Peggy falls the first time - couldn't resist it Easter week...

The county hospital was a place where sick people from the locality were taken for treatment. The locality was a loose term, it could be near, but also far, to far sometimes for stroke or heart attack victims to survive long enough in the back of an Ambulance on narrow bumpy rural roads.

Peggy had only been transported a short journey. The hospital in the county capital was relatively close and accessible. She was also lucky in that in those days a bed would be available immediately, Progress in Ireland with the jobs boom and cheap drink would soon mean that real sick older people would find that the beds they paid for with their welfare contributions and taxes were filled by drunks, brawlers, drug addicts, and others who in their short lives so far had made no contribution to earn them the space they came to occupy.

Just when I was starting to get back on me feet. I don’t know how I fell or how I got here. It’s the Hospital and that’s a blessing. I was afraid it would be the other place they would put me into. I don’t know what I was thinking when the neighbours were knocking at the door and the windows. I think I tried to chase them away. Thought it was Bully-boys after the money. Am I gettin’ forgetful?

The O'Connors huddled, bedside crouchers, watching Peggy, counting her breaths, wondering, maybe even hoping.

"Would ya look at her, away with the fairies, muttering to herself. Once they think she is over the fall, they'll want her out of here. They said she didn't break anything, so the writing's on the wall. We better be ready to move her somewhere."

"She can’t look after herself Miki, and the ravin’ is getting worse. She keeps talking to people who are dead. Last night she thought she was married and had a husband and a son."

"Maybe she was. Maybe she had a son. Wouldn't that be somethin'. Somethin', man alive."

"Don’t be a smart-arse, John Joe."

"Leave it with me I’ll make some calls. We’ll get her in somewhere. Don’t let them move her out of here ‘till I have a place fixed up. Don’t let her go back home what ever happens. Are you two listening? On no account is she to be let go back home."