In the Unlikely Event by L.J. Shen

Seven years ago

Mal

Kath is pregnant.

I don’t even pretend to be surprised when she shows up at my door, sans the skimpy clothes, clad in her usual sensible cardigan and thick leggings and carefully combed hair, and rubs her flat stomach tellingly.

“May I come in?” She clears her throat.

She knows as well as I do that we fucked up royally that night. It’s not about the fact that I didn’t use a condom, or that I was completely ossified when it happened, or that she was a virgin (who’d always proclaimed, as long as I can remember, that she wanted to wait till marriage). And I don’t even want to touch the dubious-consent subject. But the worst of it is the fact that I had to tell Sean what happened—he was one of my closest mates, after all—and Sean and Daniel cut Kiki and me off from their lives completely.

Apparently, Sean had confessed his love to Kath one night. I was aware of his feelings, too. Bit of a shit thing to do, I admit.

Well, maybe a lot.

Kath and I deserve it—every nasty eye roll from the O’Leary twins and shake of the head from Maeve and Heather.

I could tell Sean I wasn’t fully there, that I didn’t know what I was doing, and it’d be the truth. My memory of that night is vague at best. But I don’t want to throw Kath under the bus, even if she ran me over with that particular decision.

Mam and Bridget went to visit Dez in Kilkenny for the month to clear their heads, and so I’m still tremendously alone. I write songs, sing them on street corners, get offers, and turn them down. Then I go home, and since my mates won’t talk to me, and since I stopped sending letters to Rory, as per her request, I no longer reject Kathleen’s attempts to spend time with me. I can’t afford to avoid her.

Sometimes she studies while I write.

Sometimes we feck with the lights off, always with a condom, and she lets me chant, “Rory, Rory, Rory.”

Most times, though, we share dinner and watch whatever is on the telly and I drive her back home before it gets too dark.

Today Kiki shoulders past me, into my living room, seeming to feel right at home. Unlike me, the living room is in a good condition. The rest of the house is pretty tidy, too.

She sits at the table, and I follow her with two glasses of water. I have no particular reaction to the news she delivers. I’m not happy, nor am I sad. I had a feeling it was going to happen. I’ve used condoms every other time we had sex—despite her protests—but apparently, I have super sperm, at least where the O’Connell girls are concerned.

Now, I’m just waiting to hear from Kath if she’s going to keep it or not. My chest feels tight, but I don’t want to assume.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, sliding the glass her way.

She takes a small sip, her eyes clinging to my face, trying to read me.

Why can’t I love her? Why can’t I love the girl who’d never leave me? The girl who’d die for me?

“Good. A bit nauseous, but good. Thanks for asking.”

“When’d you find out?”

“This afternoon. I went in to buy the test after school. Called Heather and Maeve to come with. You know Maeve is dating Sean now? I think they make a cute couple. Heather is fit.”

“So they know about the pregnancy,” I say, keeping my temper in check. And here I was under the impression that baby daddies are the first to learn of the news.

“Yeah. Hope it’s okay. I didn’t want to take the test alone, and I knew you were busking and didn’t want to bother you or freak you out for no reason. It could have been negative.”

“Are you going to keep it?” I ask, flat out.

Her face morphs from happy to shocked, her eyebrows dropping.

“What kind of question is that? Of course, I’m going to keep it. I’m bloody Catholic, Mal.”

I nod.

“I think it’s more a question of what are you going to do.” She sits back, folding her arms over her chest.

“I’m going to take care of it, of course,” I say, feeling my eyebrows jumping up in surprise. Was there even a question?

Kathleen huffs. Wrong answer, I guess. I try again.

“Both of you. I’m going to take care of both of you—financially and otherwise. It’s not going to be just you. I’ll find a real job. And I’ll have it half the time if you let me.”

“It’s not it.”

“Of course, it’s not.” I blink. Jesus. What more does she want?

“It’s a boy,” she says smugly, grinning now. “A little fella, Mal. I can practically feel it. Women know those things.”

I try to smile, but it feels weird on my face. Right. A boy. I reach across the table and take her hand in mine, stroking her inner wrist with my thumb.

“I mean it. You’re not alone. You won’t have to drop out of uni or anything. I’ll take care of him all the time, give him everything I have.”

She looks away. Sniffs.

“What?” I press.

