gasped as the rain pelted down even harder. It snuck beneath the neck of the waterproof jacket she’d slung around her shoulders the moment she got the phone call. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring an umbrella though. She dug her hand into the pocket and pulled out the only protection she had with her against the elements. And the irony of that was enough to poke and prod at the miserable situation she was in.
She pulled the large, thin envelope from her pocket and held it over her head as the paper ate up the rain in seconds, and water dripped down her jacket sleeve and arm, to eagerly soak the cotton of her T-shirt.
It didn’t matter if the letter got wet. She knew it word for word by now.
We regret to inform you...owing to late payments...as per the mortgage terms...right to repossess...
She was about to lose the small bed and breakfast she’d inherited from her grandmother, the place where both she and her mother had been born and had grown up. It might never have been the future that she had imagined for herself, but it was the only one she could cling to in order to support her child. How had her mother managed to keep this from her? Mary Moore was barely functioning as it was. But—Anna supposed—that was the beauty of being an alcoholic. Even in her worst state, her mother managed to hide, conceal, lie.
Through the pounding of the rain, Anna could hear the raucous sounds of music and shouts coming from the only building with signs of life on the road. Light bled out from the frosted windows, barely illuminating the wet benches in the courtyard. Anna braced herself for what was guaranteed to be a pretty bloody sight.
She pushed open the door to the pub, and the men at the bar stopped talking and turned to stare. They always stared. The colour of her skin—the only thing her Vietnamese father had left her with after abandoning them before her birth—had always marked her as an outsider, as a reminder of her mother’s shame. She shook out the letter, put the sodden paper back into her pocket and ran a hand through her hair to release the clusters of raindrops still clinging to the fine strands. The smell of warm beer and stale cigarettes defiantly smoked even after the ban hung heavy on the air.
She locked eyes with the owner, who stared back almost insolently.
‘Why did you serve her?’ Anna demanded.
The owner shrugged. ‘She had the money.’ As if in consolation, Eamon nodded in the direction of the snug.
She could hear sniggers coming from the men who had turned their backs to her and anger pooled low in her stomach. It was a hot, fiery thing that moved like a snake and bit like one too.
‘What, you’ve never seen a drunk woman before?’ she demanded of the room.
‘She’s not a woman, she’s a—’
‘Say that word and I’ll—’
‘That’s enough,’ Eamon interrupted, though whether for Anna’s sake or for his peace and quiet, she couldn’t tell.
She stepped through to the snug. Her mother was sitting alone in the empty room, surrounded by round wooden tables. She looked impossibly small, and in front of her, next to a newspaper, was a short glass filled with clear liquid—probably vodka. Anna hoped for vodka; gin always made it harder. She took a seat next to her and pushed down her mounting frustration. Anger never helped this situation.
Mary looked worse than the last time she’d seen her. From the day Amalia was born, Anna knew she couldn’t allow Mary to continue to live with them. She wouldn’t take the risk that her drunken outbursts could harm her daughter. She’d arranged for her mother to live with one of the only family friends Mary Moore had left. And their exchanges ever since had been loaded and painful.
‘What happened, Ma? Where did the money come from?’ Anna hated the sadness in her voice.
‘I thought I’d be able to pay off some of the mortgage... I thought...just one drink... I thought...’
‘Thought what, Ma?’ Anna couldn’t imagine what her mother was talking about, but she was used to the circulatory nature of conversations when she was in this state. The small flame of hope she’d nursed in the last few weeks as her mother had stayed sober and even talked of rehab spluttered out and died on a gasp.
‘Even when he got out of prison, I thought he was guilty...but when they arrested his brother...’
Oh, God. She was talking about Dimitri.
Her mother nudged at the newspaper. Beside the main article was coverage of the forthcoming Dublin Horse Race, with a black and white picture of three men celebrating a win in Buenos Aires. Her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn straight to one man: Dimitri Kyriakou.
‘And he has all that money...so...’ Mary Moore’s words were beginning to slur a little around the edges. ‘So I did what you never had the courage to do.’
‘What did you do, Ma?’
‘A father should provide for his child.’
A million thoughts shouted in her mind. She, more than anyone, knew the truth of her mother’s statement. But she had tried to garner his support...she had tried to tell him once about his daughter: nineteen months ago, on the day she, along with the rest of the world, discovered his innocence. She’d called his office and had been met with a response that proved to her that the man she’d spent one reckless night with, the man to whom she had given so much of herself, her true self, had been a figment of her fevered imagination.
‘Ma?’
‘At least you picked one with money...he was willing to pay fifty thousand euros in exchange for our silence.’
Sickness rose in Anna’s stomach. Pure, unadulterated nausea.
‘Jesus, Ma—’
The slap came out of nowhere.
Hard, more than stinging. Anna’s head rang and the buzzing in her ears momentarily drowned out the shock.
‘Do not take His name in vain, Anna Moore.’
In that one strike, years and years of loneliness, anger and frustration rose within Anna. She locked eyes with her mother and watched the righteous indignation turn to guilt and misery.
‘Oh, Anna, I’m so—’
‘Stop.’
‘Anna—’
‘No.’ Anna put her hand up, knowing what her ma would say, knowing the cycle of begging, pleading and justification that would follow. But she couldn’t let it happen this time.
Had Dimitri really paid a sum of money to reject their daughter? A hurt so deep it felt endless opened up in her heart. The ache was much stronger than the throbbing in her cheek.
Anna rubbed her chest with the palm of her hand, trying to soothe the pain that she knew she would feel for days, possibly even years. This was what she’d wanted to avoid for her daughter—the sting of rejection, the feeling of being unwanted...unloved. She wouldn’t let her daughter suffer that pain. She just wouldn’t.
Anna looked at her mother, seeming even smaller now that she was hunched in on herself. The sounds of familiar tears coming from her shaking body.
Eamon poked his head around the entrance to the snug. There was pity in his eyes, and she hated him for it. She hated this whole damn village.
‘I’ll make sure she’s okay for the night.’
‘Do that,’ Anna said as she walked out of the pub with her head held high. She wouldn’t let them see her cry. She never had.
Anna didn’t notice that the rain had stopped as she made her way back to the small family business she had barely managed to hold on to through the years. All she could think of was her little daughter, Amalia. Her gorgeous dark brown eyes, and thick curly hair. Sounds of her laughter, her tears and the first cries she’d made on this earth echoed in her mind. And the miraculous moment that,