Rain sluices down my forehead and cheeks as I jam the pumpkin against my hip and fumble around the bottom of her back hatch, trying to figure out how to open it.Finally, I press the button and release it, and it glides open.“Phew.”I slide the pumpkin onto the carpeted back area, but before I can close the door, his mother clucks.
“You know, Ireland has two kinds of squirrels.Since you’re new here, you may not know, but the red squirrels you see are natives.They’ve always been here.The grey squirrels are invasive, colonizing most of the island and forcing the red squirrels out.”
I don’t need Sam’s script for this.I’ve had about enough of people telling me that I’m not meant to be here.“Respectfully, I’m not a pumpkin, and I’m not a squirrel.I’m aperson.A very fed-up person.”
Mrs.Shanahan’s mouth forms a small o, and her eyes widen.“A squirrel?”She laughs.“What on earth are you saying?Why would I think you were a squirrel?”
I blink.I’m sure, waterlogged as I now am, I look almost like a bedraggled squirrel.“I—never mind.”
Mrs.Shanahan clears her throat.“As I was saying, when Jack was a young child, he came upon two tiny squirrels after a storm.They were chirping and chirping, and they’d been attacked by some sort of bug.They were in bad shape—and their mother had clearly been a casualty of the weather.”
“That’s sad,” I say.
She shrugs.“Not really.Laws of nature and all that.”
Okay, I hate her.
“But my son Jack loves two things in this world, and the first is?—”
“Hurling,” I say, proud to know that one.
She rolls her eyes.“Yes, but everyone here loves that.Please do stop interrupting.”
I snap my mouth closed.
“He loves saving things, and he loves defying me.”Her lips compress tightly.“And so when I told him that there was no reason whatsoever to try and save thosegreysquirrels, and when I told him that they were toxic and not worth any sort of effort, well, he only dug in harder.When I told him he was far too young to wake up at all hours of the night, feeding them with a dropper bottle, he ignored me.He set his alarms, and he woke up to them, and although one squirrel died, the other one lived.It became quite a nuisance, chittering and running, and chattering and making messes all over our backyard.The irritation went on for manyyears.”She grunts.“You, Miss Interrupting Cow, have now triggered one of his strongest traits.As a fumblingwidowedAmerican, he wants to save you.I can hear it when he talks about you, and I can see it in his eyes.The fact that your kids also need help just sweetens the deal.”She sighs dramatically.“And now I’m really stuck.”
“How so?”
“If I point out how silly his infatuation with you is, I’ll trigger his other big flaw.He’ll dig in like he’s never dug in before, and he’ll love you even more fiercely to defy me.”She clucks.“You see the dilemma I have.”
She steps closer, the edge of her umbrella brushing the top of my head.“But I think I have one small advantage.”She pauses, the corners of her mouth turning up.
“What’s that?”
“I think you really do like my son, and I think you might be a decent person.”
A compliment?Really?
“And if you are, you’ll be smart enough to see that the last woman he tried to save was a disaster who nearly destroyed him.He can’t survive another train wreck, even with as strong as he is, and he shouldn’t have to.So I entreat you, Vanessa, I call upon your kindness and your generosity when I beg you to end things with my son.Don’t force me to get involved.”She narrows her eyes.“In spite of his desire to defy me, I won’t be defeated again.So let’s keep things from becoming ugly.Just walk away.”
“What makes me so objectionable?”I ask.“Is it my age?Or that I’m American?Or that I have three children?”
Mrs.Shanahan shrugs.“Take your pick.All three, and more I won’t go into.”She scrunches her nose.“Vanessa, you tell me.When you look at my son, do you really think you’re a good match for him?Do you really think the two of you make sense?Because if you do, I’ll walk away and leave you alone.”
The saddest part is that she’s right.
8
Samantha
Lying’s bad.
I mean, like,obviously.
But sometimes it takes a lie to get something done.
When we were kids, Vanessa never won anything, but especially not classes at horse shows.I won the most out of the three of us, but Natalie won quite a lot, beating me sometimes, too.Vanessa always trailed after both of us, and sometimes she trailed us by a wide margin.
