Al's sister, now Mary Kimpton, her husband Ed Kimpton and their 4 children lived next door to us now, with only a yard, two driveways and a row of huge pine trees between our houses. Al's mother, Catherine Doherty, Irish brogue and all, lived with Mary and Ed, so we had the benefit of not only knowing our cousins better, but we got a next door grandmother, Gramma Doherty, in the bundle. I was terrified of her. Not for any reason I can remember, but she was a no-nonsense cane-carrying scary lady to a child that didn't know her well. My other grandmother, Katherine Larivee, was a lovely, tall, dignified softspoken lady who always had lap room and always came to stay when there was a new baby coming. We called her Nana, and she visited us often in Boston, but here in the wilds of Scituate, her visits were fewer, since she was widowed young and always worked. We were now 60 or so miles from her and people just didn't have cars. Only the well to do, and we were not in that category. It would be some years before we had a car and Evie learned to drive. There are some really funny stories there, but I digress.
Al and Katherine were good friends, and he felt closer to her than to his own mother. They often met for lunch or dinner in Boston where he worked. At this point, with an already large family and a new huge $5000.00 mortgage, he had to take on extra work. Sometimes he worked 3 jobs at a time. I'm sure he was glad of the time he spent with Katherine, his connection to family in those long days. I think, knowing my Nana, she probably helped him out financially as well, from time to time.
During these years, Michele and Kevin joined our family. Don't know how Al and Evie managed that, because he was always either gone or getting home exhausted, or getting on the train to Boston to go back to work.
Tragedy hit this family during one fall afternoon. Little Billy, who was about 2 weeks shy of his second birthday, choked to death in Evie's arms. He had put a piece of modeling clay in his mouth and when he choked no one could reach the clay in his throat. It was a horrible dark time for everyone. Billy was at that time Al's only son. They used to play together and when Al would come in the door from work, if Billy was sitting in his high chair, eating dinner, he would ball up little fists and say to Al, "put up your dukes" which always made them both laugh. Billy was just learning humor, and it tickled Al to play with him. Of course there were train sets, for the "guys". The days after we lost Billy were intolerably sad. Christmas, the following month was awful. I remember a pencil sketch Al did of the bottom of our tree and Billy's toys, never claimed, under the tree. After that Christmas we never again saw the trains or Billy's ball and clown and other toys.
These were the days of not counseling for bereavement and all you got from the church Priests was "ah, it's God's will" which is still pure bull to me. Things were hard and dark for a long time. Especially for Annie, the twin left behind, and of course Al and Evie.
Somehow Al and Evie struggled through the years, and I do mean struggled. It seemed that the move to Scituate wasn't what they had anticipated, the relationships not what he had dreamed and on top of it all, the loss of that beautiful funny little boy. I think both parents carried guilt for something they probably could not have prevented, no matter what, even standing next to the child. But there was no one to tell them that.
