In the Unlikely Event

He said if we ever met again, he’d marry me, no matter what. But that was almost a decade ago—under the influence of alcohol and lust and youth. Of possibility.

Mal opens his mouth. “Hello, darlin’.”

At his rough Irish accent, my knees buckle, and I find myself grasping the bannister.

The first flakes of snow fall around us. On my nose. Eyelashes. Shoulders. A storm is brewing inside my snow globe.

Eight years ago

Rory

I prop my back against my father’s headstone and pluck a few blades of grass, throwing them in the air and watching as they float down onto my dirty Toms. The church bells chime, the sun slinking under green mountains.

“You could’ve waited, you know. Laid off the alcohol for a month or two so I could meet you,” I mumble, yanking out my earbuds. “One” by U2 still plays distortedly until I kill the music app on my phone and throw it beside me. “Sorry. That was rude. I’m cranky when I’m tired, which…you probably would have known, had you decided to actually meet me. Jesus, Dad, you suck.”

But even as I say those words, I don’t believe them. He didn’t suck. He was probably the best.

I bang my head against his tombstone and close my eyes.

I’m freezing in the middle of summer, as per usual, and exhausted from the long flight from Newark to Dublin. And from arguing with the hostel’s receptionist for forty-five minutes because my reservation got lost in cyberspace and they ran out of rooms. After I unloaded my small suitcase at a hotel off Temple Bar Square, I took a shower, ate half a bag of stale mini-bar chips, and freaked out over the bill I was going to pay for my unforeseen accommodations, which no doubt is going to kill my dream of purchasing a new camera before I leave for college.

Then my mom called, informing me that I was dead to her for traveling to Ireland, in her highly diplomatic way.

“What is the meaning of all this?” she demanded. “First of all, he’s dead. Second, you were better off without him. Trust me on that one, sweetie.”

“So you say, Mom. You never gave me a chance to find out myself.”

“He was a lazy drunk and a terrible flirt.”

“He was also talented and funny and sent me gifts every Christmas and birthday. Things that were much more interesting than your Sephora gift cards and eyebrow-enhancing creams,” I mumbled.

“I’m sorry I wanted you to get yourself some nice things. You could’ve used it to buy better makeup to cover your birthmark. It’s easy to be the cool parent when you don’t do the actual parenting,” she huffed. “Are you looking for your half-sister? Bet she lives in a fancy-schmancy house. All that money ought to have gone somewhere.”

What she meant by somewhere was probably not to you.

I want to look for my half-sister, but I don’t know where to start. To be honest, I haven’t really planned this trip. I just wanted to see the place where my dad was buried. Expecting…what? Some magical connection with the cold stone beneath me? Probably. Not that I would ever admit that aloud.

“Anything else, Mom?”

“Don’t you give me this attitude, young lady. Not when I did my best to raise you and all he did was drink your inheritance.”

I grunted.

Money, money, money. It’s always about the money.

“I can’t believe they buried him near a church,” she mused. “Hopefully the grass won’t grow black, like his heart.”

She hung up after a string of complaints about her too-prominent new highlights and milking a promise from me that I’d buy her a carton of duty-free Parliament cigarettes on my return trip.

Now here I am, in a cemetery in central Dublin, staring at a gray squirrel who is eyeing the bag of chips peeking from my backpack. I envy its coat of fur. I’d legitimately consider walking around with a sheet of fur all over my body to protect myself from the constant chill.

“They’re not even that good. Who puts vinegar on chips? It’s barbaric.” I yank the bag out of my backpack, pull a chip out, and throw it its way. The squirrel jumps back in fear, but then gingerly makes its way to the snack. It sniffs the chip, grabs it with its tiny paws, and makes a run up a nearby tree.

“Where I come from, you get jailed for assisting a murderer,” a voice cracks behind me.

I look around with a jerk. A priest is standing a few paces behind my father’s grave—black robe, big cross, all-ye-sinners-are-doomed expression, the entire shebang. I jump to my feet, grabbing my bag and phone, and swivel to face him.

Okay, so he doesn’t look super dangerous, but being all alone in a foreign land makes me hyperaware of my vulnerability.

“Now, now.”

The man takes slow steps down the rolling green hill on which my father is buried, his hands knotted behind his back. He looks like he lived through both World Wars, the Renaissance…and Hannibal’s invasion of Italy.