She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “You carry him,” she said. “He may not be sitting in that chair,but he’s here,mo mhac. In your blood. In your bones. In your heart. In every step you take toward yourself.”
His throat tightened.
“I don’t know how to come back to him,” he said. “I don’t even know if I can.” He looked into her eyes, his own welling with tears. “And that terrifies me.”
Aileen gave his hand a squeeze. “And sure, didn’t you come back here all the same?”
He nodded.
“Then that’s your start,mo mhac. This land knows you well—it hasn’t forgotten. And it’ll help you remember yourself, so it will.”
Colin looked down at the tea. It smelled of bergamot and comfort and just… home. The ache in his chest didn’t fade—but it softened a little. He thought of Joshua’s hands. His voice. The way he would murmur ‘mo ghrá milis’ when no one else could hear, and a warmth stirred beneath the sorrow, born from the memory of that gentle voice and the life waiting for him across an ocean.
The pathto Ross Castle twisted through a forest that breathed in shades of green. Moss blanketed the stone walls along the trail, the one the tourists never walked. The air was cool and damp, the kind that clung to skin and memory alike.
Colin moved slowly, hands in his jacket pockets, his boots crunching softly over damp leaves. Every step echoed in the quiet, like the land was listening.
The castle rose from the mist ahead, its stone walls standing as they had for centuries—weathered, unshaken. Just like he used to be.
He paused at the water’s edge, where Lough Leane lapped gently against the shore. The castle now loomed behind him, a sentinel of another time. He remembered coming here after Kathy’s death—how he’d stood in this very spot and let the silence seep into his bones until something inside him finally unclenched.
But now? The silence hurt. Because Joshua wasn’t here to share it.
He turned slowly, looking back along the trail. He could almost see Joshua walking it with him—curious, quiet, taking everything in. Asking questions. Reaching for his hand. Smiling that soft, private smile that always felt like a secret meant only for him.
Colin sat down on the low stone wall beside the castle and pulled his jacket tighter. The lake stretched out before him, gray and endless. The wind carried the scent of peat smoke and wildflowers.
He bowed his head. “I miss you so much,” he whispered, his voice breaking in the still air.
A raven called from somewhere high above. The water rippled, stirred by the breeze. But the air remained still around him, as if the world itself was listening.
He didn’t expect an answer. But for the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel entirely alone.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. Not to call. Not to text. Just to look.
A photo glowed back at him—Joshua, standing by this very lake on their honeymoon. Wind in his hair. Laughing at something stupid Colin had said. Colin stared at the image, thumb brushing the edge of the screen.
“Don’t call,”Joshua had told him.“Don’t text. It’ll tear you in too many directions. Just please find yourself, my love, and come home to me healed and whole.”
Colin swallowed hard, then stood and put the phone away. He turned back to the trail and kept walking.
The bus rideto Galway was long and gray, the kind of journey that made it easy to disappear into the window glass and forget you had a body at all.
When it pulled into the station, Colin stepped down into the mist and found Danny already waiting. Same thick sweater. Same worn cap. Same patient eyes that had never needed many words. Danny nodded once. “You look like shite… and that’s me being generous.”
Colin huffed a laugh. “Thanks.”
They hugged—brief, firm, like men who’d done this before. Like muscle memory.
“Come on, so,” Danny said, slapping his shoulder. “Boat won’t clean itself, now will it?”
On the dock,the salt air stung Colin’s lungs in the way only Galway could. Danny handed him a brush and a bucket, and they worked in silence, scrubbing the deck and untangling lines. The wind tugged at their jackets, and gulls wheeled overhead, loud and insistent.
It felt like being fourteen again—only heavier.
“You’re not talking,” Danny said finally, not looking at him.
Colin kept scrubbing. “Not much to say.”
