“Listen to me. You’re beautiful, smart, funny, and make a mean cup of tea. But you also feel a lot like a sister. Too much for me to want to shove my hand into your knickers. And I don’t think that’d ever change. I’d rather kick someone’s arse for treating you badly than be the wanker to actually mistreat you. You following?”

I feel her body going rigid in my arms. I press a kiss on her shampooed, carefully combed hair, missing Rory’s tousled nest of random colors—light roots, dark middle, bleached tips.

“I’m sorry if she said that to you,” I add.

“What do you mean if? She did.” Kath rears her head back, the light in her eyes flickering like a dying flame. “You believe me, right? You know I’m telling the truth.” She tugs at my shirt.

“Sean likes you.” I change the subject.

“Really?” She sulks like I just suggested she date a bucket of lube. “Well, I don’t like him.”

“That’s fine, but I think it’s time to find someone you do.”

I’m trying the Band-Aid method. Fast and burning, as opposed to slow and excruciating. If I break her heart once, she’ll glue it back together and move on. If I break it one crack at the time, she’ll hold on to some silly hope this could happen. It won’t. Whether Rory wants me or not, I’ll never be with Kath.

I sidestep, push the key into the lock, and close the door behind me, leaving her outside. Then I walk into my granda’s darkened living room, take his phone book from the coffee table, sit down on his couch, and dial Debbie Jenkins’ number.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Jenkins?”

“Who is it?”

“My name is Mal. Malachy. I’m Father Doherty’s grandson.”

I expect her to feign recognition. I know she knows my grandfather. But instead of offering some sort of greeting, she says nothing at all. The silence is like a nail dragged over a blackboard. I cram words into it, desperately trying to fill the void.

“I’m calling because…well, I wanted to see how Rory is doing. We got to hang out while she was here, and she was quite emotional, and…”

Put more ands in the sentence, muppet.

I sound like I need to wear a helmet indoors. What the feck is wrong with me? But she is still not saying anything, and now I’m trying to figure out what the feck is wrong with her. I tally all stupid things I’m saying and thinking right now, as if this is some sort of a job interview.

“Anyway, is she there?” I clear my throat.

“No,” Debbie Jenkins clips.

More silence. Rory Jenkins despises her mother, and I’m starting to see why.

“May I have her number, please?”

“Malachy…” She lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Listen, I know you and my daughter had…a thing. We’re not as distant as she’d like people to believe. Rory is inexperienced, impressionable, and hopelessly romantic. I’m sure it got blown into this huge something in both your heads, but let’s admit it, just between the two of us—it doesn’t exactly have a future, does it?”

I’m torn between telling her to feck off and pleading my case. If I thought it didn’t have a future, I wouldn’t be calling.

She continues, “She moved out. She’s in college. She’s dating—”

“Dating?” I snap.

“Mmm-hmmm.” Debbie lights a fag on the other side of the line. “A very nice guy, too. In fact, I’m sure she won’t mind if I send you the pictures she took of you. They’re lying somewhere around her room. She never took them with her. Would you like that? For safekeeping?”

I can feel the napkin with our contract burning a hole in the back of my jeans. I take it everywhere, like I expect to see her, out and about in Tolka or Dublin, and wave it in her face.

See? Remember? We’re supposed to be together.

My pride urges me to tell Debbie she can shove the unwanted photos of me where the sun don’t shine, but ego is a luxury broken hearts cannot afford.

“Please do,” I mutter.

I start to give her my address, but she tells me she’ll send them to Father Doherty. I actually prefer it that way, because my house is the farthest from anywhere else in the village, and I’m prone to having my mail lost.

“How is she doing?” I ask again before she hangs up.

I can’t help myself, even if I’m starting to believe Kathleen about the whole one-night-stand thing. So what if Rory suggested long distance? She was caught in the moment. The magic wore off quickly for her, that’s for sure.

“I told you, Malachy. She’s fine.”

“Can I call you and make sure she’s okay from time to time?” Hang up the phone, you sorry pile of shite.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Debbie says apologetically. “It’d be for the best if Rory leaves Ireland behind her.”