Wow, look, an update already! This is a shortish one - thanks to everyone for reviews.


Friday

In the morning Tom was awake early, God only knew why. Sybil hadn't wanted to leave. They'd curled together in the narrow bed and she'd murmured contentedly that it was like being back in her flat in Ann Arbor and he hadn't meant to fall asleep, but he'd been exhausted and satisfied and her skin was so smooth and warm. When he'd started awake sometime during the night, she'd been gone.

His head felt about twice its normal size and he'd have been more than delighted to lie in, but if his mother didn't get some quality time with him before the wedding, a hangover would be nothing to the bollocking she'd give him. When he came down she was alone in the kitchen, doing another fry-up. Ma was a classic meat-and-potatoes cook; her idea of greens was peas or cabbage, boiled into marginally nutritional mush. It was no wonder Tom still had trouble figuring out what to do with broccoli. He bit back a wry smile, thinking he'd have to make sure Sybil got some fresh vegetables before she started getting tetchy.

"Morning, Ma," he said, and she tilted her face to accept his peck on her cheek. No smile, but that was hardly unusual. His mother's love tended to come out in action rather than displays of affection: hence the constant feeding up.

"So, how was it?" She asked. "You'll all be going around with sore heads today, I suppose." At the sheepish look on his face she pursed up her mouth wryly and nodded toward the bubbling (and heavenly-smelling) mess she had on the stove. "This'll help."

"Always does." He went over and filled the kettle, turned it on, and leaned against the worktop. "It was fun," he said, about the party. And then, because she was going to hear about it anyway: "I ran into Edna."

Thwack! The spoon clattered against the rim of the cast-iron skillet. "Is that right."

"Yep." The mugs and teapot were in the second cabinet from the left, same one they'd been in the whole of his life. Most of the same mugs, as well: he remembered the Dublin GAA one from when he'd been small. It was comforting, how some things didn't change.

"Slumming, was she?"

"I don't know what she was doing there." He practically dove into the pantry for the tea. He didn't want his mother sinking her teeth into this conversation. Fortunately she said no more about it.

But it turned out she had her own agenda. "Are you planning to visit your father's grave while you're here?" She sounded almost accusing; as though Da were in a nursing home and Tom was neglecting him.

"I am," he answered, mild as cream.

"I thought we might go together, after breakfast. I've to work at ten."

"You didn't take today off?"

She eyed him. "Sure, and not all of us can take a day out of work just because we feel like it, son." He had that sense he got every so often when he was around his family: like they thought he'd got too big for his boots. Usually it happened when he talked about university.

It put him on the defensive. He thought of telling her that he almost hadn't been able to afford to come over for the wedding, but that would only make her feel guilty that he'd spent his money. "I know that," he said. The kettle boiled. He poured a little water into the pot, swishing it round before tipping it into the sink, and tossed in four tea bags. "After breakfast is fine." He was rather looking forward to it; both because he hadn't been in so long, and because he wanted to take Sybil. Introduce her, so to speak. He wondered if he ought to go up and wake her so she'd have time to eat a proper breakfast.

So it threw him when his mother said in an uncharacteristically strained voice, "When we do go, Sybil might have a better time at the shops in Grafton Street."

He twisted his head around while pouring water and almost burned his hand. She wasn't looking at him: she'd clicked off the burner and was offloading the food from skillet to platter. She carried it to the table.

"I thought I might bring her along." He followed her over with the tea and mugs, sat down, and began filling his plate.

"Oh, and you'll come to mass with me tomorrow," she said, as though he hadn't spoken. And she was pissed off, he noticed now; she had that tight-lipped shifty-eyed look she got before she started to give out to you. He wondered how he'd missed it before.

"I'd planned on it."

"And confession before." Her knife scraped across her plate with a high-pitched skreeek that made Tom wince. "Going by what I heard from your room last night, you need it."

