The Moon Over Kilmore Quay: a heartwarming and emotional family drama perfect for summer 2021

by Carmel Harrington

  Cassidy’s. Join us. Please. K x

  ‘She won’t come,’ Nikki said. ‘She’ll text you tomorrow saying that she got caught up in her case and that she forgot the time.’

  Nikki was beginning to irritate me with her stinging comments. Maybe this time I did want to go for a drink. Even as the thought entered my head, I knew it was a lie. Nevertheless, I looked out from behind the potted plant and knew it was a new low for me. I was a grown-ass woman, and if I didn’t want to go for a drink, all I had to do was say so. But instead I chose to act like a kid and hide behind a plant. The absurdity of my situation struck me as funny and I felt a gurgle of laughter splutter out. I clasped my hand over my mouth so that they couldn’t hear me.

  ‘You know I’ve been thinking about Bea saying no to us all the time. Maybe it’s time to stop asking,’ Nikki said. ‘We could be making her feel ever so uncomfortable, pushing her to join us every week.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Katrina answered, loyal as always. I took one step forward at that. But my feet didn’t seem to want to go any further, and stalled. I stayed that way, like a toy robot who’d run out of battery, frozen mid-step, until I heard the front door slam shut. My heart hammered into my chest and I glanced at my watch, half expecting it to raise an alarm.

  The thing was, I didn’t want them to stop asking me. Nikki was wrong. I loved spending time with them. It was just … I couldn’t finish that thought. I could run after them. Tell them, ‘Of course I’m coming. First drink is on me!’ Nikki would be delighted I said yes. Katrina would give me one of her knowing looks, but then she would link arms with me as we walked. In fact, she probably knew I was hiding in here right now. She missed nothing. I sometimes thought she had mystical powers.

  Then again, I could stay hidden in the shadows of my office until I was certain they’d gone. They had already written me off, so no harm really. I glanced at my iMac sitting on my desk a few feet away. If I gave my case another hour, I could close it. I lied to myself that my decision to stay was for my client’s sake.

  I clicked open Facebook to continue my search for a client’s biological mom. When it came to finding missing parents, mothers in particular, I became too emotionally connected to the cases. Katrina did a lot of the work searching for deadbeat dads, chasing up alimony or child maintenance. I took the missing parents. I suppose it didn’t take Freud to work out that I had mommy issues. I might not be able to find my own mother, but I could help others find theirs. And I was close to finding my client Leah’s mom, Noelle. I could feel it, as I scrolled through the photographs and posts on the screen in front of me. Pretty soon I forgot about letting down Katrina and Nikki as I got lost chasing Noelle. While she herself wasn’t on Facebook, I’d found her sister, who took a lot of photographs of her cats. In her garden, on the chair, on the end of the bed, it was mind-numbingly boring – 80 per cent of my work was. But after forty-five minutes of scrolling, clicking, reading every boring comment, I got a hit. The missing piece of Leah’s puzzle.

  A photograph taken in 2012 had two people in it holding up a glass of champagne. Both had big, cheesy smiles for the camera. At a guess, they’d had a few glasses of bubbles already when the snap was taken. And the caption beneath the shot was, ‘Surprise birthday drinks at my little sister’s house! Thanks, Noelle, you are the best!’ I held my breath as I checked to see if the location tagging was on. Yes! She lived in North Carolina. A Google search with these filters on gave me several hits. She was the secretary of a local Credit Union and her email was listed in their AGM minutes.

  There is no better feeling than dialling a client’s phone when you have good news to report. I explained to Leah that I’d found Noelle and that I had contact details. At first she didn’t say anything. Then the sound of sobs began, soft at first, growing with each passing second. Leah had been looking for her mother for years before she contacted us at the agency. She’d all but given up on ever finding her. It felt good— Scratch that, it felt amazing to have helped her in some small way. Of course, Noelle might not want to meet her. And even if they did meet, they might not get on. More often than not, in my experience, happy ever afters don’t come in these reunions. But at least Leah would have some answers. More than I would ever get from my mom.

