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.Geraldine was the centre of it all: wise, funny and gentle, and overseeing her grown-up family with such love and affection.Geraldine was a nurse, Pat told Vonnie proudly when the dinner dishes were cleared away and Joe, Liam and Sean were making headway with the cleaning up, with much joshing and splashing going on.‘She works with the local seniors’ organisation in her spare time,’ he added fondly.‘Ah stop, love, will you?’ said Geraldine, exasperated.‘He makes me sound like Mother Teresa, and I’m not, honestly, Vonnie.It’s just helping out a little.You have to do something, don’t you?’‘That’s incredible,’ said Vonnie, thinking of how Violet hadn’t worked since she’d got married.Their house was beautifully kept as a result, and Violet herself was always pretty, but other people’s problems weren’t really on her radar.She might buy the Girl Scout Cookies at the door and was always keen to go to a charity dinner with their friends, but she didn’t actively help anyone.Vonnie didn’t mean to start comparing, but she couldn’t help it.Pat was a mechanic.He’d have liked to have joined the police force, like his brother, but he had a bad leg.A fall as a child back home, never quite mended properly.Geraldine stroked his cheek fondly.‘I wouldn’t ever sleep a wink if you were a cop, Pat.Always waiting for the knock on the door and the officers holding their hats in their hands.’By the end of the summer, Vonnie was hopelessly in love with Joe, whose passion for life – and for her – shone out of those incredible stormy-sea-blue eyes.The following year, she graduated from high school and was accepted at Boston U to study modern languages.‘It sounds so thrilling.’ Her mother’s tinkling voice could be heard as she held a little tea party.She’d asked if Vonnie wanted to invite her ‘new friends’, as she called Sorcha, Amy and Claire.Violet hadn’t met them, but Vonnie had spoken of them so happily, and Violet was, after all, a lady.‘No, Ma, it’s fine,’ Vonnie said, unthinkingly.‘Ma?’ Violet was horrified.‘Veronica Richardson, I have never been so shocked in my life.I did not raise you to talk to me in such a manner.I know exactly where this language comes from, and don’t tell me I’m wrong.It’s that Joe Reilly.Well, I expect an apology this instant.’Vonnie stared at her mother, feeling the combination of love and pity she’d come to know so well.Geraldine Reilly would laugh if one of her kids called her ‘Mother’; she might tease them, then everyone would sit down at the table and talk about their day.Claire would worry a little over her forthcoming exams and her mother would gently unruffle her feathers; Pat would say that a lovely old Camaro had come into the shop today and if he was twenty years younger he’d swear he’d buy it because it was a beautiful ride and in immaculate condition.He and Geraldine would smile at each other across the table, because it was just wishful thinking and the old station wagon was far more suitable to their needs.Amy would have a story about a kitten she’d seen on the way back from school in the upstairs window of the Evanses’ long-for-sale house, and even though she and Leandra had tried to get in, the door was locked and they’d had to listen to the kitten mewling plaintively for ages.Once, Vonnie and Joe had gone on a perilous rescue mission with her to free eight puppies that somebody had been trying to kill by dumping them on the edge of the freeway off-ramp.‘The cruelty,’ said Joe, his expression furious …‘I’m still waiting for my apology, Veronica,’ said Violet, face white with strain.Vonnie could see how truly shocked and upset her mother was.A woman whose whole world could be rocked by the wrong form of address from her daughter.It was what it was, Vonnie thought sadly.‘I’m sorry, Mother.It was a mistake.’She briefly touched her mother’s cool, soft hands.It was like living in two worlds and slipping between the two; except that the more she saw of one world, the less she could survive in the chilly formality of the other.Two years passed, with Joe and Vonnie moving into an apartment of their own in Brookline – they’d have loved a district closer to the university but they couldn’t afford it.Thanks to a part-time summer internship, Joe was on track for a job with the state attorney’s office.Violet had her first angina attack the night Vonnie told her that she and Joe were moving in together, and an ambulance had to be called.In the hospital, Vonnie and her father sat drinking horrible coffee as they waited.‘It’s not your fault, Vonnie,’ her father said.‘You have to live your own life.It’s hard for her, that’s all.She doesn’t approve.’Despite her upset and guilt, Vonnie felt a surge of anger.‘She doesn’t see how amazing Joe is, Dad,’ she said.‘She can’t see beyond the fact that his parents are Catholics and came to Brookline with nothing.Why does that matter so much to her? This is supposed to be the land of opportunity.’He looked at her sadly, and she saw a man with his future long behind him; a man who wore his weariness lightly
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