(Inspired by some conversations on the forum)

Peter had wandered through Ireland, nursing his grief, his rage, his despair, staying in the occasional small hotel, more often sleeping in a field if the weather permitted. He talked to no one; he studiously avoided churches, pubs, anywhere he might have come face to face with a memory. All he was aware of was pain, confusion, desperation. But the time had come, he thought, to go home, if there were a place to call home. Manchester, he supposed, where there was at least a place to stay. The last he had heard, his mother's house had not yet been cleared out, and he supposed the old hiding place still held a key.

He had tumbled into his old bed, slept, showered, slept again. He held off calling his brothers, not knowing what he was ready to tell them, not ready for family life. Perhaps it would be enough to say that he was home but exhausted, needing only to sleep, and not have anyone pressure him with decisions, conversations. Not yet, he thought. He needed to hold onto his feelings, not to be distracted or talked out of them.

Niamh had also been stumbling through the days. She had thought there might be some comfort in running the pub, but the familiarity only served to underline the difference, the absence of Assumpta. Everyone else, she thought bitterly, seemed to have moved on. After that first day, when she'd opened for business, and someone thought to toast Assumpta as well as herself, no one mentioned her lost friend. Had she meant nothing to the others? As long as the pub stayed open, they seemed not to miss her at all. Had this vibrant, beautiful woman, her oldest friend, her dearest friend, left so little behind that no one spoke of her, of her life, her death, the impact of all this on their village? She had tried once to say something to Ambrose, but he said, "Now listen, love, you have to let go. Life goes on, you know." She remembered saying the same thing to Father Clifford, and his response, "Live it." Peter, she thought sadly. I've lost him too, and he's the only one who would know what I feel, who would understand the impossibility of letting go. She did some research, and got the numbers for several Cliffords in Manchester, looking for Peter's brothers. She'd gotten several wrong numbers, and then had found Andy. He didn't know what had happened, but he knew that something was wrong. None of them had heard from Peter in weeks, and Father McAnally had called their Bishop to ask if anyone had heard from him. She had told him only that she needed to talk to Peter, when and if he turned up in Manchester.

Sitting in his mother's kitchen, Peter drank some tea, one of the few things he found left in the cupboards, and found himself wishing he could talk to his mother. Suddenly, he heard her voice, as clear as though she were sitting across from him, as if it were old times.

"I'm sure that, as a priest, you've told many people that it might help to talk about it."

"Yes, and I know now what a facile thing that is to say. How can it help? What will it change?"

"You, I suppose. Your burden lightened by sharing it with another."

Peter started. He heard an echo of Assumpta's voice . "A trouble shared…." He took a deep breath. "Would it surprise you to hear that I was ready to give up the priesthood?"

"Nothing surprises me, son. I've been watching over you for a while now. So you are in love. I knew there were feelings there, I could see it in your letters."

"Yes," he said simply. "But I had just come to terms with it. I finally had told her that I loved her. I think we were planning on getting married. And then, like that!" He haltingly spoke of what had happened. "I still can't believe it, that she's dead."

"Do you want to tell me about her, alive? Is it something you can talk about?"

Peter hesitated. Could he bear to talk about her? What would anyone think, if they came in, to see him talking to…no one, to this familiar, ephemeral voice. He began slowly, telling her how Assumpta had picked him up on his way into town the day he arrived in Ballykissangel. About her clear anti-clerical hostility, about their growing friendship, about her teaching him to drive. About the play. About staying up all night with the baby that had been left on his doorstep.

"She was beautiful," he went on, "and I always knew that I was attracted to her. But I felt I could handle that. I think it was my growing understanding of her position in the village that drew me closer to her. Like me, friends with everyone, but essentially alone. I faced, for the first time, the loneliness in being a priest. In Manchester, there were other priests around, and we shored one another up, encouraging the sense that what we were doing was important. Of value. There in Ireland, with my superior the only other priest I saw regularly, I wasn't quite so sure. He disliked me intensely….and I'm afraid I felt the same about him. I began to feel irrelevant to the real life of the people in my parish. Oh, they liked me well enough, and some of them respected me, but I was sort of… ornamental. `The priest.' And I came to feel most comfortable with Assumpta. `The publican.' Maybe more necessary than the priest! Surrounded by people, but like me, alone at the end of the day. It took me forever to accept it, but I was falling in love with her for a long time. I think she felt the same, but I pushed her away."

