RULE OUT

Mary decided against Wicklow Town, and instead headed north by way of Avoca and Rathdrum in search of a chemist she’d never stopped in to that would have pregnancy tests on display, and there was no chance that a customer would know her. She could not at all be pregnant. It had been weeks since she had seen that fecker Ted. She’d had that horrific period the night the sister arrived. She could not possibly be. A demented mother and a defective child messing with her in the same week. She’d thought there was more than one place in Gorey where there’d be no one to recognize her, but it was Tuesday and they’d be closed before she got down that way. There wasn’t a place to pull over in Avoca, and by the time she was in Rathdrum, the Medical Hall was shuttered, and so she left it for another day.

She’d a text from Liam to ring him and she was sure it was the mam and dreaded ringing back. The call could wait. Or he could ring back. She supposed she’d have to ring yer man to get the straight story anyway, and she did have his mobile. It was a shame he’d gone for the Pakistani registrar in oncology , but she couldn’t blame him, in a way. He had the most amazing way of moving his hands. It was as if they were whispering to you along with him when he talked in that soothing sing-song cadence. They were both of them gorgeous and doctors and they’d found each the other, more’s the pity.

Mary did not want to call her brother, nor did she want to call her old flame. She wanted to drink a bottle of Chilean wine and go to sleep for a week. Sleep. If she could come to an agreement with sleep....