Well, it's only taken me two years, but we've made it! If you're still out there, thanks for coming along.
CILLDARGAN
Father Mac strolled painlessly down the main drag, giving the usual pitying sigh as he passed the local Church of Ireland outpost.
This time, though, something caught his eye. A lanky figure not too unlike Father Clifford, emerging onto the steps in civilian clothes, and taking leave of the white-haired lady vicar with a quick handshake and an eager nod.
Frank looked down at the brownie in his hand and shook his head, taking a delicate bite. When he looked up again, an old Ford Mondeo was rumbling away.
BALLYKISSANGEL
Donal steadied the ladder as Liam screwed the triangular placard into the moulding at the top of the pub wall. A few customers gawped from their seats at the bar.
"Automated external defibrillator," said Michael. "Anyone can operate it in the event of a cardiac arrest. Delivers an electric current to set a heart back in rhythm."
"Wow," Edso Dowling marvelled, eyes dancing. "Welcome to the 21st Century."
"So we don't have to wait for the cardiac ambulance anymore?" Frankie murmured.
The logo made Assumpta uneasy: a red valentine heart with a stylised lightning bolt shot through it. The white metal box secured to the wall beneath it bothered her more still. She pressed her lips and returned her attention to the battle between Coca Cola and its own fizz in the chilled glass. Finally, there was room for the last pour.
Vincent shivered at the touch of the cold glass. "Now, that's customer service," he joked.
Feeling somehow disarmed, Assumpta let herself look again at the bizarre device in its glass case. "Do we really have to have that thing in here?" she pleaded.
"Won't do any harm unless you cry wolf again," Liam called over his shoulder as he descended the ladder. He and Donal exchanged one of their bleating laughs.
Assumpta paired a flinch with a moan.
Vincent gave her a pitying smile. "We had a deal, remember."
Doc Ryan looked at them, curious.
Sunlight flooded the pub with the opening of the door, and in walked Peter Clifford, clad in an ordinary jumper and denims. Assumpta's brow softened immediately.
"Ready to go have a talk?" Vincent asked.
Assumpta did a quick scan of the pint glasses around the room, and nodded toward the kitchen door.
Peter clasped his hands on the table and rocked on his elbows. "And you're sure you won't be in any trouble with Father Mac for this?"
Vincent grinned. "Been down that road with him before," he admitted. "This time, Donal may have tipped me off to a few things Father Mac might prefer I keep mum about. Little zombie incident, among other kinds of walking dead." He winked.
"Zombie?" asked Assumpta.
"The reason Kathleen's selling out of crisps so quickly these days," Peter muttered. "And why Father Mac never mentioned what he saw in the woods."
Assumpta blushed. Peter buried a smirk in his hand.
Vincent pretended not to notice. He went on: "Anyway, the PP and I have reached a sort of arrangement. Long as he sees no evil...I speak no evil."
"Funny," Assumpta's voice was more innocent than her smile: "I'm hearing no evil right now."
Back in the barroom, Doc Ryan checked his watch.
"Almost time?" Edso asked.
Frankie gave an inquiring look.
Michael nodded matter-of-factly. "I arranged to meet with the new GP moving into town before I leave tonight. Help familiarise with the office, that sort of thing." The door let in another burst of daylight. "Ah, there we go."
Edso glanced at the doorway, but had to lower his gaze by about a foot. A petite blonde whisked into the room, seeming to identify the doc as one of her own tribe.
"Doc Ryan," she guessed, in a candy-floss voice.
"I am."
"Dr. Sheila Shannon. Pleasure."
Edso watched the handshake, and took a deeper swig of his ale. When his moment arrived, he cut in for a handshake of his own. "Edso Dowling, mechanic," he stammered. "If you ever need your battery...defibrillated on short notice, I'm your one."
Niamh took a moment to learn the new furnishings of the old rooms of what was now her father-in-law's house. It was not as unsettling or alien as she had expected. The Cavendish piano looked as welcome as Daddy's wet bar once had. The medicines in the cabinet were a bit eerie at first, but they were becoming familiar. The spa was nearly restored now, and might be a lovely thing as the weather chilled. The dilapidated old sauna had transformed nicely into a small library of sorts; Ossian had been kind enough to help her keep its purpose a secret from Ambrose until it was ready. It had been a few hours' work to get everything right.
