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“What about work? You have a plum job in Southampton.”
I shrugged. “I’m lucky enough to have a good investment portfolio that Kate and I can live off of if it comes to it.”
“Still, it would be nice to have your practice back. You’re an innovator. Any hospital would be lucky to have you on staff.”
“Keep your fingers crossed,” Drake said. “When is dinner? I’m starved.”
I heard a chair scrape across the floor and glanced up to see Mrs. O’Riley wearing a white apron from the prep area. She stood beside the bar, her hands on her hips.
“Dinner will be ready in about fifteen. How about pouring me a glass of white wine, Ken. I’m parched.”
“Right on it,” Ken said and jumped up, giving me a smile. “Beer? Or martini? I can never tell what you want.”
I sighed, not sure I wanted to drink. I’d just spend the previous hours on a plane from London Heathrow and was suffering from jetlag. “Better make it a soda and lime. I’ve got an important meeting tomorrow morning. Besides, I need a clear head if you want me to hit the notes tonight.”
“Your wish is my command.”
I watched as Ken went behind the bar and proceeded to pour Mrs. O’Riley a glass of white wine and me a soda and lime. I went to the bar and stood beside her, putting my arm around her shoulder, pulling her in for a hug.
“So good to see you, Mom. I love this place. It’s like a second home to me.”
“I know,” she said and laid her head on my shoulder for a moment, her grey hair soft against my cheek. “We’re so glad you adopted our family as your own after Liam died.”
Ken placed the drinks in front of us and poured himself a glass of draft beer. “Unlike you, I need a drink to loosen up.” He held up his glass in a toast. “Here’s to Drake and Kate and Sophie and Liam and Ethan and Elaine returning to Manhattan as soon as possible. Three years is a long time to be away. Sláinte!”
“Sláinte!” I replied as did Mrs. O’Riley.
As I took a big sip of my soda and lime, I felt a deep sense of hope that momentarily overcame my doubt about my mission in Manhattan, working out some kind of shared custody of Liam with Maureen. Now that she and Chris were moving to Brooklyn, and Chris had a steady job with a construction firm as a Project Manager, we might be able to be in the same city and truly share custody.
Liam had been living with Kate and Sophie and me in Southampton during the school year, going to stay with Maureen and Chris in the summer and during holidays, but I knew that he missed his mother during the long months that he was in Southampton.
If we were all in the same city, we might be able to truly share custody.
That was my aim.
If we lived close enough to them, Liam could move between us, and still stay at the same school, have the same friends. It meant we’d have to live in a neighborhood close to each other.
I’d do it if it meant Liam could have both parents equally.
Luckily, Kate was on-board with the prospect of moving back to New York. She and I both loved Southampton, but we were fans of the Big Apple. It was in our blood.
Kate could finish work on her MA in Journalism. Liam would be in middle school. Sophia would be starting public school. Ethan and Elaine would be back home, with his old buddies from his years as a judge.
If only I could get hospital privileges somewhere, and a practice with was relatively light workload, it would be perfect.
That was why I was in Manhattan without Kate and Sophie.
Liam was already here with Maureen and Chris, staying at Brenda’s while Maureen and Chris found the perfect home. I had visiting privileges on the weekend and was looking forward to our time together.
I hoped I could find a sympathetic ear in some head of neurosurgery at one of the hospitals in the area so we could all be happy, but if I didn’t, we’d move back anyway. I wanted to keep being a father to Liam, and I wanted for us to be together all year round, if that was possible.
Ken, Mrs. O’Riley and I sat at a table and one of the cooks brought us out our meals featuring the special they were preparing for the dinner service. Some kind of pot pie, with deliciously flaky pastry, chicken and vegetables. It was simple but delicious — the kind of fare you would get in a small pub somewhere in the rural towns of Ireland, which the pub was famous for.
We ate, then after cleaning up, we brought the instruments onto the stage and set up the equipment. The other band members showed up soon after, and we all hugged and laughed, pointing out each other’s paunch or wrinkles or grey strands in a good-natured way. We were all in our late thirties or early forties and young enough to be playing in a cover band, but we still liked to give each other a hard time.
“Drake, you still look like you did a decade ago. Will you never get old like the rest of us?”
I laughed. “I inherited my father’s perpetual youth, I guess. Hopefully not his perpetual irresponsibility…”
