The Rachel Incident(91)
“Yes,” she answers. “Dominic. The one you met.”
“So he’s still…?”
“Yes. We’re sort of. We’re together.”
I want to maintain a look of zero judgement. After all, her lying cheating husband was in a coma for some time, and would not be returning to his original personality. I had no idea what she was dealing with.
“He loves me. You know? He did then, too. He was married before but he’s not any more. We found each other again, a bit like you and your Carey.”
“And what about Dr. Byrne?” I was in no position to ask the question, but we had been through too much together. I needed to know.
“Well, we’re still married. And I’m his carer, officially. But Dominic and I live together now.”
I can’t resist digging more.
“Kids?” I say, without much tact.
“He has two.” She smiles. “Boy and a girl. They’re lovely.”
She looks, for a moment, genuinely happy. Relief floods my guts, because what a good stepmother Deenie must be. And God, how terrible it would be if she had nothing.
“I need to know, Rachel.”
She waits for me to volunteer information.
“Rachel, please.”
The Rachel Incident. The idea of being a figure in their lives, the same way they were phantoms in mine.
“The receipts,” she urges. “They were to your house.”
“Yes. But it wasn’t me,” I respond uncertainly. “It was…it was someone else.”
The slow, rocking bow again. Whatever colour Deenie had in her white face has drained out of it. “Who?”
It is twelve years ago again, and I am sitting on the couch in Shandon Street, weeping for my broken heart. My old professor amiably accepts my rage that he had dared to dock me for late essays when he was using my house for sex. James leans against the living-room wall, sternly telling Dr. Byrne to be kinder to me. Why can’t anyone love me like this? I had thought. Why are they making it work, when I can’t?
But that wasn’t making it work. Whatever came after was. Whatever Deenie and Dr. Byrne did or said or promised in the long marriage that followed me and James. A story I won’t ever know.
I put Shay back in his buggy. Fiddle with the straps, the clips, the little hat.
“I can’t tell you that,” I say. I unzip my handbag, take out my pen and paper. “It’s not my story.”
I write down his name and his email address. I know about making things work, too.
I say the same sentence that I have been saying for years now, each time with more pride. I tear the piece of paper from my notepad, and fold it in a square.
“My best friend is called James Devlin,” I say, sliding the piece of paper to her. “And he’s a writer who lives in New York.”
Acknowledgements
This book was written during the coldest and saddest part of the 2021 lockdown, and while I was on deadline for another book entirely. They tell you that you should never abandon a half-finished project in favour of a new one. Well. Sometimes you should. This is one such example.
Ryan Farrell is not James Devlin, but they have a few things in common: thank you for letting me write about those things.
Thank you to Natasha Hodgson for her expert screenwriting on Discs. You are the artist that James aspires to be.
Thank you to Ella Risbridger, who read every single draft of this thing, even when it was called Frogger. I truly don’t know how I would finish a book without you.
Thank you to Dolly Alderton, who taught me that the smallest moments can be cinematic.
Thank you to the only two WhatsApp groups I will ever respond to: The Tub and Monica’s Ass.
Thank you to Sarah Savitt, for letting me write this book instead of the other one that I promised to write, but didn’t. Thank you Bryony Woods and Andrew Mills for representing this book like it was their own firstborn. Thank you to Clare Gordon for being this book’s eleventh-hour midwife. Thank you to Jenny Jackson for seeing its potential.
Thank you, as always, to the whole team at Virago. Thank you also to Page Boy, whose intelligent notes always helped me see my own work more clearly, and sometimes resulted in a few last-minute changes.
Thank you to my family for always being there. Thank you to everyone who made those Cork years worth it: everyone who worked at HMV, everyone who visited our stupid little house, everyone who worked at The Bróg, everyone I stole a drink off.
Thank you to Gavin Day, for always taking the time to tell me what is in a whale’s head.
The acknowledgements are a part of the book where you must observe everything that went into the creation of the story. A sad fact of this book is that it revolves around the access—or lack thereof—of reproductive healthcare. With this in mind, please consider donating your time or money to Planned Parenthood, BPAS, or any charity that aids this cause.
A Note About the Author
Caroline O’Donoghue is the New York Times best-selling author of All Our Hidden Gifts, her YA debut fantasy, which has been published in more than twenty countries around the world. She has written for The Times (London) and The Guardian, and is the host of an award-winning podcast, Sentimental Garbage. She was born in Ireland and lives in London. The Rachel Incident is her first adult novel to be published in the United States.