He went on speaking to the shade of his mother, of Assumpta marrying Leo, his realization of what he had done, what he had lost. He spoke of his efforts to keep out of her way, to respect her marriage, of her husband's confronting him. Of what this mother's death had meant to him, the realization that love is a gift, a blessing. And then of his final days with Assumpta, neither of them fighting it any longer. Of her sudden death, and the total lack of meaning since in his own life. The death of all that he had dreamed of, hoped for, came so close to having. And he found, in the comforting silence of his mother's kitchen, the faint beginnings of peace.

During the next week, Peter ventured out to see his family, who had been warned by a call from their priest that he had left Ireland, that something had happened. There had also been several calls, they said, from someone back there. A woman. She'd said only that she needed to talk to him, for him please to call. "Niamh," he thought. "Oh, Niamh. What could I possibly say to you?" He knew he wasn't ready to talk to anyone in Ballyk yet.

First, his family. He told them as simply as possible, and then, to his surprise, when they pressed him, he found he could talk to his brothers. Teasing was put aside, and they listened intently as he told them about Assumpta, about his love for her, just the way he had spoken to his mother. He was even able to laugh at some of the stories, though tears would follow. To his surprise, he allowed the tears to fall, and felt some healing in that .The anger seemed to have gone.

"I never knew you fellas were such good listeners," he said to them. "You'd make good priests."

"No way," Andy retorted. "One of you is enough!"

"Maybe one is too much?" He realized that he hadn't thought at all about what he was going to do, stay a priest, find another kind of vocation. For the first time, he felt it was all right, that there would be time for those thoughts and decisions. For now, he had to grieve.

Another week went by, and Peter began to feel that he might be coming to the end of his bottomless well of tears. His brothers had been remarkably patient, each of them willing to listen to his stories of Assumpta, and his reiterated conviction that they had been meant to spend their lives together. He had railed at the stupidity of her death, at his own passivity in letting so much time be wasted, time that they could have been together. He castigated himself, and the church that insisted upon celibacy for its priests. But he also spent some of the days in other labors, beginning to clear out his mother's house. All those years, he thought, of the family saying, "Put it in the loft," or "put it in the garage," or "Put it in the cellar," all of it now come home to roost. He worked alone most of the time, sorting, discarding, and cleaning. There seemed to be something healing about this process, putting an end to the past, holding on to what he could. The rest of the family came by in the evenings, to help decide on furniture, dishes, the silver, the books. Who would take what; keeping alive the memories of their childhoods spent in this house, what they could bear to give away, to throw away. Peter clung to the furnishings of his old room, unwilling just yet, to move out. Move on.

One morning, he suddenly remembered that he still had not called Niamh. Could he talk to her? Could he be of any help to her? Was she too, fighting demons? Were the rest of them? Slowly, still reluctant, he dialed the familiar number, and almost hung up while it was ringing.

"Fitzgerald's," a wan voice answered. He hesitated, his throat tightening at the sound of the name. They hadn't changed it then.

"Niamh, it's me, Peter."

Silence. "I've been waiting for you to call," she said in a tight, hostile voice.

"I know. I'm sorry. I just….couldn't." There was only silence. "Niamh, I know I walked away from you, but if you still
want to talk to me, I'm here now. Can you tell me….how you are? Ambrose? Kieran?"

"Oh, Father…." She began to sob. "I'm sorry. I'm having a very hard time. Everyone else is fine! No one talks about Assumpta, no one even mentions her name. I'm left with this image of her on the floor. I'm left without my friend, no one to talk to. And you gone too." She caught her breath, still crying.

"Niamh, I'm sorry. Do you want to talk, or should I call back another time?"

"No! Please, just give me a minute. Thank God, no one else is here, I'll stop crying. It's just such a relief to be able to say her name. Assumpta. Without Ambrose telling me I have to move on."

They talked for almost an hour, going over the horrors of the night Assumpta died, both weeping, until it was almost time for the pub to open.

"Peter….I can't tell you what this has meant to me, this chance to talk to you, to talk about her. I think maybe I can start to feel better. But I am so angry at everyone here, the way they don't seem to care."

"Maybe they need you to jump-start a conversation about it. Niamh, I know they all loved her, and I'm sure they miss her too. Maybe everyone grieves differently. I don't know. It's been hard enough to get myself on some kind of track to the future. It helped me a lot to talk to ….to my brothers, and now to you. I'll be at this number for another few weeks, before we put the house up for sale, so call me anytime. And try to forgive me, please."

"I have," she said.