She needs more, but I can’t figure out what more consists of. Suddenly, I want to give her whatever it is that she wants. Even if it kills me. Maybe I could start by not mumbling her sister’s name when I feck her from behind.

Probably, arsehole. Probably.

“I called your ma,” she says softly.

She’s not crying, though, which makes me wonder if it’s an act. I let go of her hand and sit back.

“You did?”

“I told her. I had to. I had to get her blessing, Mal. Plus, she’s been so down since what happened with Bridget.” Kath looks up and smiles, tears in her eyes.

Perhaps it’s not an act after all. Maybe Rory turned me into a jaded bastard.

“She is so happy to get a grandson, Mal. So is Bridget. Perhaps Dad is up there making things right for us. It’s like kismet. Like it was meant to be.”

Kismet.

I told Rory we should leave it to fate, and guess what? Fate flipped us the bird, turned Rory against me, and made sure I impregnated Kath. If fate exists, it is working extra hard to make sure Rory and I are never going to be together. Kath is still talking in the background. I’m catching up on her speech.

“…told her I completely understand. Your mam is very adamant we should get married, especially considering how religious I am, but I told her we could wait. I respect your wishes and know that making your mam and girlfriend happy is not a good enough reason to propose.”

Girlfriend?

It feels bizarre to argue the point that Kath and I are not a couple, especially considering she’s carrying my child. But marriage? Really? It’s not that I don’t like Kath; it’s that I like her for all the wrong reasons.

Because she is here and available and familiar and open-legged and reminds me of her half-sister. Those are quite horrible reasons to be with someone, let alone marry her. But now that we carelessly threw a kid into the mix, I know Kathleen is right. My family—Mam, brothers, sister—absolutely expect me to do the right thing by her. Even if I feel horribly tricked and cornered. Even if I can barely remember that night.

But you can certainly remember all the other times you fecked her with a condom, and sober.

“Say something,” Kathleen whispers, gawking at me.

“I…” Don’t want to marry you. “I need to think about it.”

“Okay.”

“But regardless, I will be there for you. For both of you. Always,” I add fiercely.

Of course, I don’t know what I’m saying.

I don’t know where life is going to take me.

And I definitely have no fecking clue how badly I am going to break that promise.

I marry Kathleen eight months into her pregnancy, her round belly looking like the gleaming moon in the shapeless, white dress.

It’s a small, quiet ceremony at Father Doherty’s church—late December, on the heels of Christmas. Kiki radiates happiness and triumph, Mam and Elaine are fawning over her, all my brothers and sister are weeping with pride and joy, and Sean and Daniel are here with Maeve and Heather—reluctant, but present.

During my stag party, which Daniel threw, he laughed and said Mam and Kiki finally wore me down and made me propose. I sipped my drink, smiled, and told him to feck off. But he wasn’t wrong, and that bothered me.

I promise Kathleen forever, she does the same, and we exchange rings. These past few months have been intense. Kathleen didn’t want to know the gender of the baby, but spoke only of that. She moved in with me as soon as Mam came back from Kilkenny with Bridget. I was there when the peanut kicked for the first time, I was there when it started moving in her belly—especially at night, and I was there when we could see the imprint of one of its limbs stretching her stomach.

Kathleen and I turned from sometimes-shagging to always shagging soon after we found out she was pregnant. I stopped calling her Rory, but still couldn’t face her when we were doing it. Thankfully, there were enough positions from which all I could see was her naked back.

After the ceremony, we go back to our house. Kath can’t drink, and I’ve been cutting back on alcohol, too. Mam and Elaine decided to move in together, since they’re friends and since Kathleen and I apparently need our privacy, especially since we’re about to welcome little Glen into the world.

About that name.

Aside from me being surprised and confused by the choice, Glen is a terrible name for anyone under sixty-five years old, and our Glen is expected to hit that mark sixty-six years from now.

We burst into the cottage, and Kath is taking off her big, white dress, groaning as she does. She looks like a cloud in that white thing, but I know better than to say that to her.

“Have you given any more thought to selling your songs?” she asks, removing the bobby pins from her hair one by one and clutching them between her teeth as she speaks.

I shake my head and fall to the sofa with a sigh.

“Mal,” she pleads.

I turn on the telly, crossing my legs. Cash in the Attic.

Bloody hell, Glen. You’re laying it thick, now, aren’t you?

