Prelude … the mothers
Rhonda Murphy and Constance Bailey had been friends for a very long time. From the moment a newly married Connie had arrived in Ballyshannon thirty-five years ago and moved in just down the street from Ronnie, they’d been firm friends. As librarians, they worked together. They shared the same wedding anniversary. And both had been pregnant at the same time. To add the cherry on top of this wonderful synchronicity, they’d gone into labour on the same day, welcoming their first children within an hour of each other.
It had been a blessing to weather together the storms of night feeding and colic and teething. Of skinned knees and broken bones and falls from trees. Of phone calls from school and letters from the teacher and raging teenage hormones.
They’d babysat for each other, cheered each other’s successes at work and in life, and commiserated over circumstances that meant neither was blessed with a second child. They’d been each other’s first call when their adult children had phoned home, and comforted each other when their husbands haddied.
Once a month they went into Melbourne to see a show or an exhibition. They attended the Australian Open every year. In November they were walking the Milford Sound.
They were the best of besties.
And they were well known and well loved around town. Hell, they were upstanding members of their small community, population 5208, nestled amongst emerald hills about an hour’s drive north of Geelong. They went to church every Sunday and volunteered with various community organisations. Ronnie knitted beanies for the NICU babies at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. Connie volunteered at the local charity shop.
They were kind and decent andhonest.They were good people.
Really, they were.
But tonight, surrounded by what felt like most of Ballyshannon on the occasion of their combined sixtieth birthday party, and after prolonged subjection to multiple wedding and/or grandchildren pictures from their many sixty-ish friends, they appeared to suffer a collective, telepathic brainfart.
‘I mean, doesn’t Rachael just look stunning in ivory? And her husband is so handsome. I cannot wait for them to make me a grandmother again. It’s the best feeling in the world!’
‘This is Wesley’s littlest one after he lost his two front teeth within hours of each other. Isn’t he darling?’
‘Triplets! Can you believe it? They’re going to need a biggercar!’
The last one was from Marjorie Weaver, becauseof courseshe-of-many-grandchildren had to upsize and outdo everyone else. If she’d been a man, there’d have been questions about why she was compensating quite so hard.
Still, Ronnie and Connie had nodded perfunctorily at the photo of joined hands cradling a belly full of babies as well as the vision in ivory and the gap-toothed toddler. They’doohedandahhedin the appropriate places inallthe proffered pictures, as they’d been doing for what felt like years now, happy for their friends as their families welcomed new generations.
But then came the question—the inevitable one. The one they’d faced together over and over and weathered with fixed smiles, good-natured deflection and philosophical shrugs.
Tonight, though—maybe because it had come from Marjorie—it broke them.
‘Seriously, Ronnie and Connie, when are your two going to do something about finding themselves some partners and making you grandmothers? They’re really letting down the side. They’re in their thirties now—they’ve got to know the clock is ticking,surely?’
Yes. The clock was ticking. Atsixty, Connie and Ronnie felt that acutely. The problem was, despite how much both of them would very much like to be picking out mother of the bride outfits and cradling grandbabies, neither of them would ever dream of pressuring their offspring into marriage and children. Neither of them were that kind of mother.
Really, they weren’t.
Until tonight. Until they’d taken all they could from the Ballyshannon granny mafia—and Marjorie Weaver, the head mafiosa, in particular.
Connie cracked first. ‘Actually, Sweeney has sworn me to secrecy,’ she blurted as yet another phone screen with a cute, drooling grandbaby appeared. ‘But what the hell … she just got engaged.’
It took Ronnie only a few seconds of side eye to jump on board. She sure as eggs wasn’t going to be the only sixty-year-old woman in Ballyshannon not up for some potential future grandmother kudos.
‘He’ll kill me for saying, but Fin got engaged as well.’
Later, neither would be sure how, amidst the collective gasps from their friends, the next falsehood materialised. But with nothing more than an exchange of looks—a rapid-fire second of besties ESP—they were both on the same page.
‘To Sweeney,’ Ronnie announced, digging the hole a littledeeper.
Grabbing a shovel, Connie rushed to confirm. ‘We’re sohappy.’
And, basking in the congratulations from their friends and the pursed, fishy lips of a sceptical-looking Marjorie, neither felt too bad about their transgression. After all, Fin was in Dublin and Sweeney was in Peru. What was the harm in one—or two—tiny fibs?
One
While Connie and Ronnie were lying their asses off …
