Page 120 of 56 Days
“Go ahead,” are the first words he ever says to her.
It’s Friday lunchtime and her fifth time following Oliver into the Tesco opposite his office building, swinging the Space Shuttle tote bag on her arm, pretending to be just another office worker buying yet another unimaginative meal deal. Today, though, she lost him somewhere inside and then, distracted, had picked up a bottle of water of the kind with a sickly sweet fruit flavor added. She can’t afford to spend money on props; this will actually be her lunch. So she’s paused by a stack of Easter eggs (Easter? Already?), wondering if she can be bothered to go back and change it. That’s when she looks up and sees him, standing less than two feet away, leaving a space for her to join the line ahead of him.
She’s never got this close, never been able to look directly at him. Neverfelt his presencebefore now.
She can’t do this, she thinks. She’s not able to.
He’s got a strange look on his face. Expectant, almost. Like he’s...challengingher? Does he know who she is? Know what she’s planning on doing? She feels like her real motivation is on naked display, written all over her face. If she could just get a hold of herself, take a minute to prepare...
She’ll come again, she thinks. On Monday.
She’ll be more ready then.
“It’s okay,” she says, starting to turn. “I’ve just realized I’ve got the wrong one.”
Ciara turns and heads back toward the fridges, feeling his eyes on her as she moves away.
And the beat of her own heart, pulsing with promise.
She takes her time swapping the water and then walks to the very back of the store, making a show of searching for something, before going to the tills and joining the line there again.
He’s long gone.
She finally feels like she can breathe again.
But then, when she gets outside, she hears a voice say, “Nice bag.”
It’s him. Standing in the next doorway, looking right at her. The sandwich he’s just bought is tucked under his arm, getting squished by the pressure. There’s the hint of a grin on his face, tinged with something else she can’t readily identify.
She stops. “My...?”
“Your bag,” he says, pointing to the NASA tote.
And she takes this as a sign.
Due to the reporting restrictions, the details in the articles she’d found were scant, but they’d all spared a column inch to mention the fact that Boy B had hidden a bloodstainedT-shirtwith a NASA logo in a rubbish bag inside a holdall under his bed. His grandmother had bought it for him. It proved, his legal team argued, that he didn’t want to hurt Paul Kelleher, that he had never intended to, but that afterShanehad, Oliver had gone to the boy’s assistance, tried to help.
“Thanks,” she says. “It’s from the Intrepid. It’s a museum in—”
“New York,” he finishes. “The one on the aircraft carrier, right? Have you been?”
It was seventeen years ago, he was a child, and maybe he didn’t evenlikespace things. Maybe his grandmother was playing a guessing game. But it was all she had, and then, when she’d seen the bag in the window of the charity shop...
But it turns out he did.
And still does.
“Yeah,” she says. “Once.”
He can’t have been there. He wouldn’t have been. She’d checked: the space shuttle on display there was only added in 2012, and she presumes he can’t have traveled to the United States since he got out of Oberstown because he’d have had to declare his conviction at immigration. For direct flights from Ireland, that happened at the airport on this end; America had Homeland Security controls at Dublin and Shannon. He wouldn’t even have made it onto the plane.
And memories of one visit a while back should be easy enough for her to flub.
He asks, “Was it good?”
Ciara hesitates, because this is it. This is where she makes her choice.
People think the decisions you make that change the course of your life are the big ones. Marriage proposals. House moves. Job applications. But she knows it’s the little ones, the tiny moments, that really plot the course.
