A Not-Even-Catholic Tale
by Sondra Ball
She was ten,
hair red as the morning sunrise.
I did not know her well,
so I felt a little surprised
to find her sitting beside me
in a chair on my lawn,
chatting in her high Irish lilt.
"I don't know why I'm talking to you,:
she said, as she sipped a glass of iced tea.
"You aren't even Catholic, are you?"
"No,"  I said.
"I'm not even Catholic."
Her blue eyes lowered.
There were teardrops in her long lashes.
"It's so hard living in the U.S.
I miss them all so very, very much.
I should feel grateful, I suppose.
But I don't really."
She grew silent.
I waited.
"You don't know what it's like
to be Catholic in Belfast."
Her hand, holding the iced tea glass, trembled.
"No," I said.
"I don't know what it's like."
"You don't know what it's like
to have foreigners all over your land."
"I think I have an inkling of that."
"You don't know what it's like
to have someone you love murdered."
"My brother was murdered."
She looked up in surprise.
He cheeks were wet.
"You're not Catholic,
and your brother was murdered?"
I nodded.
She looked down again.
Her voice grew very soft.
"I was sitting on the fence
when the Protestants came in.
My Mom and my Dad came out on the porch.
The Protestants just shot them dead.
They shot them because they had heard
they were giving money to the IRA.
The professor came over then.
He's Irish, too, you know.
He works every summer
in the Catholic part of Belfast.
He was good friends with my parents.
So he adopted me,
and brought me over here."
She clenched her small hand
to a tight, strong fist.
"I don't want to be here.
When I grow up,
I'm going back to Belfast.
I'm going to find those men
who shot my parents.
I'm going to make their kids watch
while I shoot them dead."
        copyright 1997 sondra ball
        published, SQNL, autumn, 1997
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 þ SLMR 2.1a þ I'm soaring over hills like an eagle in flight.
--- Opus-CBCS 1.7x via O_QWKer 1.7 
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