Chapter 2 Ronan
RONAN
Galway in March is never subtle.
The wind comes in off the Atlantic with opinions. It presses against my coat, carries the scent of salt and rain and peat smoke, and reminds me, quite insistently, that I am no longer thirty.
I stand outside my sister Mary’s house in Salthill, watching cousins and second cousins pour through the door with bottles and trays and noise. It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and the Callahans do not observe it quietly.
I have come back this year for one reason. Connor. My son reached out in January. A short message, almost casual.
I’m thinking of coming over for Paddy’s. Might be time I meet everyone properly.
Connor has always existed at the edges of the family map. I left for Boston in my twenties and never quite found my way back except in summer visits and holiday calls. Connor was the result of an affair in my mid-twenties, when I was a panicking med student.
I met his mother at a conference. She was older, sexy, confident, and a well-respected doctor at the start of her career.
It wasn’t love—it was two nights in a resort hotel on the Vegas strip.
Connor was subsequently raised on stories and photographs thanks to her keeping in contact with me over the years.
He knows the mythology of my family but not the mechanics.
He asked if I would be in Galway for the holiday.
I told him yes. That was not entirely true at the time, but it became true the moment I sent the message.
At fifty-two, I no longer rearrange my calendar for random things.
My patients require predictability. The hospital requires my presence.
My life in Boston is measured and full. But blood is persuasive, and I have always desired a real relationship with my son.
Not occasional phone calls and actively avoiding his social media.
I can’t take all that managed nonsense. It’s lies, start to finish. I wish my son didn’t make it his entire life.
Mary appears beside me, flour on her hands. “You’re waiting.”
“Yes.”
She studies my face with the kind of blunt affection only a sister can manage. “He’ll come if he said he would.”
“He has not always done so.”
She sighs. “He’s young.”
He’s twenty-six. Young enough to believe the world bends around his ambition. Old enough to know better.
I check my phone again. No new messages.
He said he was flying in yesterday. He said he had booked a hotel in the city. He said he would come by after time with his girlfriend.
“I’d like you to meet her,” he said. There was a weight to that request. When one invites a partner to meet the Callahans, one is not being casual. Though, he may not realize that.
Inside the house, someone begins to sing. A low, familiar tune that builds into something raucous within seconds.
I allow myself a small, unreasonable hope. Perhaps this is the year Connor steps into the fold.
The wind sharpens. My phone remains silent.
By midday, the house is full.
Children streak past with green-painted cheeks. My brother Liam argues loudly about rugby statistics with an uncle who has not updated his information since 1998. Mary’s kitchen smells of soda bread and lamb stew, and the windows fog from heat and breath and too many bodies in one place.
This is how we gather. Not elegantly. Not quietly. My family enjoys the stereotypes of Ireland as much as any of us do, but I think Mary revels in them.
I take up a position near the fireplace, fielding questions about Boston, about the hospital, about whether I will ever consider coming home for good to take over our family’s business.
We own one of the world’s largest consumer laboratory chains.
Mary is our CFO, Liam is the CEO. And both are looking to retire early.
Home is a complicated word when one has built a life elsewhere. I answer politely. I always do. One day, I might return. For now, my life is in Boston.
Between conversations, I check my phone. At half past one, it finally vibrates. I step into the hallway before answering.
“Connor.”
“Hey, Ronan.” Not Dad. Never Dad.
I’d never ask it of him, but one day, I’d like to hear it out of him. “You’ve arrived safely?”
“Yeah, yeah. Galway’s insane right now. It’s packed.”
“It often is on this particular week.”
He laughs. There’s noise behind him—music, shouting, the hollow echo of a pub. “I’m really sorry,” he says, and the apology comes too quickly. “My girlfriend’s kind of… high-maintenance about the whole thing.”
I go very still. “High-maintenance.”
“Yeah, she’s just been wanting to do all the tourist stuff. Photos, parades, the works. And she’s not super into, you know, big family chaos.”
I consider my next words carefully. “She was invited,” I say evenly.
“Yeah, I know. I just—” He exhales. “It’s a lot. I don’t want her overwhelmed.”
“And what do you want?”
A pause. “I mean, I want to do this right. Another time.”
Another time. The phrase lands like a deferral notice.
“We have prepared for you,” I tell him, because it’s the truth. Mary made an extra loaf. Liam bought better whiskey than usual. Even our mother, at eighty-one, insisted on wearing the emerald brooch she reserves for occasions of importance.
“I know,” he says quickly. “And I appreciate that. I just think today’s not the vibe.”
The vibe. “I see.”
“You get it, right? I’ve got to balance things. She’s demanding, and I don’t want drama.”
Demanding.
I imagine a young woman who has crossed an ocean. Standing in the city, unaware that the door she was told existed, has quietly been closed.
“I had hoped,” I say, keeping my voice steady, “that you might introduce her properly.”
“I will,” he insists. “Just not today.”
I nod, though he cannot see me. “Very well.”
