Page 12 of A Second Chance Summer in Dublin

‘There’s an ATM down near the Bleeding Horse pub,’ he adds. ‘Come on with me, I’ll get some cash out and buy you something hot to eat in Aprile’s chipper.’ He reaches his hand down to pet the lurcher on the head.

‘Ah thanks, man.’ The guy sniffs again.

‘Sorry, Grace.’ Donal puts his hand on my bare arm. ‘Enjoy your Chinese before it’s freezing cold.’

‘Sorry, Mrs,’ the man mumbles.

I smile at him warmly, feeling guilty for holding a huge dinner for one in my hands.

‘It’s totally fine. Mind yourself.’

‘I’ll get him something to eat, I’ll sort him out.’ Again, Donal reads me like an open book.

‘Excellent,’ I murmur as Donal drapes his long arm around the guy’s scrawny shoulders and the three of them walk away. With a small smile, I shut the door, lean my back against it. He was about to ask me for my number. I could have asked him as my date to the party as a friend.

‘Damn it,’ I think. I missed my chance.

Chapter Seven

Next morning, the heat lingers like the warmth of a sunbaked stone, steady and unyielding. I watch the RTÉ breakfast news as I munch on slices of cool watermelon. The country is still dazed and confused at the persistence of this sunshine. It’s still the lead news story. I’ve been up for hours working on Kathleen Kearney’s gold bridesmaid dress. The top door propped open again in the useless hope that a draught, a bit of breeze, might slip through. I listen to the gentle flapping above my head. It’s a tiny white butterfly that has been flying around my flat all week long. My phone beeps. It’s a text from Mia telling me she has some news for me and is excited to see me later.

We’re meeting in Rathmines at the Stella cinema for our last-Friday-of-the-month old-Hollywood cinema-dinner-date, and I’m wondering if she might have found a man for me to take to her divorce party? I know I need to focus on the fact that this party is about her, not me, but I have my reasons! Mia is still reinventing herself post-Michael, dealing with her guilt, regaining her own true personality. I take another bite of melon and let the fruit melt in my mouth. I recall calling over to her house on that eventful evening when she finally told me what I’d long suspected. That she was desperately unhappy in her marriage to Michael Brown.

*

‘Grace, I need to tell you something.’ Mia’s voice wobbled as we sat in their immaculate kitchen, with its grey slate presses under the swaying copper pots and pans. I’d just got off the phone with Logan – we’d almost broken up when I told him I wanted more of a commitment. Michael was at a conference in Limerick, wouldn’t be back until late, and Mia popped the cork from a bottle of white wine.

I accepted a glass from her. ‘So, you’ve been awfully quiet lately. Talk to me? What’s going on?’

Mia shut her eyes tight. ‘It’s embarrassing. I – I’m not even sure what to say, I just know I have to say it.’ She struggled to meet my eye, her chest rising as she sat down opposite me at the table, pouring herself a large glass of red. ‘I’ve been living a lie.’

‘What lie? Just tell me,’ I told her. ‘You know you can tell me anything?’

She dropped her head into her hands for a brief moment, her long blonde curls covering her face. ‘It’s about Michael. I don’t love him anymore. I’m so unhappy. I’ve been thinking of leaving him for so long. Now I’m going to do it.’

I could feel my eyes widen. ‘W-what?’ It took me a few seconds to actually register her words. ‘That’s a big decision,’ I said softly, carefully.

She looked up at me, tears gathering in her eyes. ‘I lie to you all the time, Grace. I’m so unhappy, I’m so miserable at home. I feel like I’m in the movieGroundhog Day. Michael’s not a terrible husband, but I fell out of love with him years ago and our life has become so incredibly boring. It’s monotonous and I can’t take it anymore. I’ll lose my mind. All my Instagram cosy-home-life posts are bullshit. All those,’ she made quotation marks with her fingers, ‘“who wants to go out when you can stay in by the fire” reels I put up and share are fake, all fake. I’m so dead inside with boredom. I want to go out! I want to live my life!’

‘Okay. It’s okay,’ I soothed. Secretly, I thought Michael was the most boring man I’d ever met but they had been married in their twenties, just before I met Mia.

‘It’s not okay, though .?.?. You see we have been trying for a baby and every time I take the test and it’s negative, well I .?.?.’

I could see the distress in her eyes, her face in pain. ‘Oh, you poor thing.’

‘No, quite the opposite. I heave a sigh of relief! It’s like Russian roulette. I don’t want to see that blue line! I don’t know if I ever even want children! Is that a terrible thing to say? I know one thing, I don’t want to get pregnant, at least, not with Michael Brown. So last month, well I went to the nurse at my GP’s and I went back on the pill, and I haven’t told him. See? See how bad it is?’ Mia had burst into tears.

I gave her a minute as she wiped her eyes and caught her breath, nodding in understanding. I was here to fully support my friend.

‘You see it, I know you do.’ She sniffed. ‘My life is passing me by. He doesn’t want to do anything or go anywhere; no spontaneity, no spark, no conversation anymore. Michael is just content with the same routine every day. Holiday in the same place every year. He can’t wait for early retirement. I swear there is a Mia Hunter-shaped hole in that couch!’ She attempted a snotty laugh, wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

‘Of course, I get it. As long as I’ve known you you’ve been the person who craves new experiences. I’m one hundred per cent on your side. You are right. Don’t try to plaster the marriage problems with a baby, that would be a disaster.’

‘I can’t be a mother to his kids. I can’t even stay with him, I’m dying inside, Grace. I told him. I asked for us to do counselling, he said no way. He says I should be grateful, we have it all, a lovely house in Dalkey, two good jobs, pensions, savings, andthat I’ll feel different when we have the baby.’

I saw the guilt in her eyes.

‘Am I to stay with a man I don’t love because I feel sorry for him?’ Mia leant back, glass in hand, her expression a mix of frustration and vulnerability.