Late that afternoon, the customers at Fitzgerald's bar had filtered down to the regulars, Brendan, Siobhan and Padraig all were propping up the bar on their designated stools and Brian Quigley occupied the other side of the establishment with his 'workforce' Liam and Donal, who were getting a stern telling off for their latest dodgy dealings.
Assumpta watched them all filter out before closing the bar early, they wouldn't be back tonight and it was as a good as time as any to confront Leo.
"You're looking better 'Sumpta," he chirped, pouring himself a Guinness.
"Yeah, I feel it," his wife lied, before going into the back for something.
When she rejoined her husband she found him propping up the fireplace, cigarette in hand. She questioned him about his secret habit and realised that he was just as depressed about the direction the marriage was drifting in, as she was. The only difference was, however, she got the impression he believed it was all her fault.
"Has this all been a mistake?" She asked, sitting down in the armchair at the side of the fireplace.
"I don't know, has it?"
"Maybe you can't go back to things," she sighed. "Maybe we had our chance the first time and didn't take it and now it's gone." A clear trace of regret rang deep in her voice.
"I don't think I've ever thought second times or first time." He admitted. "I've only ever thought you and me. I've always loved you, Assumpta." Leo McGarvey was a broken man.
She left him a good hour to calm down before she returned to the conversation, he was hurt and she knew that announcing that she didn't want to be married to him any longer would go either of two ways. He would either accept that he wasn't making her happy and leave quietly, no questions asked. Or, more than likely, fuelled by alcohol and cigarettes he would be raging.
"How would you describe us, our marriage, like?" Assumpta asked carefully tiptoeing up to him.
"Steady, solid?" He muttered, knowing that his answer wasn't much use.
"So the words, 'bloody' and 'terrible' don't spring to mind?" She huffed.
"No, why should they?" Leo McGarvey shrugged as he flicked through that day's paper.
"Leo, there is no point kidding ourselves any longer, since getting married we have drifted so far apart."
He looked up from the paper and took a gulp of his pint, as he made eye contact with his wife, he look crushed.
"And this is how you feel is it?"
Assumpta nodded.
"For how long? Since we came back to BallyK?" He pushed, as softly as he would allow himself.
She nodded again. "Yeah," she stated, taking the empty glasses that had been left on the bar.
"And here was I thinking we were floating along nicely," the Irish man scoffed.
"Leo, I am sorry," she whispered.
"Are you really? Jesus Christ Assumpta, I love you, I have loved you since we were 18." The man before her was destroyed and it was all because of her.
"Leo, I'm sorry, but this is how I feel."
"Do you feel nothing for me?" He yelled, before downing the last three thirds of his pint.
"Of course I feel something, just not enough to make this marriage work," as she admitted that, she felt the back of her throat dry up. Her eyes should be full of tears, but she felt nothing, even her bug wasn't allowing her to feel the sickness she should as her marriage came tumbling down around her.
Leo picked up his glass and threatened to throw it at her, she ducked, looking more scared than a rabbit in the headlights. Realising his violent temper was upsetting the only woman he had ever loved he set down the glass and retreated to the door.
"This isn't over," he warned as he swiftly left the public house.