Avril brought her coffee to her lips and tried not to be too conspicuous an onlooker. Siobhan and her colleague moved about the stable expertly enough as they steadied The Cat and scrutinised the sonogram, but their dark glasses seemed an ill fit for the task.

Seeming to sense the scrutiny, Dr. Sneddon looked up. "Who's her friend?" he grinned, nodding at Daddy G.

Avril glanced at the goat. "Moral support. Seems to calm her stable vices."

Perhaps she imagined it, but both vets seemed to flinch at the choice of words.

Upon a bit more reflection, Avril flinched as well.

Oonagh didn't care to know why Assumpta snagged the cordless telephone through her barely-ajar room door, though it didn't take a rocket scientist to guess. Oonagh didn't care for the way the former publican then closed that door, holding the cordless hostage behind it.

Then again, whose pub was this, really? Not the Dooleys'; they only lived and worked here. Father Sheahan held the title to the place, a feat he'd only accomplished after the alleged suicide of Brian Quigley put his daughter in possession of an ill-gotten inheritance. I'm not stupid, Oonagh had thought when the announcement came through that the pub was safe. So was it Vincent's? The church's? Niamh's? The bank's?

Fitzgerald's? Could the no-longer-deceased proprietress claim some sort of eminent domain?

Ridiculous. Oonagh waited outside the door, arms folded.

"Edso Dowling on the line," she grumbled needlessly. "About the hire car."

"Not the best of news," the mechanic's voice came through the line. "Nor the worst," he added. "Hire company would normally supply a new rental, but ding you for the first few hundred of damages, per the excess coverage agreement you signed."

"Should've read that one," Assumpta sighed.

"It'd be worse if you hadn't agreed to it. Don't even ask." Edso drew a long breath. "Anyway, absent a force majeure clause, they've offered a deal, with us out here in the middle of nowhere. They'll pay me for diagnostics and they'll not bill you a cent if they can avoid sending down a new car."

Assumpta looked at Peter, his face still buried in her pillow, then at Fionn.

"Do fine," she whispered.

Paul refilled Vincent's Coke and turned to a sullen Brendan a few stools down, Aisling balanced somewhat awkwardly on his lap.

"Aisling, can you say hello to Mr. Dooley?"

Aisling shook her head and slurped her juice.

"How about Father Sheahan?" Brendan prompted.

This got a shrug and another slurp.

Ambrose descended the stairs now and inserted himself between the other two customers. Shakily, he laid a Manila envelope on the bar before him. "Cuppa tea, please," he mumbled.

Brendan seemed to lay aside his own worries for a moment. "Today's the day?"

Ambrose nodded, periwinkle eyes steady in a wobbling grey face.

Brendan kept his voice soft. "Where to?"

"Frankie has a lead on an address in Omagh."

"Three hours on the road for a lark?"

Ambrose shrugged. The tea took its place before him now.

"Will you go it alone?"

"Frankie's on duty, Kieran's a bit young, and Niamh's been on the phone with solicitors since she woke up."

Assumpta and Fionn appeared on the stairs now. Seeing Brendan, they stopped short at the landing.

"Come on down and join us in a cuppa," Brendan drawled.

Assumpta nodded, eyes taking in the sight of a beautiful child she'd never had a chance to meet.

Seated beside Brendan, she took a moment to appreciate Aisling. "Well, you're a little heartbreaker, aren't you, miss?"

"See what you miss when you've defected to the North?" Brendan said.

Assumpta's gaze never budged. "Shut up, Brendan."

Brendan ignored it. "Aisling, this is Assumpta. Would you say hello?"

But Aisling had eyes only for Fionn.

"Dog," Brendan whispered. "Can you say 'dog'?"

Aisling made a mouth bubble.

"Speaking of the North, Assumpta," Ambrose looked up. "Do I hear correctly you're headed home today?"

She scoffed. "Would be, but for the ways and means."

Ambrose's eyes went wide.

Assumpta matched them, then rolled, incredulous. "You're kidding."

Peter watched, helpless, as his two friends loaded a Setter and three suitcases into the Astra.

"So this is it?" He tried to sound calm, tried to sound like he was referring to the luggage. But for the way he looked into the boot in the light of day, he might've been believable.

