In the Unlikely Event

by L.J. Shen

  “Whose birthday?” I ask.

  “Please don’t ask.” He touches his eyebrow, looking down.

  An odd response, but then again, Mal is an odd person. Then I remember my presence here is largely unwelcome, and maybe he’s going to celebrate someone’s birthday and doesn’t want to invite me. The thought pierces my heart with shame and pain, but I let it go.

  “Where is Ashton?” I ask, mainly to drown my grumbling stomach with my voice.

  “Eh.” He flashes me a tired smile, traces of Fun Mal appearing in his crinkled, smiling eyes. “Our fine lad took off in the middle of the night, while we were sleeping. TMC reported he got on his private jet at Dublin Airport and took off to Thailand to ride elephants.”

  “You’re kidding me.” I can practically feel my eyes bulging out of their sockets.

  Mal shakes his head, then coughs. It’s dry and loud and almost makes him pop a shoulder. “Ryner just called to give me the gist of it.”

  “He must be freaking out.”

  Mal shrugs. “That’s what you get for signing a forty-million-dollar contract with a heroin-shooting, coke-snorting, LSD-enthusiast rock star and expecting him to be holed up in Ireland for two months. Here. Look at this.”

  He turns his open laptop to me and hits a TMC link. Ashton is sitting on an elephant, swinging his arms back and forth, sandwiched between a guide and a gorgeous woman who can’t be much older than eighteen.

  “Elephants, motherfuckers! The biggest force of nature since dinosaurs! Woo-hoo!” he bellows.

  I cover my mouth, struggling not to smile.

  “Actually, you’re thinking of blue whales. They’re the biggest animals on Earth,” his assistant, the chick who gave Mal her number, mutters from beside the elephant as she walks with the rest of Ashton’s entourage.

  “Yeah, but I mean, like, mammals,” Ashton huffs.

  “Whales are mammals.”

  Ashton lets out a piercing scream. “Well, that’s just fucking great. Get me down from this stinking asshole right now. They all look like wrinkly, purple balls, anyway.”

  I click the X icon to close the video, trying not to let the two million views and counting on the sidebar freak me out.

  I turn to Mal. “You look like death.”

  I decide to cut him some slack about the napkin and bring it up later. He doesn’t seem eager to discuss it at the moment. My first priority is to make sure he doesn’t walk out this door anytime soon. Lightning booms outside, the rain beating down hard on the roof. The light flickers off for a second.

  Again with this supernatural nonsense.

  “Cheers.” He lifts his tea mug in the air, taking a sip.

  I round the breakfast nook and press my palm against his forehead. He is burning.

  “You’re not leaving,” I whisper.

  “I’m afraid I’m not asking for permission, Rory.”

  “You’re not,” I insist, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “You’ll die out there. And then I’ll be all alone here, which would suck.”

  I meant it as a joke, but I forgot about Kath. It’s a foot-in-mouth moment. How did she die? Was she sick? Did you take care of her? Until I find out, I should be more careful with my words.

  “You’re not alone.” He gives me a friendly peck on the forehead. “There are mice in the attic.”

  “Mal,” I warn, following his gaze and looking at the car keys between us. I shake my head. “Promise me you won’t leave.”

  “What did I say about promises, Rory? I only make them if I intend to keep them. What about you?” More coughs.

  There is only one place he needs to be right now. In bed.

  Mal was right. The living room is not a place to sleep, and it’s my fault he’s in this condition. I should’ve given in to the sleeping bag in his heated room. Yet, I insisted we not share space. Now he’s sick as a dog because he tried to please me.

  I scoop up his keys, turn around, and run to Ashton’s room, locking myself inside. Mal is at my heel, and after I slam the door, he slaps his palm over it with a growl.

  “Rory!”

  “Get into bed!” I yell back.

  “I need to go.”

  “Not in this state. I don’t care who it is, Mal. You’re not going. If you want, I can call and make an excuse for you.”

  I hear his forehead sliding along the wooden door as he squats down, probably too exhausted to stand. He chuckles bitterly. “I very much doubt they’d like to hear from you.”

