A Secret Ambition

XVI

"After a moment, he calmed enough to see how his anger was a separate thing inside him, a dingy, surprise gift from his father." Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

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XVI.

It felt as though Callan had been born in spite of the rich. He had been raised to hate them, to mistrust them, and to look down upon the fact that they looked down on him.

It did not matter that his mother was once one of them.

Callan had never been able to picture his mother as the fancy Miss Siobhan O'Connell. He often thought back to whenever he would see the children or the relatives of the landlord's prancing about in their silks that would have paid a Catholic's rent for a year. But she had been once.

His mother had been one of them. And his father had been nothing more than a potato farmer, working the landlord's field, just as his father had done before him.

Both his mother and his father had told the story of their meeting and courtship quite differently. Siobhan was far gentler and more romantic. Sean McCarthy described the ordeal as having to snatch a maid from the hands of a dragon.

However it happened, Siobhan had defied her father and had eloped with Sean. She had renounced her religion and had converted to Catholicism, and, in doing so, her father had disowned her.

It was not as though Callan was unknown to the man who was, by blood, his grandfather. Seamus O'Connell was Callan's father's landlord. The man was well aware that his daughter had given birth to a son, and that he had a grandson. Callan had grown up knowing this man was his grandfather, and that this man hated him because of his station.

Siobhan's entire family had rejected her because of her marriage, and they looked down upon her son as a by-product of her foolish and careless mistake. Callan did not think that he would ever be able to forget the looks on the faces of people who were supposed to be his aunties and his cousins. But most of all, he could not escape the damning sneers of his grandfather.

"What are you talking about?" Lily probed quietly. "What about your grandfather?"

Callan could not believe that he was behaving as he was in front of Lily. He ought to have been remarkably ashamed, and he would be just as soon as he could pull himself off of the damned floor.

Why hadn't she left? He didn't want her to see him like this. Even if pride was a sin, he had it, and he didn't want her to see him as less than a man.

At the mention of his grandfather, out of the corner of his eye, Callan observed Fionn retreating. He wisely knew that his grandfather was a sore source for Callan to be discussing.

As Callan looked into Lily's eyes, her impossibly blue eyes, he wanted to tell her to leave again. He wanted to tell her that he could not afford to pay himself, let alone her. He wanted to tell her that he could never see her again. He wanted to tell her that she was better off looking for someone more stable to employ her.

But nothing of the sort escaped his lips. His feelings overwhelmed his logic. He yearned for connection in that moment, and he could see in Lily's eyes that she wanted to understand him.

Callan desperately wanted to be understood.

"My grandfather ... he ... on my father's deathbed ... he ..." Callan struggled to string a series of words together that made any sort of sense.

And then Lily took hold of his hand. "Callan, start at the beginning."

She said his name. Was that the first of the second time? Had he imagined the first? He wasn't sure. But Callan enjoyed the way her English tongue wrapped around his name, and he never thought such a notion would enter his mind.