The Fourth Life of Sean Donoghue, Trish Hanan [interesting books to read txt] 📗

said.
“President Matthews should do something to protect the people heading west,” Bill declared and everyone nodded except for Sean who shrugged.
“They knew the risks when they left the Territories,” he said. “They knew there would be a chance of hostile Indians out there. Even if they make it across the desert and to the mountains, what’s to say there aren’t more hostile Indians in the mountains like the Keetiks were here?” he asked reasonably. Everyone had to admit he was right. Claire sighed.
“I guess we’ve been living with cars and money and coffeemakers for so long that we’ve forgotten that it was only thirty years ago that we were fighting hostile Indians ourselves,” she said. Sean grinned at her.
“I guess a little civilization goes a long way, darling,” he told her and they kissed.
Two years later they celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and had a big party. All of their friends and family came and the ex-president Henry Adams was in town so he came.
“So how many grandchildren do you and Claire have now?” his old friend asked Sean as they sipped Sean’s excellent beer. Sean grinned at him.
“Well, let’s see,” he had to think. “Kalin and Jenny have two, Bobby and Annie has two, so that’s four. Ryan and Melody have one and Danny and Marie have one so that’s six. And now Zack and Petra have one so I have seven. Four lads and three lasses, I’m a very happy man, Henry, I can’t complain.” Henry laughed and patted him on his back.
“You’ve invented the cannon, the plower, the truck, motorcycle, car and the telephone,” he said. “You’re the richest man on the planet, I’d say you can’t complain, you lucky son-of-a-bitch,” he told him. Sean laughed.
“Ah, lad, but I was never President,” he teased him. Henry shrugged.
“Yes, but you were the General who won the war, that’s better than President, your face is on the dime and the twenty dollar bill,” he said. Sean put his arm around him.
“Well, your face is on the quarter and the dollar bill,” he told him and they both laughed.
“This is really good beer, I can’t believe you find the time to make beer, when do you have any spare time?” Henry asked him. Sean shrugged.
“The five boys run the phone company, I have a lot of spare time,” he said and they both grinned.
“Oh, yes, as we get older the sons want us out of their ways,” Henry murmured. Sean shrugged.
“I don’t blame the lads, if I was a young man, I wouldn’t want some old fart looking over my shoulder all of the time either,” he told him. “I like to putter around in my workshop anyway and making beer is relaxing. And spending time with Claire is more fun that going to work.” Henry nodded.
“Is she still working on that women’s voting thing?” he asked and Sean nodded.
“Yes she is and I’m proud of her, women should be allow to vote, they should have equal rights just like every other person,” he declared. Henry shrugged.
“They won’t not as long as John is in office, you know how he feels about it,” he said and made a face. He hadn’t liked when his vice-president had beaten him out of the last election. Sean shrugged.
“Our friend John is starting to forget he’s an elected official and thinking that he’s the King of Anamylia,” he remarked and Henry laughed until tears came to his eyes.
“You’re absolutely right, my old friend,” he said. “But you’ve forgotten the old rule,” he told Sean. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Sean nodded and they went off to search for the women.
The following week his wife and her committee asked for his help in getting the vote for women, after all, he helped stop the church when they wanted to pick on the poor fey people and he wasn’t Fey. Why wouldn’t he help women get the vote, especially when he believed in it so much?
“I’d be very happy to help you lovely ladies and I do feel very strongly in women being able to vote,” Sean told them as his wife beamed proudly. Some of the other women’s husbands just laughed at them.
So Sean wrote a bunch of editorials and put them in all of the newspapers in every major city in Anamylia as well as some very clever cartoons depicting women as slaves to men and workhorses. Some of them had women as brood mares worth little more than animals capable as only baring children and cleaning house, cooking and sewing and working the new ironing machines and washers and dryers. It enraged the women and the men who loved them although some men liked them and thought they were accurate.
“Sean, these are so sarcastic and cruel, I never knew you could draw like this, you are a man of many talents,” Claire gushed as she watched him work. Her husband grinned at her.
“So I’m of more use to you than as your bed slave huh, darling?” he teased just to see her blush. Her hands flew up to her face.
“Really, Sean, the things out of her mouth,” she exclaimed. He laughed and put his arms around her waist.
“I’ll let you enslave me tonight if you want, lass,” he said with a sly grin and she grinned back.
“Okay but finish the cartoon first,” she instructed with a sly grin of her own.
