Dirty Laundry, page 20
“Stop.”
“But he doesn’t see you.”
“Why are you doing this? I’m not the one cheating on my husband.”
“But wouldn’t you like to? Wouldn’t you like to be seen by a man? You can’t keep this up all your life, Mishti, your mask of righteousness. Someday it will consume you. I didn’t want it consuming me.”
One of the children playing near them turned his head to look at them. They fell silent for a moment.
“I wanted to tell you because I thought you would…”
“Cheer you on?”
“Well, I suppose I didn’t know what I expected from you. It wasn’t this.”
“I’m going to take Maya home.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll leave.”
“This is your party.”
“This is not a party.”
“It is always your party.”
Mishti headed in Maya’s direction, to the swings. She could feel Ciara’s eyes on her as she pulled Maya off without a word and rushed her out to the footpath.
Walking home, Mishti tried to focus on the ground, one foot in front of the other. She just had to get them home. Her head was spinning with so many thoughts. Thoughts that Ciara had planted in her head. If she were to be unfaithful to Parth, who would she choose, and how? She hadn’t spoken to Neel in years, and he was happily married back in India. Besides him, there was nobody else.
* * *
—
Maya ran up to her room when they reached home. She used to follow her mother around, trying to participate in the household chores, but she was more independent now, and preferred playing by herself. Mishti was left alone again.
There were a few dishes to wash, so she did those, but the house had been recently cleaned, and there wasn’t much else for her to do. Only a few days ago, she would have called over to Ciara’s house if she was feeling this way. Maya would have been delighted too.
Today, Mishti looked all over the house for her earphones and finally found them in a box in her bedside table. She plugged them in her ears and searched for a Dylan playlist on her phone. On the floor of her bedroom, she sat down cross-legged, resting her wrists on her folded knees, with her fingers in the gyan mudra. She hadn’t practiced these asanas in several years, not since Maya’s birth. All she had to do was let herself relax, put a lid on that simmering pot, coach her brain into shutting off. The way she’d been taught by her grandmother. Today, however, she just couldn’t seem to catch her breath.
September 15
Back in college, Ciara had been so upset with Eoin Brophy’s inattentiveness toward her that at one point she wanted to drop out. She couldn’t bear the thought of walking into class, having him ignore her again. This sexy, worldly-wise professor certainly noticed the other girls who threw themselves at him, but for some reason he didn’t want Ciara, and she found that unacceptable.
Her friend Teresa gained his favor, which was particularly bad luck, because she was the only one who knew about Ciara’s crush. Once, Ciara spotted Eoin Brophy and Teresa sharing lunch on the green. She saw the way he reached for one of Teresa’s sandwiches, without feeling the need to ask her permission first. Teresa pretended not to see Ciara walk by; neither did she try to recover their friendship when it suddenly turned cold. Teresa chose Eoin Brophy over Ciara. A mister before a sister.
For days, Ciara found herself following in her mother’s footsteps, remaining locked in her room, skipping all her classes, sleeping all day. She considered never returning to the college, leaving Cork City for good and finding work elsewhere. Dublin or London maybe. Berlin sounded nice. When it finally struck her what she was doing, after having categorically promised herself she would never turn into her mother, she picked herself up off the bed and took a hot shower.
Ciara returned to college because she wasn’t going to let him win, even though he seemingly wasn’t aware of being in the game at all. She began sitting in the front row at all his classes, smiling sweetly at him if he turned his gaze to her. She worked hard on all the essays he requested and never spoke to Teresa again.
On graduation day, he finally acknowledged her.
“Congratulations, Ciara.” He was walking past her, while she stood in a group with some friends. They were just done taking a group photograph in their robes and hats.
“Thank you.”
“What are your plans? For the future, I mean. What’s next?” He had his arms folded over his scuffed leather jacket. He smelled of coffee and cigarettes and something eggy. Maybe mayonnaise. He had shoulder-length hair. It may have been a rich chestnut once but was now more of a boggy brown.
“I’ve been offered a position at Horizon.”
“That’s excellent, Ciara. Just excellent.”
“Yes, I’m excited.”
“You should come back here sometime, drop in whenever you like. I enjoy hearing from past pupils.”
“Yes, maybe I will.”
It seemed as though he had more to say, but he looked over her shoulder and saw her friends. They were waiting to take another photograph.
“Here, I’ll take it. You go join them; nobody has to be out of the frame,” he offered.
Ciara still had this photograph somewhere, the one Eoin Brophy had taken. They were smiling at the camera, hopeful for the future, with their arms draped around one another. She didn’t have those friends anymore.
After Eion Brophy had handed the camera back and started walking away, Ciara caught up with him. “By the way, Teresa told me everything.”
His eyes grew wide with confusion and then fear, then panic. She tilted her head to the side, watching his face change, like she was admiring a watercolor she’d toiled over.
“I don’t…”
“Please, don’t make a fool of yourself. You could lose your job over this.”
That was enough to shut him up. She could see his tightened knuckles through the worn leather of the jacket pockets.