The trunk, now empty, sat at the foot of Ambrose's bed - located, for the foreseeable future, at the opposite end of the hallway from Niamh's.
Ah, but who knew?
She heard him at the door now. It was time.
"Ambrose?" she called through the kitchen.
"Coming," he answered.
"I've something to show you."
He poked his head around the doorframe, cautious.
"Now!" Niamh demanded, leading him to the door. "Go on," she urged, pointing to the lever.
Ambrose gingerly opened the door and gasped at what he saw on the shelves.
"My record collection," he managed, voice breaking. "You kept them?"
Niamh pursed her lips, but her eyes flooded anyway. She nodded.
He ducked briefly into the small space and scanned the albums, breathed in their scent.
Overcome, he threw his arms around Niamh, and she surrendered to it.
The kiss that followed was her own idea, as was kicking shut the door.
Vincent led Avril to the windows of the tiny red-doored house that, following its slow rehabilitation, would once more be home.
She looked inside. "And Father Mac's found room in the parish budget for all this?"
Vincent smirked. "Donal secured the repair contract himself."
Avril scoffed. "Well, from what I understand, he extracted a deeper confession from Father Mac that night than any clergy ever will." She sighed. "You know I'm not kicking you out, right?"
Vincent turned to look at her. "Yeah, but this'll be easier."
"Away from prying eyes?" Avril joked. The curate rolled his eyes.
Walking past and overhearing, Kathleen Hendley did not find it funny.
Before anyone knew it, the day had arrived.
Peter knew it couldn't be in the church - for Vincent's reasons as much as Assumpta's. He'd come up with an alternate spot almost immediately - a green patch of mountainside that, in his mind, needed exorcising. Needed a new memory to displace old ghosts of heartache. A Sunday would work well - everyone would still be dressed for Mass, no need for any extra fuss. He found he liked the look of himself in an ordinary white dress shirt and tie. There was something so human about it; so gently but unapologetically male...
He wondered idly what Assumpta would show up in.
Earwigging on Brendan's uneasy craic with Siobhan, Peter realised their ears must be getting just slightly duller if they didn't know he could hear.
"Can't believe she talked him into the outdoors," Siobhan said.
"Can't believe he talked her into a priest," Brendan answered, rising and stepping away.
Frankie couldn't seem to resist showing off her own detective skills. "Word is he insisted on his own room at the pub until she made an honest man of him."
Avril snorted at this. "For all the cohabitation in this town, I think some would be surprised..."
Niamh chimed in, now, from the picnic blanket behind and between them. "I wonder if she knows this is where we held her wake?"
Peter turned at this and shot a warning look. Niamh dropped her smile, getting a laugh out of Ambrose.
Now Peter could hear the whispers of Liam and Donal on the other side of the makeshift aisle.
"White," said Donal. "You owe me ten quid."
"Off-white," Liam countered. "You owe me!"
Peter might have spun on them for a brutal look, but he couldn't bring himself to care.
There she was. It was a simple dress: ivory, smooth-fitting, showing hardly any leg but perhaps enough shoulder and décolletage to have made Kathleen faint - if she had been there.
Kate leant into her brother's ear. "No going back now. I've moved all my things into the house."
Peter's laugh caught in his throat.
Kate smiled. "Except ... this is hers, now." She handed him their mother's ring.
By the time Brendan had walked Assumpta to his side, Peter had tears in his eyes.
Assumpta found herself reminded of another wedding, long ago, when she caught Vincent smiling too long at his dark-haired friend in the audience.
She looked at the man who had once given her that forbidden grin, with a Bible still in his hands. Now those hands held hers, traded rings, did not willingly let go afterward.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife," said the curate. "Just between us," he gave Peter a knowing look, "you have my permission." He looked up. "And I doubt if He'll mind, either."
Assumpta heard a quiet laugh wind through the small crowd as she went up on her toes to kiss their former, not-officially-yet-laicised priest. It was a small price to pay.
Ringing the bell for the reception's last orders had met with more than the usual moaning and teasing, and help with cleanup was limited to one familiar face tonight.
"We'll be closed tomorrow, and we look far too pretty right now," Assumpta said. "What do you say we tackle all this in the morning?"
