‘You can tell me anything, you know,’ Grace said to her niece.

‘I know.’

‘I wish I could change things,’ Grace said. I have the gene.

‘Me too.’

‘Aside from your mammy being alive, would you change anything else?’ Grace asked.

‘Like what?’

‘Like where you want to live?’

‘No.’

‘America is a long way away,’ Grace said.

‘I know.’

‘And Stephen and I bought that caravan, it’s parked outside the house.’ Oh but wait, I have the gene.

‘I know, Gran says it looks disgraceful.’

‘Well isn’t that nice of her?’

‘Stephen was really going to move into a caravan so I could take his room?’ Juliet asked.

‘Yep.’

She smiled. ‘What are you going to do with it now?’

‘Sell it, I suppose.’

‘Or you could go to Wexford on your holidays,’ Juliet said. ‘Ma loved Wexford.’

‘Maybe you could come.’

‘Can’t, I’ll be with Davey in America.’

And I don’t know where I’ll be. I have the gene.

Grace left it at that. The child had made up her mind. Rabbit had made up her mind, but everything inside her screamed THIS IS ALL WRONG. She finished brushing Juliet’s hair.

‘I love you, Juliet,’ she said.

‘Love you too, Grace,’ Juliet said, and her eyes filled with tears, which threatened to streak her make-up.

‘Can I go now?’ she asked, and Grace nodded, and Juliet jumped to her feet and made her way downstairs. Bernard and Ryan were back in front of the TV.

‘What are you doing?’ Ryan asked Juliet, as Grace passed the room and met her mother standing aimlessly in the hallway.

‘Waiting for Davey,’ she said. The child was staring out the window.

‘He’s been on the missing list all morning,’ Molly said, and Grace’s heart threatened to break. Where the hell are you, Davey?

Chapter Twenty: Davey

Chapter Twenty

Davey

DAVEY WOKE WITH A head full of questions and a heart full of ache. He needed to escape – just to breathe, to think, to plan, to plot, to work out what was the best thing to do. He got into his mother’s car, intending to drive to Dollymount Strand, but the car had other plans. He found himself driving towards the graveyard. He parked up and started walking. He hadn’t been there in years. He wasn’t even sure which way to go; he thought it might be a left at the end of the long path and then another long walk before taking another right, and then he wasn’t sure. When he finally came upon Johnny’s grave he sat in the dirt as the rain came tumbling down.