“Teresa is a lovely young lady,” he managed to say.
“Yes, she is. I’ve always cared about her.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her, if that is how she feels, if she thinks I’ve wronged her.”
It gave Ciara joy that her gamble was paying off. “Don’t worry, I don’t think you’ve wronged her, and I’ve decided not to tell anyone. I know what it feels like to want someone and have no control over your feelings.”
He obviously regretted talking to her, when he could have so easily avoided all this. “Is there something I can do for you, Ciara?”
“No, nothing. I’m on your side.”
His neck was red and marked with burst boils, like a teenager’s would be. It was something she hadn’t noticed before.
“It was a mistake. It has never happened with anyone else. I would never…so I had to stop it. For her sake. I told her she’s going to thank me one day, for ending it when I did. Right now she hates me, but she’ll understand eventually. She’s a bright girl.”
Ciara smiled at him. “I’ll talk to her, knock some sense into her.”
“Thank you, Ciara.”
They parted ways with a nod. He even looked back at her as he walked away. She knew he was breathing a sigh of relief, thanking the gods he didn’t believe in for sparing him this time. The next time he was going to have to be more careful.
Except there wasn’t going to be a next time. She had wanted to lull Eoin Brophy into a false sense of security, for only a few hours. He was going to sleep peacefully that night, and the next morning he’d be dragged into a meeting with the dean. All his colleagues at the English department were going to receive a carefully worded letter overnight, outlining the story Ciara imagined had played out with Teresa. It was what she hoped had happened between them. What she thought Teresa deserved to have happen to her. Ciara signed the letter proudly; she didn’t care for anonymity.
* * *
—
It upset her that all these years later she was still thinking about her professor. Especially now that she had unwittingly endangered her friendship with Mishti. Ciara didn’t know how long it would take for the dust to settle, for Mishti to be ready to talk. They’d never fallen out before. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Mishti telling on her; she didn’t regret her confession. Now that she’d said it out loud and someone knew, it seemed even more ridiculous. She couldn’t recognize the person she was, the person who thought Sean was a good idea.
The idea had first taken root when Bella was born, the idea that she needed a distraction. The sleep deprivation, the inexplicable crying at all hours, the mysterious rashes, pureeing and freezing vegetables, boiling and sanitizing bottles, making the house decent for Rita before she came to clean. And then there was remembering to hydrate, forgetting to shower, the strict diets she put herself on, no privacy in the bathroom, no privacy anywhere. Her body didn’t belong to her anymore. She’d resented Bella’s grotesque neediness. The carrying, patting, wiping, burping, cradle cap, pooping in the bathtub. Ciara didn’t want to feel the same way toward Finn when he was born. She wanted to do things differently this time around.
She couldn’t remember what life was like before the children, what she did when she didn’t have a baby in her arms. She’d grown accustomed to drinking cold cups of tea. Feeling unattractive and sexless. Until she decided it was time to start caring for herself.
She used to watch Sean out in the garden, sitting with his feet propped up on a lawn chair, book in hand. She hadn’t thought of Eoin Brophy in years, but she was reminded of him then. One afternoon Sean caught her looking, and she didn’t look away. Even when he put his book down and walked up to the hedge, she remained standing at her kitchen window, staring at him. He wanted to say something, but she wouldn’t make it that easy for him, so she didn’t go out and meet him. She was going to make him wait. She was giving him an opportunity to change his mind.
A few days later, they saw each other at the shop in the village. Sean had the two older kids with him, a basket in hand, filled with multipacks of toilet paper. Ciara had Finn, sleeping in the buggy. They were at opposite ends of the dairy aisle and stared each other down again.
His first words to her were “I’ve been thinking about you.” They still had a few feet between them, and he practically shouted.
“You’ve crossed my mind, off and on,” she shouted back. Anybody could have heard them.
It started that easily. Living innocently as neighbors, rarely even so much as waving across their gardens. Their affair began like it was brimming under the surface the whole time. Plans were made quickly; not much else was discussed. They both knew what they wanted, and she had liked that. Ciara had recently purchased the cottage, and she made the call to Liz about watching Finn.
It was supposed to be a bit of fun. Something to do while the fog in her mind cleared. This way she was going to have something to distract her from the state of things. All those comments and adoration on her socials only fulfilled her so much. She needed physical appreciation, and Sean gave her exactly that.
Self-care. That was what her brand was all about.
If Mishti had asked for details, Ciara would have admitted she enjoyed herself for a while. For the first few months, they only ever met at the cottage, and they did very little talking. She had no plans of getting to know Sean.
“Your skin is flawless,” he had said to her one afternoon. It was the first substantial thing he’d said, weeks into their liaisons.
They were lying on the lumpy cottage bed, naked. He was smoking a spliff beside her. She’d tried some of his weed before but didn’t like how it slowed her down and did nothing more. She preferred her pills—they knocked her out right cold.
“I look after my skin.” She eyed the ash he dropped on the floor.
“I’ll clean it up, as soon as I can find a dustpan,” he said.
“Don’t bother.”
