Miss Emily by Nuala O'Connor

our soup, chicken and bread. I feel full up and glad, as if I have achieved something small but good.

Miss Emily Intervenes in a Family Matter

    S INCE A DA ARRIVED, THE HENS HAVE BEEN LAYING AGAIN . Father styled her a sorceress recently, and he may be right. He was alarmed when she carved a grimacing face into a rutabaga and stuck a candle in it. She called it a “turnip lantern” and sat it by the stove. There it sent eerie shadows around the kitchen walls.
    I feel that Ada has bewitched the hens with her Irish charm; she has used her sorcery to cajole them into laying, for since June they have done nothing so crude as produce an egg. I have heard her scold the fowl, calling, “Come out of that, you little slieveens,” to coax them from their boxes.
    This morning I encounter Ada scouring through the deepest grass in the garden, her behind cocked like a bantam’s. A light rain falls, but she dips and lifts, moving from patch to patch. I stand to watch. Before she places each egg into her basket, she raises it to her mouth and puts her tongue against the shell.
    â€œAda, what are you doing?” I call.
    â€œGathering a clutch of eggs, miss,” she says, with that guilelessness that all her kind use, though there is a certain sly element to it.
    â€œYou’re licking them!”
    â€œI’m making sure they’re all right, miss. Mrs. Child says that if you hold the large end of the egg to your tongue and it feels warm, it’s fresh. If it feels cold, it’s bad.” She shrugs.
    â€œOur beloved Mrs. Child.”
    â€œIt’s a very good book, Miss Emily,” Ada says, a chiding tone to her voice.
    â€œWell, I am glad of the abundance of eggs, as I mean to make a coconut cake for Susan, to comfort her in the last of her confinement. Women like to eat sweet things toward the end.”
    â€œThey certainly do, miss. My mammy spooned sugar into her mouth right before each of my sisters was born. She couldn’t even wait to sprinkle it on her bread.”
    I sit on the stone bench, though it is damp. “Ada, join me.”
    â€œYou’ll get your end, Miss Emily, sitting in the rain with no shawl or bonnet.”
    â€œAnd you, Ada, won’t you get your end?”
    â€œNot at all, miss. I’ll go at the house like the hammers of hell shortly, and I’ll be warmed up in no time.” She tilts her face skyward. “I like a soft day, miss. I can’t get along with all that sun. My skin’s not used to it.”
    â€œI, too, love a drizzly day, Ada.”
    â€œI had a letter from my mammy.”
    â€œWas it a good letter? Did she send you news?”
    Ada frowns. “Ah, Mammy is not great at the writing. It was mostly about her hope that our Lord will preserve me and that my workload is not too heavy. I wanted to hear stories of my sisters. Of the neighbors. Of home.”
    â€œHow many sisters do you have, Ada?”
    â€œSeven. I’m the eldest.”
    â€œHow lovely! When I was a girl, I longed for more sisters, dozens of them. I made friends at school, of course, but Fatherfeared for my health and dragged me home so often that I could never settle into my friendships.”
    â€œI was only a couple of years in school myself. Long enough to learn to read and write, I suppose.”
    I spy Austin barreling toward us from the Evergreens. Ada sees him, too, and stands up. My brother stops in front of us, his face pinched.
    â€œHello, Austin,” I say, but he ignores me.
    He looks down on Ada. “You are not in my father’s home that his family may purchase leisure,” he says. “You are here to assist, and for that reason I do not wish to find you idling on my parents’ time.”
    Ada picks up her basket of eggs, and I rise to defend her, but Austin holds up his hand to me, so I do not speak. He turns and marches back toward his own house. My brother’s eruptive nature pains me when it spills