I met her on a wet Tuesday evening in Dublin, the kind of rain that does not fall so much as hang in the air and make everyone look like they are remembering something. I was working behind the bar in a small pub off Camden Street, pulling pints for office crowds and tourists who had mistaken Temple Bar for the whole city. She came in with a navy coat, a broken umbrella, and a laugh that made three men at the counter turn around at once.
She was looking for directions to the Iveagh Gardens, which was funny because it was dark, raining, and the gardens were closed. I told her that. She looked embarrassed and said she had promised herself she would find them before leaving Dublin. She was only here for six weeks, working on a research project at Trinity, and she liked to visit places from books she had read. I wiped the counter, pretended to be less interested than I was, and drew her a little map on the back of a receipt.
She came back the next day to say my map was terrible. That was how it started. Not with a kiss or a confession, but with her standing in front of me accusing me of having no sense of direction in my own city. Her name was Mara. She was from Barcelona, spoke English with careful confidence, and had a way of listening that made you feel like your ordinary life had hidden music in it.
For the next month, she appeared in the pub every few days. Sometimes she came with friends from Trinity, sometimes alone with a book. On my breaks, we walked to St Stephen’s Green and sat on damp benches, eating chips from a paper bag. I told her about growing up in Ballyfermot, about my father’s silence after my mother died, about how I had once wanted to study architecture but had become very good at saying, “Maybe next year.” She told me about her grandmother, who had taught her to swim in the Mediterranean, and about a man back home named Diego.
She mentioned him softly, almost apologetically, on our third walk. “We are engaged,” she said, turning the ring on her finger as if she had just remembered it was there. I had noticed it before, of course. I had trained myself not to look. But hearing the word engaged felt like someone closing a door I had been standing too close to.
I told myself I could manage it. People fall for people they cannot have all the time. It is one of the most common foolishnesses in the world. I would be kind, I would be normal, I would let her leave Dublin with a good memory and nothing damaged. But love, even the quiet kind, is greedy. I began to measure my days by whether she came in. I took more care with my shirt. I learned which table she preferred. I started reading the poems she talked about so I could pretend I had already known them.
The worst and best night was near the end of November. The pub was packed after a match, loud with singing and wet coats steaming by the door. Mara waited until closing, helping me stack stools though I told her not to. Outside, the rain had stopped and the streets shone under the lamps. We walked without deciding to, past Whelan’s, past late-night taxis, down towards the canal where the city becomes briefly honest.
At Portobello, she stopped and said she was leaving in four days. I said I knew. She said Dublin had made her feel like a different version of herself, one she did not know what to do with. I could feel my heart beating in my throat. There are moments when life seems to ask for courage, but what it really asks for is restraint.
I nearly told her. I had the words ready. I love you. I know I shouldn’t. I know this changes nothing. But she looked at me with such trust that I understood the cruelty of making my feelings her burden. She had a life waiting for her. A person waiting for her. My love did not give me the right to unsettle that.
So I said, “You’ll miss the rain
Note: Please be aware that these are written in confidentiality and there is not reference or mention of any real people and their sentiments here. Every incident and Story tends to be emotional so please read at your own emotional risk. Website is not responsible for anything related. HumansofDublin.io is not related to the photography project HumansofDublin by Peter Varga
