I met him outside the Light House Cinema in Smithfield, both of us pretending we hadn’t been crying at the same film. It was raining in that sideways Dublin way that makes umbrellas feel ridiculous, and he offered me half of his as if it was the most natural thing in the world. His name was Ciarán. He had kind eyes, the sort that made you answer honestly when he asked how you were.
For the first few months, loving him felt easy. We went for pints in The Cobblestone, ate chips on the wall by the Grand Canal, and took long Sunday walks through Phoenix Park where he’d point out trees as if they were old neighbours. He was gentle without being boring, funny without needing a room to notice. I remember thinking, at thirty-four, that maybe love didn’t have to arrive like fireworks. Maybe it could arrive holding a battered umbrella.
He told me about Aoife on our fifth date. Not in a dramatic way. We were sitting in a small café near Stoneybatter, and I’d asked why he never spoke about his last relationship. He went quiet, stirred his coffee too long, and said, “She died three years ago.” There was no self-pity in it. Just a fact that had hollowed him out.
I reached across the table and held his hand. I meant it. I wasn’t frightened then. I thought grief was something I could respect from a distance, like a locked room in someone else’s house. I didn’t understand that, in loving him, I would be asked to live in the hallway outside it.
Aoife was everywhere, though never rudely. Her books were still on his shelves. Her blue scarf hung behind the bedroom door. There was a photo of her laughing on Killiney Hill, wind blowing her hair across her face, and every time I saw it I felt both tenderness and a little sting of shame. She looked warm. Alive. Loved.
Ciarán never compared us out loud. That almost made it harder. If he had said, “Aoife did this better,” I could have defended myself. Instead, the comparisons lived in the pauses. He would smile at a song in Whelan’s and drift somewhere I couldn’t follow. He would cook pasta and say, “We used to make this,” then quickly correct himself, as if the “we” had slipped out by accident. Sometimes, when he was tired, he called me love in the same soft voice he must have used for her, and I’d feel like I was borrowing someone else’s coat.
I tried to be mature. I told myself that love wasn’t a competition, that his grief proved he could love deeply, that I should be patient. But patience can turn sour when you swallow your own hurt for too long. I started dressing differently, wearing brighter lipstick because Aoife hadn’t in the photos. I suggested new places, new routines, new memories. I became obsessed with being the future.
The night everything changed was in November. We had been together nearly a year, and I had cooked dinner in my flat in Portobello. Nothing fancy, just roast chicken, potatoes, a lemon tart from the bakery because I burn pastry every time I try. I had bought candles. I had rehearsed, like an eejit, telling him I loved him properly. Not in the quick way at bus stops or after a few drinks, but calmly, with my whole heart present.
He arrived late, soaked through, carrying flowers. I knew before he spoke that something was wrong. He apologised and said he had gone to Glasnevin Cemetery. It was Aoife’s anniversary. He had forgotten to tell
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