Chapter Eleven
Eleven
There was music everywhere, because we’d walked a bit when we heard a full choir performing “Come On Eileen” from a bandstand in the middle of the park.
People on picnic blankets dotted the grass, sitting cross-legged or leaned back on their hands or sprawled out, and a group of three teenage girls linked arms and started kick-dancing in time to the music before they fell out of formation, laughing.
It was suddenly vitally important that all of this be real—not just Eamonn but the man with the pigeons and those girls and this amateur choir exuberantly performing pop covers on a Saturday afternoon.
I thought back to that violinist playing “Dreams,” and then back to what I’d told Mari after that disastrous date, about how I didn’t want to want things anymore.
That wasn’t true. It hurt, craving something so badly, especially when you didn’t know if you’d ever get it.
But I didn’t want to be scared of that hurt.
Like even now, strolling down the path with Eamonn, the sudden urge to hold on to his arm, to link my fingers through his and squeeze, to lean my cheek against his shoulder like we were any other romantic couple in the park on a beautiful day…
the wanting of it pulsed like an actual pain, somewhere inside my chest. But it was nice, that ache. It felt like a song.
Eventually we reached a lake, brownish-green with the reflection of a much brighter green tree that had all its leaves already.
There really wasn’t any barrier between us and the water—just the edge of the path we were on, and then right beyond the lip of it, the lake.
I had a sudden vision of stepping off into the water, submerging myself up over my head.
When I came back to the surface, maybe I’d be in my old life.
And all that would be left of me here would be a few ripples, like the ones that bloomed out from beneath the birds floating on top of the water, briefly disturbing the lake until they disappeared and it became mirrored glass again.
A playful grouping of ducks kept bobbing under the water on one side, but not far away there was a beautiful, long-necked swan who seemed completely unbothered.
Eamonn watched the ducks, his hands still in his pockets.
I wondered if he’d had any of the same urges I’d had, walking through the park with the music playing.
Just to touch me, to live out some fantasy of belonging to each other, even if for a moment.
I wondered how long he’d watch my ripples smooth out before he’d walk away, back to his car and his home and his life.
He looked over at me, as if sensing my gaze on him.
I liked imagining him as he might’ve been that morning, shaving at his bathroom mirror, pulling his shirt over his head, lacing up those boots.
His keys and his wallet in his pocket and then he’d be heading out the door, on his way to a job he couldn’t have known would be pointless, with no power.
And now here he was, next to me in the park.
“You mentioned fairies earlier,” he said, nudging at a small pebble on the ground with his shoe. “What exactly is your art project that you’re doing?”
Before, I’d had the sense that he did think there was something ridiculous about the idea of fairies, even if he’d ended up telling me that folktale.
I’d also gotten the impression that he was quizzing me a bit, trying to figure out just what I was doing in Ireland.
That he was suspicious, but of what I didn’t know.
There was no way he could have any inkling of what had really happened with me.
But now I got the sense that he was just interested, and asking me questions. It still didn’t make them any easier to answer.
“This will sound silly,” I said, deciding to stick as close as possible to some semblance of truth.
“But when I was a kid, I used to imagine these fairies that came out of the wallpaper in my room? Just stories, not that I believed they were real. I would draw them endlessly, on the margins of my homework even, which got me in trouble. I gave them all themes, like there was one for each season, each birthstone, each type of weather event, you name it.”
I glanced at him, trying to see if he had any reaction to that, positive or negative. It certainly felt silly, coming out of my mouth. I didn’t know why I was suddenly thinking about these childhood fairies so much, except that I really did feel like I was stuck in a real-life fairy story.
“Anyway, in college I found that same wallpaper at a home goods store, and I started using watercolors to paint my fairies onto pieces of it. It had nothing to do with any of the projects I was supposed to be working on, but I don’t know, I got a little consumed with it.
I think it was just that I was so lonely, those years lying in my bedroom as a kid, that first year of college…
” This was definitely more than I’d meant to say.
