I used to think Christmas could survive anything if the table was full enough and the lights were warm enough. That year, Mam had the good napkins out in our house in Drumcondra, Dad had queued for the turkey like it was an Olympic event, and I had brought home Cian, the man I was sure I would marry. My best friend Aoife came too, because her parents were in Australia and because she had been at our Christmas table so many times she knew which drawer held the bottle opener.
Looking back, I should have noticed the silence between them. Not awkward silence, but the kind that has already said too much somewhere else. In November, the three of us had gone for drinks near Temple Bar, and I remember Cian laughing too hard at something Aoife said, then looking at me quickly, as if checking whether laughter itself could be evidence. I brushed it away. Love makes you generous with excuses. Friendship does too.
On Christmas Eve, we went into town to see the lights on Grafton Street. Cian held my hand, but his phone kept flashing in his pocket. Aoife walked beside us, wrapped in a red scarf I had bought her the year before. At one point, outside Bewley’s, she started crying. She said it was the music, the cold, missing home. I hugged her while Cian stood slightly apart, staring at the pavement like it had accused him of something.
The truth came out because of gravy. That is the ridiculous part. Christmas Day was going well until Mam sent me to fetch an extra jug from the sideboard. Aoife’s phone was there, charging beside the Christmas cards. It lit up as I passed. I was not snooping. I swear I was not. The message on the screen was from Cian, and it said, “I can’t keep sitting beside her like this.”
For a moment, I thought there must be another Cian. Another her. Another life in which my boyfriend and my best friend were not hiding in plain sight between the crackers and the cranberry sauce. I picked up the phone with a calmness that frightened me. The thread was short but clear. They had kissed after my birthday in Stoneybatter. They had met twice after work near the Grand Canal. They had been trying, in their own cowardly way, to stop. They loved me, they said to each other, as if that softened anything.
I went back into the dining room holding the phone. Everyone was wearing paper crowns. Dad was carving turkey. My little brother was telling a story about a bus driver on O’Connell Street. Cian looked up first, then Aoife. I did not shout. I almost wish I had. I placed the phone on the table between the roast potatoes and the stuffing and said, “Which one of you wants to explain this before dessert?”
There are sounds a family makes when it breaks around you. A fork touching a plate. A chair leg scraping. Mam saying my name like she could pull me back from the edge of something. Aoife started crying immediately. Cian said, “It wasn’t what you think,” which is the sentence people use when it is exactly what you think but they want better lighting on it.
I asked how long. Aoife said, “Since October.” Cian said, “It was only emotional at first,” and I laughed then, a hard ugly laugh that made Dad leave the room. Emotional at first. As if betrayal had a starter course and a main.
I went upstairs and packed Cian’s overnight bag myself. Socks, charger, the jumper I had bought him in Arnotts, the little book he was reading and pretending to enjoy. When I came down, Aoife was standing in the hall with her coat on, shaking. She kept saying she was sorry. I wanted to hate her cleanly, but grief is never that tidy. She had slept on my floor after breakups. She had held my hair back outside Whelan’s when I was twenty-two and dramatic. She knew the worst things about me and had become one of them.
Cian tried to touch my arm, and I stepped back. I told him to leave. I told Aoife to leave too. Not forever, I said, because even then some foolish part of me was bargaining with the future, but for now. They walked out separately into
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