  I stretched my arms above my head and thought about going home. Maybe I’d grab a pizza slice on the way. I knew I had no food in the fridge and, even if I had, I didn’t want to cook. My arm tingled as my watch buzzed again, this time with a text message.

  Just a gentle reminder about our dinner tonight. Can’t wait to see you. Love Dad.

  Damn it. Our dinner had gone out of my mind completely. What was wrong with me lately? I needed to get my head back in the game! I typed another message, this one laced with guilt.

  I haven’t forgotten. What do you take me for? Don’t answer that! I can’t wait to see you too.

  The sentiment was true at least. You would think that we would see more of each other, considering there was only a stairwell between us. But I’d not seen him in person since New Year’s Day a few weeks back. I seemed to be letting a lot of people down lately. I ran my finger over his sign-off, Love Dad. No matter how many times I told him that I could see the message was from him, that there was no need for him to sign off stating the obvious, he’d always shrug and say, ‘Don’t take away my happiness at saying I love you whenever I can. That’s what we dads do.’ I added a Love Bea to the end of my text and hit send. I could picture him smiling as he read it and the need to see him overwhelmed me. I began logging off, closing down programmes and pages that I’d used in my search. I was about to close down Facebook when I spotted a post that the Irish Central page had shared. It was a bride on her wedding day, singing “Danny Boy” for her new husband … Damn it to hell, I felt fresh tears spring to my eyes without warning. Dan’s song. I used to think that I might sing it to him on our wedding day. But I’ll never sing that song again. It’s ruined for me. I didn’t have the strength to deal with the memories, so I pushed them away. Dan was gone. I’d cried enough tears to fill the River Slaney, as my gran used to say. Katrina said that it’s good to cry about things we have lost. That in her country, they cry as often as they laugh. She said that I am bottling up my emotions and that they will come back to hunt me down. And slay me, if I’m not careful. I pushed that thought away too.

  Then I realized that I could use my dinner with Dad as an excuse for missing karaoke this evening. I quickly typed a WhatsApp to our group chat.

  Bea: Sorry for missing you earlier. It’s daddy-daughter night at Mario’s.

  Katrina: Ah, I should have remembered. Nikki is singing badly. You miss nothing. You miss everything. Give Ryan a kiss from me.

  My dad and Katrina had a mutual appreciation society going on. I made a mental note to organize a dinner for us all. I had to find my way out of this funk I was in, but I wasn’t sure how. This thing with the letter and smoking, as well as not being able to get hold of Stephanie, was making me crazy. I did a quick fix of my make-up before I stepped out onto the sidewalk. My stomach grumbled at the thought of a Mario’s dinner. We’d been going to this same diner ever since I was a toddler. Legend had it that Dad stumbled across it one evening while he was out for a walk with me in my stroller. I’d been a terror all day, teething and seething, causing chaos for my poor frazzled father, who was trying to get through the sadness of the first anniversary of my mother’s passing. But when he walked by the diner, I stopped screaming and pointed with excitement to the bright neon lights in the window. So we went in. My dad’s weary expression and the tired stoop of his shoulders inspired solidarity in Mario, himself a father. He took me into his arms and, like a child whisperer, made me forget my tantrum. I had my first taste of ice-cream that evening. Half a scoop of homemade creamy vanilla ice-cream that made me squeal again, only this time in delight. And Mario insisted that Dad try his famous meatloaf, a family recipe passed down for generations. There’s a photograph of us both, taken by Mario on tha
t first night. He had one of those automatic Polaroid cameras that printed snaps immediately. We joined the other regular customers on his wall of fame behind the till. Me, sitting in an off-white high chair, with my hair tied in two skew-ways bunches with red ribbon. Dad sitting opposite me, a proud lopsided smile on his face as he watched me tuck into a large sundae. We didn’t know it in that moment, but a tradition was born. Because from that evening on, all milestone occasions for us two were celebrated with a portion of meatloaf and a scoop of ice-cream. Birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, lost teeth, new teeth, Irish dancing exams. Staff may have come and gone over the years, but the menu and Mario remained constant.

