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Like any city-dweller newly alone in the dark countryside, Etain realized that she suddenly believed in ghosts.
Memory was ephemeral. Hatred was a rock.
Betty’s first term in UCD passed in a mad rush of stress, drinking too much, eating too little, insecurity, and anxiety that would years later, somehow, bake and cool in her memory as happiness.
That is the purpose of Na Daoine Maithe. The awful and arbitrary cruelty of life, reduced to something that can be bargained with, reasoned, or outwitted. A face, put upon that which cannot be faced.”
“Visits the island of Lesbos,” said Betty, and then paused to commit the memory of saying that to the part of her brain that would wake her up randomly in the middle of the night to cringe for saying it until the day she died.
“I want you to get back together because you love each other and there will be enough people trying to make life miserable for you without you doing it to yourself because you think you don’t deserve to be happy.
She hated giving condolences. It always felt like adding to someone’s suffering, not taking away. Forcing them to acknowledge you. To thank you for the gift of useless, meaningless words.
What was the point of regret and fear when this was always how it was going to go?
The saucepan bubbled over, and the eggs came tumbling out and smashed their half-liquid, half-solid contents out onto the tiles like the brains of defenestrated martyrs.
“Dying is easy,” Mairéad said dismissively. “What we are going to ask of you is so much harder than dying.” Ashling swallowed nervously. “What is it?” she asked. “The opposite.”
I have always envied those who knew not the hour nor the day of their ending. Time is not stone. Days can be years if lived wisely. Years can be lifetimes. Find your joy where you can. Live now. Live well.
