I was forty-one when I realised love was not the tidy thing I had been taught to believe in. By then I had a husband, Declan, a terraced house in Drumcondra, two children who left cereal bowls in every room, and a life that looked solid from the outside. Declan was a good man. He still warmed my side of the bed with his hand in winter. He knew how I took my tea. He could fix a leaking tap, calm my mother, and make the children laugh with one raised eyebrow. I loved him in the old, rooted way you love someone who has seen you ugly-cry over bills and still bought you a birthday cake from Mannings.
Then I met Niall in a photography class near Dublin city centre. It was a Tuesday evening thing I had joined because I felt myself disappearing. The children were older, Declan was always tired, and I had become the woman who bought milk, answered emails, and remembered dentist appointments. Niall was not dramatic or handsome in the obvious way. He had kind eyes and paint on his jacket because he was restoring an old flat in Phibsborough. He noticed things. The light on wet pavement. The orange glow outside Grogan’s. The way I stopped talking when I thought nobody was listening.
For months, nothing happened. We walked after class with our cameras, taking pictures around Temple Bar and the quays, laughing at ourselves because neither of us was very good. I told myself it was harmless. I told myself friendship was allowed. But one evening, standing on the Ha’penny Bridge, Niall touched my sleeve to point out the reflection of the lamps on the Liffey, and my whole body answered before my mind could stop it. I went home that night and sat in the bathroom with the shower running, ashamed because I had not done anything, and frightened because I wanted to.
People like to imagine there is one clear moment when betrayal begins. For me, it began in my imagination. It began when I put on lipstick for class. It began when I saved a funny story to tell Niall instead of Declan. It began when I felt disappointed if Niall missed a Tuesday. I still loved Declan. That was the terrible part. If I had stopped loving him, it would have been simpler. I could have packed a bag and called it honesty. But I loved him at the kitchen table in the morning, and I loved Niall under
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