Page 26 of Always on My Mind
“Tessa?”
“Shh, I think I hear something.”
Tessa stepped closer to her door. There was a voice, but she didn’t recognize it as Niamh’s, who would have been at training, anyway. Billie still had a key, but it wasn’t her either. It did sound feminine, though. Skylar gathered their shopping bags and followed.
“Is that. . . music?” she whispered.
Tessa heard it too. A driving beat and some piano. The melody hit, and Tessa recognized it immediately. “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. Which could only mean one thing.
“Oh, sweet, suffering Jesus.”
“What?” Skylar asked with alarm.
Tessa didn’t answer. With a heavy sigh, she reached for the doorknob and turned it. The music blared as she threw the door open and her sitting room came into view. She stormed in.
“MA!”
Chapter 8
“Ach, Tessa, it’s yourself!” her mother said pleasantly, as if she’d walked back into their house in Derry.
“Aye, well, I do, y’know, live here,” Tessa shot back. “Which leads me to wonder what you’re doing here?”
Mary Ann Gallagher bustled over to the record player and turned the volume down until it was almost inaudible. She tucked a lock of her pixie-cut hair behind her ear and faced her daughter with a nod. Tessa often saw herself in her mother—the blonde hair, brown eyes, and willowy frame were all inherited from her. Only Mary Ann had an intense love of jumpers with cats embroidered on the front and mum jeans. And she wore her glasses on a beaded chain around her neck like a grandma. Glasses which she promptly set on her nose to give Tessa a hard stare.
“I’m here because I’m your mother and I heard your ex-girlfriend was in town,” Mary Ann said. “And it’s a good thing I did, too. You’re clearly in pieces about it by the state of this place.”
“Ma, I’m fine,” Tessa insisted. “You didn’t have to come all the way from Derry to—”
“Alright, Mary Ann, I’ve taken the rubbish out to the bin, but—”
Tessa whipped around to spot her father’s hulking frame in the doorway, mouth open from stopping mid-sentence before cracking a smile. He pushed his long, dark hair—with streaks of gray around his face—off his broad shoulders and opened his arms to engulf Tessa within them. The squeeze forced a groan out of her.
“Tessa, love, it’s wonderful to see you,” he said, dropping a kiss to the top of her head.
Tessa’s face got hot, especially once she spied Skylar’s amused expression out of the corner of her eye. Tessa pushed herself free of her father’s embrace.
“You came too, Da?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Do you know one of the wheels on your wheelie bin is broken?”
Tessa averted her eyes from Skylar. “I’ll ring the owner and let him know.”
“This being London and all, I thought it would be more efficient. How can a city this large have broken wheels on wheelie bins? It’s not right.”
“Jim,” Mary Ann cut across him. “Maybe we don’t have to worry about the wheelie bin just now.”
Jim’s brow furrowed. “No?”
Mary Ann jerked her head toward Skylar. Jim started, as if only realizing she was in the room, despite having walked by her to get to Tessa. Skylar offered a polite wave.
Tessa heaved a sigh. “Ma, Da, this is—”
“Mary Ann, you won’t believe this!” a third newcomer cried, which Tessa immediately recognized as her grandfather, Colm. The full head of white hair and signature green cardigan wereunmistakable. He came shuffling out of Niamh’s bedroom, carrying a framed photo. “Tessa’s flatmate’s got kin in Derry! Look here, it’s Eamon O’Hartigan’s wain, the footballer!”
“Is she now?” Mary Ann gasped and swept over to gaze at the photo. “Ach, so she is!”
“Granda!” Tessa cried, her skin pricking with humiliation. Not only had her grandfather gone through her new flatmate’s things, Skylar was there as a witness. She thought she heard a giggle, but it was quickly snuffed out.