“I don’t understand you at all.” Kiki sulks, removing her bracelets and jewelry with sharp, frustrated movements. “You’re a brilliant writer. We could get good money for them instead of relying on my da’s inheritance, which is already dwindling. We could actually buy real, expensive furniture for Glen’s room, as opposed to the secondhand crap we have now. I just cannot for the life of me fathom why.”

“Because my songs are mine.”

And Rory’s. She inspired them. No part of me wants to show the world what went through my head that day I spent with her, the day she left, and everything after. All the other songs I wrote and got offers for before her are no longer relevant. Rory changed me.

Kath doesn’t know any of this—not the story behind the songs, and not that being asked about them constantly feels a lot like being stabbed in the chest.

“You’re being so unreasonable.” She gales into the bedroom.

It used to be Mam’s bedroom. Now it’s ours. We moved all our furniture in yesterday. Well, I did. Our nightstands, bed, and Kath’s huge mirror that’s tilted so she looks skinnier. (“Don’t judge, okay? Ha-ha.”)

I’ve just closed my eyes to take a few moments to breathe when I hear a shriek from the bedroom. I jump to my feet immediately. My first thought is—the baby.

“What’s going on? Is the baby okay?”

“What in the ever-loving fuck is this?”

I’m temporarily taken aback by the fact that Kathleen has said the word fuck. I wasn’t even sure she was aware of its existence, let alone able to produce it from her good, Catholic lips. Of course, we’ve done the deed countless times, and in less than Christian positions, but…

Wait, what the feck is this?

A napkin. She is holding a napkin. The napkin.

The contract.

I snatch it from her hand and mentally kick my own arse for not putting it elsewhere when I arranged our nightstands by the bed. She must’ve gotten them mixed up and opened it to take out one of her gazillion hand creams, finding this instead.

“It’s nothing.” I shove the thing into the back pocket of my suit pants. Kathleen’s eyes are two big planets, pregnant with misery. She slaps my chest, then covers her mouth, her face twisting in anguish behind her hands.

“You two had a deal?”

“She doesn’t want me,” I say—a spur-of-the-moment reaction and definitely up there among the dumbest things to say to your newly wedded wife, who by the way, is also heavily pregnant.

But in my mind, I know this is the most efficient way to assure her the napkin means nothing.

Which, clearly, is also a massive problem.

The napkin shouldn’t mean anything, but not because Rory buggered off to another continent to shag other people and take pictures of them and write on the back of those pictures how much they suck in bed and in life and in small talk. (I’m paraphrasing here, of course.)

The napkin shouldn’t mean anything because I’m about to have a baby with my childhood friend, turned lover, turned wife.

Yes, arsehole. Wife.

I advance toward my wife. My patient, saint-like partner who groaned and took it when I called her something else again and again and again for months.

“We both moved on. And we are married, in case you failed to notice.”

I clasp her arms, draw her close.

She pushes me away. “Get rid of it,” she barks.

I let out a dark chuckle. “What?”

“You’re not deaf, Mal. Get rid of the bloody thing. It shouldn’t be in the house in the first place. I cannot believe you.”

She cannot believe me?

Can I believe her? After she fecked me when I was half-dead and a quarter functioning? Making me take her virginity, and coming back to ride my cock, always begging me not to wear a condom?

Calling Mam, manipulating her and Bridget to pressure me into this marriage, convincing Mam and Elaine to move in together?

But I’m not dumb enough to start a massive fight on our wedding day.

I smile instead. “It’s just a silly memory. I’ll tuck it in a photo album. You’ll never see it again, and we can move on with our lives.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Again with this word.

“Kiki…”

“Mal,” she mimics my voice. “I’m so sick and tired of people giving you slack because of some bloody, magical hold you have on them. You’re stalling.”

“I’m not stalling. I’m simply rejecting your request.”

“You’re a cunt, is what you are.”

“All right, then,” I say.

Can’t really dispute that. I certainly feel like one right now. But she is not the little saint she makes herself out to be, either.

She advances toward me and slaps my face.

I can feel my skin burning, my cheekbone aching. I clench my jaw. Something tells me I’m being a stubborn son of a bitch, that I should just get rid of the fecking thing. The napkin means nothing. It meant nothing from the moment Rory said goodbye. And even if it didn’t, her letter didn’t leave room for doubt.

