I realized rather early in my life that few people out there had hearts so generous as Claire’s. She was willing to risk her life that day for a stranger’s dog, and she would’ve done it a million times over if it was asked of her. She wasn’t close to her brothers, all of whom lived outside Dublin, and although we continued to visit my uncle in Wexford every summer, I knew there was no real bond between them. Their family had never been tight-knit, their parents aloof and distant—compared to my father’s, at least. His own parents had idolized him, and when he left their small town in Connemara to move to Dublin they decided they had no option but to follow suit. My grandparents never really recovered from my father’s death and in a lot of ways it cast a long shadow over my childhood. It was when I reached Primary School that they began to take real notice of me and from then on I was their shining star, their sole reason for existing. Growing up they lived in a house just a short drive from my own and I adored them. Their deaths, six months apart, when I was twelve had broken my heart. Claire’s too, of course, though she would never admit it. After they passed, I spent most of my time alone with Claire often busy working an excessive number of shifts and I learned to take care of myself. I knew how to cook, how to clean. The only thing really missing from my life, as my Uncle Robert’s wife Mary pointed out the last time we saw her, was a paternalistic figure.

“The girl needs a proper male role model in her life,” she told Claire, eyeing me suspiciously. “Growing up with just a woman in the house—it’s not good for them, you know. I’m telling you, Claire, you really ought to consider remarrying if you don’t want your daughter to grow up a lesbian.”

That was the last time I would ever have the misfortune of spending time with Aunt Mary. Claire cut off ties with her oldest brother, who she already disliked, not long after.

I was the only child I knew growing up who didn’t come from a two-parent family with a stay-at-home mother. Of course, she did have help in the form of her parents-in-law for most of my childhood, but the real struggles of having a daughter didn’t kick in until after their passing. I often wondered when I was younger if she worked so many shifts to avoid being in the house alone with me. It goes without saying that she didn’t—of course she didn’t—but it baffled me as a child that all the other mothers I knew stayed at home baking brownies and bread while mine was out working.

“You used to be so sweet,” she would say sometimes, later on, whenever I pushed her to her wit’s end. “Unpredictable, and a bit of a brat. But still. So sweet, so good—.”