Chapter One
17, March 2020
Dublin, Ireland
Positive COVID-19 Cases: 169
Deaths: 2
"Oh shitballs!" Cassie exclaimed, hurriedly picking up the notebook she'd been writing in, hoping to rescue it from the pond of milky tea that was swiftly spreading across the granite counter top. She stood up and reached for the roll of paper towels next to the sink and pulled off four pieces.
"Sorry Mama," came a small voice from around the corner. Finn poked his head around the door frame, looking at her with blue eyes the size of saucers.
"Little Dude, I told you before. We can't play with balls in the house," she told him calmly. "Come help me clean this up, please."
Finn sighed and walked over, dragging his socked feet across the hard wood floor. He took several towels from her as she lifted him to sit on the counter.
"Mama, when can I go back to school?" he asked, his small hands wiping in clumsy circles, spreading the liquid around more than sopping it up.
"Not until the beginning of April," she replied. "Its closed right now."
"But why?" he asked, handing her his sodden paper towel. She gave him a new one.
"Because all of your teachers and friends need to keep from getting sick," she explained. "Remember how Mama told you about the little germs that are going around?" Her son nodded. "Well, if you catch them, you could get really sick. And we just want to make sure that doesn't happen to you - or anyone else."
"But the doctors can fix you, right?" he asked, tilting his head to look at her.
Cassie watched drops of tea fall back onto the counter top from the soaked paper towel in his hand. She wanted to be honest with Finn - it had always been her policy up to that point. There was no sense in lying to him about things when she could give an age-appropriate answer. But this was new territory. Telling him that doctors knew how to fix this when they didn't seemed like giving false hope. But she didn't want to terrify the child into thinking they were in the end days. She sighed, choosing her words carefully.
"The doctors are doing everything they can for people who catch the germs," she told him.
It wasn't a total lie; the doctors were doing everything they could to help people who were catching the illness. But 'everything they could' seemed to be palliative care at best at this point. There was no cure. There was no confidence. There was apparently barely any survival. And Cassie was terrified.
This answer seemed to placate Finn and he nodded. "Can we go for a walk?" he asked.
Cassie looked at the notebook. It had a list of tasks she needed to get done that day and so far only one had been crossed off: unload dishwasher. There were at least a dozen other things she needed to complete. Most of them were basic housekeeping tasks, but at least three were related to publicity for her latest novel.
Finn's face fell when he saw hers and the wave of failure washed over her before he even opened his little mouth. "You're too busy," he said simply.
"I'm sorry, love. I really am," she said, with a sigh. "Mama's just got a lot to take care of today. But maybe later? After your nap?" He nodded and allowed her to pick him up from the counter and set him down on the tile floor. "Maybe you could color for a bit? A new coloring book came yesterday. Its on your art table," she suggested.
"Okay!" his face lit up and a sense of relief came over her as he dashed out of the kitchen and began to climb the stairs to the next floor.
The guilt wasn't normally this bad. Usually, he spent the mornings during the work week in his preschool classroom and she was able to work uninterrupted for several hours. But since the closings a week prior, her typical routines had gone down the drain. She'd fallen behind on her word counts and had to reschedule a meeting with her editor twice now.
Cassie looked at the list again and a moment of panic rushed through her when she saw the item on the last line: IG Live @ one PM. She glanced at the clock. It was eleven-forty-five now.
Shit.
She had an hour and fifteen minutes to get Finn lunch, take a shower, and make herself look presentable. In her idiocy, Cassie had announced an Instagram Live several days beforehand in an attempt to provide a distraction from the chaos in the world and do publicity on her latest book. And of course, she'd done next to zero preparation for it.
At least you're consistently unprepared, she told herself as she dumped her half-full mug of cold tea into the sink, balancing the empty vessel precariously on top of several plates. She shoved the sodden paper towels into the mostly-full bin, pushing the top of the garbage down as far as it would go. Finn was making his way back down the staircase as she looked up, coloring book in one hand, the smooth oak banister in the other.
"What do you want for lunch, Bug?" she asked him.
He crinkled his nose - his father's nose - but smiled. "I'm not a bug," he laughed, hopping off the last step.
"Yes you are," she said, gathering him into her arms and tickling him, making him drop his coloring book. His peals of laughter bounced off the exposed brick walls and high ceilings. "You're my little love bug," she said, growling at his neck playfully as she picked him up into her arms. "What do you say?" she asked.