“I’ve seen your videos,” he said. “On Instagram. They’re incredible, really. You’re a natural in front of the camera.”
“Thank you.” She slid out of bed, but he grabbed her hip with one arm and pulled her back.
“And this waist. This itty-bitty waist. Your body is…” He kissed her shoulders, and she laughed.
“I work hard at it.”
He forced her around and kissed her mouth, his tongue lapping greedily at hers, but she was bored. “How many women have you been with?” she asked, nudging him away.
Sean laughed, bringing the joint to his lips again. “Not as many as you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“Okay. Well, I had a reputation.”
“When you were young?”
“Jesus, Ciara. Yeah, in my youth.”
He settled back on the pillows, which were as rough and thin as cardboard. He looked annoyed for a moment, then took another hit and smiled. He was thinking about all the women scorned. “Okay, I’ll admit there were a few.”
“And what about Lauren?”
“What about her?”
“What number was she?”
“I thought we don’t discuss our partners.”
“Did we say that?” She was enjoying watching him get all riled up.
He scratched the side of his face. “There have been others since I met Lauren. She knows about them. What about you?”
She shrugged and got off the bed, and this time he didn’t try to hold her back.
“You’re not going to give me an answer? How many men have you slept with, Ciara?”
She put on her shoes first. Navy loafers. Then the lace lingerie she’d bought especially for the occasion. She wasn’t going to touch her secret wardrobe for this. Sean had his jaws clenched tightly as he watched her. “How many men since Gerry?”
She picked up the wrap dress from the floor and arranged it perfectly around her body.
“It’s just been you, Sean.”
He sat up in bed, dropping the spliff to the floor, where she could still smell its mulchy scent as it burned.
“Fuck! Are you serious?” He ran a hand through his hair. His smile made her want to eat her words. She regretted admitting it. She hadn’t planned on making him feel special.
He came to her, hooking a finger under her chin and guiding her face toward his. She let him undo the dress, take off her lingerie all over again.
“I’ve wanted to fuck you from the moment I saw you,” he groaned between smothering her with his mouth.
The first time she saw him, she thought he was entirely insignificant.
September 15
Lauren was six when she attended her first and last birthday party. She wasn’t invited to another one again. It was as though the village had collectively decided that they’d done their good deed for the decade by inviting her to the O’Briens’. Her parents either didn’t notice or weren’t curious why she didn’t have any friends or why she spent so much time crocheting with her gran. When they did see her, on Sunday evenings usually, her mother lectured her on keeping the house clean for her gran so she wouldn’t mind having her stay. Her father and Evan spent that time arguing loudly and slamming doors.
Lauren was fifteen when her classmates started having sex. Molly O’Brien was the first one, or at least the first one Lauren came to know about. The only reason she found out about it was that she’d seen the other girls making kissing faces at Molly when she went off with Johnny Fitzpatrick.
She saw them walking into the woods together one evening soon after this, and it almost felt like an invitation. They were going down the path that was overgrown, the one nobody took with their children or dogs. Lauren had been lingering in the woods alone when she saw them, then followed them at a distance.
For several minutes, she listened to Molly’s giggles from behind a tree. She heard the sounds of Johnny fumbling with his belt buckle and the rustle of clothes and shoes on crumbly leaves. When Molly’s voice turned to a whisper, Lauren stepped out from behind the tree. She didn’t want to look at them; that wasn’t what she was here for. She leaped for the bundle of clothes and ran. Johnny shouted and Molly screeched, but Lauren was already flying. One of his socks fell out of her hand, and Molly’s satiny padded bra wrapped around her forearm as she ran out of the woods. She wasn’t laughing; this wasn’t funny to her. It was war.
There were some whispers in school the next day. She’d wanted to stay home but didn’t want to worry her gran.
“You crazy bitch!” Molly confronted her at lunchtime. Her posse stood behind her but kept their distance, letting her take care of it herself. Molly’s sister, Daisy, looked like she was ready to rip Lauren’s hair off her skull. “You think I’m going to let you get away with what you did?”
Lauren flipped her off, the way she’d seen her brother do to their father. Molly came at her, and at first Lauren held her arms up in defense. The moment Molly put her hands on her shoulders, she knew what to do. She grabbed Molly by her ponytail and swung her around to the ground, where she fell on her face. Daisy and the others came shrieking to Molly’s rescue, too concerned for her welfare to worry about where Lauren had run off to.
So Lauren knew what it meant to grow up without friends, and the time had come to admit that she might be leading her children down that same path.
* * *
—
She stayed up at night thinking these thoughts, how she wanted a different life for her children. She stood over the sink, moving a crochet hook blindly across a hat for Freya that was nearly complete. Then one moment she was standing in her kitchen, listening to Sean snoring in their bedroom in the silence of a house with sleeping children. The next moment she was standing in Ciara’s garden with no shoes on. Blades of dew-wet grass were stuck between her toes, and Lauren turned to look back at her own house. She could barely see anything but its silhouette in the dark; there were no lights on. She couldn’t recall sneaking out of the house, but she had to have done it.
