When All Is Said

by Anne Griffin

Ready now to begin the first of five toasts: five toasts, five people, five memories. I push my empty bottle back across the bar to her. And as her hand takes it and turns away, happy to have something to do, I say under my breath: ‘I’m here to remember – all that I have been and all that I will never be again.’

There was a love but of the Irish kind, reserved and embarrassed by its own humanity. These days people are all for talking.

I tried to order the words jumbling about in my head. But they scurried about like a pack of frightened sheep, not one of them brave enough to take the lead. I eyed the bottle of Bushmills on the shelf and wondered would it be rude to ask at this hour.