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“Nah, I have a stop to make on the way home. Besides, I want to walk before it’s so cold my balls freeze.”
“Sounds good. See you next week?”
Will nodded.
“Firing range next time,” Nolan said.
He knew Will was feeling morose when he didn’t object.
Nolan waved at Derry on his way out of the bar and stepped outside. It was dark now, and cold enough that he was surprised he couldn’t see his breath. He backtracked toward his car and the gym, silently cursing Will.
It was his fault Nolan felt Bridget’s presence so strongly, that Nolan had the pointless desire to keep walking, past his car and Ryan’s, past all the old neighborhood haunts, until he came to the Monaghan house.
At this late hour the lights would be off, all except the small light Bridget’s mom kept on in the kitchen. If Nolan walked around to the side of the house, he might see a soft glow from Bridget’s room, the lamp on her nightstand illuminating whatever book she was reading until she fell sleep. Her hair would be piled on top of her head, her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She would smell like fresh air and vanilla, like sleep and comfort.
He slowed down when his car appeared up ahead. He almost kept walking, almost continued on the path he’d walked in his mind, to the woman he couldn’t forget, the only one he wanted. The one who didn’t want him.
2
Bridget Monaghan pulled next to the curb a block away from the house, even though there was almost certainly parking out front. The neighbors were nice that way, leaving plenty of room for the Monaghans to park close to the house. It wasn’t the only way they showed kindness. Since Owen got sick, they’d taken it upon themselves to bring food over at intervals too regular to be random (Bridget suspected that Ida Breen, the older woman who lived across the street, coordinated the drop-offs), edged the weeds when Bridget’s father let them get too long, and once even raised funds to repair the cracked sidewalk in front of the house, a small problem that had become a major obstacle for Owen’s wheelchair.
But sometimes she just needed a minute. A minute to collect herself after work, to set aside the troubles of her clients — nearly all of them immigrants fighting to stay in the country — and to prepare herself for the troubles waiting for her at home. Then she would park a block away and sit, listening to the soft tick of the old Honda’s cooling engine and the occasional sound of a neighbor kid playing outside, a rarity compared to the daily play that had accompanied her own childhood on the block.
She would wait until she was calm, her mind clear, before stepping out of the car and making her way down the street. Her mother would ask why she’d parked so far away, but her father would just look at her with sad, knowing eyes. Owen would be in his chair in the living room, his eyes on the TV, or if he was feeling strong, a book propped up on the tray attachment Bridget had bought for his wheelchair last Christmas. He would look up when she entered the room, an apology that broke her heart written on his face.
It wasn’t his fault. He’d been sixteen when he’d started stumbling during everyday activities, seventeen when he’d fallen down the stairs one morning and agreed to go to the doctor, beginning a battery of tests that took weeks to complete and whose copays nearly bankrupted the family’s meager savings. He’d been diagnosed with ALS two days after his eighteenth birthday.
It had been four years since the diagnosis. They were lucky he was still alive. Lucky he could still speak in halting sentences, still move his hands, still swallow.
But it was hard to feel lucky.
She wanted her brother back, the one who bounded into the room on strong legs, who played hockey, who had a ready smile and teased her relentlessly about Nolan.
Nolan…
She missed him too. Missed the comfort she’d found in his arms, the way he seemed to know what she was thinking even when she didn’t say it, the way he made her feel like life was full of possibilities, like it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that she would take a shitty job that barely paid the bills and marry one of the neighborhood boys she’d known since she was in diapers and have a pack of kids who would repeat the whole thing all over again.
She forced herself to shut the door on him — on his mischievous smile and the way his hazel eyes shined when he looked at her. Thinking about him only made things worse. She’d done what she had to do, would do it again if given the chance.
Her phone rang from inside her bag. She pulled it out and looked at the display, preparing to silence it, then saw the name and thought better of it.
“Hi, Seamus,” she said.
“Bridget.” His voice was warm but she wasn’t fooled. “I may need you to head down to D-4 tonight. Dougie got pinched.”
She stifled a sigh. Boston PD district four serviced the south end of the city near Fenway. “When will you know?”
“Couple hours.”
“Want me to pick up the cash at the Cat?”
The Black Cat was a local dive bar that served as Seamus O’Brien’s unofficial headquarters, a fact that wasn’t ironic given Seamus’s belief that the rules — cosmic or otherwise — didn’t apply to him. Bridget had no doubt he took special pride in running his growing illegal enterprise out of a building whose name would be considered bad luck by any Irish worth his salt.
“Like always,” he said. “Thought I’d give you a heads up so you could keep an eye on your phone.”
“I appreciate it.” She said it even though they both knew she always kept an eye on her phone. It was part of their arrangement.
“You’re a good lass,” Seamus said. “Don’t know what we’d do without you.”
