21
Millsie N.
Sussex, England
8/25/2023
Silence.
Is anyone else concerned that neither the Moorings nor the Thatch has posted anything on Instagram in weeks? We were on the island just a few days ago and the place was quiet. Too quiet.
Please tell me this story isn’t over.
No one knows the exact origin of the grudge between the Dohertys and Murphys. Some say it was a fight over land. Some say it was over sheep. Some say it was as fickle as Mrs. Doherty excluding Mrs. Murphy from a tea party. But most say it started over love. Two boys in love with the same girl. Two girls in love with the same boy. Unrequited love. Star-crossed love. Forbidden love.
Because only one thing can ignite a passion so deep that it burns this long. If you’re lucky love works in your favor. If you’re not ...
Five days after Maeve left Inishglass, a doctor cracked open Briggs’s chest, stopped his beating heart, and removed a piece of it forever.
Briggs thought he was dying that morning in Liam’s apartment. As his eyes went fuzzy, his hands tingled, and his legs gave out, he had a moment of clarity, but it was too bloody late. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have been so weak, so distracted, so blind? He’d seen firsthand how fast life ends, how fast one’s planned future can shatter. He thought dying would be easier without love. Die with as few connections as possible and you’ll leave the world a better place. He knew it, and yet he ignored it, convincing himself that falling in love was as good as heart surgery.
Briggs was not ready to die. No, Briggs was pissed.
“Cut the goddamn dramatics,” Barb had yelled at him as she pulled him up off the floor. “You’re wasting time. She left with Linda, fifteen minutes ago, for the ferry. If we drive fast, you might be able to catch her.”
But as fast as he and Barb drove, it was too late. Maeve was gone before he got there.
As Briggs walked back to the car, defeated, Barb barked at him. “What the hell are you doing? You have a phone. Call her!” But Briggs had left his phone at home, and reception at the dock was shitty. “Fine. If you won’t, I will.”
Even then, Briggs stopped her.
“But you love her,” Barb pleaded. “Why are you letting her go? Please tell me you aren’t stupid enough to believe she doesn’t love you back.”
Briggs knew Maeve loved him. She may not have said it yet, but he knew.
He had made a decision when he woke up on the apartment floor. He may only have fainted, but it was too close a call. He had escaped death, but only for now, and if he wanted to love Maeve the best way he could, it was only fair to heal himself first. Scared as he was, it was time to mend his broken heart.
Twenty-four hours after surgery, Briggs is in the ICU. His mom, Isla, and Aoife rotate visits. Hugh runs the pub back on the island. After the first night in ICU, Briggs is moved to a general hospital bed. Forty-eight hours later, he starts to walk on his own. The doctors and nurses are impressed with his quick recovery, but he stays in the hospital for three more days, just in case, before moving to his mom’s townhome in Cork to recuperate for the next week.
By the second week, Briggs is going crazy. His back and chest throb. Worse, he’s anxious to contact Maeve. He wants to fly to America, to tell her what he’s done, to touch her, kiss her, love her, convince her that he’s sorry. Every mistake he has made is like a splinter he can’t get out until he sees her, and they’re starting to fester. But still, he waits. He returns to Inishglass, and his energy starts to come back. He walks around his house. One day he walks to his art studio, where he promptly lies on the couch and falls asleep, smelling Maeve on his blanket. He can’t find the energy to paint and has to ask Hugh for a ride home.
Recovery would take weeks, the doctors had said, and Briggs finds it frustratingly true.
A few days later, he wakes up and walks to Aoife’s meditation class. He walks home and takes a two-hour nap. The next day he does it again, this time needing only a thirty-minute power snooze. The day after that, when he gets home, Hugh is sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and shaking off a late night at the pub. Briggs pours himself a cup and sits. He’s not tired.
“I bought my ticket home,” Hugh says. “I leave next week.”
Briggs nods. “That’s good, because you’d be out of a room soon. I’m selling the house.”
Hugh chokes on his coffee. “What? When?”
Briggs tells him about a couple from France that he met back in July. “They mentioned wanting to buy a place in Ireland, and we kept in touch.”
Hugh sits back in his seat, gobsmacked. “Wow. Does this mean we’re like ... fucking adults?”
“Aye. I believe it does.”
“Well, this is a problem.” Hugh rests his coffee cup on his stomach. “Who will my family make fun of at Thanksgiving now?”
Briggs chuckles. He’ll miss Hugh more than he’s willing to admit right now, but he’s happy for him.
“Where are you gonna go once you sell this place?” Hugh asks.
Briggs sets his mug on the table. “I have a few ideas. It’s time to make some changes.”
“But you still haven’t contacted Negroni?” Briggs shakes his head. “What the hell are you waiting for?” Hugh presses. “You had the surgery. You look relatively good, considering your beard resembles 1970s pubes.”
“Piss off.”