  You can’t walk a block in New York without passing a diner. They are as iconic to our city as the corner pretzel cart. They might all share bottomless coffee, 200-line menus and Formica countertops, but each has its own special something that differentiates it from the rest. That something was Mario himself. I’ve watched him over the years, as he greeted customers when they arrived at the diner’s chrome doors. He has the knack of making everybody feel like they are VIP guests, important and valued. That’s a gift.

  Dad reckoned it was Mom who guided us to Mario’s. Like an angel from above, she steered us to where we needed to be after she died. I liked that. And today it was twenty-five years since she died. And I had almost forgotten. How could I? The guilt made my stomach churn. This was another result of me burning the candle at both ends. Pushing myself to my limits, working twelve-hour days, six and sometimes seven days a week. No wonder I was forgetful. As I rode the subway to Brooklyn, I opened up my phone and looked at photographs of Dan and me, picking at the proverbial scab again. I couldn’t stop myself doing this, on every commute. Mostly selfies, of us in the park, at home, in Times Square, at the parade. And in every single one, both of us were smiling.

  Happy.

  In love.

  Well, to hell with that. I snapped the phone shut.

  ‘Bella Beatrice.’ Mario jumped up to embrace me, kissing me on both cheeks as I walked into the diner. He smelt of grease, leather and paper, a trio of smells that I’d grown to love through the decades of hugs and kisses I’d received from him. Mario treated us like family and, to Dad and me, he felt like family too. ‘Come. We have your table ready. Your papa is not here yet. Are you hungry? You look tired. You look thin.’ Mario ushered me towards the furthest laminated booth at the back of the deli as he tutted over my appearance. I had lost weight, I supposed. Sometimes I forgot to eat. I slid into our booth, the same one we always sat in. He’d placed a reserved sign on the table earlier, so that nobody else could nab it. ‘Coffee while you wait?’

  ‘I think I’ll have a Corona tonight.’

  ‘I keep forgetting you are not a child any more. I don’t know, where did those years go. I’m getting old …’ he muttered as he walked to the counter, asking a waitress to send a beer over. I noticed he walked slower these days and his hair was more salt than pepper. Time moved on. I felt eyes on me and looked up.

  Dad.

  His face lit up in a smile so bright that it made my heart constrict tight, then release with a kapow! I remembered all of the versions of me that had sat in this booth with Dad over the years. Happy, sad, moody, hormonal, broken-hearted, angry, indifferent and every now and then, a downright rude Bea. And no matter which version I was, Dad always had that same, bright, proud smile on his face. For the third time tonight, I felt tears rush me. I jumped up and fell into his embrace, sighing as he held me tight.

  12

  BEA

  January 2020

  Mario’s Diner, Brooklyn

  ‘The usual?’ Mario asked, even though he knew the answer before we nodded. We never bothered to look at the menu. Coming here and not eating the meatloaf would be tantamount to sacrilege. On my seventh birthday we couldn’t come here because I was at home miserable with chickenpox. There wasn’t a part of my body that did not itch and I still have some scars on my arms from all the scratching. Dad cancelled our reservation because, while I was no longer infectious, I looked like I had the plague. I was devastated. Not going to Mario’s felt like the end of the world. But Mario saved the day by delivering our meal to Innisfree in person. I felt like royalty that night. Dad said that his kindness sealed our loyalty to Mario forever.

  We avoided the subject of Mom at first, even though this dinner was in celebration of her life. Dad was always careful to say that. Once we’d eaten and caught up on life, we’d get to her. Two plates of steaming hot meatloaf, topped with a glazed tomato sauce and a generous scoop of creamy mashed potato arrived.

  ‘Oh Mario, that smells divine,’ I told him, and he beamed at the compliment.

  Dad told me all about the latest episode of Law & Order he’d been watching. A couch investigator, he liked nothing better than to solve a mystery and the crime shows were his favourites. I smiled as I listened to him tell me about the plot highlights and the exact moment he figured out whodunnit. And somewhere between him telling me about a body found in a dumpster and the murderer being caught by Mariska – who he’d had a crush on for years – we found our groove again. He knew me, you see. It took me a while to ease back into us, so he took the lead in the conversation until I got there too.

