“I’ll probably open the shutters sometime tomorrow,” Danny said. “Say, how’s your friend, Antonia? She was a real craic last night.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if she had the brown bottle flu,” Aiden said.

Danny nodded as he took the empty glass and went back to wiping down the bar. “The girl was bolloxed before she left. Seemed like one of those knackered Americans.”

She did seem very stressed out. But once she got a couple drinks in her, she loosened up and started taking the piss with a few patrons. By the time their night came to a close, she was on her way to learning a few seafaring shanties. Unlike Lisa, who had always quietly sipped her white wine in a corner, Antonia had definitely been a hit.

Danny told him as much. “Lot more fun than the lace curtains from last year. What’s her name?”

Aiden laughed at the expression. Apparently his mother wasn’t the only one who used it. “Lisa,” he said. “We broke up.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Danny said without much sympathy. “What’s the American’s story?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. She’s from Chicago and she published books.”

“You might want to find out more,” said Steven, who was still hunched over the bar. “I like the lass.”

“Yeah, Steven,” Aiden said. “You like all the young lasses.” Aiden hitched his bag over his shoulder and made his exit. Outside, the air was filled with warm static. A light breeze swept over his face, sending a chill down his spine. Perhaps Danny was right. The clouds coming in from the west were menacing, blowing fast and black. He hurried across the road, whistling an old familiar tune that came to him out of the blue. His father, who was a shadowy presence in his youth, always sang shanties from the boats he worked on. When he was in a fair to middlin’ mood, he’d belt out in a thunderous voice, “Oh, a plate of Irish stew wouldn’t do us any harm.” It signaled that he was ready for his mother to get in the kitchen, Aiden recalled with chagrin. He also remembered his mother rolling her eyes in response, but a sly smile played on her lips. As he approached his cottage, he saw Antonia’s car parked outside. Relieved that she wasn’t on the road, he unlocked his door and let himself in. Under his breath, he caught himself singing, “So we’ll roll the old chariot along, An’ we’ll roll the old chariot along...”

Aidan sighed, wondering when the bothersome memories of his father would finally fade into the background of his life. He didn’t think that his brothers felt this way; they probably moved on long ago. They were now fathers themselves. But there were odd flashes of childhood scenes that still haunted Aiden, the songs were just some of them.

When Liam Byrnes left for the last time, Aiden had been fifteen and convinced that he’d take to the sea like his father. The restless beauty of open oceans and getting his hands rough tying ropes seemed more appealing than taking his school exams. Luckily, his mother had berated the notion from him, citing that he was “too smart to be wasting his time on a fishing boat.” Once he was accepted into university, Aiden had let the drifter’s career and the idea of his father go by the wayside. Liam wasn’t coming back, and he had to catch up with the revelation like his mother and brothers.