  Ouch. And there’s the jerk again.

  “Who is it?” I ask, trying to sound unaffected. My voice is frayed around the edges, though, cracking mid-sentence.

  “Rory, darlin’, this is not a joke.”

  “You can’t leave the house, Mal, unless you’re going to urgent care—in which case I’m driving.”

  There’s silence from the other end. The first minute, I’m guessing he’s contemplating my offer. The second minute, I suspect he might’ve fainted. I open the door timidly, looking left and right, but he isn’t there.

  I step outside, frowning.

  “Mal?”

  I stride into the living room. The front door is slightly ajar. Surely, he didn’t…

  The keys are in my hand, and it’s raining hail, so there’s no chance he just left. My eyes dart to the breakfast nook. The cake is gone. The little gift bag, too.

  Jesus.

  I jump into the car, still in my pajamas, and drive down the road. I catch him walking on the shoulder, cake wrapped in a plastic bag in his hands. He is soaking wet. I slow and roll down the window.

  “Mal!” I yell.

  His hair drips water into his face. His eyebrows are crinkled in determination. He is also a very unnatural shade of blue. “Get in! I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Mal!”

  “Go back home, Rory.”

  “Please. I didn’t know…”

  “Home.” He stops, turns around, and stares me down.

  The finality of the word strikes me somewhere deep. Wherever he is going, I really am not welcome there.

  “You can’t come with me, and I’m going no matter the cost. So your best option is to wait for me at home, really. You’re just wasting my time, and every minute I’m out in the pouring rain trying to convince you to stop following me is a minute I am still, in fact, standing in the rain, my condition worsening. Follow my logic here?”

  Why is he so harsh? So broken? So…mad? He was completely different yesterday, and I refuse to believe this is all due to the fact he woke up with the flu.

  But I’m confused, and furious, and a little forlorn over the way things have progressed this morning, so I throw an accusing finger his way.

  “Keep walking, but I’m ordering you a cab, and you better be home by one o’clock or I swear to God I’ll find your mom and grandfather’s numbers and call them.”

  I smash the gas pedal with my foot, leaving him there, with a soggy cake, a gift bag, and that invisible cord between us he seems to tug whenever I wander too far away for his liking.

  I’d let him have the car, but he is in no condition to drive, and I’m scared he’ll black out on the steering wheel.

  At the next stop sign, I call a taxi company on the outskirts of Tolka and urge them to pick up Mal where I left him. I tell them I’ll Venmo them a hundred euros if it happens within the next five minutes. Then I continue my journey to Main Street and park in front of the newsagents, shaking with a humiliation I cannot fully explain.

  Truly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I just know I have at least a few hours to burn before Mal comes back from his mysterious birthday bash. I open the glove compartment and find fifty euros. Considering I just spent more than that hauling Mal’s ass to his date, I think I’m okay to borrow it. I slip out of the car and get into the store, grabbing a small basket and throwing in flu medicine, herbal tea, a fancy Cadbury chocolate bar, chips, and a triangle-shaped sandwich to calm my grumblin
g stomach. When I hand the beautiful, dark cashier the note, she flips it and shakes her head, handing it back to me with an apologetic smile.

  “I can’t accept it. The money is ruined.”

  “Ruined how?” I blink, confused. I’m starting to think everyone just flat-out hates me in this town. They won’t even take my money now?

  “Someone wrote all over it.”

  I take the note and flip it. Sure enough, I see my name on it, and a date.

  The date I threw it into Mal’s guitar case.

  He kept it. For good luck. For fate. For whatever reason, he kept it and the napkin, and what does that even mean?

  Heart pounding like a restless, caged animal, I tuck the note back into my pajama pocket.

  Did you feel the same way I did, Mal? Did you walk around with a hole in your chest?

  But if he had, he wouldn’t have married Kathleen. I’m reading into things. Not the first time I’ve done that. Besides, Callum. I love like Callum.

  Callum, Callum, Callum.

