When that was done, he walked me home and we made out behind my closed front door, doing it hot and heavy.

He ended it, saying, “Gotta get back or those two’ll know what we’re up to.”

Again, appropriate.

Again, I agreed on this propriety.

But also disappointing.

During our dinner, we’d made arrangements for the kids to go with me to Dove House the next day, which happened the way it did before: Mickey dropping them off and picking them up. The kids had been just as helpful and charming and the residents and staff again had enjoyed having them around just as much as the first time.

But this was when it started going bad.

Understandably, Mickey couldn’t spend all his time with me when he had his kids or shove me down their throat constantly.

This began our days of brief phone conversations where we said absolutely nothing, their entire purpose, from what I could tell, was reminding each other we knew the other existed.

There were also texts, which were obviously briefer.

Then Aisling and Cillian went back to their mother, something that surprised me considering her behavior that week. I thought he would keep them or at least have words with her about what she’d done, warning her that couldn’t happen again, especially if they were with her, and what might happen if she did.

Mickey didn’t explain this decision to me and I didn’t ask about it because it wasn’t my place. It concerned me, but it wasn’t my place to share this either. They were his kids not mine, and he knew Rhiannon and all the history, I didn’t. So I kept quiet.

I learned the week he didn’t have his kids just how crazy his life was, juggling work he hated, kids back and forth and volunteering as a fireman.

I learned this because he had no time for me.

He did most of his evening shifts at the firehouse when the kids weren’t with him. He made up paid work for Ralph for day shifts he did at the firehouse both when he had his kids and when he didn’t. And all this meant he had no time left over.

Since the diner was just down from the firehouse, he had asked me to meet him at Weatherby’s for dinner one night that week, something I did. Something that lasted for an hour before Mickey had to get back. Something that ended with me not even getting a kiss.

And he’d had one other night off before he got the kids back. A night where we talked on the phone, even though he was on his couch in a house across the street from mine, and I was in my fabulous armchair in a house across the street from his.