Epilogue
“Happy birthday.” Farrelly stood on my doorstep, bristling with cellophane-wrapped arrangements of flowers. “I nearly had to buy a new van.”
He strode down the hall towards the kitchen but I said, “Nope. Utility room, Farrelly.”
“A utility room, is it? Well, well, well.” He was sticking his head in and out of doorways, opening cupboards, generally taking stock of my light, bright new house. “This is some transformation. So you went with the reclaimed floorboards in the end? I’m a carpet man, myself. Can I see upstairs?”
“Off you go.”
Abandoning the flowers on a draining board, he took the stairs two at a time and opened one of the bedroom doors. I followed him up.
“I’m guessing this is Max’s bed? Very orderly . Wouldn’t he remind you of a young novitiate in holy orders? And he’s sharing with the child, Zeke?”
Farrelly nodded at the collection of teddies on Zeke’s bed. Suddenly sotto voce and earnest, he said, “Mind that ye don’t baby him too much. I see it too often with the youngest child.”
“Okay.” It was very hard to not snigger.
On the landing, Farrelly advanced upon, hesitated, then stepped back from a door emblazoned with a skull and crossbones. “Isaac’s? Trea’s?”
“Isaac’s.” I nodded at another room. “And that’s Trea’s.”
“I won’t go in. They’re entitled to privacy.” In other words, he was scared of them. He glanced around at the remaining doors. “That’s the bathroom, which means this must be yours!”
His hand on the doorknob, he caught my look. “I’ll, ah…give you privacy too.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, “Is he in there? The go-boy?”
“Not yet. Coming later with the kids.”
Clattering back down the stairs, Farrelly said, “You’ve worked miracles with this place. I thought you’d never get rid of the smell of Dr Muireann’s poor mother, not that it was bad, she was a fastidious woman, never let the standards slip. But too much honeysuckle talc could choke a horse.”
“I can’t take any credit,” I lied. I was so proud of my sweet little house. “Tipper and the lads did all the work.”
“But you were the one giving the orders. It was your ‘vision’—‘Chic, cozy and coastal’? I hear Rionna Breen was a great help with the soft furnishings. What was it she said again? ‘If I ever see another starfish cushion, I’ll scream.’?”
I had to laugh. “Is there nothing you don’t know about me?”
Momentarily, he studied me. “Probably not. Come here.” He went into the utility room. “One of the bouquets is from your ex-in-laws. From when you were married. When the order came through, I was stymied. Who’s Dianne Maddox in Boston, sez I? Then I put two and two together. It’s good ye’re still in touch.”
I nodded my agreement.
It was a long time since Aidan’s family and I had gently slipped from regular contact. Although we’d all grieved Aidan, our pain had different shapes. Hardly surprising, as we had loved him in unique ways. At some stage it became apparent that far from being united by our mutual loss, we no longer had anything in common.
Nevertheless, an invisible thread connected us and social media kept us current.
“This one.” Farrelly lifted a cluster of vibrant blooms from the draining board. “She said to go ‘all out.’?”
My heart swelled. Dianne was incredible: not only had she lost her eldest son far too young, she had the generosity to acknowledge his widow’s fiftieth birthday.
“I’ll go out to the van for the rest,” Farrelly said.
“Okay.” I’d got stuck on the impossible fact that I was alive and Aidan wasn’t. The only “message” I could ever take from his death was that I shouldn’t waste what I’d been given—something I forgot far too often. But today it was front and center.
I hope you approve of what I’m doing with my life , I told him.
Because, I realized, I did. I liked living and working in M’town. Being a four-hour drive from my parents and sisters wasn’t perfect. Nor was being an hour away from Jacqui. And managing me, Joey and his children was so complicated that Elisabeth, Joey and I shared a detailed online calendar.
So far, though, it was working beautifully.
And I liked my job. Doing four days a week for Brigit and Colm suited me: I could take the pace and live on the money. Now and again I’d remember how hard I’d worked in New York— how had I managed such a stressful life?
Farrelly had returned with more flowers. “Do you really think he’ll come?” he asked. “Horace Bland?”
Shocked, I asked, “How do you know about him?”
“Ah, Anna.” My naivety entertained him. “No secrets round here.”
Dolphin Cove had opened its doors in April. Business was definitely promising. But yesterday, a phone call from a woman with a loud, nasal voice had ramped things up several gears. After making Colm, Brigit and me sign non-disclosure agreements, she divulged she was the personal assistant of some high-status man who wanted to book three villas for a week. “ETA four days’ time.”
