Brendan put the last glass back on the shelf behind the bar and stood, surveying his handiwork. He'd considered buying a bar once. After the last few months, he no longer harboured the same ambition.
Assumpta walked out and around to the end of the bar and started lifting the heavy stools onto the solid wood of the bar. Brendan watched as she did it tirelessly, her face hard. She hadn't spoken much since she returned from Manchester, and she'd skilfully avoided his company in the twenty-four hours since. He sighed to himself. Niamh had obtained some information from her and had subsequently passed it on to Brendan angrily. Niamh was furious with Peter, but Brendan knew she was mostly just upset that Assumpta was hurting. That, and he suspected she'd never really forgiven Peter for leaving Father Mac to do Kieran's christening.
But now Peter was coming….
Brendan just hoped Assumpta had gained maybe even just a little more perspective from her visit to Manchester, although he suspected it had only served as a catalyst to bury her feelings.
He watched her toss the stool up on the table across from him. He just hoped she at least let Peter get a word in before she started throwing the stools at him.
He walked around the bar and grabbed his jacket, pulling it on as he headed to where she'd stopped to rearrange a mat on the bar.
'Assumpta, about Manchester,' he started. She stopped, clenching her jaw, but not looking up. 'It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see it didn't go well. I'm sorry.' Her eyes dropped, but her face didn't lose any of its ferocity.
'I'm fine, Brendan,' she replied hotly.
Brendan threw his hands in the air. 'Sure you are,' he said loudly. She turned to look at him, surprised by the outburst. 'You are anything but fine, Assumpta.'
She clenched her jaw, her face softening slightly with the truth of Brendan's words.
'I don't know what happened in that Ambulance, and I don't know what happened in Manchester, but I know you. And I know you aren't fine,' he said, his voice raised slightly. 'You can't go on like this.'
'What do you expect me to do, Brendan? Hmm?'
'I would have expected that you would have at least heard him out, Assumpta,' Brendan said quietly, interrupting her.
She glared at him, realising Niamh must have told him the little she'd told Niamh. She grabbed the towel she was holding and angrily continued wiping up.
Brendan sighed. She was in pain, and she only saw her own pain. She needed a little more perspective; something to pull her out of the black hole they could all see she was drowning in. 'How is Peter?' he asked quietly, and she turned to him, her face furious.
'You would know,' she retorted.
'But you don't,' he shot back, and she stopped, the fury not leaving her face. She slowly but very reluctantly realised he was right; she didn't really know how he was. She'd looked at him, talked to him, yelled at him; but she hadn't really seen him. Her mind went straight back to the images of that night. Of him.
'I don't know what you think of some of us, but we have eyes, and we see a lot more than I think you realise. We saw a lot more than I think you realise.' Assumpta closed her eyes. Peter's quip about the dogs on the street knowing about them suddenly hit home. Everyone had known. Everyone still knew.
Niamh and Brendan had been right; she was falling apart for the world to see. And they all knew why.
Brendan knew he'd hit home, but there was just one more thing.
'He didn't just leave you, Assumpta, but he left because of you,' he said, before turning and walking out the door.
She lay there in the dark, the light of the full moon shining through the crack in the curtains.
The more she tried to push them away, the more her mind fought her. The images swirled in front of her eyes, and the details jumped out at her. He'd lost weight – not that he could afford to lose much – and he was thin. Painfully thin. The soccer jersey he'd been wearing was tight across the shoulders – he had obviously been doing some physical work, because his shoulders and arms were bigger than she remembered – but it was loose around his waist. His eyes were ringed in black, and his face had a sunken, gaunt look about it. He obviously hadn't been sleeping – she knew the feeling – and his hair was shorter.
But it was his eyes that haunted her. His usually bright green eyes were dull and weary, the black bags under them revealing the stress and sleep deprivation he'd been suffering. His eyes, that usually pierced your soul with their depth, no longer held the same strength.
The way he'd looked at her when he'd first turned around…
The shocked look he'd worn for a few minutes after seeing her had only accentuated the dark lines around his eyes. He'd looked exhausted. Hopeless. Vulnerable.
She felt the tears well up in her eyes; an almost automatic reaction when she spent too much time thinking about him. She blinked them away, allowing them to run down the side of her face onto the pillow.
Brendan's words had stung, but only because they were the truth. She'd been so wrapped up in her own pain, her own hurt and anguish, that she hadn't even surfaced to think about anyone else's. The town was hurting; their priest, a man they had grown to trust, had let them down. Brendan and Niamh and Siobhan and Padraig and even Eamonn were hurt by Peter's departure. A departure she had played at least a small part in.
She had been so selfish. They'd worked so hard to help her when she'd been away, and especially when she'd come back. Brendan was essentially doing two jobs, with Padraig filling in a lot too, and poor Ambrose had resigned himself to seeing his wife behind a bar for the rest of their marriage.
She wiped her face. Her hand and foot were almost healed; the doctors had decided that the nerve damage she had would either resolve over time or she'd be stuck with it. Her heart was another story, but she was managing that. Well, she took the medication when she was supposed to – keeping her heart rate down was something entirely different.
She knew she needed to cut them some slack now. She needed to get herself under control.
She'd done what she had needed to do. She'd seen him. He'd explained.
It was over.
She closed her eyes, focussing on the now rhythmic beat of her heart, allowing it to lull her in a restless, dream-filled sleep.
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