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ChapterOne
Cian
The overseas letter in my grease-smudged hands has been to hell and back.
I stare at it, imagining what this piece of post has endured to get to me.
Scratching my head, I try to remember the last time I received air mail.
“You going to read it or sing it a lullaby?”
And now I’ve got axle grease in my hair.
The mild ribbing comes from Freddy the postman. He adjusts his bag and tilts his head at me in curiosity. Freddy’s a nosy fucker.
“Are you waiting on a tip? Because you’ll be waiting until you’re in the grave,” I say.
He juts his chin to the letter. “Someone deserves a raise for making sure that letter found you.”
He’s not wrong.
I glance back down at the envelope with the striped border.
My old address in Dublin is crossed out, and the words, “No longer resides at this address. See reverse,” are scrawled next to it. Flipping it over, there’s more. My former landlady’s turned into James Fucking Joyce. “Last seen fixing cars in Ballygassan. Pale bearded fella with glasses.”
I wipe the perspiration from my forehead with the back of my hand, and examine the return address: some post office box in the middle of America. “Gold Hill, Ohio.”
Dread rushes through me as I finally tear it open. Who in the world would be reaching out to me from that American suburban hellscape?
Okay, it wasn’t complete hell. The drama geeks were friendly enough. Especially Serenity, my host sister with the unfortunate last name. Her father, too, was extremely kind to me. And that’s the complete list of positives about the place.
Oh, the locals weren’t monsters to me…but they were to Serenity. Jackasses, most of them.
Did I forget something in my locker? Do they need someone to come to career day and can’t find two remaining brain cells to rub together? “Your presence is requested at the reunion of the Class of 2013.”
I would toss this note aside and let it rot on my kitchen counter for months until I remembered to recycle it.
And yet…and yet.
Something pulls at me.
Will Serenity be there?
I doubt that very much.
But then, the hopeful side of me that miraculously has not been beaten out of me by ten years of singlehood says there’s a chance.
If I knew Serenity would be there, there’s no question. I would go in a heartbeat.
“Cian!”
I turn and jut my chin out to my sister Maggie, who’s paused her work to give me the death stare.
“Be right back,” I tell her.
“I’m in the middle of a rush job and you’re fucking around reading love notes.”
“You got this, sister,” I say absently, wiping the worst of the grease off my hands on the front of my coveralls before I dig around in my pockets for my phone.
