Hearts in Ireland

by J. C. Long

“I get an hour or two,” he said. “But I’m here to talk about you. I’m worried about you, son.”

  “As you can see, I’m fine.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow and glanced around at the apartment pointedly. “Yes, I can certainly see that. So fine, you don’t seem to have taken a shower since the funeral.” His voice tightened ever so slightly on the final two words.

  “Did you come here just to criticize me?” I knew I sounded like a petulant brat, but I didn’t care.

  “Isn’t that my job?”

  I rolled my eyes. “If you say so.”

  Dad sat there quietly for a moment, fiddling with the wedding band on his finger. He did that when he was uncomfortable or when he was nervous. I didn’t know which it was at the moment, but it made me nervous.

  “Dad, what’s going on?”

  He looked for a moment like he’d forgotten I was there. “Oh, what? No, nothing. Nothing.”

  Nothing, my ass.

  “Dad, you know you’re a terrible liar. If there’s something you came here to say, just say it.”

  “Okay, I’ll just say it.” He pursed his lips into a straight line. “What do you think your mother would think of all this, Ronan?”

  I felt my eyebrows raise all the way to my hairline. Talk about starting with the gloves off. “Hard to find that out, now, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be a smartass,” Dad snapped, and for a moment, he reminded me of the man he’d been before Mom got sick, before everything in our lives fell to pieces. “Do you think your mother would approve of you laying around, wasting away like this? Have you even left this place since the funeral?”

  “We all handle grief in our own way,” I muttered, eyes on the floor.

  “It’s been two weeks. I think it’s time you start moving past the grief, not just handling it.” Dad’s voice was gentle, and I wondered how much of what he said was directed at himself as well as me. “Your mother wouldn’t want you—wouldn’t want us—to live like this. She would want us to move on and be happy.”

  Tears came unexpectedly to my eyes. “That’s much easier said than done.”

  Another ragged breath. “I know. Trust me, I know. But you can’t just sit here and waste away—you and I both know that’s not the way to honor her memory.”

  I said nothing, keeping my eyes glued to that one spot on the floor, extremely interested in the seam where one plank of hardwood met the next.

  Dad must have guessed that he wasn’t going to get anything more out of me, because he stood and placed a hand on my shoulder, then gave it a squeeze. “I’ll be having your uncle over for dinner tonight, if you want to come.”

  I sat there on the couch after Dad left, thinking. The reasoning part of my mind was able to recognize that lying around for weeks on end would do nothing to bring Mom back, nor would it help to stem the pain of grief. The longer I wallowed in it, the harder it became, and now I was drowning with no clear idea which way was up.

  I got up and dragged myself into the bathroom. Once in there I splashed cold water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror—at least, I thought it was myself. For all I could tell, it was a different person. My cheeks were hollow and covered with growth, my eyes looked sunken, no better than Dad’s, and my hair was limp and greasy.

  Look at me, I thought, seeing myself through the haze of grief for the first time. How the hell did I let myself get like this? I ran my hand through my damp beard, grimacing. Dad was right—I’d let myself go. If Mom saw me now, she’d give me that disappointed look—she wouldn’t say anything, and she never had to. Her eyes said it all.

  What the hell was I doing with myself?

  I want you to go—don’t put it off too long, like I did, Mom’s voice echoed in my head.

  I knew what I needed to do.

  I took a long, hot, much-needed shower, luxuriating in the feel of the water stinging my skin. When I got out, I lathered my face with a heap of shaving cream and removed the unkempt, scraggly beard.

  I took the rest of the day to clean the apartment from floor to ceiling, set the laundry going, and for the first time since that dreary, rainy Sunday of the funeral, left my apartment. It was a sunny day, heading towards evening, with a lovely sunset on the horizon. The back door of Dad’s house faced west, so that smearing of orange and red and purple through the clouds would be hanging over Mom’s garden right then. She always said late-evening light was the best for Irish flowers.

  Dad was in the kitchen cooking dinner when I walked into the house; I could smell his famous chili from my car. Despite the apathetic state I’d been in for two weeks—more likely because of it, actually—my stomach gave a tremendous growl.

