And if it felt a lot like someplace I’d been before... Well, that wasn’t a problem, either.
Seven
Can you watch the register for a couple hours?” Sam asked Fiadh.
His sister widened her eyes in exaggerated shock. “You’re leaving the shop?”
“I am, yeah.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“I thought I’d take a look in at Aoife’s practice.”
“Since when are you interested in our sister playing football? It’s not like you can give her pointers.”
Sam grinned, acknowledging the hit. He’d always been rubbish at sports. “I just want to see how she’s getting on.”
Aiofe played youth football at the community center after school. Their brother, Jack, did, too, on alternating days. Young people needed activities to keep them out of mischief, their mother, Janette, said. But after today, Sam wasn’t so sure. The park was safe enough during the day. Practice was supervised, the teams coached by off-duty police or reformed thugs or well-meaning volunteers from the other side of the river. But...
“Ah Jesus,” Fiadh said, her eyes narrowing. “This is about those fecking boys, isn’t it? You’re doing that man-of-the-family shit again. Keeping an eye on the womenfolk.”
He shrugged, not denying it. The memory of Dee’s white face as she sat in his shop, her fingers curled around her mug, hadn’t left him all day. “I can take care of myself,” Fee had boasted. But Aoife was only eleven. It was stupid, backward, sexist—but if the neighbor boys were messing with his sisters, Sam had to know.
“You know our Gracie goes with her to practice,” Fiadh said.
“All the more reason to check in.” Sixteen-year-old Grace was the smart one in the family now, gentle and studious. What if something got in the way of her going to university? A rape. A baby. Sam couldn’t stand it. “I don’t want any of those boyos bothering her.”
“What are you going to do if they are? Challenge them to a duel?”
“I thought I’d wag my dick at them.”
She gave him a playful shove. “Sure, there’s a sight would scare anyone off.”
“Look, will you mind the register or not?”
“Fine.” Fiadh waved him off. “Go. But when I told you to get out of the shop, I didn’t mean for you to hang around the football pitch flexing and being manly.”
He smiled. “I’ll leave the flexing to you.”
Other boys saw sports as a way out, an escape to a better life. Not Sam. Between school and the shop, there’d been no time for football, even if he’d wanted to play. Which he did not. He was a skinny, awkward kid—a reader like Grace, a dreamer like their mother, a teacher’s pet. He’d survived by becoming a bit of a clown, speaking up in class as often to joke as to answer a question. He’d learned to downplay his grades, to keep his mouth shut about hisexam results. He’d been almost as surprised as everyone else when he was accepted to Trinity.
Not so surprised when it all ended.
—
The field was divided in half for practice, with two different teams running drills on opposite sides.
Aoife was easy to spot, her ponytail flying like a flag behind her. Sam watched her run up and down the pitch, legs pumping, face scowling with fierce determination. She and Jack took after their father, strong and quick and confident.
Grace sat on a bench, reading.
And there on the sidelines, as if his thoughts had conjured her out of the damp air, was the girl—Dee, Dorothy Gale—clutching a water bottle, backpacks on the ground at her feet, like some football mum bringing her kids to practice.
A very young, pretty mum. In cowboy boots.
Watching her, Sam felt a tug of resentment. She was looking about her with big, wide eyes, like the world was this magical place and she was simply waiting for her adventure to begin. So hopeful, so eager, so... American.
And then he remembered her face when she came into his shop that morning and was ashamed.
