Sanctuary

Sanctuary Danielle McLaughlin (bio) A vase of daisies sat in the center of the table. The sort of flowers that grew at the edge of motorways between clumps of weeds. He and Emily were already jostling elbows and her cousin had yet to come down to breakfast. He put the vase on the floor. "Put the flowers back, Roy. " He gestured to the sachets of red and brown sauce corralled into a wire condiment cage. "I'm trying to make room. For Colleen. " "There's plenty of room, " Emily said, "and the flowers might cheer her up. " He took the vase from the floor, set it back on the table. "She's grieving, " Emily said. "No politics, okay? " At the airport, Colleen had emerged through Arrivals wearing a MAGA cap. "What if she's the one who starts it? " End Page 96 "Listen to yourself, Roy. " But he had no time to listen to anything because Colleen ambled into the breakfast room just then, wearing the same cap as yesterday, her eyes, also like yesterday, red and puffy. He asked her how she'd slept (she hadn't), if her daughter in Boston had called yet (no), then retreated to his grapefruit segments while Emily took over. It was a relief to sit quietly and spoon fruit into his mouth. Maybe it was age, or that business at the office on Valentine's Day, but lately he didn't trust himself to say the right thing. Not even when he was being nice. Especially when he was being nice. The B bamboo blinds; a beer cooler that can take 145 cans. I don't even drink beer, that was always Stanley. All those Saturdays spent in DIY stores. And now I'm left staring at all that beer. It makes you wonder what it's all about. " Emily reached across the table, took her cousin's hand. The flesh around Colleen's wedding band bulged as she gripped Emily's fingers. Was Roy expected to take her other hand? The free hand rested, fingers splayed, on the table, and while he hesitated over what to do, she began to talk about the January 6th hearings. How those good people on Capitol Hill had only been on a day off, a bit of praying, a sing-a-long, some of them were grandparents for Pete's sake. Her teeth tore at the toast in angry little bites, the way a cheetah from a nature documentary might rip the flesh from the rump of a gazelle. When he was a child, parcels arrived at irregular intervals from America, sent by an aunt who had emigrated in the sixties. He remembered an exquisitely patterned fabric bear, three or four feet End Page 97 long, with a multitude of pockets sewn to its front. Today it would be called a storage solution. The sheer abundance it had suggested! He hadn't had many things, at first, to store in those pockets. He began by keeping chestnuts and stamps torn from envelopes. On a school tour, he bought an old coin, thinking that could go in a pocket, and if he asked Santa for a fountain pen at Christmas that could occupy another. Inherent in the gift of this fabric bear was the presumption that he would have, or would soon acquire, enough things to merit it. This was what America gave him as a child: the tantalizing promise of plenty. And now America had sent him Colleen. ________ they were spending three days at a B&B in County Clare before bringing Colleen to their home in. . .