As the exact identity of the man was still a secret, Horace Bland became his working title. We had been excited, giddy, fearful—then payment in full arrived in the bank account and we crossed the “fearful” part of our feelings off the list.
“Who do you think he is?” Farrelly asked.
I shrugged.
“Ah, Anna! Make an effort.”
“Timothée Chalamet,” I rattled off, “President Zelensky, Elvis back from the dead. Look, I haven’t a clue.” All that really mattered was that Dolphin Cove was picking up momentum. “Gotta go. I’ll be late for work.”
—
“Happy birthday,” Courtney called at me. “How you feeling?”
“In my prime, Courts, my prime .” I followed her into the office for the daily update from each department. Less formal than it sounded. My title was Head of Communications, Brigit was Head of Human Resources but basically we all did everything. (Except for food and beverages, that was Steve’s area.)
“Right,” Courtney, Head of Reservations, said. “Nineteen new check-ins today.”
“I apologize in advance,” I muttered—because seventeen of the nineteen were my parents, sisters, their partners and children, in town to celebrate my birthday.
“The worse they are, the better,” Colm said.
Dolphin Cove had been averaging about two-thirds occupancy, so he and Brigit had decided to offer my loved ones a cut-price stay, as an exercise in seeing how we’d cope closer to a full house.
“Seriously,” I said. “Ziryan, you in particular—”
“I know. Be afraid of Helen.”
Ziryan was Head of Guest Experiences, right across fitness, the spa and all things feathery-strokery.
“And you too, Steve,” I said. “Warn your staff again: she’ll order things that don’t exist.”
“Got it.”
“Also, they’ll be early.”
The vanguard—Mum, Dad, Helen, Artie, Regan and Helen’s Best Friend Bella Devlin—showed up at ten past two. Hot on their heels were Margaret and her lot, followed by Rachel and Luke. After a lull of an hour, Adam and Claire came, with three of their four children. The only one missing was Francesca, who was currently based in Berlin with Lenehan.
“Hi, hi, hi.” Brightly but with zero interest, Claire flashed her teeth at my colleagues. “Can I borrow the birthday girl? Glam-squad time. See you all later.”
At my house Jacqui jumped from her car. Triumphantly, she waved a huge ASOS bag at Claire. “Finally! With ten minutes to spare! I was FaceTiming the delivery guy, crying , telling him it was a matter of life and death.”
“Thank God .”
Bearing suit carriers and shoeboxes, talking nonstop, Claire and Jacqui thundered up to my bedroom.
“The Gucci tunic was a bust,” Claire called. “Color was wrong, wrong, wrong for her.”
“But, Claire”—Jacqui was all excitement—“The Miu Miu dupe! The shape . It could really work, if we get her shoes right.”
I was the “her” they were talking about and I might as well not have been there.
For the next hour, I obediently put on and took off four different dresses, matched with a variety of shoes, as they scrutinized me with narrowed eyes and pursed mouths. Occasionally, apropos of nothing, Claire would yelp, “It’s rented. They’re all rented. I didn’t buy any. I know I spend too much but I’m really trying.”
Eventually they decided on a classic black fit-and-flare worn with my own shoes. “You’ve good kneecaps,” Claire informed me. “That’s why it works.”
I liked the look. Which was just as well.
“Flirty,” Claire and Jacqui told each other. “Fun. Flattering. All the ‘F’s.”
No sooner had they left and I was back in regular clothes than the front door rattled, then Joey’s boys swarmed into the hall, waving cards and gifts.
“Do mine first.” Isaac flung himself at me.
“No, mine!” Max insisted.
“Mine! It’s a fart cushion! We’ll do it on Max, then Dad, then Wesley, then—”
“Calmly,” Joey ordered. “We’ll sit at the table and open the gifts calmly .”
While the boys colonized the kitchen, Joey tightened his arms around me, placing his mouth on my neck where a pulse jumped. “Anna.” He breathed. “The relief of you.”
Unable to wait, I pulled him down to kiss me. It had been just two days since we’d seen each other but it felt more like months.
“We’re waiting,” Isaac yelled. “ Calmly .”
Joey leant his forehead against mine. “You’ve no idea,” he said, “how much I love you.”
Pulling his hips against me, feeling him harden at speed, I had to laugh. “I kinda do.”
“I’ll get you later.” His voice was low.
I shivered, anticipating several rounds of Absolutely. Not.
Reluctantly we moved apart, until he was decent, then went to the kitchen.
“Reverse order,” Max announced. “Do Zeke’s gift now. He never gets to be first.”
The beautifully wrapped box—I suspected Elisabeth’s hand in this—revealed a bracelet woven from colored string. “I made it,” Zeke said.