  I made my way into the kitchen.

  Dad was surprised to see me. “Well damn. I didn’t think that would actually work.”

  “You should have just told me you were making chili,” I countered, picking up the spoon and scooping up a small bit of the sumptuous-smelling object of my stomach’s desire and giving it a taste. Spices and flavor exploded on my tongue, accompanied by quite a bit of heat.

  Dad smacked my hand, took the spoon from me, and resumed stirring. “I’m glad to see you cleaned up and out of that apartment.”

  “I made up my mind that I have to do something. I have to get over this, and there’s only one way I can think of to do it.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “I’m going to Ireland.”

  Caibidil 3

  AIRPLANES WERE my least favorite form of transportation. My ears didn’t adjust well to pressure—there was almost no getting them to pop, and when they did, it was excruciatingly painful, like someone was jamming a burning brand into my ear. I had no choice, though; I was going to suffer through it and be fine. I took plenty of drowsy-making medication before the flight in the hopes of getting some sleep. It didn’t happen.

  When the airplane finally touched down at Dublin Airport, I could not have possibly been happier. I didn’t get a great view of Ireland coming down because I was in an aisle seat. So I guess my first real glimpse of the country my mom called home was of an airport, so it looked pretty much like any other city.

  It was probably my imagination, but the sky seemed different to me. It was covered in a thin sheet of gray clouds, though patches of sky, velvety blue now that twilight approached, were visible. In the west the clouds were painted with the pale, rosy blush of sunset.

  The signs I saw as I made my way towards immigration were written in both English and Irish, which triggered memories. I could understand a bit of Irish—Mom had insisted I learn it, as Grandma Murphy had done with her. I reached customs, following the throng of people more than the signs, and began the long process.

  When I was through with that, I grabbed my luggage and entered the airport terminal proper.

  Ireland might have been a small country, but there were hundreds of people moving about the airport. It was bigger than I expected, the interior nice and modern. I looked around, watching the people coming and going, listening to the accents—the Irish, of course, but also British, French, and a few more exotic ones.

  “Ronan! There you are!”

  I looked up and to the right, where Hannah and Aunt Gwendolyn were standing, waiting for me. I was relieved that they’d been able to meet me at the airport; I knew it was an hour’s drive to the village they lived in, Abhainn Dún—River Fort, in English—and I’d worried that it had been too last minute for them to manage to come up to Dublin to pick me up.

  “Aunt Gwendolyn, Hannah, hi! Thank you both so much for coming to pick me up.”

  Hannah rushed up to me and pulled me into a hug, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She was no delicate flower, and I almost tumbled over in her tight grip.

  “Are you kidding? We’re happy to,” Aunt Gwendolyn beamed. She took my carry-on duffel bag off my shoulder and flung it over her own, ignoring my attempts to take it back. “Welcome to Ireland, Rónán.”

  They led me t
hrough the airport and towards the parking garage, Hannah talking next to me all the while. “I can’t believe you’re actually here!”

  I still couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it either. Just four days ago I was sitting at the kitchen table at Dad’s, worried he’d react negatively to my decision. Instead he got teary-eyed and hugged me, told me that it was about time and that he could think of no better way to honor Mom’s memory. Then a flurry of phone calls were made, a flight was booked, and now it was nearly 6:00 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time and I was in my mother’s ancestral home.

  I helped Hannah load my luggage into the small trunk—she called it the boot—of a powder blue Ford Ka, a car I’d never heard of before but was apparently produced by Ford UK, Aunt Gwendolyn talking up a storm. “Now, I’m sure you’re tired, but I thought we’d take the scenic route home. Not the fastest way, but can’t have you not seeing anything of the city, now can we?”

  I didn’t care either way, but she seemed excited about it, so I smiled and said, “Sounds good.”

  Soon we were on our way, me in the backseat, Aunt Gwendolyn driving, and Hannah in the passenger seat. Aunt Gwendolyn gave me a running account of street names—we were on the R108, or something—as we went, but it was just letters and numbers to me, too difficult to keep straight.

