Who's Your Paddy?

Chapter 21

The day of the wake, Lindsey, Michelle and I decided to get up early to take the train into downtown Boston. Not only was the semblance of normality much needed, but Michelle hadn't packed an outfit appropriate for a wake and needed to buy one.

"What is it about this city that it never changes?" I said. We exited the subway stairs and walked along the cobble stone street into Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

Lindsey scoffed. "You aren't looking hard enough."

"Maybe, but when you compare it to the land of cookie-cutter homes in Phoenix, it hits you in the face. There's a real sense of age and permanence here."

"Wait 'til you get to Dublin. Now that's old," Michelle said.

Butterflies hit my stomach again the moment she said it. Logically, I knew I'd be getting on a plane for Ireland, but it hadn't registered as something that was really going to happen. I think it was because I wanted it for so long and dreamed about the possibilities so often, that it felt like the day would never come.

Michelle found an outfit in the third store we tried, so we made our way through a busy pedestrian courtyard on our way to our favorite Italian place for lunch. The street musicians we passed along the way made me think of Liam.

One guitar player in particular gave me pause. I stopped long enough to hear him finish his song. I vaguely recognized the tune, but it wasn't until we were close enough to hear the words that it hit home. Hard.

"What's wrong?" Michelle asked.

"Nothing," I smiled through tears. Lindsey dug a tissue out of her bag and handed it over. I dabbed at my eyes and pulled a twenty out of my pocket to throw in his guitar case.

Both of them had the good sense to let me pull myself together before asking again. By that time we were knee deep in gooey goodness of possibly the best pizza on the universe.

"A few weeks ago, Liam sent me this poem at work. It was when we were having a weird go of things," I looked at Michelle. "You know what I'm talking about."

She nodded. "Yeah."

"So anyway," I continued, "a week or so after he sent me the poem, I was at the Harp and he dedicated a special song to me. It was weird for him to do that because we'd been keeping our private stuff so separate from the music."

"Ahh, so the guy out on the street was singing the same song?" Lindsey asked.

"Yeah, it's called 'Easy and Slow' and it hit me much the same way as it had the night Liam sang it to me."

"Did he write it?" Lindsey asked.

"Nah, it's a really old Irish poem that was adapted to music. But it has my name in it and the sentiment was right."

"How perfectly fucking sappy is that?" Michelle said, raising her glass. We followed suit and clinked. "To sentimental fools and us the women who fall for them!"

I rode to the funeral parlor with my mother and Lindsey. It was held in one of those big old family homes converted for the purpose and walking up the stairs brought on yet another instance of familiarity. It was the same place my father and countless family members from our neighborhood were waked.

Michelle met us in the doorway. "Before you go in, don't be shocked. It's not my dad laying in there. Forget all that shit people say about how great they look. He looks dead."

Leave it to Michelle to cut right to the quick. She was right too. If I wasn't surrounded by so many familiar faces, I would have sworn I stumbled into the wrong funeral parlor. I barely recognized him as the father figure I once knew. He was shockingly thin and no amount of makeup would put the life back into his sunken face.