Chapter 66
CHAPTER 66
Saoirse
A man in a high-visibility jacket approaches me.
“The train terminates here. You need to get off.”
I nod. “I know. It’s just that I had the loveliest journey and I needed a minute…”
“Are you drunk?”
“No.” I take instant offense.
“Okay, good. Then can you please get off? The cleaners need to come on.”
I straighten up and my back cracks audibly. “Yeah. Sure. Sorry.”
“You’re from Dublin?”
I wonder if he recognizes my accent or if he’s basing his observation on the train’s origin.
“Yeah.”
“My girlfriend is from Dublin. Nice place.”
“Yes. It is.”
As requested, I get off the train. I wander down the platform. The architecture in the station is beautiful and I pull out my phone to take a picture. I send it to Miles.
We need to talk x
Miles texts back instantly.
We do
I walk onto the street and find a bench outside Boots and sit down. I imagine Belfast as a very different place half a century ago. I try to imagine the pharmacies from Maura’s story. They seemed like corner stores—like veg shops, or a newsagent. I can’t imagine they were anything like the giant chain Boots has become today. I collect the pill in Boots on Grafton Street every month. I will think of it all quite differently the next time I walk inside the door. I scroll through my contacts. I know Miles’s number by heart, but I look him up anyway. It’s a distraction. I’m buying time, needlessly, because the words are on the tip of my tongue. They are going to spill at some point one way or another. They are words I should have said a long time ago, but I was frightened. I’m still scared. But I’m pushing past it.
I hold my phone to my ear and Miles answers after a single ring.
“Hey,” he says. “I was worried.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“So, Belfast?”
“Yeah. I know. Crazy. Nice city, though.”
“Are you coming home?”
“Yeah. On the next train.”
“Good. Good. I’ll wait up.”
“Miles?” I swallow hard, and suddenly I don’t want to say the next words. They’re too big.
“Yeah?”
“It’s over, isn’t it?”
The line is silent for a moment before Miles sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “I think it is.”
“You’re going to be a great dad someday. I really mean that. Someday you’re going to find the perfect woman. With great boobs and a ten for an ass and you are going to make beautiful babies.”
There’s a pause as the gravity of this settles over both of us. My heart is breaking. It sits in my chest in a million pieces as I give up the man I love. And yet, in another way, it is whole, and I am full. I give myself permission to let go.
“I want that for you,” I say. “I want you to be happy.”
“And you? Will you be okay?”
I think for a moment and I look at the train tracks that have led me here, led the women before me here. And I say, “I already am.”