Patrick had been less cautious, but he’d never regretted investing in Max Fitness. As well as knowing her stuff, Maxine was an astute businesswoman and Patrick could already have drawn most of his investment from the profits. They’d talked about expansion and were looking into installing a boxing ring and a swimming pool within the next five years. Max wanted to get some figures together first; she was the planner; Patrick was the ideas man, the impulsive one. After all, his day job gave him plenty of time to think, and when it came to tending to the flora at the cemetery he had all the patience in the world. Away from work? Well, wasn’t he just the sort to fall in love in a matter of weeks and care not a jot if his new boyfriend “accidentally” moved in?
The same, however, could not be said of Seamus, which made his surprise visit atypical and Patrick’s curiosity finally got the better of him.
“You still haven’t mentioned why you’ve come visiting, Seamus.”
Seamus’s frown deepened. He pressed the button, decelerating the treadmill to walking pace. “I’m homesick,” he said.
“Oh right, so. You’re after moving back?”
“I am indeed.”
“That’s no problem. I can put you up while you get yourself sorted with a job and—”
“No, Paddy. That’s not what I mean.”
Patrick pressed the “stop” button and his treadmill juddered to an immediate halt. He turned and examined his brother, waiting for an explanation.
“I just came to say goodbye, Paddy. I’m going back to Ireland.”
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Their Birthday
“So,” Lily prefaced quietly. That Wednesday had turned chilly, and Lily was blasting the heat in her little car. Aidan wondered if the petals would wilt before they reached the cemetery. He considered asking his sister-in-law if they should do anything to protect them, but remembered she knew even less about flowers than he did.
He and Lily had loaded up the backseat of her car with flowers from Doe’s—two hundred dollars’ worth between the both of them (weighted, unfortunately, toward Lily’s checkbook). Stargazer lilies, dianthus, roses, tulips, sunflowers, and so much baby’s breath… Today was Nadia’s birthday and they were going to celebrate it in the only way they knew how: with flowers. Of course, it was also Aidan’s birthday, but he wanted to do nothing more to celebrate than go and visit his twin. Today, even more than the anniversary of her death, was always hardest on him.
“So?” Aidan finally repeated, trying not to let himself slide into memories of their shared birthdays. He’d have to stay vigilant today so that he didn’t slip and spiral. Before her death, Aidan and Nadia had never spent a single birthday apart: even in college, after he’d moved out of state, they’d managed to carry on their tradition. For those few years where the miles separated them physically, they’d spent their birthday night on the phone with each other, burning up each other’s minutes, and carrying one another from place to place. He listened as she and her girlfriends drunkenly giggled; he took her vicariously to the movies and bowling.
The memories were so real to him that he had to force himself to draw breath.
These last few lonely years, Aidan had spent his birthday working double shifts at The Grand Heights, trying anything and everything to keep his mind off his sister. He would work until his muscles burned and ached and when it was time to go back to his apartment, all he could do was fall asleep. He’d planned on doing it again today, even with Patrick in his life. He wouldn’t have lied per se. Just…maybe not revealed that it was his birthday.
But Lily had come over while he, Patrick, and Seamus were playing cards two nights ago and said, “I want to go with you to the cemetery when you make your birthday trip this year. That okay?” Then she sat down to play cards.
“It’s your birthday?” Patrick asked. Surprised wasn’t the word for it. He’d scrunched up his face, one eyebrow arched high. “When the hell were you going to tell me? I haven’t even got you a pressie.”
“Pressie?” Seamus bellowed, “We don’t have near enough beer!”
So, instead of working his normal two birthday shifts, he’d followed meekly after Lily Minor as she marched into the lobby of The Grand Heights. She was dressed for business, her gold bracelets on, light brush of makeup, and hair pinned up on top of her head. She rang the bell, and before Jill could even open her mouth to say hello, Lily had informed Jill in no uncertain terms that it was Aidan’s birthday and he was having the day off.