Peter drained an abandoned pint. "Fine by me," he said.
Assumpta found an orphaned Champagne flute and dispensed with it in the same way. She let herself rest on a barstool for the moment, let herself take in the sight of her husband. That hairline, she'd always liked; the odd round scar on the side of his neck, a kiss from chicken pox; that improbable height of his, too. The Fitzgerald family certainly never made them like that!
Last of her line, she might have been; it might all have ended with her. Tonight, there was a hope it wouldn't have to.
In the years since the death of her mother, she sometimes had found herself in the grip of a strange reassurance, an unpierceable comfort. She imagined this must be the last vestiges of faith, the truest part of it; the feeling of love from beyond what was earthly.
She felt it tonight, somehow.
Waiting had not entirely felt like waiting.
A few weeks of separate beds had been nothing in light of three years' doubt that she would ever see him again - ever even have the right to. Sleeping alone, knowing he was only down the hall, had been an easier sleep than all those nights thinking he couldn't know she had loved him, and loved him still with all her heart. And this one quaint observance seemed so small a favour compared to all he had to sacrifice, this one promise kept amongst all the others broken...
No, inside she was ablaze now. More alive than ever.
Peter lifted her off the barstool as if it were the easiest thing in the world - as if he did this every day. Circling his shoulders with her arms, she saw the only evidence to the contrary - that glitter in those green eyes, the same as they did when he was pretending to be shocked by some naughty joke.
Or, by some affectionate teasing. She tried it now, looking around: "So this is the view from all the way up here," she smirked, checking his reaction. Now came the glow, the half-suppressed grin.
Would she really see that sparkle every day, now? She could still barely believe it.
As if to rescue Peter from his dangerous ambition of scaling the whole stair like this, Fionn skittered in from the lounge and circled his feet.
"Aaa-way," Peter sang down to the dog, but he gently lowered the landlady back to earth.
"Shall I show you to your new quarters?" she breathed.
Peter watched unabashedly as the delicate pearl pendant bounced on Assumpta's otherwise bare breast, the racing heart beneath it only slowing a little now. The breaths that had filled his ear only moments ago were calming as well, as was the flush of her skin in the dim lamplight.
"Okay wedding night?" she asked, looking slightly nervous.
He pulled her against him. "So far," he retorted, wiggling his brow.
She laughed. "Right. Making up for lost time." Then she seemed to hear herself in an echo, and her face fell. "Peter, I'm so sorry."
He put a fingertip below her chin, inviting her to look back up.
Her dark eyes pleaded, watering. "How do I ever begin to make it up to you?"
He felt a sting behind his own eyes. "Same way I'll make it up to you. Every promise we made at sunset." He stroked her hair.
She gave a bittersweet smile. "Giving me absolution, even now."
He shrugged. "Old habits, and all that," he said, his voice quivering.
Her eyes glimmered. "Shall we make some new ones now?"
He kissed her deeply, ready to remind himself just how alive they both still were.
Assumpta awoke first, thinking of things that came in threes. Troubles, omens, The Holy Trinity...
They'd had three years as tortured friends, then three convinced they would never again see each other. What would the next three bring?
She pulled a dressing gown around her shoulders and walked to the window, looking down on the street that was home once more. She opened the sash and breathed in the air, grateful for breath itself.
A pair of lanky arms came around her now, clasping at her waist. A mouth closed on her neck.
"First day of the rest of our lives," Peter said against her skin.
At the door, Fionn whimpered for his morning excursion.
"I'll do the honours," Assumpta sighed, looking for her slippers. By the time she found them, Peter had already pulled on yesterday's rumpled clothes.
Down in the kitchen, Assumpta started coffee. She heard rain set in, then heard her two lads coming back in through the lounge.
"Kathleen sends her best wishes," Peter said, that lopsided smirk climbing up one cheek.
"No doubt," quipped Assumpta. Her husband leant in for a kiss, and she obliged.
Thunder boomed outside as she shrieked.
"Sorry!" exclaimed Peter. "Picked up static from the carpet, maybe?"
At their heels, Fionn shook off a coat of rain.
Assumpta peered into the pub, at the placard with the heart surrounding a lightning bolt.
Overcoming it.
She turned back to face Peter now, and met his eyes, both of them infinitely grateful for the shock of their lives.
THE END