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I didn’t know this to be true until the words escape my mouth. But as soon as they do, it becomes crystal clear to me.
I should be doing something different.
People like Ryner don’t inspire me. I’m a photographer. I take photos. It brings me, and others, joy. I could be a photographer anywhere. I could take pictures of things that are far more interesting than pampered, delusional, plastic pop princesses and self-entitled rock stars who think the sun shines from their buttholes.
Mal sold his soul to the devil and started selling his songs because he had to.
I don’t have to.
I don’t need any special medical treatment. I am perfectly content making pennies.
“Rory! Oh my goodness. How am I supposed to react to this? You didn’t even invite me to your wedding!” Mom slaps the back of her hand to her forehead.
“Mom, we married in private. Just the two of us and witnesses.”
“Like, in Vegas?”
“Like, in Cyprus.”
Her eyes are wide and frighteningly, radioactively green. “But Rory, what if he isn’t the one?”
“He is.” I take both her hands, ushering her to the backyard. I want her to see where we fell in love. On that piece of green grass, under the sky that was lit with a thousand stars.
“Look here.” I point at the backyard. “Eight years ago, almost nine, I sat here with Mal and knew that no other boy would ever make my heart beat as fast and hard. And you know what? No one ever did. I know you are wary. I know Ireland brings many harsh memories to the surface. Father Doherty told me all about them. I’m sorry, Mom, but I knew you never would, and I needed to learn the truth.”
She blinks at me, clearly willing her tears away, and I wrap my arms around her, speaking into her hair.
“But I don’t have a baby to take care of, and I’m not doing this out of fear or desperation or because my conscience won’t allow me not to try. I’m doing this of my own free will. Because he makes my reality better than my dreams. Because I am so painfully aware that we will all end up like Glen and Kathleen one day. We come from dust and return to dust. But while I’m here, on this planet, breathing, living, I want to do this alongside the person who makes me laugh. Who loves me unconditionally. Who kept a tattered, stained napkin that was a complete lie for nearly a decade, on the off-chance we’d meet again.”
“Kathleen…” Mom shakes her head.
I realize no one has explicitly said that to her, that Kathleen is dead. She would have been just a little older than me, were she still alive.
I nod solemnly. “Car accident.”
“Oh God.”
Mom breaks off the hug and sniffles, grabbing my cheeks in her oily, wrinkly, mom-hands. She examines my face with the precision of a hawk to see if there’s a crack in my mask, if I’m telling the whole truth.
“It’s real, isn’t it? This thing with Mal,” she asks brokenly.
“The realest.” I laugh, happy tears sliding down my cheeks.
“And you know all about what happened with Glen?” She looks at me from under her fake eyelashes, blinking slowly.
I nod. “About the scar, too. I’m not mad, Mom. I just wish you’d told me. I could’ve handled it. You didn’t have to go through all this effort.”
“Oh, but I did.” She rushes into my words, sliding her hands from my cheeks to my arms, squeezing. “I wanted you to know you deserved to be loved. You are the most precious thing in my world, Aurora, even if you don’t always feel that way. I wanted you to think he adored you, but I had to keep you far enough away from him so you’d never know the truth.”
“Is that why you didn’t want me to come to Ireland?”
She sighs. “That, and we seem to have it hard for Irish men. I didn’t want you to move across the ocean and leave me in America. It was selfish, but you’re my only family.” Pause. “I mean, you and the cigarettes and the hairspray.”
We both laugh, until I remember I have something I still need to clear up with her.
“The pictures. You sent Mal the pictures with the mean things I wrote about him. You sent him a letter saying I aborted his baby. It started a chain reaction that caused everything to fall apart over here. You have no idea.”
I’m not going to pin Kathleen’s death on Mom, obviously. But she did manipulate the hell out of our lives.
She sniffs, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her glittery denim jacket, which has pink patches and a sequin collar. That’s a sight I didn’t think I’d live to see. Usually my mother will grab anything within reach, including the Bible or a kid in a bubble, and use them to wipe off her snot before tarnishing her precious clothes.