  “Look, it’s the only money I have. I stay right up Main Street, in the Doherty cottage. Is it okay if I come back in a few hours with the money? I’m starving. Also, my host is sick, and I—”

  “I know who you are.” The woman lowers her voice, her eyes softening. She has this weird mix of Irish and Indian accents, sweet and round and warm, like spices and honey.

  “You do?” I let out an audible sigh.

  News sure travels fast in small villages. I wonder if that’s why people feel so strongly about country life. Because it defines you so profoundly, it’s a part of your identity. Then again, I did have a show-off with Maeve and Heather here not even forty-eight hours ago.

  She starts shoving my things into a stripy, nylon white and blue bag. “I arrived in Tolka three years after your mother left. They told me how you got the scar. I’m so sorry, Aurora.”

  “Huh?” I look up at her, no longer smiling.

  My mom wasn’t here to begin with—she said she never set foot in Ireland—so how could she possibly leave? And I was born with this birthmark. That’s what she said. This is not some Harry Potter scenario where the scar has deeper meaning. It is what it is: a birthmark. Knowing me, I probably punched myself in her uterus by accident.

  The cashier hands me my bag.

  “On the house. I’m just glad you survived.” She shakes her head a little, her long side braid moving back and forth.

  “Survived what?” I’m trying not to lose patience. “What did you hear about me? About my mom?”

  The bell above the door chimes, and someone walks into the shop. The light flickers, just for a second. On. Off. The universe is trying to tell me something. The universe can also go screw itself. It hasn’t helped at all so far. It just messes with me.

  As soon as the woman sees who it is, her eyes widen and her mouth clamps shut. I turn around. It’s Father Doherty, and he’s already holding a bottle of wine, obviously in a hurry to pay and leave.

  Fancy everyone having a party and not inviting the Wicked Witch of the West.

  I wish I could say I am happy to see him, but more than anything, it’s panic that washes over me. I’m panicked about Mal being sick and walking around in the rain, panicked I’m losing grip on what I have with Callum, but most of all, I’m terrified that there’s some big secret about me I’m not privy to.

  And all the answers are around me, in a demonic circle, dancing ritually and laughing. Only they’re invisible, and I can’t see them.

  “Rory,” Father Doherty gasps, stumbling backwards. His back hits the magazine shelf.

  I raise an eyebrow. There’s no way his grandson didn’t tell him I was here.

  “I’ve been meaning to come up and say hello.” He clears his throat, mustering an embarrassed smile.

  He looks even more ancient than he did eight years ago. Weaker, too. Tragedy has a way of painting your face in a different shade. You can always spot people who are grieving before they open their mouths.

  “I’m sure you have.” I smile patiently, knowing there’s no point in confronting him.

  “I wanted to give you time to settle. How have you been?”

  “Oh, you know.” I wrap the bag handle around my fist. “This nice lady over here was in the middle of telling me a story, weren’t you, Ms…”

  I turn around and watch her watch him with pure terror in her eyes.

  What the hell is going on?

  “Patel,” she says. “Divya Patel. Actually, I…I…” She looks at me, smiling apologetically. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I mixed you up with someone else. It’s all a bit of a blur. A lot happened when I first came to Tolka.”

  I look between them. Unbelievable. He just silenced her without more than a look.

  Father Doherty knows something I don’t. Divya, too.

  “Please.” I drop the polite charade, turning back to her. “I deserve to know how I got my scar.”

  She looks between me and Father Doherty. There’s a scream lodged in my throat. She’s asking him for permission. He has no right. She shakes her head and grabs the bottle of wine he’s handing her.

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice is quiet.

  I storm out of the store, ignoring the sting in my eyes. I drive around for a while, trying to piece together everything, see if Mom ever mentioned anything about being in Tolka. But if she had, I would certainly remember. She never talked about Tolka. When it’s late lunchtime, I finally decide to come back to the cottage. But instead of eating, I dump the bag with the food onto the counter and call her.

