4
Caitlin
Streamsof the early morning sunrise cut through the windows of the pub, casting lines of brilliant golden light over the wooden bar and each of the leather bar stools.
Lines of glass, still foggy from the hot temperature of the dishwasher, line the shelves underneath the bar. Each of the liquor bottles had been turned the right way around, facing out for the customers to identify easily—one of Caitlin’s finishing touches before opening up the bar.
No one took the extra care that she did to present the bar this way. Despite the service from the night before, there wasn’t the typical, lingering scent of stale beer and fry oil this morning. It was replaced by the assaulting, lemony-fresh aroma of the cleaner that the Murphys usually reserved for important events or the monthly deep-cleaning—it was particularly strong this morning.
Coming out of the kitchen with a hot tray of clean martini glasses, Caitlin began loading them into the organizer underneath the bar. Her mouth was set in a firm line and had been for most of the morning, but she hadn’t started to chew at the loose pieces of skin around her lips until she walked into the pub.
She had decided to silence the voice in her head that continued to reel about her father’s insane request for her to marry—as if she ever wanted to do that—by doing what she always did when she needed time to think.
She cleaned each of the booths first, waiting to wipe out the round booth in the corner until last. After that, she turned her attention to the bar—last night’s service had left it in a mad disarray. It had earned the actual bar a long scrubbing, especially when Caitlin had gotten near it and had nearly fallen over from the scent of the stale alcohol that came off of it in nauseating waves. The citrus in the cleaner was enough to kill most of the smell, but not until she had scrubbed every inch of it twice. She had been nearly done with the second scrubbing of the bar when her father arrived.
She had looked up, expecting him to walk over and speak to her, and found herself dumbfounded, uncertain of what to do next, as she watched her father walk into his office in the back of the pub.
Seeing him reignited the fire in her stomach. She watched him as she cleaned out a large mason jar with one of the white rags, twisting her wrist to reach each of the corners. He didn’t look up from the newspaper he carried, and even though this was a habit of his, it felt more than intentional to Caitlin this morning. Her breath picked up as she continued cleaning, gripping one of the glasses so tightly she was worried it might shatter. Not wanting to cut herself, she set the glass down on the bar and thought of moving onto another task—she noticed that she could cut more lime slices to restock—but she could feel herself being drawn back to the closed office door.
Her father would be sitting behind his desk, reading the paper and going about his easy morning. If she had not been here to prep the pub for opening, would he make the customers wait or sit in filth? Or does he simply expect that Caitlin will take care of those troubles for him, but somehow still isn’t capable of managing the bar on her own—as if she needed someone to come in later than her to sit in the office to read?
Before Caitlin knew where her feet were taking her, she was standing in front of her father’s office door. Her hand paused just in front of the brass door handle. She pushed herself forward through her back heel, refusing to give herself a moment to hesitate—she knew she would take it. She would take the chance to slink away and sulk behind the bar, drowning her feelings in sharing samples of the liquors with customers. Inwardly cringing at the thought of herself venting to customers about her father’s rigid, traditional ways, Caitlin threw the door open in a sudden, dramatic burst.
“What’s going on, darling?” he asked as he lowered the newspaper, trying his best to fold up the pages without making too much noise.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” she started, slamming the door shut with a wild throw of her arm. The door slammed against its jam so hard that Caitlin could hear picture frames rattle against the walls. She prayed none of them fell; she didn’t know if she’d have the strength to deal with a broken family picture on top of feeling this way.
The shock that widened her father’s features pushed her forward—it thrilled her to see him experience the power she wielded. It made her feel more grown up, like she could demand more respect when she spoke this way. “How could you do this to me?”
Her father’s mouth dropped open in a clueless sort of way, but she barreled on. She wasn’t going to slow down to let him control this conversation—she knew exactly what she wanted to say. He sank in his chair when she continued talking, knowing that she wasn’t going to let him speak just yet. He crossed his arms around himself.