Finn swiped his blond curls out of his face and thought for a moment. "Cheese toastie," he said matter-of-factly.
She nodded. "And what else?"
He thought again. "Banana. Carrots."
"Of course, kind sir," she replied, putting him down with a flourish. "Go wash up. It won't be too long."
He trotted off to the wash room at the other end of the hallway and Cassie turned to the task at hand, pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. She worked quickly, getting butter melting in the frying pan as she prepped the sandwich. An ambulance wailed past on the street below and she looked up.
The white brick four-and-a-half-story terrace house sat on the banks of the River Liffey in Smithfield, in the heart of Dublin. When she'd bought the building a year beforehand, it had been divided up into several apartments. After the last tenant moved out, she began the painstaking process of remodeling it to fit her needs. The café on the first floor remained, but nearly everything else had been changed.
She'd wanted more of an American style kitchen after years of the smaller ones in typical UK houses, so she'd insisted on turning the entire front room of the second floor apartment into one big kitchen. The contractor managed to save the marble fireplace, though it was essentially useless to her now. The ones in the living room directly upstairs and in the main suite on the fourth floor were still operable, though.
Embracing the tall ceilings, Cassie asked her designer to make the room feel as light and bright as possible without getting too modern and cold. The result was an English country kitchen with floor-to-ceiling French gray cabinets, stainless steel appliances, and white granite counter tops. The hard wood had been stained a deep coffee brown, grounding the whole room. An island stood in the center of the room and two bar stools covered in plush gray fabric were parked at it. Two large windows provided a view of the buildings on the other side of the river. From the upper floors, you could see the river and as it rushed past below. A pantry-cum-laundry room took up a back corner of the room. The faded russet brick had been left exposed on all of the exterior walls in the house, making it feel slightly industrial.
The smell of toasting bread, melting cheese, and butter filled the air. Cassie pressed down on one side of the sandwich before flipping it with the spatula. Finn reappeared, the front of his shirt streaked with water. She did a double take.
"What happened, bud?" she asked, picking him up and putting him in one of the bar stools.
"It 'sploded," he sighed, pulling the wet fabric away from his chest with a wince.
"Yeah that happens when we play with the faucet," she told him. "Arms up." He lifted his arms up obediently. "We'll put something else on when we go upstairs for your nap." She pulled the sandwich out of the skillet and turned off the burner. "We can go for a walk to the park with the big slide if you want."
Finn's face lit up. "The one that makes me go zoom?" he asked, watching her slice the sandwich in half and put it on a plate next to carrots and half a banana.
Cassie nodded. "The one that makes you go zoom," she said, sending up a silent prayer that the park across the river hadn't been closed yet. The last thing she needed was to disappoint her son even further. The knife was already lodged in her heart; there was no need to twist it.
She slid the plate across the island to him and crossed the room to dump the soiled shirt into the growing pile of dirty laundry in the laundry room - item number ten on her to-do list.
"Mama?" Finn asked, his small voice muffled by food.
"Hmm?" she replied, putting things back in the refrigerator.
"Am I ever going to go back to school?" he asked.
Cassie turned to face him. "Yeah. Of course you will. Everything will be back to normal soon."
I hope, she thought. She took a bite from the other half of the sandwich, realizing this was likely the first thing she'd eaten all day.
"What about Papa? Are we going to see him soon?" he asked, biting into his sandwich again. "And Gran? And Louie?"
Her heart quickened slightly at the thought of her father and in-laws, all in different countries away from her. She'd planned a trip in a couple months to see her father in the States. Surely all of this would be back to normal by the summer time, she told herself.
"Of course!" she replied with a playful scoff. "We'll go see all three of them over the summer, just like I told you last week."
"And we'll ride in a big plane that will fly over the water," he said, holding his half-eaten sandwich up in the air as if it were an airplane.
"Mmmhmm," she replied, walking around the island and running her hands through his unruly pale curls. "And we'll ride the ferry over to Liverpool and drive over to see Gran and Louie."
Her husband's mother, Carole, and stepfather, Louie, had been there for her from the beginning. It had hurt to leave them behind, but the situation with the press had become untenable and Cassie did what she thought was best - moving herself and her son out of the country.
