Sam sat at the small table that served as his desk in the poky storeroom/closet/office at the back of the shop. Through the open doorway he could hear Fiadh faffing about, the clang of trays being loaded onto the bakery cart, but for the moment he was alone.
Janette came in. “Cleanup,” his mother said, reaching for a mop. “Sarah Murphy—you remember Sarah—came in with her twins. Hot chocolate and crumbs all over the floor.”
“Sarah, yeah.”
She was never his girlfriend or anything. They’d done the usual, though, back in the day, making out by her locker and under the bleachers after some dance. Married and mother of three now, working part-time in an insurance office on weekends. Everyone getting on with their lives but him.
Sam shut down the window on the computer screen. “Who’s watching the register?”
“Toni.”
“Jesus.” He pushed back from the desk.
“Tom’s out there.” One of the regulars. “It’s fine, Sam.”
“Unless he walks out with the newspaper and half the till,” Sam said. Which was ridiculous, and they both knew it.
He watched Janette fill the bucket at the utility sink. “I’ll get that,” he said.
“I’m not so old I can’t push a mop. I did it often enough for you lot,” his mother said. “What’s that you were looking at? When I came in.”
“Nothing.”
“It’s all right, you know. It’s natural to be curious. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
The back of his neck got hot.
“As long as you know it’s not real life,” Janette added. “Real girls don’t look like that.”
She thought he’d been looking at porn.Jesus. He’d been taking care of her, of all of them, for years. It infuriated him she could reduce him to a fourteen-year-old rubbing one off in his room. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”
She raised an eyebrow. Like a dog on a scent, his mother. She wouldn’t let it go until she’d sniffed out what she was after. “Speaking of real girls, I haven’t seen Dee around lately. What happened with that?”
He didn’t want to talk about Dee. He wasn’t proud of himself there, what he’d said about her mother. “It’s an application, all right?” he said to change the subject. “Nothing important.”
“Loan or job?”
He didn’t answer.
“Sure look, it’s none of my business.” Janette stood in the doorway, unmoving. Waiting.
“It’s for school. Mature student enrollment, they call it. But don’t worry, I’m just curious.” He winked. “I know it’s not real life.”
She didn’t laugh, as he’d hoped. “Why would you say that?”
“That’s what he said. Da. You don’t need a fancy degree to make good. Common sense and hard work, that’s the stuff.”
For a few seconds, she didn’t answer. “Sam, when your da died... You did what you had to do. Jack and Aoife were so young, and I missed your father so much. Most mornings, it was all I could do to get out of bed and get us all dressed. You gave up a lot to be there for us, and I’m grateful.”
He closed the laptop. “It’s what he would’ve wanted.”
“It’s more than he ever would have asked. He’d be proud of you, son.”
To his horror, he felt his throat close. He cleared it. “Ta.”
She set the bucket on the floor. “He was proud of you, you know.”
He looked down at the worn silver Apple logo on the laptop lid. The MacBook had been a graduation gift from his parents. It wouldn’t run the latest operating system, but it worked well enough for the shop. For now. His mouth twisted. “Uni Boy.”