Jill sized up the imposing figure of Aidan’s sister-in-law, cocking her head just a little to the side. He thought there was going to be a fight right there in the lobby between the two well-dressed women, even though Mr. Evans was having his morning coffee at the little table by the window and would have been witness to it all. Then Jill’s lips twitched and her eyes began to dance. She asked, “Are you having a party?” The question was directed at Lily, not Aidan.
“We are,” Lily replied stiffly. Aidan really wished he’d explained himself a little better. Instead of saying I have to work a double he should have said I want to work a double.
“I could cover for him today,” Jill said, and then, tearing a sheet of paper off the gold-embossed Grand Heights notepad, “Here’s my personal number. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Lily.”
“Lily.” She passed the note over, the smile never leaving her face. “Call me when the party’s on. I’ll bring the wine.”
Now, with Lily so tight-lipped as she drove them toward the cemetery, it was easy for Aidan to slip in and out of his memories. Her “so?” still hung between them and he slowly exhaled. It wasn’t like her to be reserved like this. She usually shot straight from the hip which had, upon their first meeting, turned him off a little. Now he’d come to appreciate that quality in her. The only time she wasn’t completely straightforward was when she was treating him delicately. Involuntarily, Aidan stiffened, knowing something was coming.
“Lily? What’s going on?”
“Do you remember I said I had a different way for you to pay me back for the window you broke?”
“Sure.” The word came out clipped and tight. Too much thinking, too much waiting for her reply. He’d started to get nervous.
“Well… Today’s the day.”
“Okay.”
He really did try to be calm about it; tried not to let his nerves jangle out of control, but Aidan had never been one for surprises. Even when Patrick whispered tenderly in his ear that morning, “I’ve got a surprise for you tonight, birthday boy. You’re going to like it, I think.” He’d wanted to say No! no surprises! Just tell me what to expect and I promise I’ll love it just as much.
“What’s the payment, Lily?” Miraculously, he managed to keep the tremor out of his voice.
“I shouldn’t say yet,” she replied. “I know it’s going to be hard for you and—”
“What if I just want to give you the money for the repairs?”
“Oh, we’re far past that, Little Brother.”
Little Brother. She hadn’t called him that since Nadia died. Actually…the last time had been the night Nadia was taken from them. Lily had been in the birthing room with Nadia—and when things went…bad…she’d fought to stay by Nadia’s side until a nurse twice her size forcibly removed her.
There was something to be said for the link between twins. Long before he’d seen Lily and the burly nurse wrestling with each other at the end of the hall, he’d known something was wrong. It was the strangest sensation—almost as if he’d lost perception of the crammed, brightly lit waiting room.
He and Nadia were suddenly standing together on the Switzer Bridge. It was snowing hard and little white flakes stuck in her dark hair. She was staring at him, her eyes were his eyes. She smiled at him, quietly. Sadly. She reached up and brushed the snow out of his hair. She didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything. He handed her a flower—a perfectly formed lily.
And then all at once the wor
ld had come rushing back. The lights were too bright, the floor too clean. He could hear sobs nearby, sneezing, the buzz of the television in the corner, the percolation of a coffee pot. The intake nurse was arguing with an old man whose hearing aid was squealing. Aidan turned in his seat. Lily was at the end of the hall screaming for them to let her back in. Let me back in there! Let me see my wife and my baby!
He’d stood up, not really knowing what magic was moving his body, and he’d walked across the sterile tile over to where the woman in her bright pink scrubs—they had hearts on them, he could remember that—was telling his sister-in-law she was going to have to calm down or… Or what? Lily was jittering and pacing across the floor, clutching herself one minute and wringing her hands the next.
“What’s going on with my sister?” Aidan had asked, his voice like a hollow dead thing in his own ears. Lily turned. Her eyes were wild and she’d thrown herself at him, almost knocking him to the ground with her skinny weight. She began to sob then, her fingers digging into his back.
“Little brother!”
Aidan had raised his eyes to the nurse. She’s dead, isn’t she?
The nurse turned away.
