The Carnival at Bray Read Online Free Page A

nights, threw the family a going-away party. He ordered trays of roast potatoes and fried chicken from Papa Chris’s and let everybody drink all they wanted for ten bucks a wristband. All of Colm’s construction buddies came, and so did Laura’s friends from the neighborhood. Nanny Ei even got a few of the livelier members of the Altar and Rosary Society to stop by for Bailey’s and coffees. Maggie and Ronnie spent the night wandering around the bar and giggling at the idiotic behavior of the adults who had either forgotten or simply didn’t care that they were in the presence of children. It was only when the Irish construction guys started singing sad songs that Maggie got sad, too. Gingerly, as if she was touching a scab, she let herself wonder why Kevin hadn’t come. She couldn’t believe he wouldn’t even want to say good-bye to his niece, his goddaughter, his Maggie. She knew he was flaky, and that he didn’t show up at Christmas sometimes, or at Thanksgiving dinner. But this?
    And then, at the end of the night, when her eyelids began to feel like paperweights and Ronnie was already snoring away in the corner of a booth, she was jolted awake by someone forcing open the back door, and the bartender, Mikey, forcing it shut again, and Colm and Laura yelling in that shrieky way of the very drunk.
    â€œNever
forgive ’im,” her mother slurred, waving her cigarette wildly. “Don’t mess with mama bear.” Colm nodded. He gripped her thin waist; his right hand snaking down the long pocket of her tight black jeans to squeeze her butt.
    â€œIt’s only right,” he muttered.
    Through the window, illuminated like an angel in the glow of an Old Style sign, Maggie saw her uncle, his hair long and wild, his guitar strapped to his back as essential a part of him as a turtle’s shell. He pounded on the window like he wanted to break it until he found Maggie’s eyes. He pressed his face against the glass, his breath fogging the window. His mouth shaped one word—he was either saying “bye” or “why,” she couldn’t tell—and then, lifting his hand in a gesture of farewell, he turned on the heels of his black boots and walked away. Maggie, gulping back tears, shoved her way past all the drunk people, fists clenched, in the direction of her mother, who was slumped with Colm near the video poker machine.
    â€œI’m not going!” she screamed, grabbing her mother by the shoulder. But Laura didn’t even turn around. She hiccupped, once, and watery vomit splashed onto the floor between her legs. Maggie let go of her mother’s shoulder then, her rage replaced not exactly with pity, but with such a tired disgust with her whole pathetic family that she gave up.
    Kevin never came home at all that night, and the next afternoon, Nanny Ei drove them to O’Hare.

On a damp Saturday afternoon in late October, Maggie sprawled on her bed, leafing through an issue of
Spin.
To her mother’s absolute shock, Kevin had made good on his promise to send a care package to his goddaughter, and it had arrived earlier in the week, a large manila envelope stuffed with Twizzler’s licorice, a tape of Selfish Fetus’s new single, “Nightstick,” and all the September music magazines. “I can’t believe it,” Laura had said in wonder. “He never keeps any of his promises.”
    â€œMaybe not to
you,”
Maggie responded, snatching the package from her mother’s hands. As she marched off to her room, the sudden anger that had flared up inside of her was now replaced just as quickly with a sour feeling of guilt—these days, she seldom felt the same emotion for more than ten minutes at a time. She closed the door and settled onto her bed with the candy and the magazine, happy, at least, for the privacy of her bedroom. One of the nice parts about moving to Ireland was that Maggie had her own room for the