21st June Ten years earlier

Cathy Fennessy stood at the mirror in her bedroom and didn’t quite recognise herself.

The dress was red  –  proper red, not burgundy or wine or any of the other compromises her mother had suggested in the shops in Galway. Red. It had taken three Saturdays to find it. Anne Fennessy had stood outside the changing room with her arms folded and her mouth doing the thing it did when she was trying not to cry, and Cathy had known immediately that this was the one.

The shoes matched. High heels and red, the same red, and she’d broken them in over the previous two weeks dancing around the kitchen to Olivia Rodrigo. Her dad had teased her, but in her heels, she was taller than him now. Her mother had told him to leave her alone.

Downstairs, she could hear them. Her dad’s voice was low and steady. Her mother was opening and closing things in the kitchen that didn’t need opening or closing.  She took one last look. Twenty years old in September. College in Galway. All ahead of her beyond the summer.

The doorbell rang.

She heard her mother’s quick footsteps, the door opening, her dad saying Darragh, come in, come in. Then a pause. Then her mother called up the stairs with a voice she was clearly trying to keep level.

‘Cathy. He’s here.’

She took a breath, smoothed the red dress one last time, and went downstairs.

Darragh stood in the hallway in a dark suit that was still wider than his shoulders. He was holding red roses –  a full dozen, badly wrapped in plastic with the price sticker still on. When he saw her coming down the stairs, his mouth opened slightly, and he forgot to close it.

‘Well,’ said her dad, from somewhere behind him.

‘You look…’ Darragh started.

‘I know,’ said Cathy, and took the roses.

Her mother insisted on photographs in the garden. The evening light was good. Tony Fennessy stood with his arm around his daughter, then stepped back. The final photograph was of Cathy on her own.

‘Cathy, you look amazing,’ her dad said.

She glanced at her dad and smiled.

Snap!

***

Three buses waited along Kinvara Quay. Tonight, this place belonged to the young and the beautiful. The marquee outside Connolly’s was already loud when they arrived. Suits, tuxedos and dresses. Loud, excited chatter.

Friends and couples queued at a decorated backdrop –  balloons, flowers. A photographer directing them into position, adjusting angles, joining them, splitting them.

Cathy, Una and Maeve – Snap

Cathy and Darragh – Snap.

Cathy on her own – Snap.

The organisers bellowed that the buses were leaving. 

She climbed the steps of the bus, turned once at the top. Her parents were among the dozens of other parents standing on the freshly cut grass of the quay. Her dad raised his hand. Her mother held hers to her mouth. Then the doors closed, and Cathy Fennessy turned to face the night ahead.