Maeve sat on top of the jagged rocks as she watched the gray clouds roll in over her head. The ocean sprayed her face, but she was careful not to let her dress touch the waves that crashed underfoot. She felt a pang of hunger as she marveled at the steep grey cliffs and the grey expanse of ocean and sky. No matter how gray the rest of the world seemed, the grass was always beautifully vibrant. The cliffs were the biggest things she had ever seen. She couldn’t fathom anything else to be that big. When she was a child, she would sit in that same position on the rocks and marvel at thoughts of a cow or perhaps a sheep of that size, but she never could get a good enough picture in her head.

“Maeve!” sang a sweet voice from above. “Dinner is ready, Maeve!”

Maeve’s sister, Claire, was nine years old. She was a curious little girl, but well-behaved. Maeve’s other sister, Charlotte, was thirteen. Two years younger than Maeve, the two were inseparable as children. Neighbors of theirs often confused the girls for each other, and the two delighted in the mischief that ensued. Maeve thought about those days as she climbed up the rocks to get back home. Charlotte could not get out of bed long enough to walk from her bedroom to the front door, now. Maeve prayed nightly for her sister to get well, but it did not seem to work. In fact, if the number of prayers prayed were indicative of her condition, they were making her fall even more ill.

“Maeve!”

“I’m coming, Claire!” Maeve replied.

    The wind whipped the sides of the house as Maeve washed the dinner dishes. She dried them and went to stack them in the cabinet. When she opened it, she noticed one was sitting in there already. “Did Charlotte eat her dinner?” Maeve asked her mother.

    “No, dear. Her appetite has been good for only one meal a day for weeks now,” her mother replied. She stared out the window past the barn as Charlotte coughed in the other room.

    “That’s all we can afford her to be hungry for,” Maeve’s father chimed in. He sat at the kitchen table with a small toolkit, attempting to repair his wife’s old reading glasses..

    “Patrick, don’t say-”

    “I’m making light of a dark situation, dear.” This was something Maeve’s father said often. No matter how difficult things were, his sense of humor remained constant. “Besides, I’m sure Charlotte’ll get her appetite back in no time at all.” He had been saying that ever since she fell ill. Patrick looked back down at the reading glasses and continued to poke and prod.
    “You’re always fixing those,” Claire chimed, entering through the back door of the cottage. “What makes you think they’re any good anymore? Can’t we just go to town and get some new ones? Oh, please let us go into town. We haven’t been since-”

    “Nevermind that. Did you do what I asked?”

    “Yes, I counted them all up and found three good ones and twenty bad ones.”

    Patrick’s small screwdriver hit the table and his wife became tense. “Only three? Surely that isn’t right. Maeve, take the lantern and your sister and check the field again.”

In the light of the lantern, Maeve dusted dirt off her dress. She and her sister had counted three healthy potatoes and twenty bad ones.

“You were right,” Maeve told her youngest sister.

“I miss Charlotte so much,” Claire said abruptly. “I know she’s just right in the house and I can go and see her anytime I like, but I miss when she and I would race each other to the barn or read stories together or make up songs. Or…” her voice broke and trailed off. Maeve dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand. She tried to think of something to say to console her sister, but she could not.

“I miss her too.” After a few seconds, a sob broke the silence and Maeve could not tell if it was her sister’s or her own.

For months, it seemed as though the same day was played over and over. Meals were small, the potato crop lessened, and Charlotte was not heard from until she coughed, which was the extent of it. The girls’ mother had run out of tea months ago, so she gave Charlotte hot water from the kettle throughout the day to try to ease her pain. Her husband would sit at the edge of Charlotte’s bed to tell her jokes and silly made up stories, but he would only get a weak chuckle at best. Her fever raged on, and her sisters’ concern grew.

Early one afternoon, Claire was walking down the gravel path from her tutor Mrs. Doyle’s house. Mrs. Doyle had been teaching the children in the area three days a week since the school had closed. As she neared the house, she noticed two black cars in the driveway. Expecting visitors, she flung open the front door, delighted to see her aunt at the kitchen table. 

“Aunt Dierdre, Aunt Dierdre!”

“Hello my girl,” Deirdre said quietly, wrapping her in a tight hug.

“Dierdre, take her out of here,” Patrick called shakily from Charlotte’s room. Claire heard the mumbling of another man’s voice and quick gasps from what sounded like her mother.

“Come, let’s see if we can’t find Maeve outside somewhere.”

“Who’s in there?”

“Nevermind that, dear. Your father asked if we would go outside.”
    As Claire took her aunt’s hand to head outside, she looked up at her and noticed she had been crying. Claire craned her neck to see into Charlotte’s room and froze. Charlotte’s body was still, and Claire realized in that moment that she hadn’t heard Charlotte cough once since she’d been home from Mrs. Doyle’s.

“Come now, let’s go.” Deirdre picked Claire up and brought her to the back yard. 

Two days later, down at the rocks by the ocean, Maeve let the ocean water spray her face as she stared at the landscape in front of her. Through her tears, she could only make out the grey and the green.

“Maeve! It’s time to go!”
    She picked up the heavy bottom of her dress and rang it out. She had forgotten to mind it near the water. She was so empty, so hungry and so grief-stricken that she was barely able to climb back up toward the house.

As the family set off down the road toward the church, Claire clung to her mother’s skirt and Maeve to her father’s arm. The four of them were silent. “Daddy?” Claire started suddenly, “Can you tell us a story? ‘Making light of a dark situation’?” She quoted back to him.

“Not now, dear. Today is much too dark.”