“Your wish if my command,” he teased and she slapped his arm.
“You’re such a bad little boy sometimes, it’s hard to imagine you’re fifty-six years old,” she teased and went to get him a cup of coffee. Sean grinned and went back to work.
People began to write to their Senators and march in the streets. Sean organized protests in Jamestown and the horns came back out. The Church protested, women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, it would hurt their brains they said. Women started boycotting church and they kept their children out. Men who loved and supported them stopped going also. Church attendance dropped to an all time low once again and of course the Fey supported the women also. And when church attendance dropped so did the offering and they lost money.
“Women will never get the vote as long as I’m in office.” President John Matthews was quoted in the Jamestown Chronicle. Sean wrote an editorial denouncing the President’s statement
“Maybe President John Matthews has forgotten that he is an elected official of the people, for the people and by the people of Anamylia and not the King of Anamylia as he is obviously thinking when he makes such statements. Maybe the people of Anamylia should start writing to their Senators demanding that the women of Anamylia deserve the same equal treatment under the constitution that all free people deserve, or are they the peasants of Anamylia and the men the Hamish?”
General Sean Donoghue’s words brought the country and the men to its knees and people began writing to their Senators demanding that women get the vote. The Senate voted for an Amendment to the Constitution, the Fourteenth and it passed a hundred and fifteen to two. John Matthews had no choice but to sign it, which he did on September twenty-second, seventeen thirty-two and the women of Anamylia went to the polls the following year and voted John Matthews out of office. Sean lost a good friend over the whole issue, but Henry and the other men still talked to him and he and John had never really seen eye-to-eye so he put him out of his mind and went on to his next issue.
That year Senate put forth another Amendment, the Fifteenth, limiting the Presidential term to two terms of four years so that no president could lead the country for more than eight years. This was another one of Sean’s ideas and he wrote several editorials on the subject which he paid for and were published under his name.
This issue split the political party which was united into two parties. There were the men who were the Conservatives and usually attended the St. Charles Church and there were the Liberals who usually attended the more liberal Freedom Church and of course the Orthodox which everyone was suspicious of who had money and used it to influence the vote.
Sean considered himself a Liberal mainly because he couldn’t stand the hypocrites of the St. Charles priests who kept trying to tell people how to live, but the Freedom Church tended to do that to, so he guessed he was a liberal Liberal. This made Claire laugh.
“You are your own man, Sean, you don’t like anyone telling you how to live your life, you like doing things your way because you think your way is the right way,” she teased him. He shrugged and kissed her. Then she giggled. “What’s the funniest part is that most of the time, your way is the right way.” He grinned.
“Ah, lass, you’re just saying that because you’re my wife and you have to,” he teased her back. She grinned.
“Do you know we’ve been married for thirty years?” she asked him and he nodded.
“Thirty wonderful years, lass,” he told her and she made a face. Sean frowned.
“They haven’t been wonderful?” he asked her. She shook her head.
“Ah, no, they’ve been wonderful sweetheart, but our youngest son just had a baby and I’m a grandmother nine times and I want you to take me into the bedroom and make love to me,” Claire said and she blushed like a bride, her red-gray hair the only thing giving away her age. Sean picked her up and she laughed.
“Don’t throw out your back, Sean, you’re going to need it,” she teased him and he laughed.
“You’re a brazen hussy, Mrs. Donoghue,” he teased her as he carried her to the bedroom. They passed Sally who grinned.
“In the middle of the afternoon, on a Tuesday?” she teased and they just laughed. Sally, who was fifty-seven, the same age as Sean decided to go look for her husband, if they were going to, why not her and Bill.
While his sons were busy working at the telephone company, Sean decided to make something fun for his grandchildren so he went off to his workshop with Sean who was five and David who was six and built a couple of motorized remote controlled cars and trucks for them.
They were bigger than the little metal cars that they had been playing with and he built a little box with a lever to turn them on and a switch thingy to make the cars go back and forth and turn the front wheels left and right. It wasn’t hard to do at all and the boys loved them. So did all the other little boys who saw them and the older boys and their fathers. Zack loved them so much he quit the phone company and built a factory to just make the little cars and trucks. Sean let him, after all, anyway the lad wanted to make money was fine with him and there was big money in children’s toys.
“Do you feel this little lump here in my breast, Sean?” Claire asked him one day in December of seventeen thirty-three, she was fifty-seven years old. Sean frowned and put his fingers over hers on her left breast and pressed down. Sure enough