“I love it!” Immediately I put it on, then moved to admire the fart cushion from Isaac. “I love this too!”
Max’s gift was a mug, which said Anna’s Tea . “And I also love this!”
“I bought it by myself with my own money.” He was trying hard to mask his pride; my heart crumpled.
Joey surprised me with one of Ben’s bird paintings.
“I thought they were all sold!”
“He did one specially for you.”
“Oh, Joey, thank you. I really really love it.”
“You are so welcome.” He was almost as proud as Max had been. “Okay, I’d better get started on dinner. Hey, was that the doorbell?”
“I’ll get it!” Isaac raced to admit Teagan and Karina, then scampered back in. “I sent them upstairs.”
While Joey cooked chips, Quorn nuggets and broccoli, Teagan and Karina set about transforming me—highlighter, contouring, eyelashes, general gleaminess, alarmingly big hair (“Don’t worry, it’ll drop”)—until a scrap broke out on the stairs.
“I want to give it to her!” Isaac’s voice was mutinous.
“No. You get to carry it!” That was Max. “I get to give it to her.”
As if they were conjoined, they hobbled together into the bedroom, both clutching like grim death on to a plate of food.
“Your dinner, modom,” Isaac announced, then smirked at Max. “Boom. I gave it to her.”
Rolling his eyes at him, Max was suddenly very mature. “You know the rules, Anna. If you don’t eat your broccoli, there’ll be no birthday cake.”
Zeke, bringing up the rear, pulled me down to whisper, “Just do your best. So long as Dad can see that you tried.”
—
“It’s like Christmas!” Zeke cried.
Courtesy of Claire—never a woman who did things by half—Brigit’s barn twinkled with so many fairy lights, it was probably generating panicked communications from spy satellites. Mayday, mayday. Weird illuminated, like… thing visible in the West of Ireland.
As I stepped inside, Mum was the first to reach me, followed by Dad, Claire, Margaret, Rachel, Helen, Jacqui and their assorted menfolk, children, stepchildren, boyfriends-in-law, the lot. The stream of bodies overflowed and encircled me, forming layer upon layer of love, more people continuing to appear: Courtney, Colm, Queenie, Brigit, Ree, Ben, Hal, Karina, Aber, Ziryan, Vivian, Gráinne, Teagan, Steve, Augustina Mahon, Hardware Ralph, Ferne, Rionna, the Custard Creams, Ike Blakely and a whole throng of Beardy Glarers whom I now found it no bother to differentiate between. How had I ever found them a homogenous, beardy mass? Jimbo was nothing like Vazey. Who was nothing like Peadar Brady.
In the spirit of friendship, her ladyship had been invited but was “away on business.” (And she genuinely was. Work on Tolliver Hall was well under way; she was a busy woman.)
“Your attention, please!” Claire called. A big screen began delivering video messages from Teenie, Angelo, Nell, Kamilah, Monifa, even Franklin, followed by a montage of images, starting with me as an infant, then an anxious-looking toddler, then a young child. Next came six different shots of me in the television room, crouched behind a pouffe, only the top of my head visible. “We used to call it Spot the Anna,” Claire told the crowd. “She was always trying to disappear.”
In a boxy, too-big uniform, here I was on my first day at school, then making my First Communion and my Confirmation and, of course, starting secondary school, all knobbly knees, crooked teeth and mild terror.
Holy smokes, no! One of my early teens, my fringe so long it covered my face: I looked like a gonk. A year later, here were me and Jacqui, gawky and grinning, sticky with lip gloss, she so tall and me so short, thinking we were the bomb, God love us. Another of us in low-rise combats, cut-off tops and—kill me now—bucket hats!
A wistful sigh moved through the room at a shot of Shane and me on a Greek ferry, sun-kissed, tangle-haired and shockingly young. Followed by us wearing hilariously woeful expressions, bundled up in hats and gloves in our freezing flat in Turin.
Picking up speed, we rattled through a few Walsh Christmases and birthdays, then came an artfully overexposed close-up of Aidan and me, laughing as we ran through a shower of white petals, on our wedding day. We looked as beautiful as movie stars.
In the next picture, pinched, pale and clutching a new-born Trea, I barely recognize myself, my face cut from eye to lip and—just like Jacqui said—as animated as a slab of concrete. I look deeply stunned, homeless in my new reality, unable to believe all I’d lost.
But moving along, I’m suddenly polished and svelte, my scar less livid, picking up an award for a skincare campaign. And here’s another award photo, followed by a group shot of rowdy, drunk people at my housewarming in Two Bridges.
