It feels bizarre to argue the point that Kath and I are not a couple, especially considering she’s carrying my child. But marriage? Really? It’s not that I don’t like Kath; it’s that I like her for all the wrong reasons.

Because she is here and available and familiar and open-legged and reminds me of her half-sister. Those are quite horrible reasons to be with someone, let alone marry her. But now that we carelessly threw a kid into the mix, I know Kathleen is right. My family—Mam, brothers, sister—absolutely expect me to do the right thing by her. Even if I feel horribly tricked and cornered. Even if I can barely remember that night.

But you can certainly remember all the other times you fecked her with a condom, and sober.

“Say something,” Kathleen whispers, gawking at me.

“I…” Don’t want to marry you. “I need to think about it.”

“Okay.”

“But regardless, I will be there for you. For both of you. Always,” I add fiercely.

Of course, I don’t know what I’m saying.

I don’t know where life is going to take me.

And I definitely have no fecking clue how badly I am going to break that promise.

I marry Kathleen eight months into her pregnancy, her round belly looking like the gleaming moon in the shapeless, white dress.

It’s a small, quiet ceremony at Father Doherty’s church—late December, on the heels of Christmas. Kiki radiates happiness and triumph, Mam and Elaine are fawning over her, all my brothers and sister are weeping with pride and joy, and Sean and Daniel are here with Maeve and Heather—reluctant, but present.

During my stag party, which Daniel threw, he laughed and said Mam and Kiki finally wore me down and made me propose. I sipped my drink, smiled, and told him to feck off. But he wasn’t wrong, and that bothered me.

I promise Kathleen forever, she does the same, and we exchange rings. These past few months have been intense. Kathleen didn’t want to know the gender of the baby, but spoke only of that. She moved in with me as soon as Mam came back from Kilkenny with Bridget. I was there when the peanut kicked for the first time, I was there when it started moving in her belly—especially at night, and I was there when we could see the imprint of one of its limbs stretching her stomach.

Kathleen and I turned from sometimes-shagging to always shagging soon after we found out she was pregnant. I stopped calling her Rory, but still couldn’t face her when we were doing it. Thankfully, there were enough positions from which all I could see was her naked back.