Seahorses. Beautiful creatures.

And he paused. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, oh, my fucking God, they mean to tell me, she means to say, and the kids, the kids. Your KIDS. What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he screamed down over me. ‘You had three fucking children. Did you just forget that? You have them you have them. Have them,’ he went on, correcting his past tense. ‘You know this, right? Do you need me to name them?’

‘Oh, please don’t be cross with her,’ Jane urged. ‘She’s so very lovely.’

‘Lovely? You sure? You have her mixed up with her.’ He waved at Margaret Rose who was screwing the lid back on the bottle slowly; he softened his tone and started blubbering. ‘Oh, God.’ He took the bottle off her, and cracked it, it spilled out over the dilseacht engraving on his wedding band, and dripped onto Shane’s Adidas catch-all bag. Alex jumped up and fixed a Liverpool FC jersey and towel back in the bag and as he zipped he flipped the bottle into the bin and began crying hard and cursing.

Seahorses are mates for life.

And the males do all the child stuff.

Wish I were a fucken seahorse.

BTW correction.

I had four children.

But no matter.

It was possibly for the best I couldn’t talk.

I closed my eyes.

They’re not my boys, they’re just boys. Our boys. They are themselves.

This was far worse than the time we sat up all night after he found receipts for rounds of Maker’s Mark and Cokes from a hotel close by that we never frequent. I’d shoved it in my jeans, the receipt, into that little pocket where everyone knows to go to find secrets. It was the Coke that threw him. He knew I hated mixers. And plate-throwing that followed after.

Nodges, pills, wraps, receipts, condoms, the bold pocket.

It was worse than the afternoon he found blue Ray-Bans and a Harley Davidson cigarette lighter in my backpack, this was cringe, and he binned them too, after attempting to crush them in his hand, failing, which stoked his temper. Eventually he gave up finding things, or looking for them. I also got better at leaving no trace, like we do when we go camping or on a walk to the woods, or maybe he just binned them, but this was the worst look I had ever taken, because you take a look, don’t you? In defence, I said I never looked for this shit on him, that I respected his privacy, and I muttered something utterly weak about trust, but it was falling flat so I let it fall, for surely he had some lip balm somewhere, or a gin-and-elderflower-tonic receipt. That night, Alex lay in bed and he said the worst part about me was that I didn’t even bother looking.

Shots Fired.

Chapter 13

Margaret Rose cried out loudly the next morning. Shane was dead. They wheeled out his bed, his face covered over with a white sheet that was crumpled in around his left leg leaving his toes uncovered. I felt enormous guilt. Worried I had taken the resources, crash team, doctors’ attention. Molly watched on in silence as they removed Shane’s body. Margaret Rose was blessing herself.