  ‘It’s no wonder I ended up wanting to be a detective,’ I said to him, teasing, smiling. ‘Goodness knows I grew up watching shows like Law & Order instead of Disney.’

  ‘You loved them too!’ he said. ‘Are you happy, love? Has Family Finders worked out as you hoped it would?’

  ‘I love what I do. Some days are boring, grunt work. But others, I know that I’ve done some good in the world. Made a difference. I think that first case I ever took was life-changing for me. A switch turned on, that I can’t turn off. I don’t think I could ever stop doing this now. It’s part of who I am.’

  That first case had taught me that some people got lost deliberately. And wanted to stay that way. When I graduated from college, I toyed with applying to the NYPD. Uncle Mike had made a good career there and, if I had made that choice, I think I could have been happy too. But then I saw an online missing persons agency looking for an administrator. I applied, got the job and almost instantly regretted it, as my first week was spent on mindlessly boring paperwork. But a few months later, I was given the chance to help on a case to find a missing wife. I spoke to her husband on the phone and he pleaded with me to find her, bring her home. I felt sorry for him; he seemed so upset and worried that she’d disappeared off the face of the earth. It took me about a month to find her. And don’t ask me why I did it – Uncle Mike says I have some kind of sixth sense; all good detectives do – I decided to drive the four hours to the small apartment where she was living. I watched her as she left the building and got into her car. She was a nervous wreck, checking up and down the street constantly as she walked down the driveway. She was scared. It was obvious with every step she made. So I broke protocol and spoke to her. Our job was to find people and pass information on. Not get involved in the whys and wherefores. I’m so glad I did, though, because she explained why she had to run away. Her husband used her as a punchbag, both emotionally and physically. She told me that if I gave him her address, I would be signing her death warrant. I lied to my boss and my client and told him that his wife was untraceable. We gave him back his fee. After that, I began to think about setting up my own agency. One that brought life and colour to the clients and missing people we traced. Everybody has a story, and I guess I wanted to find out what that was.

  It took me a year to get the nerve to go for it. And when I announced to my family and friends that I was going to take the plunge, Katrina approached me and asked if she could be my partner. I was gobsmacked. She was working in real estate and doing a great job too. But she hated it. She wanted to be her own boss and I knew instinctively that she would be the perfect fit for my agency. She had a great business head, unlike me. So, Family Finders was established. We started off slowly, but over the years our
reputation had grown.

  ‘No regrets, I’m glad to hear that,’ Dad said.

  ‘My only regret is that I’ve almost finished this meatloaf.’ And when we handed our empty plates to Mario twenty minutes later, Dad said, ‘We didn’t enjoy that one bit,’ in a joke as old as time.

  Mario beamed approval and took a trip down memory lane. ‘I remember that first night like it was yesterday. Your papa was frazzled. But I knew a good meal would sort him out. And you, my Bella Bea, all you needed was some of my special ice-cream. Speaking of which, you ready for a sundae now?’

  ‘Yes please! I’ve been thinking of nothing else since I walked in.’

  ‘You look thinner than the last time I saw you,’ Dad said. ‘You’re not doing one of those silly diets, are you?’

  ‘As if!’ I said. ‘I demolished a meal big enough to feed a family of three! You know me, my weight goes up and down all the time.’

  Dad frowned and didn’t look convinced. ‘And this business with the photograph and smoking. The letter. Have you had any further … episodes?’

  ‘I’m mortified about all of that, Dad. I was still drunk from Grandad’s whiskey. Put it out of your mind because all I want is to forget about it.’ The relief on his face confirmed I was right to play the letter and its messages all the way down to no big deal town. Before he could question me any further, I changed the subject. ‘Talk to me about Mom.’ I never got tired of hearing about how they met, their love for each other, their love for me. Dad was a natural storyteller and could make any tale magical. Their love story was my favourite.

  He closed his eyes for a moment as he pulled memories from the corners of his head and heart. ‘She was a beauty. Like you are. And boy could she eat. She would have made light work of that meatloaf, as you did!’

  ‘It’s a skill,’ I said, feeling inordinately pleased at the comparison. I gave him my full attention, hoping for a new titbit of information that I could hold close and later examine.