Conor
The Lyft driver pulls up to the curb in front of the launderette and runs out with a massive golf umbrella. Thank fuck, he helps us load all the scran we bought, as well as our bag of clothes. Somehow he manages to keep us both relatively dry.
We scramble into the back seat, and I pull out a twenty, placing it on his console. “Here’s some for helping us, yeah?”
The driver looks down at the bill and grins. “Thanks.”
A few minutes later, we pull up under the hotel’s awning. I retrieve a luggage cart from the lobby, and the unloading goes faster than ever since we don’t have to be messing about with his umbrella. As we wave a farewell to Pete the driver, I check the time on my mobile. It’s almost gone one. I’d like to give my sister a bell before it gets too late to call someone in Ireland.
Claire and I make quick work of unpacking all of our stuff in the kitchen, and I laugh again.
She lifts an eyebrow.
“We have enough to last us two weeks or more, I’m thinking.”
She glances over the mound of bags of taytos, pastries, and canned goods she’s organized along the counter. She rubs her hands together. “I think you’re right.”
I chuckle and pull out my mobile, holding it up. “Going to ring my sister, yeah.”
She nods and unearths the pizza. “I’ll get this started. I’m starving. You?”
“I could eat the lamb of Jesus through the rungs of a chair.”
I fall into the couch and punch the icon for my sister.
“Con,” Siobhan says when she answers, and I hear the smile in it. Her voice—Christ, every time it’s like a tug on my heart—part affection, part bittersweet. I love my sister and would do anything for her, and I miss her. But it comes with some baggage I hate facing every time we’re after chatting. Some of that baggage is guilt for leaving her to tend to the family farm after our da passed five years ago.
I couldn’t get away from the farm—and Ireland—fast enough. Too many memories. Of my old life, my old culchie self. Thank fuck my sister was ever too young to remember our mother. She only misses her as a concept.
Me? Yeah. I remember the woman. My most vivid memory, and the last I have of her, is permanently seared into my memory bank. The farmhouse seems larger in mind than it would later. The hall going on forever. Dark. And my mam looking down at me, her mouth moving with angry words, most of which I’m not recalling to mind. But one word registered. “Useless.” And then the dropping sensation my seven-year-old heart felt. Especially when I woke the next morning to find she'd left us. For good.
Claire
Conor’s talking to his sister, whom I’m assuming is still back in Ireland judging from some of the things he says. Beyond him, the picture window highlights a gray world of angry rain, with trees swaying to one side.
The oven dings, telling me it’s done preheating, and I slide our pizza in and set the timer.
While our room is larger than a standard hotel room, it’s still small enough to hear Conor’s conversation. A farm is the main topic, and while his tone’s light, he’s gone from sitting on the couch to pacing circles around the living room. There’s an underlying tension in his voice that I can feel.
Finally he hangs up.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
He pivots quickly but gracefully for such a large guy. “Yeah, just having some…business to be dealing with over the family farm.” His accent grew thicker during the phone conversation, and it still has a deeper lilt than usual.
Dammit. It’s sexy as hell. “You have a farm in Ireland?”
“My sister holds onto it, yeah.”
I pull down two plates. “But it sounds like you’re a part of it too?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s where we grew up in County Galway, near Kilbannon. A sheep farm. When my father passed, I didn’t want to be running it, but my sister did. I signed my share over to her before I left for the States.”
“She must love it.”
“That she does. Always has. She’s trying to strengthen the Galway breed of sheep and took out some loans, which scares the shite out of me.”
I search the cabinets for glasses and pull down two. I find silverware in the drawers. “How come?”
“She’s my little sister. I’m going to worry, yeah.”
I have no idea what that’s like, as I’m an only child. And while he’s been answering my questions, I get a vibe that he doesn’t like to talk about it, so I change topics. “Sounds like your presentation is a big deal.”
I hear him moving behind me and glance over my shoulder. He sits at the small dining table and looks down, laying his palms flat down on it. “That it is. Part of my yearly evaluation. If it’s bang on, I’ll be getting myself a pure savage bonus.”
“Savage?”
He leans against the table and crosses his arms, his mouth pulled up at the corner. “Savage as in excellent. Fierce. Big. Still floors me how much tech companies throw around in this country, even in this economy. Bleeding flahulach they are. I love America.”
I knew he worked at some high-power tech firm, but he didn’t strike me as money hungry. “Oh. That’s…cool.”
He leans back against his chair, his broad shoulders straightening, and looks at me. “Yeah. I want to be paying off my sister’s loans she has on the farm, though she doesn’t know it yet. And snagging that bonus will leave me standing in line for a promotion.”
Okay, that fit better into my impression of him. “Now I can see why you wanted to get your beauty sleep last night.”
He snorts. “The farm’s been in the family for donkey’s years.” His voice has an odd quality to it, and because I’ve always been able to easily pick up others’ emotions, I can feel a guilt come off him that I’m not even sure he’s aware of. And I can see the result—he works as hard as he does to compensate for all that guilt.
But he seems to shake himself, as if he didn’t mean to share that much. He pushes away from the table and walks over to the TV, settling into the couch.
Conor
I’m watching some reality show on the telly where these blacksmiths compete to make weapons, and it’s hard core. But then it penetrates my thick skull that Claire’s cooking the pizza—a whiff of it’s after cluing me in—and she’s bustling around the table. I lift off the arm of the couch, holding myself up to see. She’s setting it?
I hop up. “What can I be doing?”
She pauses, a plate halfway to the table, and glances up. “If you could grab the pizza, I think the timer’s about to—”