Hugh laughs. “Seriously, bro. Grapefruits like hers don’t come around that often. If you don’t lock her down, someone else will. You might be every girl’s sexy Irish fantasy here, but your stiffest competition is a portly American who can’t grow one scraggly chin pube, let alone an actual beard. But in Chicago there are guys in suits who own boats and have lots of money, which is a helluva lot sexier to some women. It’s charming that you can make a fancy cocktail, but drinking them is a lot more fun, especially when someone else is paying. Have you seen a fit guy in a well-tailored suit? Eggplant city.”
“If I wasn’t incapacitated right now, I’d punch you in the face.”
“Why do you think I’m saying it now? I know you can’t come at me.” Hugh leans forward and rests his elbows on the table. “Have you considered that the longer you wait, the more she might think you don’t love her?”
Briggs has considered a lot of things these past few weeks. And while his lack of initiative might seem insane to Hugh, it’s calculated. Because what Hugh doesn’t know is that Briggs is selling his house so he can move to Chicago.
He has been selfish with Maeve. What he saw as holding on to her was actually holding her captive. If he wants to love her right, he has to compromise. If she wants Chicago, he’ll go.
Briggs stands and puts his mug in the sink. “What’s Thanksgiving like?”
Hugh shrugs. “It’s mostly food, football, and familial shaming. But it’s the only day of the year when you can eat stuffing and not feel guilty, so we put up with it.”
“Must be some great stuffing.”
“My mom makes it with sausage,” Hugh says, and wipes his bottom lip like he’s drooling. “It’s fucking tits.”
“Maybe I could come one year.”
Hugh cocks his head. “Where are you going?”
He might suspect Briggs’s plan, but now isn’t the time for confessions. “I have something I have to do.”
Briggs hasn’t been to his father’s grave in years. He has terrible memories of the day Joe Murphy was buried. The wet manure smell of the fields. The damp rain. The strong perfume of the older ladies in attendance. Smiling and thanking people for coming when really he wanted to scream and hide in his room. How unfair that on the worst day of his life, he had to be polite. It took years to get over it. Being back in the graveyard stirs it all to the surface, but this time it hurts a little less. He kneels down in front of Joe’s grave, noting the dates of his life and wishing there wasn’t an end, but ends are inevitable, and that’s exactly why he’s here right now.
When Briggs moves to Chicago, he won’t be able to take the collage wall with him. His favorite picture of his father will stay cemented there, and he’ll start a new collage in America.
It’s funny that Briggs would love this picture of his father as much as he does. You can’t see Joe Murphy’s face well at all. It’s a profile shot. He’s kissing his wife. But what made Briggs love the picture so much was just that, that instead of smiling for the camera, Joe is kissing his wife, as if somehow, he wanted to be remembered not as a man who turned toward a flash, but who always turned toward love.
“It took me a while, but I finally get it, Da,” Briggs whispers. “This will be my last jump.”
Joe Murphy whispers back, “That’s my son.”
Briggs messages Barb: Text her now.
Briggs stands at the edge of the water in swim trunks and flip-flops. The late August sun warms his back when it manages to peek through the clouds. His hands tingle. His knees bend slightly with the urge to jump in. Around him, the water churns and slams against the rocks, but the pool just below is calm and deep. Safe.
Just today, his doctor gave him the OK to drive. He got in his Jeep and came here, the swerve of the roads so familiar, his body leaned into them like a choreographed dance.
Briggs peers over the edge, and for just a second, he thinks he’ll jump. Three months ago, he would have. Three months ago, he would have seen it as a challenge. Three months ago, he would have seen it as a way of proving he was strong.
Three months ago, Briggs Murphy had a broken heart.
“Don’t jump,” a voice begs from behind him.
Briggs smells her before he sees her. He inhales her sweet scent, letting it flow into his lungs, feeling the blood flow more freely through his heart. Then he turns.
Her eyes home in on the scar on his chest like a beacon, and her mouth parts slightly. This creature he’s wanted to devour for weeks stands before him, but the man she left isn’t the same. He’s scarred, and he’s lost some weight in recovery. For just a moment, Briggs worries she’ll be turned off by him. Disgusted at the mark that will follow him for the rest of his life.
Maeve approaches gently, her eyes on his chest. He wants to reach out, grab her, press her to him. It’s been too long since he touched her, felt the soft skin of her thighs, the friction of their bodies. Every part of him quivers with desire and need. When her finger touches the sensitive skin of his scar, shivers crawl down his arms and his groin tightens. A breath he didn’t know he was holding cascades out of his mouth as she traces the scar, slowly, as if memorizing it with her finger.
“Does this hurt?”
He shakes his head and grits his teeth. “Quite the opposite. But be careful with me, Maeve. They said eight weeks before I can shag again, and I promised I’d be a good lad.”
Her finger moves from the scar to the left side of his chest. She places her whole hand on his heart. “How do you feel?”
“Relieved.”
She nods, understanding. “Were you scared?”
Briggs shakes his head. “There are worse things than open-heart surgery.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She looks up at him, her brow pinched in confusion.
“Because I didn’t want you to come back out of obligation or fear.”
