The Bairn of Brianag

Kevin saw us; he ran down the lawn to us. I was taken into his arms, crushed against him.

"Sister! Dear sister," he said, and he wept into my hair.

Cathy and Rabbit drifted away; Kevin and I, our arms twined about each other's waists, went to sit on a bench under a tree. At last he wiped his face with his handkerchief.

"I was afraid I would never see you again, Jessie," he said.

I clasped my hands together, unable to look at him. My throat swelled painfully inside; I swallowed with difficulty. "You were right, Kevin," I said. "You were right, and I disregarded you. If I had heeded you, our mother would be alive still."

"Nay, lass; do not think it!" he said, taking my hands in his. "Our mother lost her mind. She was unhinged long before you came of age. I am in earnest. Our father told me."

I looked into his eyes finally. "Our father? Told you? What did he tell you?"

Kevin's blue eyes dropped from mine; he looked out across the swamp. His own throat moved. "Our father took our mother knowing she was ruined," he said.

I said, "I don't understand."

"Our mother," he said, "had a bastard child." He hesitated again.

My breath left me. "You, Kevin?"

"No, not I!" he said. "Another child, a-" He stopped.

"Speak, Kevin; I am no longer innocent," I said.

"Our father knew of it when he agreed to marry our mother."

I looked, too, out over the swamp, my heart twisting in my chest, understanding dawning upon me. I asked the question, knowing what the answer would be. "The bastard's father?"

"A slave," said Kevin, and he began to sob brokenly, his head in his hands.

I took him into my arms, stroking his shoulder, patting him. His tears fell onto my gown, and mine fell onto his head, as I gently rocked him.

The thick shell of grief and shame upon my heart for my mother's death crumbled and fell away, like broken pottery upon a stone floor. Now I knew why my mother had always been suspicious of me, why she had so ridiculed and mistreated me. It was not because I was a whore who would lie with slaves. It was because she had been.