“I’ll text you tomorrow, okay?”
“If you wish.”
There’s another pause. Less confident now. “Happy Paddy’s, Ronan.”
“And to you, Connor.”
The line goes dead. For a moment, I remain in the hallway, staring at my reflection in the darkened glass.
Demanding. It’s a convenient adjective. It absolves one of responsibility.
When I return to the kitchen, Mary reads my face immediately. “He’s not coming.”
“Crossed an ocean to be here, and yet, no.”
She wipes her hands on a towel. “Girlfriend?”
“So he says.”
She makes a sound that contains forty years of sibling commentary. “Well,” she says firmly, “then we’ll save him a plate.”
Hope, in this family, is rarely extinguished. It is simply stored.
I take a walk in the late afternoon.
The house is loud with music and debate and cousins who have long since stopped pretending to listen to one another. It is a good noise. A necessary one.
But I need air.
The city center is a riot of green and gold. Bands march past with brassy enthusiasm. Tourists hold pints aloft like trophies. Flags ripple in the wind, and somewhere near the river a man is attempting to recite Yeats over a microphone that does not cooperate.
I move through it with practiced ease.
Galway is not my daily landscape anymore, but it is imprinted in my bones. The shape of the streets, the particular slant of light on stone, the way the Atlantic asserts itself in every gust. I remain there longer than I should, watching the crowd.
There’s a particular kind of disappointment that does not announce itself with drama. It settles quietly. Like damp.
I suspect Connor is not avoiding us because his girlfriend is overwhelmed or some other thin excuse. He’s avoiding us because we do not fit the picture he’s composing for his social media presence.
I resume walking.
Near the river, a group of children attempts to coordinate a dance routine. They’re terrible at it. They are joyous regardless.
It occurs to me that I had allowed myself to believe this holiday would mark a turning point. That Connor would stand in Mary’s kitchen, shake hands properly, introduce his partner with pride.
Instead, he curates images of the perfect life. No room for my family in it.
And I, at fifty-two, find myself more affected by that than I would have expected. Not because I require his presence. But because I had hoped he might require ours.
I return to Mary’s house at dusk.
The windows glow amber against the deepening blue of evening. Inside, the celebration has shifted from frenetic to intimate. The older relatives sit in a loose circle near the fire. The younger ones argue about music in the corner.
My mother occupies her usual chair, back straight despite her years. “Well?”
“He sends his regards.”
“And himself?”
“Not today.”
She studies me for a long moment. “He was always ambitious,” she says finally. “Ambition is not a sin.”
“No.”
“But it can make a man forget what feeds him.”
I sit opposite her. “He claims his girlfriend is overwhelmed.”
My mother’s mouth tightens. “Then he should have prepared her.” There is no malice in her tone. Only fact. “Do you think he will come tomorrow?”
“I cannot say.”
She nods once, accepting uncertainty as she has accepted many things in her life.
Mary brings me a glass of whiskey and presses it into my hand. “To nephews who take the long road.”
I allow myself a faint smile. “To sons who eventually arrive.”
The music shifts again—someone begins a slow ballad. Conversations soften.
If Connor wishes to build a life that excludes us, that is his prerogative. But I will not be the man who withdraws in response. Hope is not naivety.
It is enduring love.
I take out my phone and compose a message. Dinner tomorrow at one. Just us, if you prefer. I would like to hear about your work. And meet her properly.
I hesitate before pressing send. Then I do. The reply comes twenty minutes later.
Tomorrow might be tough. We’re heading back early. Crazy schedule. Rain check?
Rain check. I close my eyes briefly. Very well. Safe travels.
There is no response.
By the time the evening winds down, the house smells of extinguished candles and spilled stout. One by one, relatives gather coats and children and leftover containers. Promises are made about summer visits. Arguments are paused, not concluded.
I help Mary stack plates in the kitchen. “He’ll circle back,” she says quietly.
“He may.”
“You sound doubtful.”
I merely shrug. I step outside once more before leaving for my hotel.
The night is colder now. The revelry has thinned to smaller clusters of laughter and song. Galway exhales after a day of performance.
Connor boards a plane tomorrow. Perhaps he’s already drafting a caption about growth or momentum. Gotta keep moving, or some such.
I think of the young woman beside him, who may or may not understand why she was kept at arm’s length from a family that would have welcomed her.
And I consider my own role in all of it. I cannot compel a grown man to claim his heritage or insist upon connection where it’s inconvenient. But I can remain available. In my profession, I’ve learned that patience often achieves what force cannot.
Connor may yet come to understand that image is not substance. That a life constructed solely for presentation is brittle. When that realization arrives—and it will—I intend to be someone he can call.
I look out toward the dark stretch of the lake behind Mary’s house.
Families are imperfect organisms. They strain. They fracture. They mend. Tonight was not what I had hoped for. But hope, like the tide, returns.
I turn back toward the house, toward the fading warmth inside.
Connor did not come. But the door remains open. Always.