That evening, as closing time drew near, Niamh spoke quietly to some of the regulars. As she locked the door, she leaned against it and looked at the questioning faces of Brendan, Siobhan, Padraig, Dr. Ryan, her father, and mbrose, who had come across the road from home, with a sleeping Kieran, after her call. "What's up, love?" he asked.

"What's so important I had to come over here?"

"Yeah, Niamh, is something going on?" asked Siobhan, her hands cupping her growing belly.

"Well, yes," she said, returning to her side of the bar and, opening a bottle, poured wine for everyone except Siobhan, looking defiantly at her husband, who squirmed uncomfortably. "Private party," she murmured. She put the bottle down and turned to look at them.

"I spoke to Peter today, " she said.

"Father Clifford? After all these weeks, he called?" Brian asked.

"Yes, and I understand now a little better. But it was I who needed to talk to him; I had left several messages with his brothers. I told him how I was feeling, about myself….and about all of you."

"Us?" That from several people, though Dr. Ryan merely swirled the wine in his glass, looking thoughtful.

"Yes, about you. I told him how no one would talk about Assumpta, about her life, about that awful night when she died, about what it's like without her. I told him how much I miss her, but how no one else seems to even think about her anymore."

"We all miss her," Siobhan said. " But we're not much for that kind of talking in Ireland, are we? Still, I'll tell you that I think about her a lot."

"Well, ya see, that's what Peter said, that maybe if I started a conversation about her, it would turn out that I wasn't alone in that. That maybe we could talk about it. About her."

"What do you want us to say?" asked her father.

"Whatever you want; whatever you want to remember, or don't want to forget."

Padraig took a sip of his wine, looking down. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we do need to talk. Just….where to start?"

"Wherever you want," Niamh said, a bit surprised at her temerity.

Brendan slowly put his hand up. "Well…I met Assumpta when she was a child, and she was always special to me. I think about her, I do, everytime I walk in here. And I have a book at home that she gave me as a gift. I take it down and hold it at least once a week. I guess I wasn't sure we wanted to bring up the pain of losing her. It might hurt too much."

Brian lit a cigar, defiantly meeting his daughter's frown. "You know I didn't like her when you two were little. She was such a tomboy, and I thought she'd lead you astray. I tried to get you to stop playing with her, but your mother…. well, she liked Assumpta, and her mother as well. I respected her as a businesswoman. But I thought she was too hard, too prickly, not much of a woman, not a woman to make a man happy."

"She was a beautiful woman!" Brendan said. "She was not happy, herself! When she was young, she was wound up so tight, miserable at home, no outlets for her intelligence, her spirit. I thought college would free her, and it did, I think. But her mother's death brought her back here. Remember how she changed the pub, cleaned it up, made it warmer, inviting, not just a place to drink? It was a pleasure to be here."

"Still is," Dr. Ryan said, looking at Niamh, who flushed. He sighed. "I think that you can all understand that I'll never
forgive myself… for not being able to save her. I brought her into the world, I tried my best to mend and heal her when she was growing up….and then, when she needed me most, I failed her."

"Oh, Michael," Siobhan said, putting her hand on his arm. "You tried your best, you all did!"

"Well, I failed nonetheless," he said. He turned to Brian. "I disagree with you completely about her not being much of woman. Too much, maybe, for most men, but I always thought that if she gave her heart to someone, it would be forever. Leo was not that man…but I think she was on the brink of it…..with Father Clifford. But I don't know that he'd want us to talk about it."

"He does!" Niamh said. "He wants us all to know that he loved her, that she loved him, that they hoped to get married!"

"Well," Brian Quigley said, looking into his drink, "I'm glad to know he'd gotten off the fence…..before she died. At least maybe she had that little bit of time to be happy. Didn't you all know? That they were in love?"

"I didn't want to know!" Padraig said roughly. "And now, when I curse myself for not having gone to that fuse box…..! I curse myself too for anything I did to make it harder for them!"

Niamh smiled, a bitter little smile. "I don't think any of us made it easy, did we? I mean, if they had come out and told us, how would we have acted? Would we have been their friends, would we have supported them? Or would we'd have been shocked, embarrassed?"

"Well, he was a priest!" Ambrose said.

"And she was still married to Leo," Padraig added.

"But those things could be changed!" Niamh said, pounding on the bar with both fists. "They were going to be changed! I ask you again, would we have stood by them?"

Long silences. Then Brendan said firmly, "Yes."

"Absolutely." Dr. Ryan.

Siobhan nodded. "Yes."

She looked at Padraig. He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Ambrose?"

