Chapter 16
PATRICK
Patrick’s eyes had flickered open in the dark of his room, his suitcase open on the luggage stand, his suit for Saturday hanging up over the wardrobe, his phone and watch on the table beside him.
Totally wired and fully awake, he couldn’t blame it all on jet lag because all he could think about was Rosie.
Like a war wound which had been prodded, he could feel the same ache as before.
That day in the airport, he had turned away, knowing she was crying and completely unable to explain why he was doing what he was doing.
He could hardly bear to look at Rosie, her eyes full of tears, her plans for their future scuppered by one comment from Lucinda and his own stubbornness and pride.
When he was on the flight, he had asked for a double whiskey. His hands shook as he sipped his drink.
‘Fear of flying?’ An elderly lady had spoken to him, kindly, in a soft posh Dublin voice.
‘Something like that.’
‘The whiskey certainly helps.’ She held up her own glass. ‘But it has to be Irish, doesn’t it? Isn’t that the best, the cream of the crop?’
‘It certainly is.’
By the time he landed in Boston, he was a different person.
Somehow and somewhere over the Atlantic, he’d made a decision.
He wasn’t going to be crying into his drink, or being miserable, hands shaking like an overemotional sap, he was going to succeed and he was going to leave all that chaos and drama and emotion back on the other side of the Atlantic.
There were times in his first few years in Boston he thought he might die of loneliness and longing and he might waste away from pining, like some Victorian poet.
Walking the floor of the restaurants every night, shaking hands, his restlessness was part of the performance, a word here, a quip there, anticipating someone’s need for a drink, a top-up, a different table, a better chair, the bill, more water, a special aperitif, a nightcap – that was all a performance, an act.
No one would have guessed that this smooth, handsome, confident Irish man was so desperately lonely, and not just for female company, he could have that if he needed it.
It was for connection, someone who understood him, who made him laugh, someone with whom he felt he belonged.
Now he had actual friends in Boston. Johnny, his chef, was a close friend, and there were buddies at his gym, good business acquaintances he knew he could rely on, his pals at the Boston-Irish Gaelic football club where lads from all over Ireland gathered on the field in South Boston.
No one would ever guess how much he missed a woman he’d only known for a matter of months. A woman who was now married with two children, a woman who had decided she didn’t want anything to do with him, a woman who he was told he wasn’t good enough for. Rosie. Just a woman he used to know.
Now, perhaps, he would have handled it better.
Now he would have tried long-distance or at least let their relationship live a little, rather than suffocating it so thoroughly of all air and life.
But then he was twenty-two, with the maturity of a larva, the life experience of a mayfly but the ambition of a woefully naive eejit straight from the farm.
Then he had a lot to prove, but he now knew success meant something different than just making money and gaining power.
Success was his younger brother, able to have a relationship and commit to it.
Success was how much love you had in your life, the empathy and kindness you showed to others.
Success was listening and learning from others.
Success was not being emotionally constipated, or whatever Ashley had called him.
And she had been right, up to a point. But he would never be what Ashley wanted, spilling out his feelings, emoting and baring his soul for the world to see, but being a little bit more emotionally honest was definitely something he could think about.
He’d been deeply hurt over the years, by his father, for one.
Losing Rosie. And once you survived those kinds of heartbreaks, you got stronger, and he was stronger now.
And maybe it was time to meet someone and fall in love again.
He picked up his phone, hoping to be distracted by a message from Boston. Fitzgerald’s would be closing up now, the last bill being rung through, the floor swept, the tables set for next day. Johnny and the rest of the crew having a drink in the kitchen.
There was a message from Kerry-Anne.
Hope flight went well. Talk soon.
Oh, Kerry-Anne. Something else to think about. It would be so much easier if you could control who you fell in love with, but if there was one thing he knew about love, it found you and, when it did, you shouldn’t ever let it go. It was a lesson he’d learned too late.
Rosie was the one person he’d wanted to talk about his mother, the only person he wanted to open up to.
He owed her an apology, he knew, but would that just make things worse or unearth past feelings and resentment?
What would be best for Rosie? Would she even want him to apologise?
She was married with children, he lived an ocean away.
But it intrigued him that that bond that one creates with someone doesn’t ever break, you’re always connected, there’s always that ribbon holding you together, meaning you take a special interest, and will always have something of a grá for the other, something of a love for them.
He looked out of the window at the garden, the dew on the grass, the birds singing, the flowers half-open in this early light. And he saw a figure down below, a china cup in her hand. He pulled on his shorts and sweatshirt and left his room, tiptoeing down the corridor, and headed for the garden.