Chapter 16

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” I mumble.

I was sad, more than sad. The kind of sad leaving me with no energy. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t sleep and couldn’t eat. It’s been over a year since I’ve heard from Cillian. He had to be dead, there was no other way. I looked around the room I lived in the last nine years of my life and I felt nothing. More weeks went by, and I realised that I had to leave, I needed to escape the memories that haunted my every step. As I sorted through my belongings, memories of our shared dreams danced before my eyes—dreams that now seemed like fragile illusions shattered by the cruel hands of fate. Amidst the items strewn across the bed, I noticed an unfamiliar weight. It was a gun. Cillian’s gun. I held it in my hands, fingers tracing the contours of its design.

At that moment, the weight of my loss bore down upon me, and I found myself trapped in the chasm of grief. I choked out a sob, whispering Cillian’s name as I placed the gun against my temple. Just as I was about to pull the trigger, a voice sounds.

“Kate, mail for you!” I hear Evelyn scream from downstairs. My fingers loosened, and the gun slipped from my hand, clattering onto the floor and suddenly, the realisation of what I had almost done sank in. “Coming.” I yell, trying to I collect myself and immediately rush downstairs. “A letter?” It was a letter, a letter from him.

Talk about a miracle.

“Kaitlin,

Soon.

Cillian“

“He fucking wrote back!” I yell. “They’ll be back soon, he says.” “Let me see.” Alice says rushing into the room and I pass her the letter.

“Thank god.” she mumbles after reading his words.

And he should be right.

Just two weeks later men had started to slowly drift back into Birmingham. And with that my shifts at the Chequers got longer and longer. The war left behind several scared man without jobs, and freshly widowed women, that hoped booze would take their pain away. Everyday new men arrived, and the pub got fuller, but there was no sign of the O’Connor’s.

Once again, we were left in the unknown, fearing something might have happened to them. Until destiny had decided to intertwine.

–

I had just finished another shift at the Chequers, and made my way home. As I walk through the front door, I notice that the lights are on.

“Anyone home?” I ask as I turn to hang up my coat. Suddenly a flicker of movement catches my attention.