Once they’d settled in America, her dad called to discuss automatically depositing a bimonthly allowance directly into her bank account. Mags shut that down immediately, assuring him that she lived rent-free and ate most of her meals at school for cheap or at the O’Faolains. Mostly lies, but hey, Mags was embracing their new gray.
She’d work six jobs before she made her parents stress over their youngest child’s finances when Mags was quite capable of making her own way.
“Watch yourself, brat,” a grizzled old man barked at Mags as they nearly collided outside an ancient-looking tobacco shop.
“I’ll show you, brat, ye smoked trout,” Mags growled back under her breath, using one of Granny MacGregor’s favorite slurs. She missed that woman, even though she hadn’t been biologically Mags’ grandma, she had been in every way that counted until the day she’d passed.
Mags’ life had become nothing short of a dog performing a series of competitive, timed jumps and twirls, chaotic but choreographed to within an inch of its life.
Her days began at four in the morning at an elderly care facility, where she helped prepare the patients’ breakfast, serve, clean what seemed like hundreds of pots and tableware, and finish with lunch prep.
From the care facility, she had to rush across town to one of Dublin’s most popular chippers, where she immediately started cleaning and slicing hundreds of potatoes and filleting a quadruple number of cod. She’d convinced the owner that she was a brilliant filleter—seriously, how different was a knife than scissors and needles?
From ten thirty to two in the afternoon, she and two other grunts fried their little hearts out for a queue of customers. Too bad the stingy manager didn’t allow employees a free meal once in a while. Her body wasn’t meant to survive on ramen alone.
However, after the chippers, afternoons were all hers. That time became all about artistic pursuits—clothing design and embroidery—simple, classic pieces where she created art with stranded cotton. Some of the embroidery designs were bold and in your face, while others were hidden, just waiting to be discovered, peeking from a lapel, cuff, or collar.
Mags’ final part-time gig was bartending Friday and Saturday evenings. She would have loved to ask Ciar Murphy or his father for a job at one of their pubs, but it would have raised too many questions, and since she was not only hiding her mother’s cancer but her own dive into poverty, she couldn’t risk it.
However, just a month ago, her dire situation improved, and her due diligence had paid off. The wife of Ireland’s Prime Minister actually wore the embroidered vest she’d spent innumerable hours designing and hand stitching. She wore it to a charity event where she’d been asked who the designer was.
Wait for it—her name, Margaret Colleen Morrow, had been broadcast as the designer who dressed the Prime Minister’s wife. It had been broadcast on television and written in the papers.
Mirren, her older sister had literally tackled Mags not four hours later, having flown from Edinburgh to Dublin immediately, and demanded that she take the opportunity and run.
Like, literally, run.
Mirren secured an attic above a gallery within hours and hired a cleaning crew to make the space presentable before contacting some of her acquaintances at the Daily Mail to run an article about the “highly sought after new designer” along with Mags’ new website that their Uncle Coll had designed in less than ten minutes.
The art gallery whose attic her new sewing business had taken over was owned by her sister Mirren’s employers. Kainand Lillias Smith owned a ton of shit, and thank the Lord, they loved her sister, which meant the rent was affordable—affordable with three jobs and an agreement to do light dusting in the gallery and clean the restroom at the back. Bonus, there was a stairwell to the attic inside the back entrance, and she could use the toilet without bothering anyone.
There was no central heat and air, but thankfully she hadn’t had to deal with frigid winter temperatures yet…wait a few more months. She definitely needed to save for a space heater.
Her mom and dad had screamed at the news. Her father said later that her mother hadn’t looked so happy in weeks.
What her parents and big sister didn’t know was that Mags was actually living in the attic, which had no running water, heat, or air.
Because if she had mentioned that, she would have had to discuss all sorts of regrettable things, like dropping out of university. She’d blown off her financial aid deadline because she’d been too busy crying over her mother’s cancer. The result—she couldn’t afford Trinity.
The snowball effect hadn’t stopped there. The late, great Hugh O’Faolain had purchased the townhouse she’d resided in for his daughter and her best friends, of which she was one, to use while they were in school.
Except Mags wasn’t able to be in school anymore, at present anyway, and needed to move out. Bébhinn and her family would have never asked her to move out—they would have been pissed had she even suggested it—but Mags wasn’t and had never been a charity case. She would never abuse their kindness.
Blair had gotten back from her extended internship in Wales the week before, and Mags made sure to tell her before she walked into the townhouse they’d previously shared and saw her room empty.
Blair had been bummed that they wouldn’t see each other as often, but she understood and was excited about Mags’ new flat—if only she knew—and her new business, which all of her friends were supporting, sharing her information.
She put off Blair wanting to come see her place, claiming that she hadn’t even found a second to tell Bébhinn or Gray, but she would next time she saw them, and then maybe they could all do a tour together.
Mags prayed that she could put that off until she had maybe started bringing in enough income to perhaps afford a flat that her friends wouldn’t freak out over.
The PM's wife had, unbeknownst to her, thrown a lifeline to Mags, and she’d grabbed it with both hands. She still had a long road with a lot of obstacles ahead, but almost all of her struggles could and would be fixed with money.
So, her afternoons were spent meeting clients in their own homes—her new abode wasn’t an option, thank you very much—and sewing and embroidering until the wee hours thereafter. A few more weeks, and Mags would start to make a return on the long days.
Weekend days were spent on designing and sewing, while weekend nights were spent bartending at a cool jazz club. The tips were great and kept her head above the teeming water of financial ruin. Ninety percent of her earnings went toward rent, fabric, and stranded cotton. When her stomach complained, she chewed gum and wielded her embroidery needle with added fervor.
“Thank Christ,” Mags whispered under her breath as she pushed through the chipper shop and realized her luck was turning. The obnoxious manager was late. Sending a pleading look toward Eze, a giant Nigerian math genius and her newest best friend, to keep his comments about her chaotic life tohimself, she slipped her apron on over her care center scrubs and grabbed a potato.