Now, let’s play devil’s advocate and say there is doubt, that it’s not over on her end.

Let’s say we meet again, four years from now, because fate has a twisted, sick sense of humor.

Let’s say Rory is no longer a bitch from hell and decides to honor the contract.

Then what? I leave little Glen and Kathleen and my entire family—who will disown me for taking off with the Yank, no doubt—and go live happily ever after with the same girl who aborted my child without consulting me about it?

I stalk toward the kitchen, hearing Kathleen’s bare feet padding behind me. I stop by the bin, take the napkin out of my pocket, and crumple it in my fist, ready to throw it out, along with Rory’s stupid memory.

I clutch it above the open jaw of the bin, squeezing hard, my fist shaking.

Do it already. What is the matter with you?

“Do it!” Kiki yells.

I stare at my fist, the trashcan, the fist again, then lift my eyes to the ceiling, letting out a ragged sigh.

Feck you, Rory.

I withdraw my arm, yanking at my hair with the other one. I can’t do it.

I don’t notice when Kath jams her feet into her shoes, but I snap to attention when the door slams behind her. I take off after her immediately. It’s late, cold, and dark.

Kath slides into my car, revs it up, reverses, and then gallops down the path to Main Street. I chase her by foot, yelling at her to slow down. That only causes her to slam her foot against the gas pedal to get away from me faster.

As I run after my own car, my own wife, my own future, I contemplate stopping. I can see through the rearview mirror she’s in quite a state. She’s shaking and crying so badly, I’d be surprised if she sees anything. Maybe if I leave her alone, she will slow down.

Maybe if you leave her alone, she will finally find proof of what you haven’t said in so many words thus far: that her sister will always be the love of your life, and she’s the consolation prize.

Bile rises in my throat as I speed up. I try calling her, fumbling with my cell as I chase her, but she doesn’t pick up.

Pick up, pick up, pick up.

She’s heading straight to a busy, two-way intersection, and she’s not slowing down. I don’t know if she realizes what she’s doing. She is losing control over the vehicle. My eyes sting, my heart thrashes against my ribcage, and I’m a stupid bastard who is about to pay for his silly fantasy.

Everything happens in slow motion.

Kathleen ignoring the stop sign at the end of the road.

A lorry with a frozen meat slogan blazing straight into her path from her left.

Metal hitting metal.

Big bang.

Silence.

Silence.

So much silence.

The scent wafting in the air makes me choke on my breath. Metallic blood and burned flesh and the end of my life.

I round my smashed car and try to open the driver’s door, but the metal is too hot to touch, and there’s thick smoke everywhere. The lorry driver stumbles out, holding his right leg.

It’s Sean.

God, it’s Sean.

He looks sober—of course, he is, he didn’t drink a drop during the wedding because he had a shift tonight—and in hysterics, running his palm through his buzzed hair, his teeth chattering.

“Oh, Lord.” He runs toward me. “I didn’t see her. She came out of nowhere.”

He’s right. It wasn’t his fault. She did come out of nowhere. But why Sean? Why him? And why am I so irrationally angry right now?

“Is she okay?” he asks dumbly.

“The baby,” I gasp, wrapping my hand in my dress shirt and jerking the door open. The sting of heat scorches my skin through the fabric. “Call an ambulance.”

“She looks dead,” Sean blurts, obviously in shock. “I can’t go to jail. I don’t want to go to jail. Jesus.”

That’s what he is thinking about right now? Going to jail? Kathleen’s life is over. Mine, too. And the baby’s. Please, please don’t let it be the baby.

I have so much to say.

I say nothing.

Sean turns around, looking at me. He is pale as a ghost. “This wouldn’t have happened if she’d dated me. You hurt her, Mal. You did this. It’s all your fault.”

Kathleen is dead.

But the baby is not.

“It was a close call, Mr. Doherty. You are blessed,” the doctors say.

Yeah, I snort. I fecking feel blessed.

I look down at the small, purple thing. Only reason I don’t cry is because someone needs to look in charge.

I’m sorry, little one. So terribly much.

Kathleen was wrong all along.

It isn’t a boy.

It’s a girl, and she looks just like both of us.

All I can think when I look at her is not all the things I gained, or all the things I lost in the past year.

But how all of them are connected to Rory.

How she ruined everything.

And how badly I want to ruin her.