A playful grouping of ducks kept bobbing under the water on one side, but not far away there was a beautiful, long-necked swan who seemed completely unbothered. Eamonn watched the ducks, his hands still in his pockets. I wondered if he’d had any of the same urges I’d had, walking through the park with the music playing. Just to touch me, to live out some fantasy of belonging to each other, even if for a moment. I wondered how long he’d watch my ripples smooth out before he’d walk away, back to his car and his home and his life.
He looked over at me, as if sensing my gaze on him. I liked imagining him as he might’ve been that morning, shaving athis bathroom mirror, pulling his shirt over his head, lacing up those boots. His keys and his wallet in his pocket and then he’d be heading out the door, on his way to a job he couldn’t have known would be pointless, with no power. And now here he was, next to me in the park.
“You mentioned fairies earlier,” he said, nudging at a small pebble on the ground with his shoe. “What exactly is your art project that you’re doing?”
Before, I’d had the sense that he did think there was something ridiculous about the idea of fairies, even if he’d ended up telling me that folktale. I’d also gotten the impression that he was quizzing me a bit, trying to figure out just what I was doing in Ireland. That he was suspicious, but of what I didn’t know. There was no way he could have any inkling of what had really happened with me.
But now I got the sense that he was just interested, and asking me questions. It still didn’t make them any easier to answer.
“This will sound silly,” I said, deciding to stick as close as possible to some semblance of truth. “But when I was a kid, I used to imagine these fairies that came out of the wallpaper in my room? Just stories, not that I believed they were real. I would draw them endlessly, on the margins of my homework even, which got me in trouble. I gave them all themes, like there was one for each season, each birthstone, each type of weather event, you name it.”
I glanced at him, trying to see if he had any reaction to that, positive or negative. It certainlyfeltsilly, coming out of my mouth. I didn’t know why I was suddenly thinking about thesechildhood fairies so much, except that I really did feel like I was stuck in a real-life fairy story.
“Anyway, in college I found that same wallpaper at a home goods store, and I started using watercolors to paint my fairies onto pieces of it. It had nothing to do with any of the projects I was supposed to be working on, but I don’t know, I got a little consumed with it. I think it was just that I was so lonely, those years lying in my bedroom as a kid, that first year of college…” This was definitely more than I’d meant to say. It was more than I’d even known myself—the words were surprising me as they were coming out, because I hadn’t given much thought to the fairies beyond that they were some fantastical bit of fun I enjoyed painting.
None of this, of course, did anything to address why I was specifically in his home country when it wasn’t like my fairies had been particularly Irish to begin with.
“Somewhere along the way, I gave those fairies up,” I said. “I guess I wondered why I did that.”
“Maybe you got less lonely,” Eamonn said.
“Or maybe I just stopped romanticizing it.”
When I glanced over at him, he had an unreadable expression on his face. It felt like he could see right through me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be seen. So far, I’d done a lot to establish myself as the most pathetic person on the planet.
But there was something inward about the expression, too, like maybe it was more about him looking at himself.
We were torn out of the moment by a black dog that came up to the edge of the lake, barking at the birds, some of which startled and flew away. For a minute I thought the dog wasgoing to dive right into the water, but then I noticed that there was a leash trailing from the dog’s collar, and Eamonn had already wrapped it around his hand, giving it a gentle tug.
“Hey now,” he said. “Easy.”
I glanced in either direction on the path, expecting to see someone rushing toward us, an apologetic look on their face. But any of the people nearby who were reacting to the situation at all seemed to be mostly looking atuslike,why don’t you control your dog better?
“Where do you think the owner is?”
Eamonn had knelt down beside the dog, letting it sniff his hand before giving it a scratch around the collar, lifting some of its fur to see if there was a tag hiding underneath. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not too far, I’d imagine. What’s your name, little fella? Huh?”
The way he was talking to me in one instant and the dog the very next, it made something swoop in my stomach, how low and friendly his voice had gotten.
“I wouldn’t exactly call himlittle,” I said, giving the dog an experimental pat on the head. I generally liked dogs. I just wasn’t super comfortable around them, since I didn’t have much experience. Despite this one’s somewhat intimidating first impression—being a large dog who’d come in hot, barking at the birds—he seemed nice enough. He looked up at me as I petted him, his tongue hanging out. “Should we walk with him, try to find his owner?”
Eamonn stood up, the leash still looped around his hand. “We might end up heading in the wrong direction,” he said. “Why don’t we sit on that bench, see if the owner can find us.”
That was much more sensible, and the idea of resting for a moment was appealing all by itself.
“You have a dog?” I asked once we’d sat down, although I already knew the answer. Or at least, I thought I did.
“Nah,” he said. “Not since I was young.”
I almost challenged him on it, almost saidWhat’s with the flea shampoo, then?but I realized there were a number of different explanations and he didn’t owe me any of them. It could’ve been for a friend’s dog. A girlfriend’s dog. It would be a pretty serious relationship, I’d imagine, if you were buying flea treatment for her dog.
“I’m useless around dogs, though,” he said, giving this one another rub around the ears. “Can’t resist ’em…I turn into an absolute eejit.”
I knew he didn’t mean that the way I would’ve—that I just never knew what todoaround animals. He did look happier than he had all day. “See, and I can recognize that you’re not being self-deprecating when you say that.”
Eamonn glanced up at me, looking genuinely confused. “What?”
Of course, he would have no idea what I was referring to, the entire conversation with his brother. “Like calling yourself useless, or an eejit, that kind of thing. They’re just expressions. You’re not actually putting yourself down when you say stuff like that.”
