Page 11 of An Irish Summer

I thought about him tending bar and shuttling tourists around the country and doing odd jobs on the farm and telling stories

to those who have apparently earned them. He had a point.

“Does sharing these observations usually please people?” I asked.

“People who are willing to be pleased,” he said. I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t smile, especially when I could see how bad

he wanted me to.

We rumbled past a sign welcoming us to County Wicklow, followed by a few directing us to a place called Glendalough. I refrained

from asking questions because I knew answers were coming, but it was becoming increasingly difficult as I felt we were getting

closer to our destination.

After what felt like an eternity, we pulled into a parking lot at the base of a hill, and Collin turned off the truck. “Ready?”

he asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” I said. “Can I ask now what this place is?”

“I’ll explain on the walk.” He grabbed the basket from the back, and I forced myself to look away from the way his long fingers flexed around the handles.

From our position at the base of the hill, I couldn’t see much more than more hills and more ruins in the distance.

But I followed, anxiously awaiting the grand reveal and silently worrying there might not be one.

I was trying to focus on steadying my breathing so as not to seem so out of shape when we reached the top of the hill and

came face-to-face with a cemetery bathed in golden sunshine. Rows upon rows of mossy headstones leaned into one another, reaching

out from overgrown grass and long-abandoned dirt paths. A few larger structures missing walls and ceilings, and another in

a cylindrical shape, occupied the space between the tombstones, all of which sat just slightly off-kilter.

“You brought me to a cemetery?” I asked.

“A sixth-century monastic settlement,” he corrected. “And some of the most beautiful lakes you’ll ever see, but we aren’t

there quite yet.”

I hummed, running my fingers over a tombstone and trying to read the name beneath the moss. I usually found cemeteries depressing,

but this was undeniably beautiful. Each headstone rested at a different angle, moved by hundreds of years of shifting earth.

“It used to be a city,” Collin said as we wove our way around the ruins. “A proper one, with farming and religion and that.

Real peaceful for the monks.”

“What happened?” I asked, turning my gaze to the round tower jutting into the sky.

“Vikings,” he said. I waited for him to continue, but he stopped talking in favor of looking at me looking at the pillar.

“Grand, isn’t it?”

“What happened to the monks?” I spun in a slow circle, studying the rows of graves surrounding the skeleton of what had once been a cathedral. Collin chuckled softly at what I imagined were my endless questions, and I turned to face him for his response.

“Some died,” he said, “and others fled to new settlements. But it was par for the course, really. A lot of Irish history at

that time was dying and fleeing, I’m afraid.”

“How do you know so much about history?”

“Storytelling,” he said, as if that one word said it all. “Ready to see the lakes?”

“If the picnic is happening at the lakes, then absolutely,” I said. “I’m starving.”

“Might it kill you to focus?” he asked.

“It will, actually,” I said. “Thanks for asking.” He nudged me with his shoulder and my skin tingled at the contact.

We walked along a path under a canopy of trees, in and out of the sunlight. Collin swung the picnic basket in the space between

us, and I was thankful for the distance. He’d taken his flannel off when the sun came out, leaving his forearms out in the

open, and I noticed the tattooed cherries on the inside of his elbow. And the umbrella on the bone of his wrist. The scattered

collection of art that might tell me everything about him if I only asked.

Before I even had a chance to contemplate whether I’d ever do such a thing, the trees cleared. The gravel path turned to dirt

and the water stretched in front of us, and my breath caught in my lungs. Sunshine sparkled on the blue-green water, and mountains

dipped low in the center of the lake in a perfect V. Wispy clouds followed the path carved by the mountains, reflected in

perfect streaks of white between the deep greens of the trees.

“Deadly, isn’t it?” Collin said from behind me, his voice quieter in my ear than it had been in the cemetery. I giggled at the slang, grateful for the opportunity to cover my surprise at how close we were standing.

“That’s one way to describe it.”

“The Irish call it the ‘valley of two lakes,’” he said. “That’s the translation of Glendalough.”

“It’s a pretty word,” I said, eyes trained on the valley and ears trained on Collin’s voice.

“Say it.”

“What?”

“Try it out,” he said. “Irish words feel good on the tongue.”

“It wouldn’t sound as good in my accent,” I said, conscious of the fact neither of us needed to know how anything felt on

the other’s tongue.

“Aye, don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “Yer accent isn’t so bad. And besides, the Irish language is dying, so we need as many

people to use it as possible. Even if it’s just a word.”

“Do you speak it?”

“You’re stalling again.”

“Glendalough,” I said, tasting the language in my mouth. It didn’t sound right, and I could feel heat creeping onto my cheeks

in the silence that followed.

“Fair play,” he said with an approving nod, which made me feel sillier. He didn’t have to be looking at me like I just announced

he won the lottery. It was just a word. “And I do speak the language a bit,” he said. “My grandparents tried to teach us when

we were kids, and of course we learned it in school, but I don’t use it a lot, so it’s gone to shite.”

“Maybe you should use it more,” I said. “I heard it’s dying.”

His smile stretched to his ears, and I snagged the picnic basket from his hands to give myself something to do other than stare at his face. “Picnic time?” I asked, holding it up, and he laughed.

“Picnic time.”

