“And she was happy you weren’t coming alone.”
I turn to face him.
“What’s going on, Frederick?”
“He’s just a friend.”
“A friend you’ve brought to have dinner with your grandmother?”
“She insisted, after she met him at the fundraiser…”
“So you’ve already been out twice with this ‘friend’?”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“It doesn’t have to look like anything to me. But to her…” He nods over at my grandmother. “…To her, it already seems like something.”
“We’re just dating.”
I don’t have the heart to tell Larry about the mess we’re making.
“Is it a recent thing?”
I nod and take another sip.
“Long-term?”
I cast him a loaded stare.
“Understood…”
I doubt he really understands, but I keep that to myself.
“He seems like a good guy.”
“How can you know that? You’ve only seen him for five minutes.”
“He’s here, which already means a lot. You’ve never brought anyone here.”
No one excepthim.He was family. And apparently, still is. I’m the one who’s an outsider to them.
“She likes him.”
I look over at my grandmother, who’s chatting amicably with Sean, her hand resting on his arm.
“And she likes no one.”
I smile because it’s true: Granny never likes anybody. She didn’t believe in me and Colm. She could sense that he wasn’t for me, she told me, after he’d broken my heart. She had tried to warn me about him – about our relationship and the fact that he seemed more interested in my family than in me – but I didn’t want to hear it. I was young; I was naïve, and I was in love.
I should’ve listened to her.
“Frederick! What are you doing over there?” my grandmother calls over. “Come and sit with us.”
I get down from my stool and join them, sitting next to her, with Sean across from us.
“Sean was just telling me about the conference he took part in at Trinity last month. Did you go, too?”
“Me? I… I mean…”