Assumpta took a desperate glance of her own. "Peter, this may be my only chance to get back. I have to take it."

"What about the rail? What about Bus Eireann?"

"Not with Fionn. They wouldn't let us."

"Why not a flight, then?"

"Same reason I can't afford another night at Dooley's rates."

"You know you could stay-" he cut himself off.

She shook her head. "We start rehearsals again tomorrow. I can't abandon work any more than-"

The words were out of her mouth before she realised their weight.

Her eyes dropped. "This is not over," she whispered.

"What happens now?" he pleaded.

"Assumpta, ready?" Ambrose called from the driver window, oblivious.

"Keep your shirt on," she called back. She turned to Peter again, her voice quiet once more. "I'll ring you the moment I get in," she promised. "We both have things to finish. Choices to make."

A kiss or embrace would have been perfect, and no real risk anymore.

It didn't happen. She squeezed his hand and got into the car.

Siobhan had hoped not to run into Brendan on her return to the pub after work, but so it was. Her hangover had mercifully concentrated itself somewhere near her sinuses, and it seemed the menu at Fitzgerald's would best deal the final blow. With Vincent lingering at the other end of the bar and Paul on serving duties, it couldn't get too ugly.

"Hair of the dog," Brendan observed.

Siobhan didn't look at him. "Veterinary tradition."

He shook his head. "Scottish folklore." He nodded over his shoulder at Aisling, asleep on the sofa in reception. "Popular venue for it."

"And so what if I stayed the night here?"

"Caught up with Dick."

"That's the school, not the alumnus."

"By all means, remind me the name of the alumnus," Brendan sneered.

"Enough, Brendan." Siobhan set down her drink. "I met and had a meal and drinks with an old boyfriend, a colleague, last night. I went to bed alone. Does this conclude the purity test?"

Brendan's eyes were smouldering. "You never thought to ask me-"

"For permission?" She sighed. "Had we some sort of agreement after all this time? Had we ever promised anything?"

"I thought we were coming to it. I thought there was an understanding!"

"Oh, an understanding that though neither of us ever wanted to be tied down, we'd both stay chaste for the comfort of the other?! You can see how well that worked for the priest and the publican!"

Siobhan's voice had grown too loud. Paul and Vincent exchanged a puzzled look.

"Never mind," Siobhan grumbled, murdering another crisp.

The moronic soundtrack of the furry prank hour on the television became the only noise for a moment.

When it cut to adverts, Brendan pounded a fist on the bar. "Our daughter's nearly three years old, and I can't get her to speak. It's your turn to try." Crushing his newspaper in a single large hand, he deserted them both.

NEARING WICKLOW

Assumpta looked out the passenger window, ever more disoriented by the chain restaurants and petrol stations that had sprung up along the highway in the last three years. She wished the edge of civilisation would appear already; maybe if Ambrose could move it along some. It's a speed limit, not the bloody Eleventh Commandment, she wanted to yell, but something stopped her. She felt an odd new protectiveness towards this man who had never quite been a friend, but whom she'd known for so long a time. Maybe it was knowing what they'd both felt was their only choice.

"Funny thing," he said. "Both of us hiding in plain sight all this time."

"What, acting?"

A nod.

She tilted her view back out the window. "For me it was a return to an old haunt, that's all."

"Well, apparently great minds think alike."

"You really didn't know I'd done it?"

"Not until Eddie brought in that photograph of you."

"Treat to work with, isn't he."

He chuckled. "Never imagined show business was such a small world."

"Yeah, well."

"Funny we'd both choose...well. I suppose with all the legends we grew up hearing..."

"Mmhmm." She paused for a sip of water. It didn't wash the question down. "When'd you begin to suspect your father?"

He held his answer until he'd made a successful merge. "Part of me always wondered. They never recovered a body to bury. I wanted proof."

She tried to fathom it. "Omagh, so," she said.

Ambrose nodded. "Funny, I'd come to associate that area with you, in a fashion."

Assumpta snorted. "Oh?"

"The bombing in 1998."

She shook her head. "I didn't cause it, if that's what you're on about."

He didn't laugh. He'd never laughed at her jokes, maybe. "No, it was the first time your birthday passed without you. Or so we thought, at least."

Assumpta turned to face him. "How'd you ever remember that?"

