Rhiannon
“How long have you known he was a cheating fucker?” Clíodhna, my middle sister, pins me with an intense stare over the top of her mango mojito as she takes a slow and deliberate sip. I assume our parents are taking care of her kid while she’s here taking care of me, but if I ask, she’ll accuse me of trying to escape a difficult conversation. She’s not wrong.
It’s been less than an hour since my conversation with Dad, and while I haven’t shared the details with my sisters, they knew from the look on my face and the thick tears on my lashes that my strength and confidence from the wedding were dissipating.
We’re taking up our usual corner of our local pub, The Rusty Anchor. The faint hoppy smell in the air brings me comfort. Despite its status as a bougier pub, the barflies are still on stools propping up the bar. The circular lights overhead reflect off the gorgeous dark wood, catching the framed art and vintage Guinness and Jameson bar mirrors mounted on the walls.
I stir my gin bramble with the swizzle stick. The bartender,Keith, used to judge me for asking for them to be made with lime juice instead of lemon, but he’s come around to my way of thinking. He also knows I like my gin to be local, like everything else in my life. I’m the walking embodiment of “shop local.”
I know before I even take a sniff of this purple-tinged liquid that my drink is going to be perfectly to my taste. Every single time. Which makes the long moment of anticipation buzz in my stomach, even though we’re already on our third round.
That’s how long it’s taken to dull the edges of Dad’s “You disappointed me, Rhiannon,” which is piercing into my brain on a destructive loop.
“Rhi?” Our youngest sister, Aoife, kicks me under the table. “How long have you known?” Now both my sisters are pinning me with heavy, questioning stares.
You embarrassed me, Rhiannon.
I look between my sisters. How do they view their relationship with Dad? Do they think he has their backs? The very idea that he considered me going back into that kind of a relationship instead of lobbing a rugby ball at George’s head lies heavily in my gut.
“A few months.” I don’t look either of them in the eyes as I throw back a long swallow of the beautifully sweet liquid and then smack my lips. I raise my glass in victory to Keith up at the bar, who gives me a curt nod of acknowledgement, the corner of his mouth twitching up at my praise.
“Months?” Aoife shrieks so loud I’m sure the glass holding her sex on the beach develops stress fractures. She gulps down the last of her drink.
“How the fuck did you keep that to yourself formonths?” Clíodhna is as agog as Aoife. “And why?”
“Never mind that. How did you not kill him and throw his body to the seals out at sea?”
That makes me giggle. “Do seals eat humans?”
Aoife shrugs, waving her finger at Keith to make us another round. “If you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat whatever you can find. I’ve seen Sammy the Seal out by The Pencil some mornings. I bet he’d eat George without a second thought.”
We’ve all seen Sammy out by the Chaine Memorial Tower, the granite spire jutting skyward in all its unapologetically phallic glory. Sammy’s a regular visitor, and Aoife’s probably not wrong. I bet he would absolutely help a girl out and eat that cheating piece of crap for me.
“I found out about three months ago.” I lick the remnants of my drink off my lips. “And I kept it to myself to avoid having to help you two bury a body and come up with alibis. I don’t lie well.” My meek attempt at humor falls flat, as they continue staring at me like they’re expecting me to break down at any moment.
“And I didn’t leave him sooner…” I sigh. Why didn’t I leave George sooner? Why did I make it such a public thing? Why didn’t I just do whatnormalpeople do and go quietly into the night? “I guess at first, I was shocked, sad, and wondered for a long time if it was somehow my fault, if there was anything I could have done differently to fix it. Then I questioned whether I could continue in a relationship with him, with either of them, or if I even wanted to.”
Aoife, drops her jaw on a gasp, but I hold my hand up.
“When I decided the answer was no, I got angry. I wanted to plan something to hurt them as much as I felt hurt. The anger wasn’t like a firework, it was like a pot of stew on the hob for days, and I wanted to burn it all down.”
“I don’t blame you. I want to fucking kill him.” Clíodhna’s cheek flexes as she grinds her teeth. “George, to be clear, not poor, wee Sammy the Seal.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Aoife clinks her almost empty glassagainst Clíodhna’s, making the ice tinkle against the sides. “If you change your mind on the alibi, just say the word.”
I shake my head and gesture to our phones. “Right, cause the tech hasn’t heard this whole conversation.”
I appreciate their ire. It’s where I was a couple of months ago when I first discovered the betrayal, but my sizzling rage from the ceremony has fizzled out to a bone-deep embarrassment not even a few brambles can make go away. I guess it makes a nice change from the soul-destroying ache that’s been nestled in my chest for the last twelve weeks.
A cheating partner is painful enough, but adding in a childhood “best” friend betraying me too? That has cut way deeper. It feels way more personal than losingGeorge the Beige. What happened to girl code? No matter how much I try to downplay it, convince myself we weren’t really friends, that pang in my chest isn’t easing.
At first, I was angry, but once that petered to—an albeit temporary—simmer, Isla’s betrayal hit like a gut punch. I was heart-sore and sick to my stomach, maybe that’s why I stayed with George, because I couldn’t figure out how people I loved could do that to me. I keep waiting for the flares of anger to stamp out the pain of disloyalty, but it never comes.
I live in hope.
The juxtaposition of my murderous sisters sitting all dolled up in their bridesmaid’s gear in a quiet corner of the Anchor isn’t lost on me. We must look a right sight, all still in our extortionately priced dresses from my failed nuptials. Perfectly styled hair, tan done, nails and makeup on point, and day drinking like we don’t give a flying fuck who sees us.
Sounds like the Morrigan sisters, all right.
