Page 23 of Releasing 10
“Whoa,” Caoimhe gasped, and then started to read the shiny plaque attached to the ginormous stone pillar. “Old Hall House, Robin Hill Road, Upper Northwest, Ballylaggin.”
“Robin Hill Road,” I snickered, watching as the gates creaked open. “That’s funny.”
Dad drove through the opening, and I could hear gravel crackling beneath the tires. He drove up a winding lane, with trees on either side, until we reached the house.
“We’re here,” Mam announced with another happy sigh when Dad parked the car. “Welcome home, girls.”
I opened the car door, but Caoimhe climbed over my lap and got outside first. “Whoa,” she breathed, twirling around in a circle. “This is ours, Dad?”
“No,” Dad said quietly, rounding the passenger side to open Mam’s door. “It’s your mother’s.”
“Well, it sure beats the hell out of the farm,” Caoimhe laughed, still twirling. “Lizzie, come and look.”
Scrambling out of the car, I raced over to my sister, kicking gravel as I rushed to get to Caoimhe, who was climbing over a wooden fence.
“We have a courtyard and a meadow,” she called back excitedly. “And barns and stables.” She climbed over another gate and screamed out. “Omigod, we have an orchard!”
“Is it a palace?” I asked, still trying to climb over the first gate.
“No, it’s an estate,” Caoimhe called back. “And it’s all ours!”
“Girls!” Dad barked. He was standing in front of the big house with his arm around our mother. “Get over here now!”
Jumping down from the wooden gate, I rushed back to my parents, too happy to care that Daddy was cross again.
“This is it, girls,” Mammy said with a bright smile when she turned the key in the giant door and Daddy pushed it open for her. “Our family home.”
“Holy crap,” Caoimhe said, pushing past me to get inside the big house before I could. “We’re rich!”
Hurrying inside, I skidded across the tiled entrance hall, running through room after room in search of my sister. There were so many rooms. Too many to count. In our old house, we had one staircase that went up to our bedrooms, but in thishouse, there was a staircase going up and another one going down, and then another one going up even farther.
I didn’t know what to make of it.
Lost in a maze of rooms and hallways, I finally found my parents in the kitchen. It was the biggest one I’d ever seen in my life. When I spotted them sitting at the kitchen table, I moved to go to them, only to stop when I realized that Caoimhe was there, too, and she was talking about me.
Hiding behind the door I had come through, I listened carefully. Their voices were hushed, but I could still hear them.
“She’ll be in junior infants, and you’ll be in sixth class,” Mam was saying. “You won’t be anywhere near each other.”
“I have sacrificed everything for my family, but I draw the line on this,” Caoimhe replied. “I’ve done everything you guys have asked of me. You packed us up and moved us down here, and I didn’t put up a fight. But this is where it stops.”
“Caoimhe,please.”
“I love my sister, I do,” Caoimhe argued. “And I understand why we’ve had to do what we’ve done, but you guys need to put me first this time. I don’t have a chance of fitting in if you send her to Sacred Heart with me.”
“I agree,” Dad chimed in.
“Michael!”
“Caoimhe’s right,” he said in a hushed voice. “This is the least we can do for her given what we’ve put her through.”
“And what about Lizzie? Hm?” Mam argued, sounding upset. “When school starts back up, we just don’t send her?”
“Exactly.”
“But I’ve already enrolled her at Sacred Heart.”
“Then I will unenroll her,” Dad replied. “It’s for the best, Catherine. You know it is.”