Ambrose shrugged. "Fifteenth August. Right? Feast of the Assumption. Niamh was in a terrible mood all day. Then again, by that time..." he trailed off.

Another wrecking ball to the heart. "I'm sorry."

He shook his curly head. "I forced you out of hiding. Wasn't mine to choose. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she whispered, meaning it.

For a while it was only the noise of car and sleeping setter and smooth roadway and some odd band on the stereo.

There's a black ghost on my trail / Won't go away, won't disappear / Black Ghost never fails to get his way

I'm gonna run like hell down the longest road / When I turn around, he'll be waiting there, I know / Black ghost knows me well

It was too near. She had to talk over it. "Who's this?"

Ambrose handed her the jewel case to a CD. The cover art was a blue field with a white silhouette of a man - a crossing signal? A corpse outline at a crime scene? Leisure Noise, the title on the spine said.

She forgot to note the name of the band before she handed it back, and by then she felt she had already asked too many questions.

My birthday, she thought. It had passed once more, a couple of weeks ago. Unheralded, now. Always.

She remembered the fake greeting card she had unceremoniously stuffed in the zip pocket of her duffel, still unopened. Wonder whose useless promotion it is?

BALLYKISSANGEL

Peter was grateful for the distraction and fresh air of Niamh's invitation, but he could tell Kieran was growing impatient.

"Why did we have to leave him back at the pub?"

Niamh gestured to the headstones around them. "It isn't respectful to run your dog in a graveyard."

"Why not?"

"How would you like it if a dog left a mess on your grave?" Niamh challenged.

"I wouldn't care," Kieran whinged. "I'd be dead."

Niamh shot a look at Peter. Help?

"Kieran, let's see if I can help explain it." Peter knelt by a simple white slab, less weathered than some of the others. "Do you have a favourite set of pyjamas?"

Kieran nodded.

"When you go to sleep, they're the perfect thing, right?"

Kieran nodded.

"What if you wore them to the beach? For a swim?"

Kieran's laugh tore through the field of crosses and statues. He shook his head.

"That doesn't mean pyjamas are wrong, only that they're not where they belong." Peter looked out over the lawn, wondering just how many of its monuments were laid prematurely. "That's what your mother's trying to explain. Everything has a proper time and place."

Niamh gave a wistful smile. "That's him, by the way."

Peter turned to see the name of Eamonn Byrne carved into the stone tablet beside him. He gave a nod of recognition. "1931 to 1999. I'd have guessed he was older."

Niamh considered this. "Not sure he was ever really young."

"Did anyone ever say what happened?"

She gave a shrug. "His mountainy fellows all had stories, only no one could make sense of them." A quiet chuckle, now: "Driving into town, I'd almost swear I saw one of his wooden sheep."

Peter crossed himself, brushing a bit of soil off the base of the headstone. "Rest well, Eamonn."

They headed back down toward the car. "You're sure you don't mind babysitting a couple of hours, as I attend to a few things?"

"I'm not a baby," Kieran grumbled.

"No trouble at all," Peter assured.

Niamh smiled in the direction of the former Quigley manor. "Good."

OMAGH

Ossian Egan closed his seven-day, four-dose pill box and set it on the marble worktop - always between the egg timer and the silver-plated double picture frame. So it was that a young boy and a middle-aged man were forever smiling on his prescriptions from the Great Beyond, a reminder that someday this fragile dam of tablets and capsules would give way and the virus playing dominoes with his T-cells would win.

Losing Christy in the bombing had been horrible enough. Reading of Ambrose's death in the paper not one year later had made it that much harder to find the will to keep taking the antiretrovirals, keep cooking the veg, keep showing up to the fundraisers and "awareness" rallies. As if anyone was truly unaware anymore, except perhaps out of willful ignorance.

Perhaps in a way it had been his divine retribution, he sometimes imagined. He'd abandoned a wife and a son at so young an age; now he could wait out his tenuous longevity having lost a son and a husband, both of whom had been meant to outlive him.

He moved into the sitting room now and sat at the old Cavendish upright. Sometimes on these lonely afternoons, his fingers simply found their way to the opening strains of "Let it Be."

Today he was interrupted by the doorbell - a tone so uncommon, so unfamiliar now, he almost didn't recognise it.