Bright Lights & Dark Shadows
by
Mark McGuire
CHAPTER 1: ARRIVAL IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
At dawn on March 21, 1852, the HMS Victory docked in Boston harbor at Fort Hill. Famine survivors, Jane Corcoran and her family scurried from the lower decks to the main deck, wanting to see what lay before them.
The dock exploded with sensation. Cobblestones rattled under iron-shod hooves as horse-drawn carriages barreled past, wheels shrieking. Voices—dozens of them, none familiar—barked, shouted, sang out in strange tongues. Hawkers thrust unknown wares into the air, their cries stabbing the air like bayonets.
Each sound battered Jane’s senses. Ireland had been deathly quiet—silence broken only by the rasp of empty stomachs and the shuffle of the dying. Boston was an assault. Too fast. Too loud. Too much.
The smell hit next. Smoke and grease and something foreign—spices, maybe, or rotting meat. The air was heavy with unfamiliar food, pungent and strange. Her stomach twisted. Hunger had gnawed at her for months, but this wasn’t relief. This was confusion, nausea, danger.
She turned and froze.
The red-brick buildings of Fort Hill loomed before her, towering three stories high, rigid and unwelcoming. Their flat facades, their uniform windows and doors, were monstrous in their order. There was no softness, no warmth. No trace of the Roscommon she had dreamed of rebuilding. These were not homes. They were walls.
America wasn’t freedom. It was a machine—cold, immense, devouring. She imagined steel gears grinding down the weak, stamping out anything soft or Irish. This wasn’t the land of hope her father had spoken of. This was a beast.
Smoke spewed from the mouths of nearby factories, black and choking. It clawed at her throat, burned her eyes. She staggered, coughing, unable to look away from the chimneys that reached like arms into the sky, dragging the city’s filth upward.
Terror closed around her like a fist. There was no going back. No going forward. She was swallowed whole. And no one — not even God — seemed to be looking.
So many people are hurrying to God knows where. Little free space or time to breathe in fresh air.
Suddenly, she felt an unseen hand gripping her stomach, twisting it, crying out for Jane to go home.
She felt like a mouse in a room full of cats. She reached into her shawl pocket and began fidgeting with her rosary. Is this where my family must live? I want to go home. Her heart ached as memories of loved ones and distant landscapes tugged at her, reminding her of what she had left behind.
Her inner self, her trusted companion, Father Lary answered. Part of God’s plan. Trust in the Lord. Obey his teachings in America. Submit to His guidance for women. You know you can’t go back to Ireland, Jane. Know what awaits you there: hunger, disease and deceased loved ones. You’re free here. Free to follow the teachings of God or free to succumb to temptation. No Jane. America is your home now.
Jane turned east towards her Irish homeland. A whirr of memories, some good, many tragic, plagued her. The birthdays, confirmations, the deaths, the violence. For several minutes, the past froze Jane like Lot’s wife, until... Jane’s mother whispered to her dead baby, Deirdre.
“We’re here, Deirdre. Everything’s OK, you’ll see.”
Jane knew she was the matriarch of the family. Her mother was gone to the fantasy world of Irish legend, where milk and plentiful food reigned supreme. With a heavy sigh and a tender kiss, Jane bid farewell to her deceased lover, Bryan. She mourned the absence of her sisterhood of friends from Ireland—Ladies Siobhan and Caitlin—and the companions she had left behind in the workhouse: Mary, Faye, Winny, Rhonda, and Daphne. Each farewell deepened the sadness in her heart, a constant echo of all she had left and lost.
Her life was now firmly rooted in America, and she knew she had to let go of the past. What challenges lay ahead, she couldn’t yet know. It felt as though she was about to step into a dark tunnel, unsure when or where the darkness would lift, or what kind of light might await her at the end. In America, bright lights and deep shadows held sway.
Am I up to the challenge? Will I fit in? Can I succeed in America? Can I keep my family safe? I must succeed!
Her wide-eyed sister Eleanor clutched Jane’s arm. “Ooooh! This is soooo different!” Jane exhaled a deep breath and then shared her sister’s apprehension. “Aye, Eleanor, it is very different, but it is our new home.”
Jane’s younger brothers, James and John, expressed their optimism. “Aye. Much better than where we came from."
That calmed Jane’s concerns for a moment until…