In the Unlikely Event

The day I hurt Rory was the day I lost hope. It is hard to rationalize and make excuses for a no-show father, but it is impossible to justify one who hurt his own baby.

I came out of jail worse than I went in, with one big difference—I stopped trying to reach out to Debbie and see Rory, and I started putting an effort into what I had.

Kathleen knew I was a terrible, abusive drunk, but I did my best with her.

With Mal, too. It broke my heart to see my daughter pining for a boy who was waiting for the big bang. She was just a floating star in his universe. I knew those things couldn’t be changed.

I knew because her mother wasn’t it, either. Debbie was.

But being dead is actually centuries better than being a guilt-ridden drunken fool. If you’re wondering what it’s like on the other side, let me tell you, it’s not that bad. Weather’s nice all year round, though you can’t really feel it. I don’t have a body, so that’s a bit of a downer. No one does. I’m not above the clouds, nor am I under the ground. There’s no heaven, nor hell. I’m in everything, though. In the air and in the trees. On butterfly wings and in the cow shit and between the cracks on the floor. I’m on top of skyscrapers in Beijing and on a dandelion in a small town in Nebraska.

Being dead, you don’t always feel the spirit of other people who are dead, unless you know them really well and they’re beside you.

Right now, I can feel Kathleen. She’s standing right next to me, asking if we should go for it. Not with words. It’s unspoken, like the meaning behind really good song lyrics.

We do things we shouldn’t do all the time, Kath and I. There’s no protocol against it, and if there is, they didn’t hand it to us when we switched over to the other side.

I’ve turned off lights in a pub when Mal and Rory needed to get the point.

Made it snow.

Shut down electricity.

I did everything I could to signal to Rory that Mal is the one, that he is not like me.

That he will not let her down—he will love her forever.

But I’ve never made an entire street light up before, especially a street as crowded as Drury.

“Think we can do it?” I ask Kathleen voicelessly.

I’m tucked between the bricks of a red Drury Street building, and she’s on top of a bus stop. I can feel her nod.

“Let’s give them something to freak out about.”

(ANOTHER) NOTE FROM KATHLEEN

I told you I’m not the villain.

P.S. She better be good to my kid.

P.P.S. Yes, of course, I regret telling Aurora Rory I would never take care of her child. A bit late to change it now, though.

P.P.P.S. Fine. They do look cute together. Happy?

(ANOTHER) NOTE FROM SUMMER

Me again.

I mean, like, duh. I needed closure with my best friend—didn’t I?

Even when it became painfully clear that Rory wasn’t going to come back to our apartment in New York. Not that I didn’t understand. She was now with the love of her life, living the charmed little existence she’d always dreamed of.

Plus, I screwed up. I know I did. It doesn’t matter that she wanted to break up with Callum, that she never felt for him an ounce of what she feels toward Mal, that I was pretty sure their relationship wouldn’t last another day, or that we were both very drunk.

I made one mistake. I wouldn’t allow any more of them to stack up. I needed her forgiveness to move on.

I flew out to Ireland. Extreme, huh? I think so, too, considering the amount of rehearsal I bailed on just to be able to patch things up with my BFF (best fucking friend). I took a cab to Tolka straight from the airport three months after she found out about Callum and me. Three months after she started ghosting me.

I found her in a compromising position on the grass in her backyard, being nailed by her new husband. I swear he was planting her like a flower. I interrupted them mid-fuck, but only by accident. The door was unlocked—I remembered Rory used to complain that Mal always kept it unlocked—and I waltzed in. When I realized what was happening before my eyes, I started backing up, but my butt hit the breakfast nook and knocked a Guinness bottle to the floor, and they both turned around to see where the noise came from.

The first thing Rory did was throw her dress at me, then she proceeded to bolt up on her feet and chase me naked around the cottage, yelling, “You screwed my boyfriend” really loudly.

Mal leaned against a wall, arms crossed, a smirk on his face, watching the entire thing half-naked and fully hard. He was gorgeous. I finally realized why she couldn’t shake him all those years. Not only did he look a thousand times better in person, but he also has this cocky, sweet, you’ll-never-tame-me expression that just speaks to the inner fixer-upper women have.