Who's Your Paddy?

Chapter 20

I stepped out of my new life and into my old. Just walking down the hill of my street toward Michelle's place felt right, almost like I'd never left. If it wasn't for everything feeling smaller and more crowded than I remembered, the youthful skip in my step might have been taking place twenty years prior. At least in my mind.

"I don't believe it." A voice bellowed from behind me. "Annie Lee? Is that you?"

I turned quickly and came face to face with Paddy Dooley, my high school sweetheart and earliest source of fascination with all things Irish.

"Paddy? Oh my God, how did you know it was me?" I moved toward him.

When he smiled, his whole chiseled face lit up. Was he this good looking in high school?

"Oh go on. You think I could ferget the love of me life?"

"Uh huh, you're home for the wake too then."

He laughed and hugged me tight. "I see you haven't lost your perceptiveness."

"And you haven't lost...anything. Look at you." I wasn't joking. Age didn't just improve him, he went from good looking to orgasmic. He could have stepped off the cover of Gentleman's Quarterly and appeared before me on the sidewalk.

"It's Patrick now and you aren't too shabby yerself," he looked me over, taking a obvious peek at my left hand. "Not married yet? That's hard to believe."

"So many men, so little time."

He laughed a second time. "So? Where you been hidin' yerself?"

"Arizona. I'm writing for a paper out there."

"Lovely. Still writing. That's brilliant."

"What about you? And what's with the whole Patrick thing?"

"It looked better on the head shot."

"Oh, acting. Why doesn't that surprise me."

"It shouldn't. Isn't that why we broke up?"

"Uh huh. Beautiful leading lady as I recall," I nudged him, grinning.

"Ah, that," he said, looking sheepish. "How long you here for? We should get together."

"Just the services. Mickey and I are accompanying him back to Ireland for the burial."

"Oh, of course."

"In fact, I wanna catch up, but I'm on my way to her place now," I said, pointing to the bag holding a warm casserole my mother sent with me. "Will ya be around later?"

"Sure, yeah go on. Me mam is already down there, I'll be down in a bit."

I continued the short walk past two more double-decker houses and paused in front of Michelle's front gate. I glanced up the street and he was still there, watching me. I waved, flattered by his attentions.

Flattery quickly turned into uneasiness as I made my way up the same crooked stone stairs I used to play on as a kid. Knowing the face to greet me at the door wouldn't be her dad, a sadness that I wasn't ready to deal with, washed over me. Her dad always answered the door and it hadn't occurred to me until that very second that he wouldn't.

I exhaled slowly, shoving those thoughts away before they made me cry, and rang the bell.

"Avon calli-" The words I used to say every time I rang their bell caught in my throat. I don't know why I never noticed when we were younger, but Michelle's brother was a spitting image of his father. When I coupled that eerie revelation with the familiar lavender tinged fragrance that hit my nose almost the moment he opened the door, I almost dropped the casserole.