I was twenty-four when I met Ciarán outside a late bus stop on Dame Street, both of us half-soaked from rain and pretending we weren’t freezing. He offered me the last dry corner under his umbrella, and I laughed because the umbrella was bent backwards like a broken bird. That was how it began. Nothing grand. Just two strangers waiting for the 39A, talking about the price of rent, bad coffee, and how Dublin could make you feel lonely even when the streets were full.
For three months, he was mine in that quiet, uncertain way people are before they say anything out loud. We met after work near St Stephen’s Green, shared chips in Temple Bar though we both complained it was too dear, and once he brought me to Whelan’s because a friend of his was playing guitar there. He never kissed me that night, but he held my hand in the crowd, and I remember thinking, this is what being chosen feels like.
Then my mam got sick, and life folded in on itself. I cancelled plans. I stopped replying quickly. I became the person who says, “Sorry, I can’t tonight,” until people stop asking. Ciarán still texted, still checked in, but I was too tired to be loved properly. One evening, after a hospital visit in the Mater, I told him I couldn’t do anything serious. He looked hurt, but he nodded. “I’ll give you space,” he said. I thought space meant a pause. I didn’t know it could become a door closing.
My younger sister Niamh met him six months later at a friend’s birthday in Phibsborough. I wasn’t there. I was at home, sorting prescriptions and washing my mam’s hair in the kitchen sink because she didn’t have the strength to climb the stairs. Niamh came home smiling, which she hadn’t done in a long time either, and said she’d met someone lovely. When she told me his name, I felt the room tilt slightly. Ciarán. Same soft voice, same ridiculous laugh, same man who used to send me photos of clouds over the Grand Canal and say they looked like old saints.
I could have said something then. I could have told her he had once waited outside my office with flowers from a petrol station because he said proper florists made him nervous. But my sister was glowing. She had always lived in my shadow a bit, or maybe I had placed myself in front of her without noticing. So I said, “That’s nice.” And I let the lie grow roots.
They moved quickly. Some people do when the timing is kind. He came to Sunday dinner, and his face changed when he saw me. Just for a second. Niamh was hanging up his coat in the hall, and he stood there with a bottle of wine in his hand, looking as if a ghost had answered the door. Later, while everyone argued about roast potatoes, he found me by the sink. “I didn’t know,” he whispered. “Neither did I,” I said. Then we both looked away, because there was nothing decent to do with the truth.
For two years, we performed kindness. I became the supportive sister. He became the respectful almost-brother-in-law. At birthdays in Glasnevin, Christmas drinks near Grafton Street, and one awful family lunch in Howth where the sea was too beautiful for the misery sitting inside me, we kept our distance. Sometimes I caught him watching me when Niamh was laughing, and I hated him for it. Then I hated myself more, because I knew I was watching too.
The night before their wedding, Ciarán came to our house to drop off boxes of favours Niamh had forgotten. She was out getting her nails done. Mam was asleep. We stood in the hallway, surrounded by tiny sugared almonds wrapped in netting, and he said my name like it had been hurting his mouth for years.
“I loved you first,” he said.
I knew it already.
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
