Gerard says: Wait’ll I tell ye. He leans forward in his blue foldaway chair. This used to be a priory. It smells like sweet milk.

Gerard says: God love him. Patrick. He leans forward, his chair sinking into the floor. He says: God love him. Wait’ll ye hear. He turns his hands over, his palms facing up. 

I sit between them, my da and his cousin. They have the same names. We all do. My da and his da, cousins and blood, names threaded through families as though hydrogen-bonded, the bases of a helix braided into each finger’s crease.

The air is heavy and it smells like sweet milk. I can feel my shoes sinking into solid ground.

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