Page 88 of Heart Strings
I walk outside, searching for the line of yellow-topped taxis, my last option. I bend at the window of the first one. “Are you willing to give me a lift to Galway?”
“Pfft. My hole I will,” the driver barks.
Okay, then.
It’s a ridiculous fare, one I don’t blame anyone for declining. Four, five cars down, I’m beginning to lose hope. The sixth driver gently shakes her head when I ask if she’s willing to make the trip.
“Wait. You’re not Aidan O’Toole, are you?” she asks to my back. Guess the mandolin strapped to it tipped her off. I turn and the driver slips her sunglasses down her nose and examines my face. “You are!”
I’m in a rush, but the delighted look on her face is sweet. “I am.”
“The, erm, baby face threw me off a little.” She gestures to my clean-shaved jaw. “Saw you at Vicar Street back in March. I proposed to my fiancée right after you played ‘Heaven-Bound.’ ” I’m touched she chose that moment to make such an important memory. “She said if I’d chosen ‘Never Forever,’ she’d have left me on the spot.”
“Congratulations and thanks for coming,” I say. “Your fiancée would’ve been right. A ‘Never Forever’ proposal is a red flag.” That bitter tune was written just after Cielo and I broke up. I’d been stripped of my optimism, but the sarcasm of the chorus has been lost on some fans who call it romantic.
I ask her name—Caoimhe—and express my gratitude again before I start to move on to the next taxi.
“Wait.”
I turn around. “Yes?”
“You really need to get to Galway?”
“Desperately. I don’t have time to wait for the next train.”
“On one condition: We video call my girl and you tell her hi. She’ll lose her shite.”
Chapter 36
Lo
A dog bite,a fall off a ladder, a man who aggravated an old shoulder injury while hurling. Even a case of food poisoning stemming from a questionable bowl of coddle at a mother-in-law’s house. Those are just the handful of cases from today’s busy shift I can remember off the top of my still hungover head.
Talking to Saoirse last night helped, but my mom’s harsh voice continues to echo in my mind: All the ways Aidan and I won’t work in the real world when his star is rising and I have yet to finish medical school, followed by residency and fellowship. Memories of my dad hardly being able to look me in the eye during his brief visits when I was hospitalized. I can’t stand the thought of Aidan turning away from me like that. He was there for Marie when she was in treatment, but it’s different to see a romantic partner sick.
I slip into the nourishment room. There’s a little plug hidden behind the shelves of supplies; a fellow intern let me in on the secret so that I could charge my phone without leaving it at thenurses’ station. With all the activity in the accident and emergency department today, this is the first time I’ve come to check on it since the battery was revived. Two text messages await me, one voicemail.
Aidan (7:28 A.M.):Lo, please call me. I need to talk to you right away
Aidan (9:16 A.M.):I’m coming home. I’ll be there today. Promise.
A little gasp escapes my lips. What? Has something gone wrong with his meeting?
Another thought pops into my mind: Did Saoirse break the sacred bond of drunken trust and say something to Aidan?
Even if it’s meant well, and God knows I want Aidan by my side, I don’t want him to drop everything out of a sense of obligation. This opportunity with Nigel is too important for Aidan to leave because he’s distracted with my problems. I won’t put my neurosis ahead of his career again. The voicemail he left hours ago is a staticky mess, cutting in and out so badly that I can’t make out his words above the sound of what might be an engine. Something about the hospital. Something about Martin. Nothing else is intelligible.
When I call back, it goes directly to voicemail. My heart sinks and I hang up before saying anything. There are thirty minutes before my appointment, regretfully performed in the same building as my clinical rotations, just inviting gossip about my health and competence. I try not to think about fellow medstudents salivating over my possible demise. I have enough time to change my clothes, pop my earbuds in.
Heaven-Boundis the most recent search on my music app. My finger hesitates over the cover image of Aidan looking heartbreakingly handsome before I give in and click it. Choosing to listen to this album right now is a weird form of self-flagellation, but I can’t help it. Aidan’s ardent words begin, rich and poignant in that smooth tenor, telling the world that I’m the most precious thing to him. I want so badly to believe his lyrics are true—but how can I dare to trust in a love so devoted, when I watched sickness and distance drive a wedge through my parents’ happy marriage? The odds are stacked against us already.
My bloodshot eyes drift shut as a romantic mandolin melody somehow both soothes and hollows out my heart.
Chapter 37
Aidan
“You are asaint,” I praise Caoimhe as I thrust every crumpled euro in my wallet at her.