  “How was the flight?” Aunt Gwendolyn asked as she navigated expertly through Dublin’s streets. I tried my best to maintain conversation while only half paying attention; I was doing my best to soak in every detail of the city as we drove, from the bars and pubs and other shops—I swear I spotted a haberdashery wedged between a café and what appeared to be a joke shop.

  We soon came to a large river, which we crossed. “This is the An Life, the River Liffey,” Aunt Gwendolyn explained. “This isn’t the last you’ll be seeing of her.”

  “If you look over there, you can see St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” Hannah said once we were across the river, pointing. I followed her finger and saw the building in the distance. I didn’t say it out loud because I didn’t know if it would be offensive or not, but to me it looked reminiscent of Hogwarts in Harry Potter. It was definitely an impressive structure, and I made a mental note to pay a visit to it as soon as I possibly could.

  When we got out of Dublin, I began to see the magic in the landscape I’d heard so much about. It didn’t quite match the images on Mom’s calendar, but it was beautiful nonetheless, the hills a verdant green, the river sparkling in the sunset light. There were trees all over the place, a nice change from the city I lived in back home.

  “This is the N81,” Aunt Gwendolyn informed me when we left the road we’d been on for another road. “Most people just call it the Blessington Road—we’ll pass through Blessington on it on our way.”

  “Ma, you know it’s faster if we stay on the N7,” Hannah protested.

  “Faster, aye, but the N81 is a much prettier journey, and he can see Ballymore Eustace this way, instead of skirting it all together.”

  As we drove, the sun sank behind the clouds and the road was cast in darkness. Looking out into the inky night, pierced only by the headlights of cars or the lights in the windows of the small establishments we drove by, I found myself getting sleepy—jet lag, no doubt.

  “This is Ballymore Eustace, the closest village to us,” Aunt Gwendolyn explained as we entered a brightly lit stretch of street lined with shops. In the distance I could see the lights of houses. “It’s a ten, fifteen-minute bike ride here from Abhainn. You can catch a bus right here on the main street to go into Dublin.”

  A bus into Dublin, huh? It was good to know I had mobility while I was here. I knew Aunt Gwendolyn and Hannah had jobs and would be busy, and I didn’t expect them to chauffeur me around the whole time. It was enough that they were offering me a place to stay for an undetermined amount of time. I would find my own way through this country—and that’s what Mom would have wanted for me, I think, the adventure of it all.

  No sooner had we left the lights of Ballymore Eustace behind than the lights of Abhainn Dún appeared in front of us. As we drove through the town’s main street, I was shown the local supermarket, a small coffee shop that came highly recommended from Hannah, and a cozy-looking pub that apparently had a shepherd’s pie that could almost match Grandma Murphy’s.

  “And here’s my shop,” Aunt Gwendolyn said proudly, slowing down as we drove past a bookshop. Through the dark, I could just make out the words “Gwendolyn’s Reads” on the big display window. “If you’re up for it tomorrow, I’ll bring you by and you can see where Hannah and I work.”

  I’d had no idea that she owned a bookshop. I was actually looking forward to going there; I liked to read, but hadn’t brought any books along in order to save space in my suitcase. It was nice to know I wouldn’t have to ride out into Dublin if I wanted to buy a book.

  Aunt Gwendolyn turned us off the main road, and we made our way through a bit of a winding path, driving past a few houses as we went, finally coming to a stop in front of what looked like a house right out of one of Mom’s calendars. Constructed of a gray stone that I couldn’t identify, it was a squat, rectangular building with an awkwardly angled roof with two chimneys poking out. The wall on the western side of the house was covered in ivy, snaking its way towards the roof. A nice big yard, much bigger than I imagined, stretched off in either direction, and was surrounded by quite a few trees. There was a second car, this one a pickup truck, parked in the driveway. A single light was shining through a window on the eastern side of the house, casting a rectangle of light over the grass.