"I'm with Padraig; I'm not sure. Well, maybe. I would have tried."

"Dad?"

He waved his cigar. "Yes, yes, sure. But I would have wanted them to leave Ballyk. Bad for business, that kind of scandal."

"Oh, Dad," she said dismissively. Then she looked around at all them in turn, with a little smile. "Now, was that so bad? Can we talk about her again? Can we remember her when she was a little girl, playing dollies with me? How all the boys in town had crushes on her when she was a teen-ager? How she came back after college and put this bar on its feet? How we all went to her with our problems?"

"I never went to her with a problem!" Padraig said.

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really? I seem to recall some rather intense conversations between the two of you."

"Well, yeah, maybe once or twice… about Kevin."

"She was the first one I told about being pregnant," Siobhan said softly. She looked over at Brian. "Hard? I don't think so! She really was a friend to all of us. I guess we weren't good enough friends for her to tell us how she felt about Peter."

"I'm not sure she admitted it to herself," said the doctor. "Not any more than he did. I think they were just coming to the point where they couldn't deny it any longer."

"That's what he said," Niamh added. "I told him that we don't even have a grave, that Leo took her body away somewhere."

"He had her cremated," Dr. Ryan said softly. "And took the ashes with him, I guess."

"D'you think he'd let us have some, to bury here?" Niamh wondered.

"Yeah, right, and who's going to ask him?" That from Brendan. "He wasn't crazy about any of us!"

"Maybe we could set up a sort of memorial to her," said Siobhan. "In the graveyard, with her parents. Or on the mountain, where we had her wake, put up a little stone, so she'll know….well, we'll know, that we honor her memory."

This idea struck them all as a good one, and they talked a little while longer about how to go about doing it, and then, one by one, they drifted out, each turning to Niamh as they left, saying, "Thanks, Niamh."

As Peter and his family finished up the task of emptying his parents' house, he had to confront the other task he dreaded… deciding what to do with the rest of his life. He had finally gotten himself to his bishop, he was seeing the priest-psychologist the Church insisted on, he had agonized, and had come to some tentative decisions. He felt that it would be hypocrisy for him to continue as a priest, given that if he had the chance, he would choose to spend his life with Assumpta. On the other hand, he wasn't sure what else he was fit for. The therapist suggested that while waiting to be released from his vows, he take some courses in pastoral counseling. If he did leave the priesthood, he might find work as a counselor. He didn't think he really had anything left to give to others, but he agreed, and he found the classes of at least some interest, though everything brought him back to his grief and longing. He wondered what a counselor would have suggested to the two of them, he and Assumpta. They were so different, and yet he was sure that where it really mattered, they had the same values, and he was also sure that his love for her would have surmounted any problems. He believed they would have had a long and happy marriage. If only...

Back in Ballykissangel, Niamh was slowly coming to terms with her friend's death, and she took comfort in the fact that since their talk, the others were able to mention Assumpta from time to time. There was nothing morbid, just occasional comments about something she would have said, with accompanying laughter. One evening, a tourist said something patronizing about their tiny village.

 "Can you imagine what Assumpta would have said to that woman?" Padraig said, and the others whooped.

Niamh looked up from the bar. "I've been cleaning out her room."

"Oh, Niamh, that must be very hard, why didn't you ask me to help?" Siobhan said.

"No, actually, I've been okay. You know she wasn't very sentimental; there wasn't a lot she'd saved, so it's mostly clothes and stuff. I'm giving those to charity, but I thought if you want, any of you, you could take something of hers to have. There are a few pieces of jewelry, some books. I'm going to ask Peter if there's anything he wants."

"Have you talked to him again?" Brendan asked.

"Oh yeah," she said. "I talk to him once a week or so. He always asks about all of you. He's taking some counseling courses, thinks he might get a job in a parish not too far from his family. He'll have to move out of his mother's house soon; it's been sold."

"Poor guy. He really will be homeless, then," Brendan said thoughtfully. "I guess he doesn't want to come back here, but this was his home."

"I asked him if he would come back," Niamh said. "And he said I should ask you what you thought he'd say."

"Never say never", Brendan said. "That's what he said when I asked him, when he was leaving. God, you never saw a man so sad that day."

"I think he's doing a bit better," she went on. "Maybe he's ready for some more calls from here. I'll give you his number, any time you want it, any of you."

(This is as far as this story wants to go. It can be the background for anyone who wants to have Peter available to Niamh and Ambrose for marriage counseling; for those who just want Peter back in the lives of the others, even if Assumpta can't be.)