‘I have the gene,’ she said, and as soon as she saw his face fall she berated herself for saying anything at all. It was Rabbit’s day. You promised yourself you’d wait. Stupid Grace. Lenny let her go. He stood, awkward and frozen to the spot.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘You got tested?’ he said, and she nodded.

‘When?’

‘A while ago.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t want my family fighting over my kids and what to do with them when I’m dead.’

‘Well they have me,’ he said.

‘You think that’s enough?’

‘No, of course not.’

He stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel and sat at the side of the bath. He was shaking.

‘You have the gene?’ he said, looking up at her, and she nodded. ‘But you don’t have cancer?’

‘No.’

‘But you have the gene?’

‘Yes.’

‘What now?’ he asked, and she burst into tears. What now?

Later, in the car, they didn’t really speak. Lenny put the radio on and they listened to the morning DJs on 2FM make jokes and banter. Lenny even laughed once or twice. ‘You can’t beat Bernard O’Shea,’ he said, chuckling.

‘Yeah, he’s gas,’ Grace said half-heartedly, having not heard one word that had come out of Bernard O’Shea’s mouth. Lenny drove. Grace looked out the window at the world passing by, everyone doing their own thing. She wondered what pain and suffering the woman who was hunched over and dragging her shopping trolley had endured throughout her life. She was making her way slowly and steadily through the streets of Dublin in a pair of brown shoes, one taller than the other. A hunch and fucked-up shoes were probably the very least of her problems, and yet there she was, pulling her trolley, keeping going. She looked at the young girl with striking painted eyebrows, wearing half nothing and with her skin covered in goosebumps, scrolling through her phone with ridiculously long nails while waiting for a bus. What loss and desperation had she experienced in life so far? She turned around to face her husband, who was crying.

‘Lenny?’

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘Can’t believe she’s gone,’ he said.

‘Me neither.’

‘I can’t believe you have the gene.’

‘Me neither.’

‘Oh fuck, Grace. Oh fuck.’

‘It’s going to be OK,’ she promised. ‘I’ll make it OK.’

He wiped the tears away from his face with the back of his hand just as Bernard O’Shea burst into a funny little ditty. He changed the channel to Newstalk. They were debating domestic water charges. ‘No,’ he said, and he turned the radio off.

The house was alive with activity. Molly was cooking breakfast and feeding Bernard. Dressed in a pressed suit, he looked handsome. It was so unusual to see Bernard out of a tracksuit.