“But you’re sad.”
“Thirty-eight years I’ve been married, and it’s ending, Bluebell.”
God, this sucked. “I’m sorry.”
His answer was to pull me into his arms. I sank into his embrace. Nowhere felt safer.
“Thanks for coming to see your old man. I know this is hard for you. But it’s time, don’t you think, to put the past to rest?”
I mumbled against his shoulder, “I don’t know if I can.”
“We’ll do it together.” Humor lightened his words. “Think of it as distracting your old man from this interesting turn his life has recently taken.”
I laughed softly, despite my fears, glad to see he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.
Before I could question him about the separation between him and Mom, the sound of the front door downstairs opening and slamming shut made me jerk away from my dad.
“Dad, you home?” I recognized my big sister’s voice.
“Davina?” I whispered.
“Dad?” a male voice called.
“Darragh?”
Dad shrugged, looking only slightly sorry. “I told them you were coming and they both wanted to be here.”
“Dad!” Davina yelled.
“Up here,” he called out.
“Dahlia here?” I couldn’t read Darragh’s tone.
“Yeah.”
Blood rushed in my ears. I was about to face my siblings for the first time in nine years.
Nine years.
How could it have been that long? It didn’t feel that long.
“Fuck,” I bit out.
Dad squeezed my shoulder. “Like a Band-Aid, Bluebell. Best to pull that thing off quick.”
Over the years, Dad had sent me photos of my family and kept me up-to-date with their lives in our weekly phone calls. Darragh was thirty-seven and a sports writer for the Boston Globe. Lucky bastard had met the Pats, the Sox, the Celts, and the Bruins multiple times. In all seriousness, I was proud of him. Dad said Darragh and his wife Krista (I’d met her before everything went to shit and had liked her a lot) had bought a nice house in Everett a few streets over. They had two sons, Leo and Levi. I’d closed the shop when they were both born, heartbroken I couldn’t be there. Devastated I’d never met them. When they were born, I sent gifts through Dad, and I did that for their Christmas and birthdays too. Same for all my siblings. Dad always passed along their thanks, but I didn’t know if they said that. The gifts were never returned, as far as I was aware.
Davina was the second eldest at thirty-five. She had a busy and very successful career as a corporate investment banker. I didn’t know what that was, but it meant Davina could afford a huge apartment in Bunker Hill. She’d gotten married during the nine years of our estrangement to a man I’d never met. They divorced two years in, and then three years ago, my big sister came out to my family.
She moved in with Astrid, a woman she’d been friends with since college. It hurt my heart that my sister had loved her friend for years but hadn’t been able to admit it. Dad said Davina was happier than ever, but I had so much regret knowing I hadn’t been there for my big sister when she needed me. One of the things I felt most contrition for was not breaking free of my self-imposed bubble to go to Davina when she came out.
I was remorseful for not being there for my family, but I experienced it particularly intensely over my two eldest siblings. Even though Dermot was older than me too, it was only by eighteen months, and he was definitely an annoying older brother, whereas Darragh and Davina had been more than that.
My parents’ careers meant they worked a lot and therefore had depended on Darragh and Davina to look after us younger kids. My big brother and sister had helped raise me, and I adored them.
I was terrified to see them again. To see their disappointment and disgust.
Frozen, I stared at my feet. “Dad, I don’t know if I can do this.”