And then he walks away. Just like that.
No ring. No dramatic scene. No cinematic rainstorm.
Just the echo of marching bands and my own heartbeat.
I stand there for a long moment, watching strangers celebrate a holiday that suddenly feels ironic. Patron saint of luck. Of blessings.
I check my phone. His latest post is already up.
A photo of us at an arch. I’m laughing into the wind. He’s looking at the camera like he’s already somewhere else. Caption:Grateful for growth. Onward.
I stare at it. Then I laugh. Because here’s the thing about being dumped for not fitting someone’s brand: It hurts. But it also clarifies.
I am not content. I am a human being, one who very nearly disappeared into this man’s world, even though I was front and center in it.
I look around at Galway—wild and loud and alive—and for the first time all day, I take a picture. Not of myself. Not of us. Just the street. The music. The messy, imperfect joy of it.
I book a flight change. I’m not going back to Boston on the plane he expects me on. Fuck that. He might show up and try for reconciliation-on-the-plane pictures, and by then, I might be drunk enough to agree. Not only that—I deserve a treat. Something better than the coach ticket I had before.
If Connor wants a curated future, he can have it. I want something real.
2
RONAN
Galway in Marchis never subtle.
The wind comes in off the Atlantic with opinions. It presses against my coat, carries the scent of salt and rain and peat smoke, and reminds me, quite insistently, that I am no longer thirty.
I stand outside my sister Mary’s house in Salthill, watching cousins and second cousins pour through the door with bottles and trays and noise. It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and the Callahans do not observe it quietly.
I have come back this year for one reason. Connor. My son reached out in January. A short message, almost casual.
I’m thinking of coming over for Paddy’s. Might be time I meet everyone properly.
Connor has always existed at the edges of the family map. I left for Boston in my twenties and never quite found my way back except in summer visits and holiday calls. Connor was the result of an affair in my mid-twenties, when I was a panicking med student.
I met his mother at a conference. She was older, sexy, confident, and a well-respected doctor at the start of her career. It wasn’t love—it was two nights in a resort hotel on the Vegas strip. Connor was subsequently raised on stories and photographs thanks to her keeping in contact with me over the years. He knows the mythology of my family but not the mechanics.
He asked if I would be in Galway for the holiday.
I told him yes. That was not entirely true at the time, but it became true the moment I sent the message.
At fifty-two, I no longer rearrange my calendar for random things. My patients require predictability. The hospital requires my presence. My life in Boston is measured and full. But blood is persuasive, and I have always desired a real relationship with my son. Not occasional phone calls and actively avoiding his social media.
I can’t take all that managed nonsense. It’s lies, start to finish. I wish my son didn’t make it his entire life.
Mary appears beside me, flour on her hands. “You’re waiting.”
“Yes.”
She studies my face with the kind of blunt affection only a sister can manage. “He’ll come if he said he would.”
“He has not always done so.”
She sighs. “He’s young.”
He’s twenty-six. Young enough to believe the world bends around his ambition. Old enough to know better.
