For eight years after I left home, I stayed well clear of the fallout zone, thought about my family maybe once a year when an old one on the street looked enough like Ma to make me dive for cover, and somehow managed to survive just fine. In a town this size, that was too good to last. I owe my reunion with Jackie to an underqualified flasher who picked the wrong girl with whom to share a moment. When Wee Willy leaped out of his alleyway, whipped out his skippy and started giving it his all, Jackie deflated both his egos by bursting out laughing and then kicking him in the bollix. She was seventeen and had just moved out of home; I was working my way up through Sex Crime on my way to Undercover, and since there had been a couple of rapes in the area, my super wanted someone to take Jackie’s statement.
It didn’t need to be me. In fact, it shouldn’t have been: you stay out of cases that involve your family, and I knew as soon as I saw “Jacinta Mackey” on the complaint form. Half of Dublin is named one or the other, but I doubt anyone except my parents had the flair to combine them and call a kid Jackie Mackey. I could have said so to the super, let someone else take down her description of Wee Willy’s inferiority complex, and gone through the rest of my life without ever having to think about my family, or Faithful Place, or the Mysterious Case of the Mysterious Case. But I was curious. Jackie had been nine when I left home, none of it had been her fault; and she had been a good kid, back then. I wanted to see how she had turned out. At the time my main thought was, basically: hey, how much harm can it do? Where I went wrong was taking that as a rhetorical question.
“Come on,” I said to Holly, finding her other shoe and tossing it to her. “Let’s go bring your auntie Jackie for a walk, and then we can get that pizza I promised you Friday night.”
One of the many joys of divorce is that I no longer have to go for bracing Sunday walks in Dalkey, swapping polite nods with beige couples who feel that my accent brings down the property values. Holly likes the swings in Herbert Park-as far as I can gather from the intense low-level monologue once she gets her momentum on, they count as horses and have something to do with Robin Hood-so we took her there. The day had turned cold and bright, just the right side of frosty, and lots of divorced dads had had the same idea. Some of them had brought the trophy girlfriend along for the ride. What with Jackie and her fake-leopard jacket, I fit right in.
Holly launched herself at the swings, and Jackie and I found a bench where we could keep an eye on her. Watching Holly swing is one of the best therapies I know. The kid is strong, for such a little snip of a thing; she can keep going for hours without getting tired, and I can keep watching, happily getting hypnotized by the rhythm of it. When I felt my shoulders start to drop, I realized just how tight they had been. I took deep breaths and wondered how I was going to keep my blood pressure under control once Holly outgrew playgrounds.
Jackie said, “God, she’s after growing a foot just since I saw her last, isn’t she? She’ll be taller than me in no time.”
“Any day now, I’m going to lock her in her room till her eighteenth birthday. I’m only waiting till the first time she mentions a boy’s name without making gagging noises.” I stretched out my legs in front of me, clasped my hands behind my head, angled my face to the weak sun and thought about spending the rest of the afternoon exactly like this. My shoulders went down another notch.
“Brace yourself. They start awful early, these days.”
“Not Holly. I’ve told her boys don’t get potty-trained till they’re twenty.”
Jackie laughed. “That just means she’ll go for the older fellas.”
“Old enough to understand that Daddy has a revolver.”
Jackie said, “Tell me something, Francis. Are you all right?”
“I will be once the hangover wears off. Got any aspirin?”
She rummaged in her bag. “I’ve nothing. A bit of a headache’ll do you good: you’ll mind your booze better the next time. That’s not what I meant, anyway. I meant… you know. Are you all right, after yesterday? And last night?”
“I’m a man of leisure in the park with two lovely ladies. How could I be anything but happy?”
“You were right: Shay was being a prick. He should’ve never said that about Rosie.”
“Won’t do her much harm now.”
“I wouldn’t say he ever got next nor near her, sure. Not that way. He was only trying to annoy you.”
“No shit, Sherlock. You can’t keep a man from doing what he loves.”
“He’s not usually like that. I’m not saying he’s a saint these days, but he’s after chilling out loads since you knew him. He’s just… he’s not sure what to make of you coming back, know what I mean?”
I said, “Don’t worry about it, babe. Seriously. Do me a favor: let it go, enjoy the sunshine and watch my kid being gorgeous. OK?”
Jackie laughed. “Grand,” she said. “We’ll do that.”