  “Rory!” She picks up on the first ring. “Gosh, I knew you’d call at four in the morning. I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Text messages don’t cut it, young lady. What about your mom? You knew I had those injections two days ago.”

  “It’s Botox, not bone marrow. This, too, shall pass,” I bite flatly. After six months or so, depending on where you got it.

  “You’re too sarcastic for your own good, Daughter.”

  “No such thing, Mother.”

  “How’s Ireland? How’s your wretched half-sister?”

  Dead, I want to scream. I’m in the Twilight Zone, and I’m not talking glittery vampires. Since breaking the news about Kathleen would only make her ask a trillion more questions I’m not prepared to answer, I keep this piece of information to myself.

  Instead, I say, “Have you ever been to Tolka, Mom?”

  “Hmm, what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “It’s a simple question. Its origin is of no importance. Have you or have you not visited Tolka?”

  “Your father used to live there for a hot minute, you know.” I hear her flicking the lighter and inhaling the first drag of a cigarette. “When your half-sister was younger.”

  Of course. Of course, she would never call Kathleen by her name. Of course, she’s hostile toward Dad, even when he moved closer to his kid and tried to be a decent father.

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  I want to punch a wall. I think I just might. But I’m afraid a trip to the hospital will result in more revelations. Maybe they’ll run some tests and find out I’m half-leprechaun. Who knows?

  “No,” she says finally. “No, I haven’t. Are you sleeping with that infuriating Irishman yet? You’ve always had a weakness for the ones who are irreparable.”

  “He doesn’t need repairing.”

  “He is broken.”

  “Everyone is broken. Some show it more than others.”

  I made the mistake of telling Mom how I felt about Mal when I came back from Ireland—the first and last time I opened up to her about a boy. She threw a fit, especially after she found the rolled-up sanitary pads in my bathroom trashcan and asked how come my period was so early. Then I had to tell her about the morning-after pill I took, and she flipped and dragged me by the arm to get tested for STDs.

  I’ve never felt more like an idio
tic child than I did then, and I haven’t shared much with her about anything since.

  “I have a boyfriend, so, obviously, no. I haven’t slept with him, nor am I planning on it.”

  “You never know. You and I, we’re made of the same self-destructive material. When I met Glen, I had a boyfriend, too.”

  “You did?” I ask mildly.

  I don’t really care. I’m not her.

  It doesn’t even matter if Callum and I break up down the road. I still won’t do this to him, for the simple reason that I won’t do it to me. I’m not a cheater.

  “Yup.” She pops the P, taking another drag. “Good Italian boy. Went to the police academy. Could’ve had a good life, Aurora. Instead, here I am, cutting coupons for soap and working double shifts at Hussey’s Pizza. Pretty darn sure the Lord chose it as my workplace to remind me what I did to Tony.”

  I’m about to ask her about my scar when I hear a loud thud coming from behind the front door.

  Hoof.

  “Talk later, Mom.”

  “Wait! I need to talk to you about—”

  I kill the conversation and boomerang the phone across the breakfast nook. Padding toward the door, I wonder what inspired me to put the phone down when I heard a strange, foreign, scary sound from behind the door of this deserted cottage. If photography doesn’t pan out, I sure could be an extra in the first five minutes of a B-grade scary movie. Then again, staying on the phone wouldn’t have helped.

  I wouldn’t trust my mom with my wallet, let alone my life.

  Please be Callum, surprising me to whisk me off to England, and not an axe murderer.

  I fling the door open, only to find the usual fields, gray sky, and endless rain. I look left, then right, and still—nothing. I’m about to close the door when I hear a low, gritty groan at my feet. My eyes slide down. Mal is lying on the ground, soaked to the bone, looking positively green.

  I gasp, clutching the collar of his jacket and dragging him inside. He is heavy as hell and ice cold to the touch. I can only get him to the middle of the living room before I start taking off his drenched clothes. He’s limp, and mostly unconscious under my hands. I don’t ask him why he decided to walk instead of calling a cab or—God forbid—me. I don’t ask where he’s been. My main concern is keeping him alive right now.