“Niall could stand to be more humble,” I said, the closest I could come to saying what I really wanted to say. “It might not hurt him to reconnect to his roots.”
Eamonn looked like he was about to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “I’m glad you don’t regret your life choices,” he said finally. “That’s a good way to be. I regret quite a lot of mine.”
A couple was taking a selfie in front of one of the buildings, and Eamonn and I both watched them as they set it up, holding the phone out and smiling before looking down at the screen and exchanging a laugh. I wondered what he thought of when he saw them, if that relationship with the girl from a fewyears ago that hadn’t worked out was one of his regrets, after all, no matter what he’d said.
“I feel like I haven’t given you enough history,” he said, turning to take in the entire square. “There’s a lot of it here, but it’s maybe best known as the site of the British handover to the Irish Provisional Government in 1922. The story goes that the Irish leader arrived seven minutes late for the historic meeting, and when one of the British officials scolded him for it, said, ‘Sure you people are here seven hundred years, what bloody difference does seven minutes make now?’ ”
I smiled at that. “The story goes, so does that mean it’s one of those things no one can agree he said? It’s a pretty good line.”
“Ah, I like to think he said it. Although the Irish do have a way of making it where something spectacular one weekend sounds even more spectacular by the next weekend.”
“That’ll bemetelling the story of this day for the rest of my life,” I said, then immediately thought it was too revealing a thing to say. I was having a really good time, despite whatever strange circumstances might’ve led me here in the first place, but I also didn’t want to make it seem like I thought this was more than it was. “I mean, getting mugged alone. That doesn’t happen every day.”
“It must’ve been traumatic.”
“Yes,” I said. “But also in a way…like I said, I didn’t really get a good look at the person who did it. I think he was young, maybe still high school–aged even. He grabbed my purse and he knocked into me so hard, it sent me flying. My wallet, my phone, everything—gone.”
My car, my life, my grasp on reality…the list of things that went missing in that split second was much longer, but I couldn’t even get into it.
“But you’re all right?” Eamonn said. “Physically, I mean.”
I hit my head pretty hard. Everything went black. I don’t know if I’ve woken up.
“I’m okay,” I said. “But I’ve been thinking a lot about that kid. I have no idea why he stole my purse. He could be addicted to drugs, he could have been abused by his family, he could have nowhere to go, he could feel like he had no other choice. For me, a stolen purse means maybe I’m out a bit of cash and I have to deal with the hassle of canceling my debit card, getting a new driver’s license, whatever. But I know in many ways I have it good. It’s not lost on me that there are so many people out there serving food they can’t afford to eat, selling products they can’t afford to buy, building homes they can’t afford to live in.”
Eamonn opened his mouth like he was about to disagree with me, but I shook my head.
“I’m not trying to say it’s right,” I said. “Stealing or especially physical assault. Or that I’m not angry about it. I’m not trying to justify what he did. But it also made me think about the ways people hurt each other all the time, and we don’t even call it what it is. When a guy knocks you down and steals your purse, it’s black-and-white, that’s a bad guy. But that guy didn’t evenknowme. He shouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t even about me.”
“You think intention matters more than action?”
That was almost too big a philosophical question for me tograpple with—I was sure we could debate the nuances of the two for hours if we really got into it. “Not necessarily. I know some actions are so bad that the reasoning behind them makes no difference, and we’re all flawed in our rationalizations anyway. I guess sometimes I just think people can have such cruel intentions toward people they’re supposed to care about, people they should want tohelp, not hurt. It’s hard for me not to see that as somehow worse.”
“What’s that saying, about how we hurt the ones we love the most.”
“Right,” I said. “And it gets so much more complicated, because it’s easier to accept that a thief is a bad person than to think that about someone you’re with, someone who’s supposed to care about you. But how else do you explain it? When you call because you’re alone and scared, bleeding and in pain because of somethingtheyhelped cause in the first place, and they say they’re too busy to pick you up. You can hear their friends laughing in the background, and you know they’re not too busy.”
I could tell he’d been a little taken aback, when I’d mentioned my abortion before, probably because it had come out of nowhere and was the definition of an overshare. But he’d been kind about it, for all that, and it had felt cathartic to get it off my chest.
“Or imagine you get dressed up for a date,” I continued. “You’re feeling excited about it and a little hopeful, and then the person finds any tiny opening to make you feel bad about yourself. Why would they do that? Why are they even on the date, then? If they don’t want to try to connect with someone.Why would they want to make you feel foolish, just because youaretrying?”
I didn’t know if I was making any sense, even to myself. It wasn’t like Niall saying my dress looked like a bag on me was as bad as someone knocking me to the ground and taking my stuff, I knew that, but…they were both things that would stay with me for a long time.
“I’m not normally like this,” I said, blowing out a breath that ended in a little laugh.
“Like what?” Eamonn’s gaze raked over my face, and the way he asked the question, it made me feel as if whatever way I waslikehe really didn’t mind it.
“Full of all these random tangents and speeches, I guess,” I said. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“It’s been a weird day.”
That got a full-on laugh out of me. The understatement of the year. “Yeah,” I said. “So where are we headed next? Somewhere that I can’t turn into the most depressing conversation on the planet.”
“Hey,” Eamonn said, giving me a crooked grin. “Don’t count me out, I’ve been doin’ my part to contribute. But here, I have an idea of something else to show you.”
Fifteen
We walked through a seriesof narrow alleyways covered in colorful murals—a building with the lower part painted like a giant pride flag, a portrait of Chappell Roan with stars in her hair, a stylized blue-and-red print of a man with a mustache, the nameJoycestamped across the bottom. I even saw what looked like an antique newsprint page, blown up and wallpapered in one alcove, that beganPOBLACHT NA H EIREANN, The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic…