Angelo begins making appearances around now—on vacation in the red rocks of Sedona, then at a lunar eclipse in Baja California. Oh poor me, crying hard at Teenie’s New York leaving party; I was heartbroken. But, wow, check me out, cling-wrapped in a Roland Mouret dress, winning another professional accolade.
Next is a lovely one with Dad, grinning goofily, looking like we’re being devoured by poinsettias, the year I won four rounds of Christmas bingo at his golf club. Then a photo with Mum at her “surprise” eightieth birthday, followed by a wild-looking night out in Manhattan. Next up is a Walsh family pandemic Zoomshot with everyone yelling at Mum, “You’re still on mute!”
Then! Me in M’town, at that first St Patrick’s Day parade. This gets an enthusiastic cheer from the assembled crowd. Here’s Lenehan and me at our desks, pretending to be calm and efficient; a selfie of Jacqui and me, laughing so much we’re barely recognizable; Teagan and I pouring homemade serum into bottles; Courtney front and center, beaming as I plant a smacker on the side of her face; me in an orange hard hat and hi-vis jacket as Tipper and the lads commence work, after Dr Muireann’s mother moved to residential care in Oranmore and I bought her house with the proceeds of my New York apartment. At the edge of the picture is a sidelong slice of Joey in motion. Even a sliver of him is enough to put the wanting on me.
Oh Lord—Jacqui, Karina, Gráinne and me, in drunken disarray, wearing matching “Langeroo” T-shirts at the Banagher marina. The next photo—Courtney, Dr Muireann, Karina, Gráinne, Lyudmila and me gathered at a table in the pizza place on Main Street, looking irritated, as if a very important discussion has been interrupted—makes me bark with laughter. We’d either been complaining about the stupidity of everyone or insisting we were still hot. That was all we did.
Oh, a lovely one of Joey, sharp and cool in a suit, and me in a swishy party dress, at Elisabeth’s wedding to Wesley. Followed by a shot where I’ve obviously fallen asleep on my new couch, late one evening.
“Hey!” I twisted around to Joey, who was at my back, his hands light on my shoulders. “Did you take that?”
“Yep.” He sighed. “You were so cute.”
The funny thing was that I had an almost identical one of him, sweetly vulnerable, asleep on that same couch, after a tough week.
The next picture is a cluster of Joey, Trea, Jacqui, Max, Isaac, Zeke, Elisabeth, Wesley and me.
Jacqui speaks right into my ear. “He loves his many, many children.” And I almost choke from shoving down the laughter.
Then comes one of Joey, Jacqui, Trea and me. Yeah, no big deal. Just a casual hang. Massive falling out? Yah, no idea what you’re talking about, babes.
The last photo is of Max, Isaac and Zeke, surrounding me as I eat my broccoli, less than an hour earlier.
The lights go back up, claps and cheers rise to the roof, then Claire and Mum are coming my way, bearing a candlelit cake.
“Is it like being at your own funeral?” Claire asked, gleefully. “That’s how I felt at my fiftieth!”
To quote the sexiest man I’d ever known: absolutely not. I felt extremely alive, caught in a burst of unalloyed joy, appreciating every grain of it. Amplifying my gratitude was the bittersweet insight that time moves relentlessly on: it gives and takes, removes and replaces.
Beautiful as this night was, not everyone could keep me company to the end of my journey; some would peel away or fall behind or splinter off. Aidan had had to leave, while my path and Jacqui’s had forked sharply before reconnecting. As for Joey, we’d spent over twenty years criss-crossing each other’s routes and now our journeys had merged.
In decades to come, when the world has once more reshaped itself, when humans continue to be happy and unhappy and happy again, when tonight’s children have had grandchildren of their own, someone might stumble across one of my birthday cards—perhaps lodged, long-forgotten, behind a plank of wood here in the barn. The old-fashioned communication might seem quaint—imagine hand writing something! Or perhaps they yearn for the glory days when messages were written in pen instead of, say, unwieldy charcoal?
Trying to decipher the out-of-date words, they might wonder, “Who was Anna? What was she like?”
And I’d tell them, if I could: I was an imperfect person who made mistakes, did strange, selfish things and at times just baffled myself. But I tried to do better and when it didn’t come right the first time, I tried again.
Looking around Brigit’s barn, at all the beloved people—Jacqui and Joey, Mum and Dad, Margaret, Helen, Claire, Rachel, Courtney, Hal, all of them—I think: This is my life. Everyone is here tonight because I love them and they love me.
How lucky am I? I love and am loved.
And that is all there is.