Beckett laughed. “It appears the speeches are over, but the songs are not. Patrons are each singing what they believe was Gavin’s favorite song.”

“Well, this is not it.” Colleen felt laughter bubble up as Winnie Byers sang “Amazing Grace” in a key it had never been sung in before.

And then came “Danny Boy” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” and “Molly Malone.” Not one of them Dad’s favorite song, but what each friend wanted to sing in his honor. Each song was worse than the one before until the band took back the microphone.

Later, in the back room, Colleen found Hallie hiding from the crowd, her hands covering her face as she silently cried, her shoulders moving up and down in the same but opposite motion of laughter. Colleen went to her sister, wrapped her arms around her. “I know. I know.”

“I don’t know how to do this, Lena. I don’t know how.” Hallie looked up at her. “What now?”

“I don’t know either. But look what an amazing party you gifted our dad.”

“It was supposed to be a birthday party! And so many things have gone wrong. The banquet people didn’t show up with the green chair covers, the balloons were never delivered and my girls gave out the poppers too early. Nothing is right.”

“Everything is right. Everything except Dad’s absence.” Colleen held her sister tight and regretted every moment she had been away. What a waste, a death in its own right.

Soon, the night grew long into darkness, not one guest wanting to leave this paradoxically joyous and grief-filled place where Gavin’s presence was so strongly felt, not wanting to leave even as the food ran out.

Beckett whispered in Colleen’s ear, “You doing all right?”

“I think I am.” She pressed against his strong body, against the solid goodness of him, and felt no need to run. “Can one be emptied out and filled at the same time?”

“Yes.” He kissed her forehead and held her closer. “Absolutely.”

Still later, there was the hullabaloo when Garrett Miller passed out at the bar, and when a woman tried to take over the Guinness tap. There were jokes told and more hugs and stories than Colleen could count and file away—all of them blending into one.

Finally, after the pub had emptied, in the shadowed time between one day and the next, Colleen, Hallie and Shane gathered together preparing to head for home, taking Rosie and Sadie, who had fallen asleep on the benches of the corner booth.

Once their vehicles had arrived in the Donohue driveway, and the little girls had been tucked into bed, in silent assent the three siblings walked outside, past the broken tree house to the edge of the dock to sit. It was Hallie who said what they’d all been thinking. “Dad will never be able to read his memory book.”