her elbow. His touch scared her.
“Your husband doesn’t have long,” the doctor said. His voice was sympathetic.
Meaghan nodded. Tears welling up in her eyes. “His breathing,” she said.
“His heart is failing.” He pointed to the nurses’ station across the room. “The affidavit is there.” He paused, “If you want us to intervene.” Another uncomfortable silence. “His life is in your hands.”
She was silent for so long, the doctor stiffened and turned to walk away. Meaghan grabbed his arm. Surprise flashed into his face. “Can he be saved?” She paused, not really wanting to ask the next question. She pulled a tissue from her sweater pocket. Dabbed at her dull blue eyes. Pushed her tangled blonde hair away from her face. Swallowed hard. “And be normal again?” she added.
The doctor shook his head. His voice now professional. “Liam’s organs are badly damaged. Some, like his kidneys and liver might never fully heal. His muscles have atrophied. And the blindness in his right eye. That’s permanent. The other one could get worse, too.”
Meaghan nodded. Tears spilled down her face.
The doctor touched her shoulder. “Look,” he said. “We saved a striker before. Do you remember Declan McKenna?”
Meaghan gasped. Brought her hands to her mouth like she was about to vomit. Backed away.
A year ago, in 1980, there had been another hunger strike. Another attempt, in a list of many, to pressure the British into granting prisoner-of-war status to IRA soldiers. When Declan was near death, and the prisoners thought they had a deal with the British government, they authorized the doctor to save him. But in the end, there was no deal. Just another betrayal.
“What is it?” the doctor asked.
“You haven’t heard?’ Meaghan said.
“Heard what?”
“Declan’s gone mad,” she said. “His family put him away.”
Early the next morning, just as the sun was rising, a nurse woke Meaghan. Liam was in a coma. The doctor was on his way. Meaghan walked toward the ward. Wringing her hands. His parents must have heard. Geraldine ran past her, wrapping a bathrobe around her. Patrick grabbed Meaghan’s arm and dragged her to Liam’s bedside.
Meaghan opened her mouth, and stared at the nurse, but said nothing. Geraldine pushed forward. “What happens now?” she asked.
“We’ll monitor his vitals. If they deteriorate, Mrs. Maguire will have to decide if she wants to sign the affidavit.
“I’m Mrs. Maguire,” Geraldine said.
“I mean Liam’s wife,” the nurse said looking at Meaghan.
Patrick was still holding Meaghan’s arm. He shook it. “Sign the affidavit, now,” he urged. “He’s in a coma. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”
Geraldine said, “You can’t. You know what’ll happen.”
Meaghan turned to the nurse “Is there a chance he’ll wake?” she asked.
“The doctor will be here in less than five minutes.”
Patrick grabbed the clipboard from the nurse’s station and held it out to Meaghan.
“I have to think,” she said backing away. He held clipboard so tightly, she expected it to snap.
Geraldine pulled a chair to Liam’s bedside and sang an old Irish lullaby into his ear.
“What good will that do?” Patrick snarled.
“This song’s always brought him peace,” she said.
Geraldine continued to hum. Meaghan collapsed onto a vacant bed opposite Liam’s. Patrick paced, clutching the clipboard. When the doctor arrived, he asked for a fresh set of vitals and studied Liam’s chart. “His blood pressure and respiration are dangerously low. It’s time.”
Patrick grabbed Meaghan’s hand and pulled her up. Forced the clipboard into her grasp. She pretended to read the words as Patrick hovered, her mind racing.
The two of them stood there in silence, linked by the clipboard. Geraldine was still humming. But then she stopped. Meaghan turned. Followed her mother-in-law’s gaze. A skylark was at the window, pecking at the plexiglass. It began singing.
Meaghan turned to Patrick. He was crying. “Please,” he said. “He’s my only son.”
She looked at Geraldine. At the skylark. Then down at Liam.
The skylark’s singing stopped. Its pecking grew insistent. Meaghan stared into its eyes. They seemed to grow wide. After a few more pecks, it pumped its wings and flew away. Meaghan recalled the skylarks that she had seen the previous morning, on their flight toward the outskirts of Belfast. Where Milltown Cemetery was located. Where IRA soldiers were buried.
Meaghan released the clipboard and Patrick swayed. He took a step to steady himself.
She turned and ran out of the room. Patrick screamed, but she didn’t stop.
© 2025 Don Reilly All rights reserved.
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