<<< >>>
“Aidan?” Lily asked quietly, putting her hand on his shoulder in the car. He startled out of the memory and looked up at her. She was obviously concerned and he offered her his bravest smile. It had been a long while since he’d let the memory play through from start to finish and strangely, what he remembered most vividly was Nadia’s peaceful smile as they stood on the bridge. “We’re here.”
He looked, expecting to see the familiar turn-off that cut in front of the section where Nadia was buried. Instead, they had pulled up outside of the gates of Babyland. Aidan immediately began to tremble and it took imagining Patrick’s comforting, steadying arms around him not to fling open the door and go marching straight out of the cemetery. Instead he swallowed and asked, “Is this the payment?”
“I want you to visit mine and Nadia’s daughter. Just one time, Aidan. We only have to stay five minutes. Long enough for me to lay something on her grave.”
“Lily…”
“Please, Little Brother,” she said quietly. “It gets so lonely coming out here by myself.”
They held hands as they walked through the gates, and Aidan worried he might be hurting Lily with the grip he had on her. But as hard as he squeezed, she squeezed back with equal strength. They walked silently through the cold, little graveyard, and before stopping at the grave he’d never seen—the grave that had haunted him for so long—Lily looked up at him. She was crying and he was crying too.
“She’s up ahead.”
The baby.
The one who had taken his sister away.
Poppy.
When he saw her little baby headstone, he fell hard on his knees to the earth and sobbed. Her marker was covered in the most beautifully painted flowers he’d ever seen.
“Hi, Baby,” Lily whispered, kneeling down beside Aidan and putting her arm over his shaking shoulders. “This is your Uncle Aidan…” She’d brought a little teddy bear with a heart across its belly. “Do you want to?” she asked Aidan, holding the bear out. “Usually I bring a trinket for Poppy on her mommy’s birthday. But it’s your birthday too.”
Aidan took the bear, running his thumbs over the embroidered heart. Leaning forward, he placed the bear right next to the baby’s headstone. There were no words, and if there had been, they never would have made it past the tight knot of his vocal cords.
Chapter Twenty-Six:
Birthday Craic
The bar where Patrick was taking Aidan was only two blocks away, and they could easily have walked, although the evenings were getting quite chilly, and in any case Seamus was having none of that.
“I’ll drive,” he insisted.
Patrick gave Aidan a wink as he said, “Aye, that fiddle must weigh at least, oooh…” He rubbed his chin, pretending to calculate.
“Hey! It’s all right for you! Anyone says, ‘What’re you cartin’ there, son?’ you tell ’em it’s a snooker cue and it’s happy days. Have you any idea how many times I’ve heard, ‘When will you be gettin’ a grown-up guitar, Seamus? Ha-ha-ha.’”
“Aye, fair dos,” Patrick agreed. “Maybe we can get them to keep it behind the bar and leave the truck parked up for the night. What d’ya reckon?”
“Grand. All right, so, young Aidan. Are ye good and ready?”
“Um…yeah, I guess.” Aidan frowned doubtfully. He’d been very subdued since he’d returned from visiting the cemetery with Lily. She’d bought him lunch on the way back to the house, and Patrick was already there, having taken half a day’s leave to prune Nadia’s rosebush. He felt terribly mean laughing, but the pair of them almost had kittens when they arrived back to find about eight inches of bare stick where previously there had been a rambling mass of dried-out stems with blackened rosehips dangling from them. Once he’d explained the harsh pruning would encourage new growth next spring, Lily and Aidan seemed suitably relieved, although Aidan was still all for going back to work now he’d paid his debt.
That was one of Lily’s shortcomings—her heart was in the right place, but she didn’t always see things from Aidan’s point of view. Patrick could fully appreciate her difficulty; from what he’d seen and heard, Aidan and his sister were very different. Nadia was the extrovert, wearing her heart on her sleeve, and in some ways Aidan was just like that. He could be so open and expressive with intimacy on the one hand; on the other, he would shut down when it came to anything like dealing with his grief, or what happened with the women at The Grand Heights. He was still avoiding giving Jill a definitive answer on whether he would make a formal complaint against Ashmore, but Patrick wouldn’t be the one to push it.
