Free Wandering in Exile by Peter Murphy Page B

worse and drove him deeper and deeper into that downward spiral. And in the morning as he downed a cure, remorse would settle on his shoulders. He was a piss-poor father and a total fucking failure as a husband, and he had his mother’s voice worming through his head and heart.
    “No, I don’t Jess. I think what I wasted was the time it took me to get to where we are today.”
    “You know, Jerry, I think that’s the most romantic thing you have ever said to me.” She looked happier than he had seen her since . . . the day he asked her out.
    “I still got it then?” He shouldn’t have said that. She deserved a bit more honesty from him. That was one of the things he wasted a lot of time trying to deal with. He shouldn’t have been afraid to show his true feelings. He was no better or worse than any of them. Even his parents. Even Jacinta. “I’m sorry for spoiling the mood and all. What I really wanted to say was I’m not good at that yet—you know—sharing my feelings and all.”
    “You know one of the things it took me a long time to get?”
    “What’s that?”
    “That we share our feelings in a lot of different ways.”
    “I know what you mean.”
    “I wasn’t talking about you, Jerry. I was talking about myself. You know, sometimes when I look back, I can’t understand why I spent so much time in hiding.”
    “Ah now, Jass. Don’t be getting all serious on me now.”
    “Let me just say this and then I’ll drop it. Okay?”
    “Okay then. Let’s hear it.” He didn’t want to be rude but sometimes, when she had a few glasses too many, she could go very dark on him, almost pulling him back down there with her.
    “I want to tell you that I’m sorry that I wasted so much of our time too.” She raised her glass for a toast. “To you and me, Jerry, for making it this far.”
    “To you and me,” he agreed as the warm summer sky looked more and more burnished. All of their hard edges were getting dulled and now they could get close without pricking each other. She was right to look at it that way. They had made it this far and things were only going to get better.
    “Jerry? What’ll we do now that Danny is out on his own?”
    “We’ll try to mind our own business for one thing. We’ll let him fall flat on his face a few times.”
    “But we’ll always be there to pick him up again?”
    “Of course we will. We weren’t the worst parents, you know? I know we made a few mistakes, here and there . . .”
    “Here and there?”
    “C’mon, Jass? What the hell did we know and now look at us. Sitting out in the back garden drinking wine and discussing our son. Who, by the way, is heading out to find his place in the world with a good Leaving Cert in his back pocket. There was many before him with less. Some of them didn’t even know how to read or write and they did okay for themselves.”
    “But he must get awful cold there, in the winter.”
    “He’ll be fine. He’ll figure it out—after wasting some time, of course. But he’ll be all right. And besides, it’s not what it was. We can jump on an airplane and be over to see him anytime you want.”
    “Could we really?”
    “Sure. We can go wherever you like.” He sipped his drink and measured the moment. “Did you talk to him about the business yet?”
    “I wasn’t the one who was supposed to ask him.”
    They had argued about it for weeks until they could both see that it was a chance they would be mad to miss out on. Donal was looking for a few shrewd partners. And Gina vouched for it. All they had to do was to borrow some money against the house.
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    Danny and Billie stopped at Harvey’s, just like they did every other Saturday night, coming home from the Windsor or wherever he was playing. He had started to do regular gigs with Frank and Jimmy. They played mostly the old shite, but they were good at it and the crowds were starting to like them.
    And Danny was getting better all the time. He even sang a few of his own songs,