Chloe Jones
Connie's P.O.V-
Is this how we would live?
Fear coursed through my veins and my heart pounded loudly in my chest.
Looking up at my mother, it was plain to see that she looked as afraid as I felt.
"Bloody heck, how are we supposed to get used to this place?" she whispered as she clenched my hand with hers.
Unfortunately, I was currently asking myself the same question, but instead of saying "I don't know," (which is my most hated response in the world), I said, "Don't worry, Ma, I'm sure it won't be that hard."
Suddenly, as of on cue, in came my father. "Did I just hear the use of foul language in this household?!" he boomed.
"What? No, I said heck, honey. Heck." Ma said softly.
I hated this. Pa acted like he ran the house, like everything was in his control, and that everything had to be done HIS way. He was also a very heavy drinker, which made him even worse. And for that, he scared us. 'Us' meaning Ma, sister, and sister's husband. If it were up to me, I'd fight him or cuss him out just to defy his rule right now, but Ma had already begged me not to hundreds of times before.
And because of him, getting used to America WOULD be hard, indeed.
The reason we moved here from Ireland is because we thought that he would act better in different surroundings, and if not, at least authorities could do something about him.
Right now, I still hoped for the best, but we had already been here two weeks and nothing had changed.
"Where's Sorcha and that pesky husband of hers?!" Pa demanded, showing absolutely no courtesy in his voice at all, like usual.
"Upstairs, watching Ivy." I grumbled.
Ivy was my 3-month-old daughter. Right away, I knew that was the wrong thing to say, because Pa absolutely despised her. He said I was too young to have any kind of child. I wasn't too young, I was 26 years old, but whenever I tried to tell Pa that, he'd get angry. So I stopped. My husband died shortly after I became pregnant, so my darling baiben never got the chance to meet him. Baiben means baby. It's one of the words I still use, and my mother adores. Naturally, that meant Pa hated it.
"Fine," he muttered, tearing me from my thoughts. "I didn't want to see the little brat anyway." And with that, he stormed out of the room.
***
It was about a month later when we heard them. The moaning and groaning was a bit out of place in our quiet town in New Orleans, but Pa insisted that it was just a sick family, looking for a place to stay.
"In that case, let's let them in!" I suggested. "We have room."
But that just made him angry. "There is no way we are having complete strangers in our household!" he shouted.
"Fine," I retorted. "But you won't be saying that when you can't sleep tonight because they're still out there!"
But when the howls and cries didn't cease the next afternoon, Pa ripped the curtains off the windows to see what was going on.
Because Sorcha and her husband, Bruce, were visiting, and we were all already in the den, we all peered outside with Pa. The sight made us scream.
Hundreds and hundreds of ag siúl marbh (or 'walking dead') right outside our house! How they got there, we don't know. How long they'd stay, we didn't know either. All we knew was that we were eternally grateful for the boxes and boxes of food, drink, and other supplies that were still stored in the moving boxes in our garage.
