James was grieving the death of his father, who’d mistrusted Michaela. Too dark a horse, he’d warned. She’d be the one to break him. James had told Michaela this in bed, laughing, after a good and unhurried sexual encounter, the night their daughter was conceived. The old man’s money paid for this trip to Ireland.
The two had begun putting things between them. The baby. Their need to work so much in order to afford rent in a safe area. Her focus on her work. His on alcohol; he’d started to hide a bottle behind the towels in their linen closet.
They hadn’t counted on their little daughter’s frustrated mood. On the verge of walking, the things she wanted to do and couldn’t manage. Stand. Run. Follow the Irish kitties she spotted skimming alongside the outside walls of the B&Bs.
They’d stop the rental car wherever they were when the baby’s nap time came. Michaela would transfer her to her stroller, and they’d find a pub for lunch. It was always a pub, James wearing that flat tweed cap he’d bought at the airport. It was he who insisted on the pubs, where he’d keep his cap on and try with hope in his eyes to engage barkeeps and locals.
Except that James always drank too much and ate too little. Whereas Michaela cleaned her plate and the rest of his. “Jack Spratt and his wife,” she always thought. She hoped James didn’t think of it. People were polite to the couple, but never engaged, never fussed over the apple-cheeked baby.
Now they’d had their lunch and strolled the main road of the town, known for its traditional music sessions. The baby was strapped, squirming, in her car seat. James and Michaela stood on opposite sides of the rental car. “Hmm… It’s impolite to speak during the long music sessions,” James read loudly from the guidebook. It didn’t matter. They were always tucked into bed by the time the music got going. Michaela herself had pondered leaving James and the baby and going down from their room. Once she’d started to leave the bed, only to realize what had awakened her: the sound of her husband in the bathroom, talking in beseeching tones to his dead dad.
“You know what? I’m going back to the pub and see where we can buy some milk,” Michaela called over the hood of the car. James, lost in his guidebook, ignored her. Inside the pub, the barman took the bottle from Michaela’s hands and filled it from a jug in the refrigerator. He slid it back to her and wouldn’t take her money. Michaela engaged in a little dream that the bartender would lean over and hold her face in his rough hands. That James would appear as a silhouette in the doorway. That seeing her cherished would engage James as in the old days. In the car park, Michaela sank into the car’s back seat to give the baby her milk.
The sky was heavy, hanging dark with unreleased rain. The plan was to visit the Cliffs of Moher. When they arrived at the empty parking area, Michaela said she was scared to walk down the slippery path holding the baby. They decided to take turns picking their careful way down the trail to view the breathtaking cliffs while the other stayed behind.
Waiting, Michaela reached to stroke their daughter’s cheek, but the baby swatted her hand. In the distance, James outstretched his arms in what Michaela had come to think of as his manifest destiny pose. And Michaela thought again about the barman and his rough hands at the small of her back, this time without James arriving to disturb them.
When they were both belted in, the weather worsened. Ahead of them beside the highway, a young couple sat on a boulder, each raising a thumb.
“Let’s pick them up!” Michaela said.
“Are you crazy? Can’t we just get back?” James’s aggrieved sigh sounded exactly like his father’s, or maybe it was the way he was looking at Michaela. Still, he indulged her request.
The young man and woman were German students, it turned out, alive with youth and the romance of travel. Their wet faces shone with mist. Their jackets were wet. The two piled into the back seat, flanking the baby.
“We decided to hike out to the cliffs together and eat a chocolate bar,” the man said. “Tonight, we will enjoy music in the town.” The woman nodded happily. Even the baby seemed charmed by their energy, their smiles. The woman stroked the baby’s cheek, and the baby grabbed her fingers.
Right after pulling onto the road, James scraped the passenger side of the car against a stone wall. Michaela felt it in her body and gasped.
“Fucking fuck,” James growled. Michaela imagined the young couple exchanging a look over the baby in her seat.
“Take this,” the woman said after a moment had passed, pressing the remaining chocolate in its wrapper into Michaela’s hand. Michaela broke off a square and waited for James to turn his head so she could put a piece into his mouth. There was silence as James pulled back onto the road. Then he said, “Magically delicious!” and the Germans laughed.
They dropped the couple off. The air that rushed in was muscle-clenchingly cold. So windy, too. Michaela could smell sour beer from James’s mouth, under the chocolate. “Sweet couple,” Michaela said. “Not so much younger tha—”
James jerked them to the low stone wall, then back into their lane. Michaela didn’t react.
When he emitted a small sound, she turned: his face was wet with tears. She glanced back at the child. She, too, would be all right. She took a bite of the chocolate. It really was superb; a small taste was enough to let her know that. The gold paper chocolate wrapper in her hand, she patted her husband’s arm, exactly the way she’d patted his father’s arm that last time in the hospital. It would be hard in the beginning, but there were better times ahead, her gesture said.