The Visitors by Patrick O'Keeffe

calling my name. Hannah was also crying and Stephen was crying because Hannah was. Kevin stood on the edge of the riverbank, his arms flat against his side, his head down. I said nothing when I ran around him, down the riverbank, through the soft mud, and into the water, where I grabbed my sister’s hands and pulled her to her feet. She would not have drowned. The water was shallow. But you never know. And Tess was otherwise in bits. Stephen and Hannah were by then beside us. Hannah held her sister’s right hand while Stephen and I walked Tess out of the river and sat her on the bank. She was crying and gripping the ripped blouse at the neck. The buttons had vanished. I looked up to see Kevin Lyons running at the edge of the meadow. He clutched his boots and socks to his chest. He’d made powerful tracks.
    The two men in the kitchen were on their third or fourth bottle of porter. My mother was cleaning up and circling the men like a hawk. Asking what else they needed. They ignored her unless another bottle was called for. Their pale ashes and the burned-out butts of Sweet Aftons scattered across the range top, where a blackened kettle andteapot sat. And then us huddled in the middle of that kitchen. Like we had stepped unwillingly onto a stage. Tess’s red hair matted against her cheeks. Broken rushes sticking out of her hair like knitting needles. Like swords stuck in stones. The muddy and wrinkled pink skirt. Tess was still crying and gripping the blouse to her neck. Hannah was still crying. She stood in front. Stephen was on one side of Tess. I was on her other. And the first thing my mother said when she saw us was for us not to drip all over the tiles that she had spent the last hour mopping. And the second thing she said was did she not warn us a million times to be careful when we ventured to the river.
    Hannah blurted it out.
    —Kevin Lyons shoved Tess into the river and ran away! And because of that all my brickeens escaped!
    —What has come over that young fellow at all, Michael turned to my father and said.
    —The same thing that’s come over these wretches before us, my father looked at his friend and said.
    My mother smoothed the front of her apron then stepped between the men and us. She pushed the hair from her face and placed her hands on her hips. Her eyes were on Tess.
    —Go down to your room immediately and put on something decent! Fix your hair, and did I not warn you a million times to not plaster that muck on your eyes, how many times! How many! How many!
    —I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Tess cried.
    —You’re not sorry! Not one bit! If you did like you were told devilment like this wouldn’t happen.
    Then my father stood. His wife stepped aside.
    —Clear out of this kitchen! Or I’ll get the stick to yez! And pull that door after yez!
    Tess and I were down in the girls’ room. Tess was sitting on the edge of her and Hannah’s bed. Tess’s legs were crossed. Left over right. The left one was shaking. The girls’ door was open and so was the toilet door. Hannah was sitting on the toilet bowl and crying. Her criesechoed up and down the blue corridor. She cried that Tess brought this on herself. Did she not say many times that something like this was bound to happen! And next Hannah cried that we’d never see brickeens like those again! Why, oh why did Tess always have to ruin everything for everyone! Stephen was in the boys’ room. Stephen was most likely whispering to dying brickeens on the windowsill. He was bored with this drama. Tess was staring at the floor. I reached out and held her shoulders and begged her to look up. She had stopped crying but her hand still gripped the ripped blouse. And that left leg still shaking. Her wet scraggly hair fully hiding her face. Like the river before we ripped the lilies from it. Rushes wilting in Tess’s hair and rushes scattered at my feet and muddy water dripping from her hair and dress onto that bedroom floor.
    —I saw you, Tess, I said. —I