"And I'll get to spend my birthday at Daddy's old house, with Gran and Louie!" the toddler exclaimed with a laugh.
Cassie nodded. "You will. And I think Gran will make you a big chocolate cake and Mama will take you to see where Daddy used to play football."
"Old Tafford!" he smiled.
"Old Trafford, yes," she laughed, ruffling his hair again. "Eat your food, please. Mama needs to get a load of washing on."
Seizing the opportunity, she began to separate the pile on the floor of the laundry room.
"Mama?" Finn called.
Cassie stuck her head around the door. "Yes, Bug?"
"Where is Daddy?" he asked.
And there goes the knife, twisting, she thought with a wince.
It was a question he'd asked at least four times a week since he started school and no matter how many times she heard it, the pain of the truth always felt fresh.
"Daddy is in here," she said, crossing the room and touching Finn's bare chest. "In your heart. And in Mama's." She touched hers over her faded black t-shirt.
No matter how many times she answered him, it never got easier. It would have been easy to tell him that Will was in heaven or something like that, but neither she nor Will were religious and it felt like a giant cop-out to fill her son's mind with images of an imaginary place just because it was an easy answer. So she'd settled for the simplest one. As he got older she figured she'd need to offer a more complex response, but for the moment he was satisfied.
She returned to the laundry and got a load started. Finn was halfway through his carrots when she came back. She finished the rest of her sandwich half and tried to knock out some of the dishes in the sink. Before she could get three plates into the dishwasher, her phone rang.
"Shit," Cassie cursed quietly and rushed to find a dish towel to wipe her hands on. The phone was on the fourth ring. "Finn, answer that, will you?" she asked, hastily yanking open drawers, hands dripping.
"Hi," he giggled, as the phone connected.
There was silence on the other end of the call for a moment. "H-hello?" the voice asked.
Cassie checked the caller ID. It was Nate, her agent. "Hi Nate," she called, finally finding a clean towel in one of the island drawers. "What's up?"
"Oh - I - hi, Cass," Nate answered, confusion in his voice. "I thought - never mind."
"That was Finn," she said. "What's up?"
Finn giggled and she put her finger on her lips, smiling at him. He copied her and tried to stifle his giddy laughter.
"Just checking in to confirm you were still doing the IG Live in an hour," Nate said.
"Since when do you care what I do on my social media?" she asked.
"Yeah, since when do you care?" Finn giggled.
Cassie stifled her own laugh at her son's sass and picked up her phone, taking it out of the kitchen. "Sorry, Nate," she apologized. "But really, when do you care about what I do on social media? That's Stella's job."
"I'm just checking in," he replied.
She walked into the dining room and leaned against the large wooden table. "We're fine - mostly. Finn is home, obviously."
"Sarah told me you haven't met your deadline," he said.
"Yeah, well in case you hadn't noticed, schools are closed here. So I've got to deal with a toddler all day," she answered, lowering her voice. "Its not exactly like I have a whole lot of time to write. Sarah can suck a big one, as far as I'm concerned."
"Put down the hackles, Cass," Nate soothed. "We just want to make sure everything is okay. You've literally moved to a new country, on your own, with a toddler." His British accent was clipped and proper.
"I moved four months ago!" she sighed. "Things are fine. We're doing fine. Everything is -"
She was cut off by a crash from the kitchen and whipped around toward the noise.
"Everything is fine?" Nate finished with a chuckle. "Let me guess, you'll phone me back?"
"Yeah. I gotta go," she said, ending the call and wiping the grease smear on the screen from Finn's finger off on her sleeve. "You okay?" she called, rushing around the corner.
Finn had knocked his plastic plate onto the floor, but it was mercifully empty. "I made a mess," he said, his voice apologetic.
"Its fine, Bug," she bent to pick up the plate and tossed it into the sink. It ricocheted off the pile there and slid back to the floor. She waved a dismissive hand at it and sighed. "Let's get you cleaned up and up to your room."
She lifted him down onto the floor and followed him down the long hallway to the bathroom at the other end of the house. They passed the dining room, divided from the hall by a built-in floor-to-ceiling shelving unit that ran the length of the staircase. At the end of the hallway a powder room and a mud room of sorts stood at the top of the stairs from the first level with a balcony overlooking the small concrete patio where she parked her car at the back of the house.