It was more than I’d even known myself—the words were surprising me as they were coming out, because I hadn’t given much thought to the fairies beyond that they were some fantastical bit of fun I enjoyed painting.
None of this, of course, did anything to address why I was specifically in his home country when it wasn’t like my fairies had been particularly Irish to begin with.
“Somewhere along the way, I gave those fairies up,” I said. “I guess I wondered why I did that.”
“Maybe you got less lonely,” Eamonn said.
“Or maybe I just stopped romanticizing it.”
When I glanced over at him, he had an unreadable expression on his face. It felt like he could see right through me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be seen. So far, I’d done a lot to establish myself as the most pathetic person on the planet.
But there was something inward about the expression, too, like maybe it was more about him looking at himself.
We were torn out of the moment by a black dog that came up to the edge of the lake, barking at the birds, some of which startled and flew away.
For a minute I thought the dog was going to dive right into the water, but then I noticed that there was a leash trailing from the dog’s collar, and Eamonn had already wrapped it around his hand, giving it a gentle tug.
“Hey now,” he said. “Easy.”
I glanced in either direction on the path, expecting to see someone rushing toward us, an apologetic look on their face. But any of the people nearby who were reacting to the situation at all seemed to be mostly looking at us like, why don’t you control your dog better?
“Where do you think the owner is?”
Eamonn had knelt down beside the dog, letting it sniff his hand before giving it a scratch around the collar, lifting some of its fur to see if there was a tag hiding underneath. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not too far, I’d imagine. What’s your name, little fella? Huh?”
The way he was talking to me in one instant and the dog the very next, it made something swoop in my stomach, how low and friendly his voice had gotten.
“I wouldn’t exactly call him little,” I said, giving the dog an experimental pat on the head.
I generally liked dogs. I just wasn’t super comfortable around them, since I didn’t have much experience.
Despite this one’s somewhat intimidating first impression—being a large dog who’d come in hot, barking at the birds—he seemed nice enough.
He looked up at me as I petted him, his tongue hanging out.
“Should we walk with him, try to find his owner?”
Eamonn stood up, the leash still looped around his hand. “We might end up heading in the wrong direction,” he said. “Why don’t we sit on that bench, see if the owner can find us.”
That was much more sensible, and the idea of resting for a moment was appealing all by itself.
“You have a dog?” I asked once we’d sat down, although I already knew the answer. Or at least, I thought I did.
“Nah,” he said. “Not since I was young.”
I almost challenged him on it, almost said What’s with the flea shampoo, then?
but I realized there were a number of different explanations and he didn’t owe me any of them.
It could’ve been for a friend’s dog. A girlfriend’s dog.
It would be a pretty serious relationship, I’d imagine, if you were buying flea treatment for her dog.
“I’m useless around dogs, though,” he said, giving this one another rub around the ears. “Can’t resist ’em…I turn into an absolute eejit.”
I knew he didn’t mean that the way I would’ve—that I just never knew what to do around animals. He did look happier than he had all day. “See, and I can recognize that you’re not being self-deprecating when you say that.”
Eamonn glanced up at me, looking genuinely confused. “What?”
Of course, he would have no idea what I was referring to, the entire conversation with his brother. “Like calling yourself useless, or an eejit, that kind of thing. They’re just expressions. You’re not actually putting yourself down when you say stuff like that.”
His lips twitched at my use of the word eejit. “If anything, liking dogs improves a person. If anything, I’m braggin’ on myself.”
“Right, exactly.” I shook my head, figuring I had to explain some of this to Eamonn or he’d think I was talking complete nonsense.
“Sorry, I was thinking back on something your brother said. I said I was trash for something, and he didn’t like it that I was putting myself down or whatever.
And I tried to explain to him, that’s not putting myself down, it’s just a figure of speech. ”
I tried to think back on what I’d even said that had prompted Niall’s criticism, and I realized it had been because I’d been about to say I was trash for big families. In a roundabout way, I thought about telling Eamonn, I was trash for you.