The kind of hush that settles just before the verdict.
An hour later, Niamh arrives.
She appears in the doorway like she used to when we were girls and she needed to borrow lipstick or steal a coat, and I remember how my father trained her for her role and how he trained me for mine.
She looks leaner now.
Still hard in the eyes.
Dressed in street clothes, but the kind that hide weapons well.
"You really picked this room?" she asks, glancing around like she's still measuring its perimeter for threats.
"I liked the view."
Niamh snorts.
"You liked the crawlspace behind the closet. You used to hide there when you pissed off your da."
"Still might."
She doesn't laugh, but the edge of her mouth pulls.
It's enough.
We eat in the new kitchen, though I still think of the old one with cracked tile and yellowed blinds and the rusting Aga that groaned every winter.
This one is sleek, burnished steel and warm stone, counters wide enough to prepare for twenty, but tonight, there are just the two of us.
Still, the table is set with care.
Someone remembered.
The staff bring out dishes that don't speak of war, only of home.
A tureen of coddle first, fragrant and pale, the sausage plump, the onions melting, flecked with parsley the way Mam used to like.
The steam curls up into my face and knocks something loose in my chest.
I hadn't realized how long it's been since I've eaten food that wasn't meant to be tolerated.
This was made to be remembered. Beside the coddle is fresh batch loaf, thick-crusted and still warm, cut into wedges the way Brendan used to slice it when he was in a hurry and didn't want to wait for toast.
There's salted butter in a glass dish, and I smear it too thickly, watch it melt into the soft white.
I take a bite and close my eyes.
"You missed that," Niamh says, already halfway through her bowl.
"I missed all of it," I say.
They bring colcannon next, piled high with curls of butter on top, the green of the cabbage still bright against the mash.
A cut of roast beef follows, slow-cooked and falling apart on the fork, served with a mustard gravy that tastes exactly like the one from Ryan's on Camden Street before they closed it down.
The roast carrots have been done in honey and thyme, just how Da liked them.
I eat slowly, letting the flavors spread, heavy and warm andalmost enough to make me forget how sharp everything else has become.
