As he came into his mother’s bedroom, Myles could hear the borders, back in their high-pitched barking, some joining Ben in his deep-chested growl. Why were they growling at Da? Could it be that they remembered he’d hurt Rover? Were dogs capable of revenge as a pack?

That’s when all hell broke loose. As Myles shuffled toward the damp outside bedroom, he heard his da crashing through the front gate. He could hear the distinctive voice over the din of the borders, shouting in a hoarse, drunken diatribe. Myles fought back his fear, thought he might be having a nightmare, an illusion soon erased by the menacing voice descending on the house. Abruptly, the dogs went silent, a silence that was almost deafening in contrast to the howling chorus of a moment ago.

He carefully rehearsed each step until he had it down by heart. First have her handle the gun to get her fingerprints on it—all the detective comics made this point. Then teach her to aim it. Next, take the gun away in mock anger at her awkwardness, start to walk away, turn around, aim and fire at point blank range. Easy. Like shooting a jackdaw on a fencepost.

For several weeks, as the days grew shorter, Myles began to panic, badgering Mrs. Wilcox about her promise to go hunting. She kept putting him off; it never seemed to be quite the right time. Maybe she was on to him, evil mind reading evil mind. He seldom slept for more than a couple of hours, and when he did, his dreams turned to nightmares of blood and gore from which he’d awake screaming. Even daylight brought little relief, his mind still a chamber of horrors: Father Cavanagh’s voice condemning him to hell; Mrs. Wilcox’s mangled ghost at the window; Myles hanging from a scaffold at Mountjoy Gaol, body twisting in the wind.

“Paddy came to live at Windgate about five years ago,” Fanny began, sipping her tea with relish. “I’d been running the boarding ‘ouse ever since me ‘usband died in WWII, rest ‘is soul. ‘E was a career military man, you see, Captain Wilcox. A good man; a good provider. Paddy and I grew very fond of each other, and we got engaged a year ago. Told me all about ‘is life—about Rathdargan farm, about ‘aving a sister wi’ six children—five daughters and a boy—who’d lost her ‘usband in war, just like me. Told me how ‘e was helping ‘er out, letting ‘er stay ‘ere, though ‘e was legal owner of the farm. But ‘e was allowing his sister—ye—to live ‘ere out of kindness—not cuz ‘e had to, mind you. And ‘e always did say how ‘e intended to come back to Ireland to run the farm when the time was right.

Being ‘is fiancé, I trusted ‘im with my life’s savings, five hundred pounds, which ‘e said ‘e needed to fix up Kildargan, till ‘e could send for me. I was planning on selling Windgate House as a going concern—I’m tired of all the ‘eadaches that go with running a boarding ‘ouse. Ye ‘ave no idea wot it takes...”

Suddenly, the mysteries of deference to his mother made sense.

After each incident, Myles had assumed that his mother, a naturally dominant personality, intimidated her targets with sheer force of will. Now, he understood their pitiful pleading, their sudden show of compassion, their ready admission of guilt. They all had one thing in common: terror. They weren’t facing his mother; they were facing Kitty Cusack, legendary commander in the Cumann na mBan, a secret enforcer for the IRA.

The spring and summer flew by in a blur of manly activity. Myles spent hours with his da, just the two of them, working on blocked drains, collapsed fences, and overgrown hedges. Sometimes they just wandered around the farm, like two pals, taking stock of the dilapidation, while Jack displayed the same comedic skills as their aging neighbor, Andy Murphy—mimicry, jokes, foibles, legends—all in a day’s work.

Jack seemed to have lots of money, spent it freely, and was in no hurry to find work outside the farm or new ways to provide for the family. No one questioned the source of his largesse. Irishmen often came home from England feeling flush and spending lavishly, even if they couldn’t afford it. After all, Jack had been gone for over a decade and might have changed his ways. Rumor had it that he’d won the lottery in Birmingham. Another had it that he had a recording contract with Decca Records and had been given a big advance. Sure, wasn’t he… “A finer tenor than John McCormick”?

At last, Kitty emerged, under the guise of picking scallions and lettuce for supper. To his surprised relief, she assured Myles that she was not upset, that she understood it would take time for him to get used “to having a man around the house.”

It was the last thing he needed to hear. His anger returned, surprising both of them: “I’m never gonna get used to it. I was the man of the house an’ we were doin’ fine without ‘im. An’ I’m not goin’ to call ‘im Da either, so there’s no use trying ta make me.”

Jack Hogan came home to Rathdargan on May Day, 1958. It was a perfect spring day, rare in the moody western Atlantic. It dawned sunny and cloudless, and, for once, never broke. May, Ireland’s greenest month, had once again delivered its bounty.

The upper fields, next to Carrigoona Commons, were ablaze with daisies, their tiny white-and-yellow flowers forming the magic carpet dreamed of all winter. Daffodils, lilies, and forget-me-nots danced in the gentle breeze, blending their fragrance with the massive lilac hedge that formed a purple canopy over the handcrafted iron gateway to the farmhouse.

The long, ominous silence that followed was finally broken by Billy Hannigan’s blustery voice.

“Look here, Mrs. Hogan, like I said, we came over here ‘cuz Da respects you –we do too, don’t get me wrong—but what do ya want from us? Molly is no saint; she’s a bit of a tayser—if you ask me. So, I don’t know what ya want from us. What’s done is done. It won’t happen again, I can assure ya o’ that. Is that the sort o’ t’ing ya want us to say?”

This was the moment he’d dreaded for two years, ever since he’d quit Enniskerry National School in the middle of the fifth grade, to help his mother on the farm.

Myles was the only one in the family who seemed to accept the fact that his father was never coming home. He’d heard the story so many times, with so many variations and subplots, that he felt it was just another fairytale. Kitty had tried to make excuses for Jack and present him as a heroic figure, but Myles never bought the fiction, sensing an unspoken truth: the real hero was the woman who stuck with him and his older sisters instead of farming them out to relatives, or worse: Killane orphanage , the workhouse in Gorey.