Of course, their relationship was still new, and they were only just beginning to understand each other, so trying to figure out how best to celebrate Aidan’s birthday would have been quite a task, were it not for Seamus’s imminent departure. So, a night at Brannigan’s was most definitely called for: plenty of craic—live music, laughing and dancing—Aidan wouldn’t have time to be miserable. Or that’s what Patrick hoped.
On the drive there, Patrick bantered playfully with Seamus, with Aidan sitting between them on the bench seat of Seamus’s pickup truck, his head moving from side to side while he attempted to follow the conversation. Patrick was ribbing his brother about the state of his old pickup, which Seamus claimed would sell for a good price, and whether it did or not he was leaving it behind. Patrick couldn’t grumble at that; Seamus had dealt with everything else, and the pickup was in good condition, albeit covered in more mud than an old potato. When Seamus pulled up outside the bar, Patrick climbed out and wiped the grime from the truck off his hand, before helping Aidan down so he didn’t have to get mucky too. Aidan gave him a quick smile and made to move off. Patrick pulled him back again.
“Are you all right?”
Aidan nodded.
“No, you’re not. What’s the matter?”
Aidan shrugged. Patrick leaned closer and looked him directly in the eye. Aidan shrugged again. “You and your brother talk really fast.”
“Ah. I do try to slow it down, but talking to him I just get carried away. But that’s not all, is it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m not good with surprises, is all.” Aidan sighed.
“Well, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Would that be better?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it would. I’m sorry, Paddy. I know you’re doing this for me.”
“Don’t be sorry, my love. I should’ve realized before. Okay, so there’s nothing bad. I’ve not ordered a stripper or anything daft like that. I’ve just invited a few of our friends to come and share the evening with us, for your birthday, and, er…” Patrick’s thoughts dwindled as it hit him fully. Seamus is leaving. He cleared his throat. “It’s a farewell celebration too.”
Aidan’s brow creased in sympathy and he reached up and smoo
thed his palm over Patrick’s cheek. He didn’t say a word, but Patrick felt the infusion of strength from that simple touch. It assured him he was in safe hands that wouldn’t let him fall, just as his mam’s arms around him could always soothe away every hurt, big or small. The physical memory warmed Patrick right through, and he took Aidan’s hand in his own, pressing his lips to Aidan’s fingertips.
“One day, Aidan Degas, you will be one of the best doctors the world has ever known.”
“You got that from me touching your cheek?”
Patrick laughed and hauled Aidan in for a hug. “I did indeed. Now, are you ready to go inside?”
“I don’t have to drink Guinness, do I?”
“God, no. I’m not fond of it meself, but knowing that brother of mine, I’ll be enduring my share of the black stuff this evening, whether I like it or not.”
“What’s that?” Seamus asked, stalking his way along the sidewalk, his fiddle in one hand, Patrick’s flute in the other. “Were you telling your man about your love of stout, perchance?”
“Yer bang on as usual, Seamus,” Patrick agreed drolly. Seamus clapped him hard on the back and kept his hand there, steering the three of them toward the bar. Patrick had only been to Brannigan’s a couple of times since Seamus went west, and was as glad as his older brother to see the place looked the same as ever. It was kitted out like a traditional Irish pub, with vast etched mirrors on the walls behind the optics, and draft beer taps attached to the highly polished walnut bar. Along the opposite wall were booths constructed from high-backed oak seats like church pews, with dark, sturdy tables between. Small round tables and stools filled the mosaic floor between, and beyond that was a small stage, against the back wall, where presently an older man was playing an accordion.
It took a moment for Patrick’s eyes to adjust to the lighting in the bar—bright compared to the street outside, but a dull tungsten yellow in reality. As his vision cleared, he spotted Lily and Jill standing at the end of the bar, laughing and chatting like old friends. Arthur was standing next to them, head turned toward the accordion player, a half-full pint of Guinness in his hand. When Patrick had asked if he’d like to come along for the evening, he’d replied that he’d have been there anyway, which was as close to “thanks, I’d love to” as Arthur ever gave, although what he said was true. This was his regular haunt.
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