So that was it. He felt a violent heat lick up his neck and settle in his ears: they had to be ten shades of red. He watched the egg yolk engulf the rashers on his plate like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

"Well? Have you got nothing to say for yourself then?" God knew he loved his mother, but when she used that self-righteous, long-suffering tone—as though any sins he committed were directed at her personally—it made him want to get up and walk out of the house. But he was almost grateful for it, because it annoyed him enough to snap him out of his mortification.

"I'm sorry I woke you, Ma." I, not we. The more he could keep Sybil's name out of it, the better.

"Is that all you think you've got to be sorry for?"

He stayed quiet, hoping that if he didn't engage that would be the end of it, but she was nowhere near done. "It's an insult to me and to God," she said, "the two of you carrying on like that, and in my house. I hope I taught you more respect for the sanctity of—"

"You did," he said, cutting her off. "We were wrong to...I didn't mean to insult you, Ma, I'm sorry." The apology was for being under her roof, not what they'd done; and God would understand. "Ma…" he made himself meet her eye, but couldn't hold it. "We're in a committed relationship."

"But you're not married!"

He almost laughed. Did she really think Ciaran and Brian had remained chaste until their vows? Erin? Katie, who right this minute was sharing a bed with her fiance in their hotel room? But his mother wasn't going on logic. She and Katie had always had a distance between them; Tom, for all intents and purposes, was her baby. He opened his mouth to tell her that people didn't wait until they were married anymore, if they ever had—he would bet good money that his own parents hadn't gone to the altar virgins. But it was no good. Even if she didn't believe her own doctrine, she'd still try and push it on him, because that was how she was.

Instead he said, "We love each other."

She scoffed. "Oh, love! Well, hasn't that always fixed everything!"

"I'm going to marry her." It felt good to say it, to let it out.

"Oho, and does she know that?"

"I haven't actually—"

"—Because she isn't exactly behaving like a girl who wants to settle down. How long is she abroad for again?"

He took in a slow breath, let it out. "Eighteen months."

"And after that? She'll fly back to the States and build a little nest, will she? Wait around 'til you've finished up with university?"

He was silent.

His mother sighed. "I only say these things because I worry about you. I've seen you made unhappy, and I don't want you to be made unhappy again."

"I know, Ma."

"I don't think you do. Now, I don't want to speak against Sybil. She's a lovely girl—"

"But you'll go ahead and speak against her anyway, won't you. She's not Edna, Ma, she isn't going to—"

"Let me finish," his mother said, holding up a hand. "I know you don't want to hear it, but in this life you have to make choices. And she isn't choosing you."

He'd suspected his mother might harbor feelings of this kind, but the words still hit him hard. He had to close his eyes, let them wash over and past him, before the indignation could bubble up. But giving in to it would just prolong the discussion, and there wasn't much point in debate; Ma was totally one-sided. She wouldn't care about Sybil's dreams, or the fact that Tom wanted her to fulfill them almost as much as she did herself. In his mother's world, giving things up was the way you showed people you loved them.

The sound of Sybil coming down the steps broke the silence. Her tread was a bit heavier than normal, Tom might have thought, if he hadn't been distracted. Each foot laid upon each stair with a resounding exactitude. Tom and his mother tried to make their expressions neutral before she came into the kitchen, with identically unconvincing results. But Sybil smiled brilliantly, hardly missing a beat. "I hope I haven't missed breakfast."

"Not at all," said Ma. "There's plenty."

"I made tea," Tom said, lamely. Sybil gave him an odd look, confirming that his casual act was going over about as well as he'd thought. "We thought you might like to do some shopping while we visit my father's grave." The odd look stayed on her face, and no wonder: that would have sounded strange at the best of times. He prayed she wouldn't ask him what they'd been talking about.

After a few beats, though, she turned to his mother. "Are you sure there's nothing that needs doing for the wedding, Eileen? I'm not much good with crafts, but I could run errands."

"We've got it all sorted, dear. But you have a nice morning, enjoy yourself. I'm sure Tommy will be delighted to show you around this afternoon."

Sybil sat down at the table. "I do need to buy some things for Mary and Edith, since I won't be around for either of their baby showers."

