Page 3 of The Associate

“He’s your lawyer.”Also family. “Why wouldn’t I involve him?”

“It’s just…” Mona shook her head. “Your father will want to explain it, if he has the strength.”

Conor sighed. He hated coming home to mystery. He knew his father intended to leave Lonnegan’s to him, though he had no intention of managing it himself. It sounded petty in his head, but this was looking more and more like an excuse to lure Conor back to the States to live.I won’t come back for good, he thought. He had a good job in Dublin, and friends. No romantic prospects of late, but he wasn’t actively looking.

If anything, he hoped Mona might want to return to Ireland with him if his father passed. Without her husband, what else remained here for her? Hugh Mallory employed one waitress and one co-bartender, both of whom had started long before Conor’s birth. He entertained the idea of leaving them to carry on as usual, and perhaps sell it to them outright if they wished.

Mona’s grip trembled, and she pulled him closer to whisper in his ear. “Con,” she said when he mentioned the idea, “they won’t do it.”

“You don’t think so?” Conor asked. Deb and Brian were getting up there in years. Perhaps they’d made a pact to retire once Hugh called it a day, but Mona indicated otherwise. “Well, if it’s a matter of whether they can afford to buy the place, I can—”

“That’s not it.” Mona gasped at the loudsnickof the guest-room door. Two young women in baby pink scrubs and slip-on shoes crept into the living room, their smiles benign and expressing sympathy. They informed Mona and Conor that Hugh was settled and resting comfortably. Neither volunteered an answer when Conor asked how long they should expect him to last in the home hospice environment, but encouraged them to go inside.

“He seems to want to get something off his chest,” is all the taller of the duo said.

Once a beefy man standing mere centimeters over six feet, crowned with thick flame-colored hair, Hugh Molloy now resembled a washed-out portrait. To Conor, it looked as though the heart attack had sapped his father of not only all health but also color. It pained him to see the speed with which his father had declined.

Scratch that—Hugh’s bright blue eyes, ringed darker gray on the outer rims of his irises, shone strong. Conor focused there as they talked, searching for remains of the assertive and outspoken man who’d raised him.

“You know why I named the pub Lonnegan’s, do you?” Hugh asked, his voice a deep wheeze.

Conor knew the story, a favorite of his father’s. Why spoil the moment for him, though? “Remind me,” he said.

Hugh swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple prominent in his thinning neck. “Conor Lonnegan was my best friend in Limerick. We grew up with the dream of owning a pub together, one like his granda’s.” The blue in his eyes faded a bit as he spoke. “Our families came here in the early sixties, and no sooner than we became citizens were we both drafted. The Army wouldn’t take me, though, but poor Connie…”

His voice cracked, and Hugh finished the sentence with a long, melancholy exhale. Conor squeezed his father’s hand to show that he knew how the tale finished. Conor Lonnegan had been shipped with his unit to Vietnam and never returned. Hugh, saved by a medical exemption, had married and opened the pub named for his lost mate. Just when the Malloys believed they’d be childless, a pregnancy in Mona’s early forties blessed them. Conor sat there as another tribute to Hugh’s friend.

Conor leaned forward and kissed his father’s cool forehead. Hugh gave a soft smile and fluttered his eyelids shut. Time to rest. Conor eyed his mother, sitting on the other side of the adjustable hospice bed, and rose.

“I need some air,” he said, adding at Mona’s panicked expression, “I won’t go far, maybe just down the block or two. I’ll be fine.” The neighborhood hadn’t declined since he last visited, not to his perception, anyway. Repeating his assurances, he left his parents to a moment alone. What important news they saved for him could wait.

The Malloys had been fortunate to buy into this neighborhood long before real estate booms and gentrification efforts. Conor knew his father had chosen the home for its proximity to the pub, which stood on the next block. Before his birth, the couple had lived in the tiny apartment on the second floor. Unwilling to become landlords, Hugh and Mona now used it for storage and office space.

The Malloys owned both buildings, home and business. He was aware, too, his parents had long ago put together an end of life plan. That relieved Conor of one task, but he’d have to make quick decisions about the pub and the house. Check for outstanding vendor bills, make sure Deb and Brian were paid for the hours they’d worked before Hugh collapsed.

Conor stood before the darkened storefront, hands in his jeans pockets as he stared through the windows. A multitude of memories, happy and tense, played out in reflections on the glass. Lonnegan’s had been his second home. While classmates had attended camps and traveled during the summers, he’d bussed tables for spending money. As a teenager, he’d built the pub’s first website—a bare bones one-pager on a free platform. Over time, he’d helped improve the online presence, and showed Deb how to update their social media.

He'd experienced his first kiss here, with the girl he took to junior prom. He considered it a defining moment in his life, for it was in the same booth a year later he’d told his father he was gay. Conor had chosen Lonnegan’s in hopes of avoiding a meltdown at home, and to his surprise Hugh had patted his hand and said, “Okay.” Then he’d got up to serve two incoming couples taking the booth overlooking the sidewalk. To an outsider, it might have played out as a subtle father-son moment, but Conor appreciated that his father hadn’t ordered him to pack his things and leave.

A week later, his da had affixed a rainbow flag adhesive to the door, next to the credit card symbols. They’d rarely talked of Conor’s sexual identity after their chat in the booth, but the sticker stood as a sign of Hugh’s and Mona’s acceptance.

As Conor moved closer, he noticed an updated Progress Pride flag covered the older one.Everyone Is Welcome Here, read the caption on the top. Conor traced the vertical stripes, from red down to violet, and tried not to break down sobbing right there.

His father was ill, maybe dying, and his mother was distraught. He was three thousand miles from home on extended personal leave, and facing one of his top fears. Hugh and Mona were vibrant, active people who loved their business and clientele, and Conor had expected them to live well into their nineties. Fate, alas, had tossed them a curve and Conor worried his mother might follow her beloved sooner than anticipated, felled by grief.

This made the decision to sell the commercial property in the coming weeks all the more crucial. Even if his father, by some miracle, recovered, he had to retire. They’d served the community well, so let somebody else pull the taps.

Still, letting go of Lonnegan’s equated to a different kind of death. Hugh Malloy named this place for a lost friend, and with its sale a piece of Conor would disappear as well.

Even in its darkened, empty state, the place still looked inviting. Conor panned his gaze down the walls at all the framed photographs. Most displayed decades-long regulars, but one found the occasional celebrity posing with Hugh and his staff. A few pictures, Conor knew, showed him behind the bar with his da.

Conor regretted leaving the keys at the house. He wanted a drink. He wanted to sit at the bar and let the ghosts of endless memories, mingled with stale aromas of draft stout and assorted liquors, wrap around him like a comforting hug.

After that, he wanted to get laid. A selfish thought, perhaps, but he was close to celebrating the anniversary of a continuing romantic dry spell. He felt closed up everywhere, and longed for a warm and strong body to remind him of how it all worked. His pickup apps, while full of horny Irish men, offered more dead leads than scores these days. Maybe he’d have better luck in this country.

First, though, this.

He leaned against the doorjamb, sighing fog onto the door’s window. “Don’t worry, Da,” he whispered. “You still have me for as long as you’re here.”

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