"Wash your hands, please," she called after him.
The house was long and narrow, but it worked for her. The renovations made it seem much larger than it looked from the outside and it had a certain homey touch despite its urban location. It was the first place that had been truly hers. Her first flat in Manchester had been rented. Then after she'd met Will, she'd moved in to his house. After his death, she'd moved into London to a flat in Mayfair that she rented. She'd never had her own house or apartment and when considering her options for the move, ownership was her main choice.
Staying in Dublin appealed to her for a number of reasons - mostly because she couldn't see herself living in the countryside on her own. She liked being close to everything and knowing there were people around her. Cassie figured that Finn would grow up in the city, like millions of other kids had done all over the world. They'd walk to the shops and he'd play at the park and they'd live in their own little world without fear of photographers hounding every step they took. Plus, it was an easy trip to Manchester when she wanted to see Will's parents or if they ever wanted to come see her.
Finn reappeared and Cassie followed him up the steps to the fourth floor, past the living room and guest room on the third floor. His room was at the top of the steps, near the back side of the house. She'd had it painted in a pirate theme with a mural of a pirate ship sailing across rolling wave, a lonely island on the horizon on one wall and fluffy white clouds dotted across the ceiling. A twin bed with a thick mattress and several pillows was in one corner, facing large double windows that looked over the alley below. It wasn't the best view, but the room was quiet and well-insulated from the street noise.
She grabbed a fresh shirt from the wardrobe and helped Finn put it over his head before lifting him into his bed.
"Mama, I can do it," he insisted.
"Alright, sorry," she chuckled, placing him back on the floor and allowing him to clamber up into the bed with all the grace of a drunk bear cub. When he was situated, she pulled the blankets up to his chest.
"You promise we'll go to the park after I wake up?" he asked, stifling a yawn.
"Yes, Bug. I promise," she replied. She pressed a kiss to his forehead. "Love you big as the sky."
She pulled the black out curtains over the window, casting the room into darkness.
"Love you big as the sky, Mama," Finn replied.
There were times when Cassie had wondered if she'd done the right thing, if all of the struggling she'd been through after Will's death had been worth it. These moments reminded her that they were.
"See you when you wake up, Bug," she said softly, turning on the white noise machine on his bookshelf and closing the door behind herself.
She checked the time on her phone and cursed quietly. There was barely time for a run through the shower. Cassie dashed down the hallway to her room and around the corner into her bathroom. After a quick hose off, she felt slightly less grimy. At twelve fifty-five she was running up the staircase to the loft where her office was. By twelve fifty-six, she was setting up her phone and by one o'clock, she was starting her Live.
"Hello everyone!" she said into the camera, hoping she didn't look too atrocious. "We'll wait for a few moments for everyone to join us."
She watched as the notifications flooded in and people joined the event. She rustled around on her desk, trying to get her laptop open. Stella had sent her a list of topics to discuss regarding the new book - as well as things she couldn't mention. It was pretty standard practice at this point for Cassie. She'd released eight books so far and her latest, We Are All Born Dying, had just come out three weeks ago.
The book had been highly anticipated and gotten rave reviews from all the right people. According to Nate, sales were through the roof. She'd spent the last month doing press, mostly interviews with literary magazines and websites. There had been a photoshoot with a photographer for The Guardian as well as one for The New York Times.
Her career had skyrocketed after Will's death, particularly in the UK where he'd been revered for his prowess on the football pitch. The British press had covered the investigation into his murder for weeks, running headline after headline with every minute detail the second it was released - or leaked. And Cassie's name had always inevitably been mentioned. That had been part of the reason why she'd left England. It was a lot harder for the press to hound her when Ireland didn't really have much of a paparazzi culture to begin with.
Sure, she'd had a few run-ins so far with fans that recognized her and asked for autographs or photos, but they had always been polite and respectful. Photographers weren't parked on the sidewalk outside her house or following her home from the market. She and Finn had been photographed exactly once when out at a park and that photo hadn't even made it to the press because she'd flipped the photographer the bird for a solid ten minutes, resulting in shots that were unusable for print.
Authors didn't really get a lot of attention in general. Maybe they'd get a couple articles written in bigger magazines or appear on a talk show if they were well-known. But it wasn't a career that saw a lot of press attached to it. For the first few years of her career, Cassie had enjoyed relative anonymity.
