Page 123 of One Night Only
“You could just email him,” Margot sniffs, jealousy making her suspicious. I almost laugh at the thought. She’s welcome to him.
“I’m old-fashioned like that,” I say and stroll past her even as a new kind of worry twists deep inside.
* * *
Between Will’s news and my Matthias discovery, I feel semi-queasy for the rest of the day and hope Claire will magically be in when I get home, but she’s out with Mark, of course. She’s always out with Mark now. Spending as much time as possible with him before he flies back to Seattle.
I’m not good alone. There’s a reason I seek out distraction, even when I know I shouldn’t.
I try my best. I remove my bra, heat up a frozen pizza and put on the latest gritty crime drama everyone’s talking about, but my mind keeps wandering and I lose track of which unshaven man with the haunted look on his face I’m meant to be focusing on.
I draft texts to Annie and Soraya but I don’t send them.
Declan is the only person I feel like talking to.
The realization surprises me and I toy with the idea of messaging him about what happened, even calling him. I know he’d pick up but it’s late and he’s probably busy and I…
I miss him.
Huh.
I stare at the television as ominous music plays and make an executive decision to do what I should have done days ago.
I google him.
As expected, there are a gazillion Declan Murphys, both here and in Ireland, but it narrows it down significantly when I add in the name of his village. I pour myself a glass of wine as I switch over to my barely working laptop, opening everything I can find into separate tabs.
It’s mainly the tour company, small articles and mentions in business magazines about the grants he’s secured. A dozen different websites run the same copy and I skim through them impatiently until I get to something new. There’s an article in a local Irish paper about Paul and Annie’s wedding, another about Declan and Harry at O’Shea’s. His social media is the same, bland professional posts linking to his blogs and articles, nothing to feed my desire to stalk.
And then I see her.
A woman stands beside a younger-looking Declan, outside Harry’s pub in the village. The blog post is more than a decade old but it’s the caption underneath the photograph that gets my attention.
Declan Murphy (right) pictured with wife, Fiona.
Wife.
I sink further into the cushions, the bottom of my laptop burning my stomach as the credits start to roll on the television.
Wife.
I search again with their names together and the results change immediately. There’s a wedding announcement, a picture of them at the local church. The same local blog, detailing the couple’s happy day.
Ten years ago.
They grin at each other in the photos, deliriously happy, dressed in their finest. They barely look like they’re out of their teens.
So he likes blondes.
Pretty blondes. Pretty tall blondes with great cheekbones and eyes like Audrey Hepburn’s.
I click through the other pictures, pausing when I spy another familiar face and I think back to the first night in Ireland and the quiet man who joined us at our table. Fiona’s father. It all makes sense now. How quickly Declan’s mood had changed that first evening. The man had offered to help Declan out. He’d spoken to him like a son. And Declan had been.
Married.
It doesn’t matter. People get married.
They also get divorced. It happens all the time. It happens every day and not like with my parents. Often it’s the best choice for everyone. The right choice.
