They were leaving today. Leaving for Canada. They were better off than most people since the potato famine first began two years ago. They were lucky enough to have had good enough jobs and a considerable amount of savings to keep them going until now, but Molly and her husband Patrick had lost their jobs a year ago because nobody had the money to spare for a carpenter and people stopped sending their kids to school. The savings had run out and they had no other option than to take the risk and hope and pray to God for a better life in Canada.

Molly sat on a small, wooden, stool in her bedroom. She was currently running her fingers through her long, dark brown, hair to get some of the knots out before leaving for the ship. Once she was finished, she walked across the small room to her child cuddled up in the old, fraying, blue blanket and stared at her son lovingly. Molly reached over and gently shook his small shoulder to wake him up.

“Fergus, wake up. It's time leave,” she said. He opened his eyes and started rubbing them. He looked up at her, squinting through the bright morning sunlight that was shining through the window behind her and smiled.

“Yay, Canada!” he exclaimed as he fought to get his legs untangled from his blanket. Molly sighed and wondered what he would do when he found out that this wasn't going to be as fun as he thought.

“Are you ready?” somebody said from her left. She’d know that voice anywhere and turned to see her husband Patrick with his short, blond hair tucked beneath an old black hat and holding the two small bags they had packed with everything they were taking with them. She paused for a second, then nodded and smiled faintly.





* * *

Molly walked up onto the boat with Fergus on her hip and Patrick carrying the bags behind her. She paused and turned to take one last look at the busy Dublin streets, in the distance she could hear children laughing and playing. They were herded below decks to find a big, dark, open space that was filling up quickly with smelly, dirty bodies.

“Over there!” she shouted to Patrick over the noise and headed for the only empty corner across the room. They sat down beside a lady who was wearing an old, dirty, green dress that looked like it had seen better days. She had two little girls who were crawling all over her and pulling on her long, red hair. Molly looked over and smiled at the lady.

“Looks like you could use some help with those two,” Molly said with a laugh.

“I don't know how I'm going to last two months with them on such a small boat,” the lady said with a smile that didn't quite reach her dark, green eyes.

“My name is Molly,” she said reaching over to shake the woman’s pale hand. “I'm here with my husband Patrick and my son Fergus,”

“I’m Margret, but you can call me Marg and these are my girls Vera and Mary.”

“How old are they? Fergus is only two. I'm worried that this journey might be a bit hard on him.”

“Vera is five and Mary is three. I’m worried too. I've heard of people talking about something called Typhus that is spreading around the ships and getting people sick!” Marg exclaimed.

“Oh no! I hope that Fergus takes after his father. Patrick never gets sick. Right dear?”

“Yes Love, not one day in my life have I been sick.” Patrick said turning back to the older man he had been talking to before Molly had interrupted.





* * *

Marg was right. They were a week into their journey when the first people started to get ill. It started with a backache, then an angry red rash, a fever, vomiting and a bad dry cough. There was no way to treat the sick and the food that they were getting wasn't going to be enough to keep anybody going. Nobody had died yet but Molly had a bad feeling about the outcome of the people who were sick.

She sat with her head resting on Patrick's shoulder and Fergus sitting on her lap scratching at his dirty, brown, lice filled hair. The air was stifling hot from the amount of bodies below decks, despite the cool April air coming in from the small opening that led out above the decks. Molly felt a tap on her shoulder and looked over to find Vera standing beside her.

“My Mama wants to talk to you,” she said.

“Okay I’ll be right over,” Molly said to her, turning to set Fergus on Patricks lap. She got up and walked over to find Marg kneeling over Mary looking very concerned.

“She has it,” Marg said quietly, “and I think I do too.”

“Are you sure?” Molly asked hoping Marg was wrong.

“Yes, I don’t want to die,” she whispered.

“You are not going to die.”





* * *

Two weeks later Molly’s fears came true. Marg and sweet little Mary had not survived.

Molly looked over at her husband as he went through another fit of coughs. He’s not going to die, she thought, I won't let it happen. I can’t raise a child by myself. She didn't know why she and Fergus were not sick, but she was praying they were immune. She still had hope that they would all make it to Canada alive.