  “Well, here it is,” Aunt Gwendolyn said. “Home sweet home. Be it ever so humble.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  We all climbed out of the car as I took it all in. It was gorgeous, everything I had ever imagined, and way better than any of the pictures I’d seen on Hannah or Aunt Gwendolyn’s Facebook. The clouds had cleared as we drove, and now a sky full of stars, unmarred by the glow of city lights, added a mystical quality to the whole scene. June had just begun, and while that meant sultry weather even at night back in Atlanta, the same couldn’t be said for Ireland; it was brisk, close to chilly even. Any colder and I would no doubt see my breath fog the air.

  I instantly understood Mom’s love of this place. How could anyone be faced with this much beauty and not instantly be in love?

  “Let’s get inside out of the chill. No, no.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me away from the trunk, where Hannah was getting out my bag. “Let Hannah deal with the luggage. You just come on inside.”

  She led me through the front door, and as soon as we were inside, I could hear barking coming from somewhere in the back of the house. “Don’t worry, that’s just Lazy. He’s harmless.”

  Directly in front of the door was a staircase leading to the second floor. The walls were a dark-paneled wood, a shade or two lighter than the hardwood floor. Family photos lined the wall to the right of the stairs, though Aunt Gwendolyn didn’t give me much time to look at them. I caught sight of a picture of a much younger Aunt Gwendolyn, holding a baby Hannah and posing with the man who must be Hannah’s father. All I knew about him was that he and Aunt Gwendolyn were divorced. They looked happy enough in the pictures, but I knew from most of my friends’ marriages that pictures weren’t always truth and happiness didn’t always last.

  “I’m sure you’re hungry,” Aunt Gwendolyn said, leading me through a small dining room, the majority of it taken up by a big china cabinet. We emerged into a kitchen, where the light had been coming through the window.

  No sooner had I stepped through the door than a big black-and-white Irish sheepdog, complete with shaggy fur, came running up to me, sniffing around me and wagging his tail furiously. I reached down and gave him a tentative pet, and that seemed to seal the deal for him. He began jumping up, attempting to lick and nuzzle my hand.

  “Lazy, get down,” Aunt Gwendolyn ordered. The dog obediently stopped jumping and I could take in the rest of the kitchen.<
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  It was spacious, at least twice the size of the dining room we passed on the way there. One entire wall was lined with a counter, with a double-sided sink built in, and not four, but six burners on a big surface over an oven that looked almost wide enough for me to climb into. In the middle of the space was a rectangular island, where a toaster, blender, and other small appliances sat. Along the second wall was a huge refrigerator and a deep freezer, and beside those a washing machine and a dryer. Along the third wall was a small breakfast nook with a beautiful bay window that looked out onto the backyard. From the window I could see a large garden; Aunt Gwendolyn and Hannah grew the vegetables they used.

  “I’ll get us some hamburgers made,” Aunt Gwendolyn said, opening the refrigerator and removing a package of ground beef. “Tomorrow night you’ll have a real welcome dinner. Grandma Murphy and some of the others are going to stop by. Nothing big, but a way to welcome you home.”

  Home. Something in me tingled a bit at that.

  “Okay, his things are in the guest room,” Hannah announced, traipsing into the kitchen, opening the fridge, and pulling out a bottle of Guinness. “Want one?” When I nodded, she brought one over to me. “I’ve got the window open to air it out, so make sure you close it before you go to sleep. Wouldn’t want you to catch a cold.”

  “Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, hot right now?” I asked, opening the bottle with the bottle opener she provided. “It’s June.”

  Hannah and Aunt Gwendolyn both laughed. “The hottest it’s bound to get is around twenty degrees. Close to seventy in that ridiculous Fahrenheit that you use.”

  I gaped at her. A seventy degree summer? I grew up in Atlanta, where summers were blistering and damn near unbearable. Compared to the temperatures there, Ireland was going to seem like autumn in the middle of summer. I wondered if I’d brought clothes warm enough for that.

  Any thought of the weather was chased from my mind by the smell of sizzling hamburgers and the taste of the strong, bitter beer. The sleepiness that had settled over me during the car ride returned, and by the time Aunt Gwendolyn put the burger down in front of me—thick, piled high with toppings, and dripping grease on a clearly homemade bun—my stomach was warring with my eyes. Hunger won out, though.