Clare ignored that. “Well, you’ll at least have a visitor next Friday,” she said in a bright tone. “Soircha is coming to Galway.”

Aiden’s head fell back against his headrest. He couldn’t handle a visit from his twelve-year-old niece. “Oh god, I forgot about that.”

“I’m thinking of taking the trip with her. It would be nice to see you.”

“Oh Mam...” His brother Sean was still sending his daughter to the Irish-language immersion program, about twenty minutes from Galway. Aiden’s place made for a good pit-stop for the girl. While he now remembered the conversation, he did not recall his mother wanting to come along for the ride. Aiden suspected she wanted to baby him.

“She loves her uncle Aiden. You’re her favorite, you know that?”

And he loved his niece dearly. Soircha was a smart girl who shared his interest in reading and writing. She was definitely more interesting than his older brother’s sons, Freddie and Donnie, who were growing up to become a couple of hooligans. “Just know that I’ll be busy with the conference on Thursday, but I should be available after that. Any idea on how long you two need to stay with me?”

“Just a night or two. But you’d know that, if you and your brothers didn’t communicate through smoke signals.”

He needed to get on the road. “Yes, fine. I’ll call Sean as soon as possible.”

“And do be patient with Soircha,” Clare said after a sip of her tea. “Sean and Mary have complained about her moody behavior lately. Maybe you two can commiserate on how awful it is to be bookish.”

He rolled his eyes. “Jayus...”

“I’m telling you this—” his mother lowered her voice and knelt closer to her screen “—because she might be starting her curse. She’s at the age, y’know.”

Aiden laughed. “Mam, why in the hell are you whispering?” There was nothing like his mother’s Catholic prudishness. “Also, I don’t think they call it a curse anymore.”

“Well, if you had ’em, you’d think it were a curse too. Thank the saints, I haven’t got that to worry about.”

“Alright then. So when you and Soircha show up on Friday, I’ll need to have a box of tampons at the house?”

“Dear me, please don’t tell the child you know!”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, mother. But for now, I do have to go.”

“Fine, but remember this: Lisa was a snob and you’re better off without her. Everyone thought so.”

“Who’s ‘everyone’?”

“All of your brothers. No one liked her,” Claire replied. “What do you expect from a rich Dublin girl? The whole lot of ’em are lace curtains, you know that?”

“It would have been nice if ‘everyone’ were more honest about my girlfriends.”

“It was hard to tell if you were truly serious about her. You both seemed like roommates.”

“I had the same realization,” he said. “I’m worried about my judgement.”

“We have to learn from our mistakes, Aiden. But you’ll soon find someone who suits you. And when you do, you can have your own little Soircha.”