Her first book had come out when she was sixteen, made it to the New York Times Bestseller list, and gotten high praise due to its mature subject matter. But within a couple weeks, the attention died down and she'd been back at school like normal. In fact, even after releasing a new book every year before graduation, she still barely registered on anyone's radar. She had a bit of a cult following on social media, but that was mostly it.
It wasn't until she'd met Will that things really started to change for her. Suddenly she was appearing in the tabloids whenever they were out and about. The whole WAGs focus had brought Cassie into a world she was completely unfamiliar with. Suddenly she had people stalking her on campus and wanting her comment on ridiculous subjects. The press was constantly trying to create drama between herself and the partners of other players. After Will's murder, it escalated further.
"Hello again, everybody! So nice to see you guys. I hope all of you are keeping well," she said, offering a smile. She'd done about a thousand of these Lives so far, yet she never quite got over the awkwardness of talking to a camera on her own. "How are things going for everyone?"
A sea of responses flooded in, most being the usual 'good' or 'okay'. A few were wishing her well and asking about Finn.
"I know things are really confusing right now for everyone, but I'm hopeful that this will settle down soon and we will all be able to get back to normal," she continued. "I wanted to give you guys a chance to ask me some questions about the latest book - or really any of my books, if you'd like. I know some of you had sent in some questions through my Twitter, so I'll get to those. But if you didn't, ask here. I'll do my best to answer them as I see them."
She scrolled through the questions on her Twitter feed.
"Okay, this first question is from Twitter. User BloodAmber20195 asks, How is life in Ireland?" Cassie smiled. "Its going well, thanks for asking. We moved in December and it was nice to have Christmas in the new house. I can't wait for the summer when things dry up a bit and we can get out more to explore."
She saw several comments on the feed praising the new book.
"Oh thanks so much, guys. I'm really glad you enjoyed it," she smiled. "It was a little different on the launch this time, but I'm happy you guys are liking it. That really means a lot."
The live continued with her answering questions about what she'd been up to since her last Live a month prior and a few asking about how to get started in writing.
"What's my favorite book?" Cassie read from the bottom of the screen. "Honestly, I don't have one," she thought for a second. "Actually, that's not true. When I was little, my dad used to read me The Velveteen Rabbit all the time. So I think that would probably be my favorite book."
A question at the bottom of the screen caught her attention. It was from another Official account. The blue check mark was not something she was accustomed to seeing among her fans during these Lives. Sure, she'd had a few famous people talk about her work, but they rarely directly contacted her or interacted with her outside of formal social events.
Hozier.
She knew who he was. Most people in Ireland did. It was odd that he'd be messaging her, though she'd heard that he was very into reading.
Maybe he's just a fan like everyone else, she thought. There's no rule that says he couldn't be.
She read the question again as it rose up the screen, trying to keep her face a mask as she considered her answer.
Do you consider any Irish authors to be influences of yours?
Simple enough.
"Do I consider any Irish authors to be influences of mine," she repeated. "That's a great question, especially given the day," she chuckled. "I feel like the expected answer is James Joyce," she chuckled. "But honestly I hated Ulysses when I read it in school. I think I'd have to say C. S. Lewis probably had a bigger impact on me. I remember reading a lot of his works as a child. More recently I really enjoyed The Abolition of Man and The Four Loves. I really recommend you guys check them out. C. S. Lewis did so much more than the Narnia series. Till We Have Faces is another great one. I think you'd like it."
She was careful not to directly say who the question was from. The last thing she needed was for people to think something was going on between them or to freak out. Cassie had been there and done that and had zero interest in fueling any rumor mills.
The rest of the Live went as they usually did, with her dodging questions that were too personal and ignoring all the messages from creepy men who thought saying she had "a nice rack" was flirting. By the time she signed off, thirty minutes had passed and she felt as though her social battery was on zero and she desperately wanted a nap.
***
Cassie sighed as she settled into her bed, freshly showered. Lights from passing cars below flickered across the champagne colored walls behind her sheer curtains. After her Live, she'd finished a load of laundry and loaded the dishwasher. Finn woke up just as she tried to prep dinner and she kept her promise, walking with him across the river to a nearby park. They'd played there for an hour and a half before coming back home.