"There you are then," Ma said, a bit too heartily. "You might try going to Pearl, I've heard they've lovely things. Cost you an arm and a leg, of course, but the baby clothes are organic, whatever that means." She rolled her eyes gently, as if bemoaning a generation too mollycoddled to deal with a little pesticide residue. "When my kids were growing up we had toys with lead paint. Flame retardant pajamas, full of chemicals. They all turned out grand."

-o-

The graveyard at St. Joseph's was small but secluded, a quiet pocket of green amid the smoke-colored concrete. Tom and his mother walked slowly between the rows of grave markers, saying nothing, as birds tu-whitted above their heads. Stephen Padraig Branson was buried at one end of a row in the middle of the cemetery. In the holder next to the granite slab set flat into the grass a spray of pink gladioli, the same flowers his wife carried, was only slightly faded. She bent to exchange old for new and though her movements were slower and stiffer than they'd been in years past, Tom reflected that she was far from being an old woman. Theoretically, she could still remarry. But the way her eyes rested on the letters carved into the stone made him think that she considered herself as married as she had when his father was alive.

"I still come twice a week," she murmured.

He looked at her. She didn't look sad, exactly; reflective, more like. "Does it help?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "Erin, you know, she says I oughtn't dwell on the past. But if this is dwelling, sure, so be it." Her mouth flickered with a small, rueful smile. "Coming here makes me feel like I'm still close to him, a little."

Tom pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth to stop the ache in his throat. It isn't fair, he wanted to say, It isn't fair that he was taken from you. From us. But by the time he was able to speak he felt as though he should say something comforting. "You'll be together again one day."

"I know. And I know he sees us, I can feel it. Especially here." She reached out and took Tom's hand, squeezing it. "He'd never bear a grudge, if I stopped coming. Only, I don't want to have anything I need to explain the next time I see him."

Such perfect faith: that she and her husband would be reunited, and that he wouldn't have taken up with some hussy from Victorian times. It brought Tom's mind back to what she'd said this morning; how little faith she'd had then. "You couldn't stop waiting for that day even if you wanted to."

"Oh, I couldn't."

He took a breath, considering whether he wanted to stir this up again. But he wouldn't feel easy if he didn't at least try to make her understand. "That's how it is with me, Ma. I know Sybil and I haven't been together long, but I love her and she loves me, and even if God himself came down and told me that it wasn't going to work out, I'd still have to try."

She was silent for a moment, gazing down at the half-wilted flowers in her hands. "I know," she said finally. "But it isn't going to be easy."

"I know." That ache was back in his throat again.

She looked up at him solemnly. "But for what it's worth, Tommy, I hope I'm wrong."

"You've never wanted to be wrong about anything in your life."

Now she half smiled and chuckled sadly along with him. "You'd think I'd have learnt after five of you. I can give you advice 'til I'm blue in the face, you'll still do exactly what you want."

"Yep," he said, and they both laughed, for real this time.

"Well, I will say, if you can get through this, you can probably get through anything." Which was the closest she'd come at this stage to giving her blessing, but Tom would take what he could get.

They spent a few moments in silence, standing at the foot of the grave. Tom's mother pulled a few weeds and brushed the pollen and fallen leaves off the marker; when she was done, Tom nodded toward it.

"Could I have a moment?"

She smiled at him. "I'll wait for you at the gate." She walked slowly between the rows, studiously avoiding the ground directly above where people were buried. Tom did the same, kneeling to one side of his father's marker and spreading his hand open on the cool granite. Beloved husband and father. Birds sang and squirrels chattered and the smell of earth and grass rose from the ground and he might have been in a park, for all he felt any spirit's presence. Even so, he formed his thoughts deliberately, something between a one-sided conversation and a prayer. For his mother's health, the happiness of his sister's marriage, the safety of his nieces and nephews. And of course for himself and Sybil, for their bond to remain as strong in separation as his parents' had.

He heard the muted hum of traffic, a car horn somewhere. A light, fragrant breeze wafted against his closed eyelids. No lightning struck, no voices sounded in his head; there was no sudden sense of doubt or reassurance. But he felt better.