Page 51 of Merrily Ever After
“So why are you denying her this?”
“This being … ?”
“A grand romantic gesture worthy of the festive season. Liam.Please.”
He finally stops and turns to me. Whatever he sees on my face makes him sigh. “Okay,” he says. “You want to see it? Then we’ll see it.”
“Thankyou,” I say, clasping my hands together, but my smug victoriousness only lasts the five minutes it takes to get to his yard, where he points to a hulking piece of metal by the compost bin.
“That’s it,” he says at my obvious confusion.
It’s not how I remembered it. Or maybe I don’t remember it at all. Maybe I’ve never even seen it and just had a mental picture in my mind. A false memory of a clean, decent vehicle and not whatever this is. A blue, rusting Volkswagen that looks like it would collapse if you glanced at it the wrong way.
“This looks older than you,” I say.
“It probably is. It’s from the eighties.”
“It’s a piece of junk.”
“Yeah,” Liam nods. “Like I told you.”
“I thought you were being dramatic.”
“When have I ever been dramatic?” he asks as I circle the thing, going around to the open door only to come face to face with a sheep.
I jump back as the animal stares at me, its dark eyes unblinking as though daring me to enter its lair.
“Liam!” I complain, but he just looks pleasantly surprised.
“So that’s where she got to.”
“You lost a sheep?”
“This one just likes to roam.”
“You’re a bad farmer,” I mutter, peering around her. “And she hasdefecatedall over the van. How did she even get in there?”
“I find it less maddening to ask such questions,” he says as he lifts her out.
I hold my breath at the smell as I lean in further, inspecting the living area, but my misery is already starting to fade. I’m an artist, after all. Everything can be fixed. It just needs a bit of elbow grease. And maybe three to four air fresheners.
“We’re going to need to hose it down first,” I say, stepping back out.
“We?”Liam asks.
“You’re the one who let it get so—”
“Hannah!”
I spin around as my niece, Elsie, comes running across the yard in a bright pink coat. At nine, she’s Liam’s youngest. Her brother Padraig is in that too-cool-for-everything teenage stage, but Elsie’s still obsessed with me because not only am I her only aunt, but I make her the best Halloween costumes each yearandknow how to do French plaits. Honestly, parenting is not as hard as everyone makes it out to be.
“Did you finish for the Christmas break already?” I ask as she reaches my side.
“She had the dentist this morning,” Liam explains, giving her a stern look. “And we agreed she wouldn’t have to go back to class if she did her homework.”
“I did it an hour ago,” she protests. “I barely have any anyway. It’s Christmas.”
“ItisChristmas, isn’t it,” I say. “The season of giving. Of being nice. Of lending a helping—”