After dinner, he had needed a bath and insisted on watching several episodes of Peppa Pig. She'd tried to get some work done on her laptop, but Finn kept asking her questions every two seconds and interrupting her flow. After he went to sleep, she managed to crank out five hundred words - about four thousand short of her daily quota. When she reread what she'd written, she'd been horrified by it and deleted it. Back to square one.
Another ambulance raced down the street and Cassie allowed the fear she'd been swallowing all day to come to the surface. Her father had told her that the governor had declared a state of emergency in Ohio a few days beforehand. The Irish government had just ordered bars and pubs to close two days prior. The illness - Coronavirus - was spreading like wildfire and nobody seemed to have any answers.
The doctors can fix you, right?
Finn's question hung in her mind as she stared into the darkness, considering the state of things in America. So far it didn't seem like anyone knew how to fix anything. Ninety-one people had died and the case numbers were increasing rapidly.
You should go home now, before they close the borders. Don't stay here all alone. At least go back to Manchester where you can be with Carole and Louie. You'll have support there.
The thought had crossed her mind several times before, but she'd ignored it. Ireland seemed safer right now. By all accounts, anyone of importance expected this to just go away after a few weeks. They'd be back to normal by the summer time. What was the use in going back to Manchester when this would probably be over in a few weeks?
They'll close the borders next. You should go while you still can.
Cassie shook her head to clear it. She was panicking. Panicking never got anyone anywhere. She picked up her phone, looking for a distraction. Instagram opened up and she saw several new notifications. She'd disabled notifications of likes and comments to limit distractions, but she still got message requests. She ignored all of them, deleting them one by one as she moved down the list. At the last one, she paused.
It was a message from Hozier - or rather, his account. She didn't actually know who she was speaking to on the other end.
Hi - Just wanted to say thanks for answering my question earlier. I loved Till We Have Faces. Its a good one. - Andrew.
She blinked and accepted the request, activating the chat and replying.
No problem. Thanks for tuning in. It was really nice of you.
Cassie got out of bed and crossed to the open window, moving the sheer white curtains aside and looking out. The sky had gone cloudy and the moon was barely visible through the haze over it. Traffic had died down and the streets were eerily quiet. She folded her arms over her chest, pulling the chunky oatmeal-colored cardigan tighter around her body. The phone vibrated in her hand and she looked at the notification.
Oh, I've sort of been a fan of yours for a while. I've reread Here There Be Dragons at least three times. But Mind Palace has to be my favorite. Its so rich and beautiful and stunning and dark. I'm in absolute awe.
Cassie blushed slightly at the compliment, biting her lip against a smile. She'd never done well with compliments. To her, all of her work could use another edit and another change and another look. Nothing was ever finished completely. Nothing was ever fit for public consumption. Fortunately, her editor knew how to handle her and always managed to coax the work out of her and produce something that was presentable.
Thank you. That's really kind of you. I always feel like I'm releasing total junk. She replied.
A shiver went through her body and she climbed back into bed, pulling the plush blankets up to her chin. It was almost midnight and she'd be up with Finn in six hours - six and a half if she was lucky. Her phone vibrated again.
I know the feeling. I never feel like my work is complete. How are you liking Dublin so far?
Cassie smiled and replied. Its been alright. We live in Smithfield but its been nice so far.
She saw him typing again and she waited for a reply. It came swiftly.
That's near the Jameson Distillery, I know that area. There's a great pub up on Queen Street that does an amazing pizza. Finnegan's, I think.
She knew the place. It was around the corner. She got pizza there more often than she liked to admit.
Yeah, its pretty good. But we haven't really had a chance to explore a lot of the area beyond walking. With Finn in school and my deadlines, we usually stay pretty close to home. I'd love to check out the city more, though. And get outside the city, too.
The Smithfield neighborhood had appealed to her because it was along the river and close to several museums and parks. It was very walkable for her and she hardly needed to use her car at all. Finn's school was ten minutes' walk across the river. The shops were a five minute walk up the road. Parks were easy access. Really, the only time she needed her car was to drive back to Manchester. Her phone buzzed again.
You should come out to the countryside sometime. There are some beautiful parks and gardens out here.
Cassie yawned as she read his last message and replied. Sleep was rapidly catching up to her.
That would be fun. Any you'd recommend?
She didn't see his response before she fell asleep.