The news reel fades in and out but Rose has heard every word. Catholic civilians. Dead. Co-ordinated attacks. Then, in retaliation, Protestant Civilians. Dead. Northern Ireland.

She is sitting on the cool front porch of her childhood home in Echo Park. Her mother is inside getting more lemon iced tea. Flitting around the green checkered kitchen clinking ice and calling to Rose over her shoulder.  The kitchen whose orange and green colors and patterns always reminded Rose so desperately of home. Rose’s chest rises and falls and the sunlight glints through the leaves of the large Sycamore swaying in the late afternoon. 

The violence of it tears at her. Sitting here in the calm. Her grandfather is Irish as was her father. It is not close to home but she knows it. She’d heard the story. Of how her grandfather Joe (her mother’s father) and his friend Bobby, her grandfather on her father’s side, had come to New York traversing the high seas. And how Bobby had been ensnared by the beautiful redhead Lizzie. They’d sired Jack and christened him with stout.

Her father Jack whom she’d never met. Who had died just before she was born in some far away lonely place she can only pronounce every third time she tries.

Her fingers tingle a little. They often do. She never feels quite natural unless she’s holding her guitar. Ever since her encounter in Monterey. She is rarely without it. She never told her mother about that day. Nine years have passed. But the day has ever been etched in her memory. It was the first time she had the blackout.

She rubs her hands which have suddenly become sweaty along her faded blue jeans. The bottoms billowing out. Her thin peasant blouse has colorful embroidery and she her hair is plaited long and unruly. Parted in the middle. She has removed her red sandals and is digging her toes into the cool grass at the foot of their front patio. The sun is fading orange over the trees.

Her mother bustles out of the door letting the cracked screen slam shut. Rose jumps and seems to come back to herself. Her mother’s white linen skirt billows out as she sits down next to Rose.

“So love, what news?”

Rose takes a long swallow of her tea and crunches the ice with her teeth, stalling. She faces her mother brightly. She says nothing again about that day so long ago but decides to go another direction. “Mom I’m getting married.”

Next Chapter: Lucy, February 1930, New York