* * *

Patrick was getting worse. He could barely move and his breathing was so shallow that sometimes she had to put her fingers on his burning neck to make sure his heart was still beating. She looked over at Fergus, wondering what she would do if her husband died and saw him scratching at his back.

“Fergus, come here,” she said. Her heart was like a hammer pounding against her chest as she reached over and pulled his shirt up to see his little back. No, she thought, not him too. Fergus had an angry red rash spread across his back. Molly knew what that meant. She knew the signs. Fergus was sick.

“What wrong?” Fergus said in his poor toddler speech.

“Nothing Honey.” she said with the best smile she could muster, “Go play.”






* * *


Molly was sitting between her husband and son who where both so sick that they could barely move except to vomit up the little food and water they had left in their stomachs.

It smelt like vomit and human feces in the boat. She couldn't get away from the smell. It would cling to her and make her feel like she was drowning in the smell. She needed to get off this boat. She needed to jump into the open sea and scrub herself clean. She needed to feel solid ground beneath her feet and not the sickening rocking of the boat. She needed to get to Canada so that she could get somebody, something, anything that could save the two most important people in her life. She needed so many things but she could have none of them. The only thing she could do was wait and drown in her own sense of helplessness.






* * *

In, out, in, out. Molly watched her husband breathe. She felt like she was going crazy. There were only two more weeks left of her journey. We'll make it. She thought, Only two more weeks, they're still breathing. She looked over at Fergus to confirm that he was breathing. He was. She looked over to do the same with her husband. She waited and waited for him to take a breath but it never happened.

“No.” she whispered to herself, “No, no, no, no.”

Molly's heart had dropped to her stomach and her whole body went numb. She couldn’t move. She couldn't breathe. A weight was pressing down on her chest, making it impossible to fill her aching lungs with air. She felt a splash on her hand as she started to cry. The hand that clung to Patricks as though if it held on tight enough he would open his eyes and sit up smiling like nothing had ever happened. Like they had never gotten on this stupid floating grave.

Two men came over and lifted Patricks limp body between them. They dragged him up to the ships deck and she watched them lower him into the dark, endless, sea below. She watched his body until it was lost far behind them and then turned around and headed back below the deck because she was still needed. She still had Fergus to look after. She promised herself that she would not let him die too.






* * *

Molly woke to somebody shaking her shoulder. She looked up to see the face of one of the men that had tossed her husband's body into the sea and panic shot through her.

“I'm afraid your son has passed away,” the man said sadly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Molly looked over to find Fergus’ pale, small body. She couldn't see him breathing in the dim light. It was happening all over again. The weight on her chest making it impossible to breathe, numbness spreading across her body. She couldn’t think about anything except for the one thought running through her mind: It’s my fault, it's my fault, it's my fault. Molly had promised she would save him. She had promised that he wouldn't die too. But he had. That's what had happened. He had died. It finally hit her and she started screaming. She wouldn't let them take her son. She wouldn't let them do it. She wouldn't let them throw him over, into the waters where he would be forgotten. She wouldn't forget him. She grabbed his body in her thin arms. They had almost made it. They were less than a day away from Canada. She could have saved him.

Fingers gently pried her arms away from her son and carried him up to the deck. Just like they had done to Patrick. She followed them, hardly able to see through her tears as they stopped in front of the railing. She came forward to say goodbye, kissing her beautiful son on the cheek for the last time and stepped back to let the man throw his body into the sea. The man lifted him higher. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. Why was she letting the man throw the only thing she had left into the unforgiving sea? What was she supposed to do once he was gone? She had nothing, nothing left. That was it. If they were going to throw the last thing she had left in the sea, then she would go with him.

She stepped closer to the railing as Fergus was lifted higher and higher. Just as he was about to be released into to the sea, his tiny mouth opened and he let out a faint cough. That tiny cough was the best sound Molly had ever heard.

The man stopped and stared at her son in amazement. Molly ran over, closing the few steps between them and grabbed Fergus in her arms crying from relief and hugged him close. He was too weak to hug her back but as she looked out across the sea and saw the small dot on the horizon, illuminated by the beautiful pink, orange and gold of the sun rise and she knew that Fergus was going to be okay. She knew that she may never be the same after this journey but she could do it. They would both get off of this coffin ship together.