We found a grassy spot by the water and spread a blanket on the ground, ignoring that it was damp and uneven. Collin unpacked

the basket, laying sandwiches and fruit and two cans of beer between us.

“I can’t take credit for anything,” he said before I could react. “This is Flo’s doing.” I wasn’t huge on the idea of our

coworkers knowing what we were up to, especially Flo and her wiggling eyebrows, but I was too thankful for the food in that

moment to care.

I picked up a sandwich, studying it through the plastic wrap. “Is this—”

“A Tayto sandwich.” Collin laughed. “An Irish delicacy.”

“But it’s just—”

“Crisps on a sandwich?” He chuckled again, taking it from my hands and unwrapping it. “Take a bite.”

“You’re bossy.”

“Part of the job,” he said, holding the sandwich out to me. “Give it a try.”

I took a bite under the scrutiny of his gaze, trying to keep crumbs from dusting my lap.

“Bang on, right?” he asked almost immediately. If my mouth wasn’t stuck together by the dryness of the white bread and the

chips, I might have returned his smile. Instead, I had to focus every muscle in my jaw on just chewing and swallowing.

Before I could open my mouth to speak, he cracked the tab on a beer and handed it to me. “You’ll need this,” he said. I took

a grateful swig, washing down the bite.

“It’s dry,” I said.

“But it’s delicious,” he said.

“But it’s delicious,” I repeated, finally able to laugh. I handed it to him and he took a bite twice the size of mine, and

I watched the corners of his jaw as he chewed.

“A delicacy, huh?” I asked.

“A proper one, at that. Used to eat these as kids when it was too hot to cook in the summertime,” he said. “So you’re getting

more Irish by the minute, you know.”

“I thought the goal was to make me like Ireland,” I said, “not to make me Irish.”

“All in good time,” he said, taking another bite. “Is it working yet?”

I considered his question. It was a nice afternoon, sure. The scenery was beautiful. But it wasn’t home. Not by a long shot.

“I do like it more than I did last weekend,” I conceded. “Well, this part, anyway. The history is interesting, and this is

an incredible place. And it’s definitely much nicer when the sun is out. But there still isn’t a chance I’m staying,” I added,

perhaps too quickly. I tried to laugh in case it sounded harsh.

“Aye, what’s so important back in Boston, then?”

“Other than my entire life?”

He shook his head, brushing his hands off on his knees and leaning back on his elbows. “Your view of life is so rigid,” he

said. “It can look like more than one thing, you know.”

“Not for me,” I said.

“It does right now. I mean, look at ya. Halfway across the world working for a hostel. I bet that wasn’t in your plan.”

I laughed, though it wasn’t funny. “No,” I said. “It wasn’t. But I’m going to get the plan back on track. Go home, get another

job, find another apartment, live happily ever after.”

He didn’t respond, but instead folded his hands behind his head and lay back on the blanket, turning his face to the clouds. “Lie down,” he said eventually.

“Will you ever stop telling me what to do?”

“Maybe you’ll have to stick around long enough to find out,” he said. “But definitely not anytime soon.” He shielded his eyes

with his hand, and the sliver of sun that got through turned them nearly translucent. “I’m serious. Lie down.”

I took another swig then joined him, flat on my back, facing the sky.

“Why are we doing this?”

“Bloody hell, Chelsea,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair. “Because the sun is out. Because sometimes it feels

good not to be thinking or planning or working or any of that. And because we both need a minute of peace and quiet, don’t

ya think?”

It was hard not to envy how easy it seemed for him to turn his brain off, to do nothing other than lie in the sun. Growing

up in Boston hadn’t exactly prepared me for that. But at the end of the day, city life soothed me in a way nature didn’t.

Most of the time, I felt more at peace on a subway surrounded by people or in a coffee shop than I did on an aimless walk,

and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked after a few minutes, unable to tolerate the silence.

“I’m not,” he said. “You should try it sometime.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.”

Collin’s eyes were still closed, and it was infuriating how a person could be so cavalier. The lines on his face were smooth, and a tattoo on his bicep of what looked like a snare drum peeked out of his shirtsleeve. I had to close my own eyes to stop them from lingering over the rest of his body.

The rest of the afternoon passed as slowly as the clouds, and I fought to stay focused. To pay attention to how the gravel

felt under my feet or how the sun felt on my back instead of how the stress felt in my chest that I wasn’t yet any closer

to getting my life back on track. I was surprised to find myself trying to focus on Ireland to distract myself from my life

at home. And I was even more surprised it was working.

I watched the sun set as we drove back west, trying to match my breath to the rhythm of the road. It was the only way I could

avoid thinking about my conversation with Collin on the picnic blanket. Life can look like more than one thing, you know. His accent got stuck in my head like a song from the radio, and I was determined to do everything I could to get it out.

I turned up the dial, letting the actual song on the radio permeate the sound of the wind. It was an Irish tune, which shouldn’t

have been surprising, with fiddles and bagpipes and other indistinguishable sounds. I focused on trying to understand what

they were singing about, turning the volume louder as the song reached the chorus.

“Aye, Chelsea,” Collin said, leaning his head back against the seat. “You are going to be just fine.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what made him say that, but I hoped he was right. Even if I’d never admit it.