Mary Rose knew the sight of black dress meant only one thing – trouble. Her scrawny widowed sister-in-law, Mary Ellen, who came only to complain and to point out the flaws in Mary Rose and her family. What Tommy had ever seen in her, Mary Rose always wondered. Never a quiet moment for Tom. Drove him to his grave a good 10 year early, she did with her nagging and demanding. No wonder all her “wonderful” sons and daughters emigrated to America quick as they could. Now Mary Rose was stuck with her.

Her beloved Patrick died in the Uprising, and despite other suitors, she could never see herself clear to marry. She aged, she did. The pretty colleen grew into the woman. Who grew the goiter on her neck. Then the neighbour, Mr. Delany, late to marry heself, lost his wife to the fever. And was left with 6 little ones, the oldest only 10. So, at the old age of 40, Mary Rose found herself a married woman and a stepmother, than praise be to Jesus, a mother of her own right. Two of her own with Mr. Delany, now Liam.

But her sister-in-law saw it all as just not right, a woman Mary Rose’s age a bride, then pregnant, even if Mary Ellen was 39 when her last was born. But nothing was right with Mary Ellen, and nothing was right in her head. Mary Rose figured her goiter was much larger than Mary Ellen’s brain, and certainly her heart.

A stream of consciousness free write on Yves’ picture for Picture Challenge 137 1.11.16 (I didn’t attempt an Irish brogue or lilt)

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(c) my frilly Freudian slip

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