“But I—”
Briggs holds up a hand. “I had to prove how serious I am about you, Maeve.”
“You could have sent a text,” she jokes. “I would have believed you.”
Briggs shakes his head. “I never should have walked out of that party. I should have stayed, because that’s the kind of man you deserve, but I was a coward. I didn’t want you to come back to that man. I wanted you to come back to someone better, someone worth spending your future with. I had to offer you the best version of myself. So this”—he places a hand on top of hers on his chest—“this is my way of making that a promise to you. I will take care of myself so I can love you better every damn day of my life. I won’t leave again. I’ll stay. Wherever you are in the world, I’m there, too. And if that’s Chicago, then I want to come.”
“You’d move to Chicago?” Briggs holds her gaze, putting all his confidence into his nod. “What about the Thatch?”
“Isla can run it.”
“She’s majoring in fashion design. She doesn’t know how to run a pub.”
“Then I’ll sell it.”
“But you love it.”
He does. The Thatch is in Briggs’s blood, as much as his father’s DNA is, but he’s part Peggy Murphy, too. “My mother moved to Inishglass for my father. If I have to move to Chicago so that you can be you, it’s worth the sacrifice.”
Maeve chews on her lower lip. Briggs waits, a part of him still nervous that she’s only here to say goodbye, that his apology won’t be enough, that leaving her once will still ultimately push her away.
“That’s too bad,” she says. Briggs inhales, preparing for the blow. “Because I don’t live in Chicago anymore.”
“Then wherever you are in America is where I want to be.”
“I hate to disappoint you ...”
Bloody hell , Briggs thinks. Hugh was right. He took too long.
“I’m not living in America anymore,” Maeve continues. “And if you sell your pub, then who will my pub compete with?”
My pub. “You’re not selling?”
She shakes her head. “How could I sell? I have a championship to protect.”
Briggs laughs, and the tension in his chest that has lingered since his surgery evaporates. “Are you sure, Maeve? I don’t want you to do this just for me.”
“No, I’m doing this for me. Because I love you, Briggs. And I love this island. And I plan to stay right here for as long as you’ll ... fight with me.” Her growing smile brightens the green all around them. “But I do have something very important to tell you.”
“What?” Briggs pleads. “Whatever it is, I can handle it.”
She takes a breath and locks her gaze on his. “‘Hold On.’”
Briggs lifts one eyebrow, unsure what she means. “Hold on for what?”
“‘Hold On’ by Wilson Phillips.”
“Maeve, what the hell are you talking about?”
She reaches onto her tiptoes, wraps her arms around his neck, and pulls him close. “That’s my karaoke song.”
Eight weeks to the day after his surgery, Briggs wakes up in bed next to Maeve. Hot, pulsing need radiates through him, like he’s sixteen again and on the verge of having sex for the first time. He’s so hungry for her, he can taste it.
He watches her sleeping deeply, wishing he could wake her up but not wanting to ruin her slumber. They both worked late last night. Tourists are still trickling onto the island, but it’s finally slowing down a bit. With Hugh gone and Isla back at university, Briggs is busier than he’s been in a long time. But he’s enjoying the pace, and the customers, more than he ever has, thanks to the woman lying next to him. He no longer wakes up every morning anxious to jump. No, he’s more than happy to stay right where he is for as long as he can.
But this morning, Briggs needs a distraction, so he rolls out of Maeve’s bed and tiptoes to the shower. The weight he lost is back. The scar on his chest has faded some, along with his back pain, and while he still gets a little winded from time to time, he breathes easier now than he ever thought possible.
He takes his time in the shower, trimming his beard and manscaping. When he emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, the faint sound of music comes through the closed bedroom door. He smiles and walks, towel around his waist, across the living room toward the noise, noting the stick-figure drawings and elephant on the mantel. He has a list of places in mind for their honeymoon, all destinations where Maeve can see her beloved elephants in the wild. Now if he would just ask her to marry him. The ring his mother gave him is tucked away in a drawer at the art studio. But he’s not in a hurry like he was a few months ago. For now, he’s enjoying their life just as it is. Someday, he’ll get down on one knee.
Someday . . .
Briggs chuckles at the song as he quietly cracks the door to find Maeve in nothing but a SAVE FERRIS T-shirt, dancing ferociously to “Shut Up and Dance.” She thrashes her head back and forth, throwing her hair in all directions. Her hips circle and pump, not to the beat, but to whatever rhythm she imagines in her head. She spins in a circle, tossing her hands in the air and singing the lyrics at the top of her lungs.
She turns and sees him in the doorway and pauses, her breath heavy, hair in her eyes.
Briggs leans on the doorjamb. “Should I get a spoon?”
Maeve smiles and blows the hair from her face. “It’s been two months,” she says. “I thought this day would never come.”
“Aye,” Briggs says, in awe of this woman. Thank God she left that damn red door open. “Me, too.”
Maeve bounces across the room, pulls him toward her, discarding the towel on the floor, and together, they start to dance.