“This place means the world to me and is the namesake of the family, but I can’t have it unless I share it with someone else?” Her voice was building up towards a shout, her emotion pouring through freely now that she was in front of her father. It was hard not to get like this in front of him, especially when she was angry with him. She tried to ignore that heavy, sticky guilt that stuck to the front of her as she watched her words roll over her father. “You’re pressuring me into something that I don’t want to do, that I don’t evenneedto do! It’s unfair, it’s not right. Marrying some random man won’t change anything around here—I’ll still be the one coming in early to clean up in the mornings and the one ushering out the alcoholics at night—” Caitlin’s father interrupted her before she could keep going.
“I am not pressuring you into anything, Caitlin,” her father spoke slowly, taking his hand off the front cover of the newspaper. The pages started to spill over themselves. “You don’t have to take rightful ownership of the pub until you find someone. I just want to make sure I’m leaving this place to—”
“What? To the right person?” Caitlin interrupted him, placing her hands on her hips. If her eyes had the ability to burn through someone, she would’ve left an obvious mark on her father’s forehead right now. In fact, there was a dark freckle near the center of his forehead that she started to pretend was the beginning of burning hole—as if it were going to start smoking like a hole in a white sheet of paper.
“To the right person at the right time, Caitlin!” her father shouted. He placed his hand over his brow then, his forehead creasing with regret for raising his voice towards his daughter. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice noticeably gentler. “I don’t want you to rush into anything. I just want you to have someone in your corner.” His green eyes were full of genuine concern, but Caitlin refused to let him believe he wasn’t completely misguided in his attempts to force her towards finding someone.
“I thought I had you in my corner,” Caitlin said, gesturing towards him with a lame lift of her hand. It flopped back down, slapping against her leg. “I thought I had my family behind me, but you’re just another set of lips telling me to do things that I don’t want to do.”
He flinched at her words, but he didn’t stop pushing the idea of getting a partner onto Caitlin. “I think you’d be smart to choose someone who is already close to the family, someone like Daniel.” He kept his arms crossed in front of himself, but Caitlin could see that he was scratching at the back of one of his arms.
“Daniel Kelly?” Caitlin had to stifle a laugh. She shot a serious glare at her father when he turned his eyes down to the desktop in front of him. He pretended to flip through a stack of envelopes seemingly at random, placing them into arbitrary piles. She wondered if he was organizing them into colors.
“What’s so wrong with him?” Noah asked, shrugging one of his shoulders as if he hadn’t listened to her complain about Daniel throughout the majority of her adolescence and well into young adulthood. There had never been any words spoken between them, but they certainly didn’t like one another. In fact, they tended to avoid each other in most of the social settings that they were in together, and when they sat near one another, they’d refrain from talking most of the time.
“Dad, you’ve got to be joking.” She was searching his round face for a sliver of amusement, but was irritated when he didn’t seem to give up the joke. A quickening pace inside of her chest made her realize that she was more than betting on him joking around with her—she was depending on it. “That’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard! He’s horribly unpleasant.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic! You could do a hell of a lot worse than Daniel Kelly and you know it.” Her father’s words were harsh, but realistic. It’s true that anyone could do much worse than a Kelly boy—everyone knew they were well off and well-liked members of the community—but Daniel managing not to be the worst option available to her didn’t exactly make him appealing either. Noah stood up from his place behind his desk, taking a moment to ease the aching sensation in his hip. He had a hard time moving around now that he was getting older, but it never stopped him from trying to comfort his daughter when she needed it. “I truly think that marrying Daniel will be good for you. I know this pub is important to you, but you are important to me. If you want my blessing to take over this place, you’ll marry Daniel Kelly, or a good man like him.”
Caitlin stared at her father for a long time. She looked down as her father took both of her hands into his. Her heart panged inside of her chest as she realized he’d done the same thing when he broke the news about her mother’s death—how he’d crouched low in front of her and said her name in the softest tone she’d ever heard him utter.
“Fine, I’ll get married, but I choose him, not you.”
Noah blinked a few times, trying to mask his obvious surprise as Caitlin pulled her cell phone from her back pocket. Without saying a word, she began clicking away at the screen. “What are you doing now?” Her father lifted himself up onto his heels to get a peek at his daughter’s screen. When she pulled the screen back to make it harder for him to see, he lifted his eyes and stuck his bottom lip out into a soft pout.
“Finding a husband,” she countered, and turned on her heel. She didn’t look away from her cell phone as she walked out of her dad’s office, making a satisfied giggle when it buzzed in her hand.
