CHAPTER TWENTY ONE – PERSONAL CALL
Peter sat quietly staring into his pint of lager. Thoughts racing through his mind this had been a joyous day with old friends, there was just one person missing. There would always be just that one person missing.
"Are you going to be alright to get him home?" Aidan asked taking Anne aside quietly.
"He's fine, he can walk I think, I'll just make sure he gets inside and doesn't hit his head on anything," she smiled playfully.
"I'm right here, I can hear you," Peter said with disgust.
"Right you are, come on Peter me ol' pal let's go," Aidan said hoisting him up off his seat and handing him over to Anne, "Call me when you get home ok?" he said closing the pub door behind him.
Aidan looked around the room at the mess. He was a tired and weighed the pros and cons of getting up first thing in the morning instead. With that thought he shut the lights off to the pub and climbed the wooden staircase to his room.
Peter stumbled to the front door of his cottage with Anne's arms around his waist. She opened the door and walked the two of them inside in the dark. His cottage was essentially the same layout as her own, she fiddled for the light switch. Peter went to the living room and plopped down in his large arm chair.
"I'm getting too old for this," he sighed.
"You're not, you're still a young man."
"I don't feel young, you know it wasn't supposed to be like this."
"What wasn't?"
"My life."
"Ah well, sometimes we don't all get what we want you know?"
"You sounded a lot like Assumpta there, you know if I close my eyes," Peter trailed off for a minute.
"How about a nice cuppa tea?" Anne said walking into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
She opened the press and found inside a bottle of paracetamol along with a few prescription bottles. She took two tablets of the pain killer and a glass of water to Peter.
"Here take these," she said gently, "for your head."
Peter gulped them back and rested his head against the back of the chair.
"I was going to leave for her, we were going to get married, have kids, have a life, grow old together and that's all gone now."
"Did you talk about all this?"
"No but it's what we both wanted."
"I see," Anne said filling the mugs of tea and crossing the room once more, "Did you ever think of dating again?"
"There will never be another Assumpta."
"I'm not saying there will, but surely someone in this world would make you happy."
"You sound like Father Mac, the country is full of Assumpta Fitzgeralds he used to say, I'd be happy to just meet one."
"Peter, it's none of my business, but why did you stay a priest after she died?"
"Nowhere else to go, nothing else to do I suppose."
"As simple as that?" she questioned.
"I guess, and then the doctor," Peter yawned, "when I was sick last spring," he yawned again, "not sure anyone would want to stick it out with me now anyway," and with those final words Peter nodded off to sleep in his chair.
Anne looked around the room and found a throw blanket over the back of the sofa. She tucked it in around Peter and collected all the glasses form the room. She refilled the water glass and sat it next to Peter, and then washed the remaining mugs and cups. Before she left she remembered all the other bottles in his medicine cabinet. She found a note pad and pencil next to the phone where she quickly jotted down the names of each type of pill. She tucked the paper into her pocket, closed the door to his cottage, and slipped quietly home.
She called Aidan as she locked her own door behind her, speaking to him briefly. She could tell he had been asleep awhile, then she herself walked up her own stairs to her own warm bed with Fionn trotting happily behind her.