IRISH LOVESTORY - Adriana

 copyright©2025

Adriana

I can no longer recall precisely how Adriana slipped into my life—perhaps through mutual acquaintances, perhaps through coincidence—but one day she was simply there, sudden as a gust of wind stirring still air. I already carried storms of my own, yet she brought with her tempests I had not foreseen.

Adriana was bold and unflinching, a Slovak with eyes sharp enough to cut glass and a presence that refused to be ignored. She moved with a kind of hard-edged grace, unapologetic, uncompromising.

We spoke only once or twice, sharing coffee, yet in those brief encounters she poured herself out completely—her ailments, her restless pursuit of romance, her candid desires. Her openness struck like lightning: dazzling, startling, gone as quickly as it came. For a moment, I thought we might become friends, if fortune allowed.

She was searching for work then, scattering résumés across Kilkenny like seeds in uncertain soil. One afternoon, Jack and I gave her a lift into town. It was their first meeting, and I, awkward, played mediator. Jack dropped me at my course, leaving them alone together for the first time. At the time she was entangled with Gary, speaking of him with giddy, infectious delight. I believed her. I wanted to believe her.

But when Jack returned that evening, something in him had shifted. He was quiet, withdrawn, roiling with some inner storm. At last, in halting words, he told me she had tried to seduce him in the car.

“I told her I’m with you. That I wasn’t interested. She raged. Don’t listen to her—don’t speak to her again. She’s unhinged,” he insisted.

And I believed him, without hesitation. Anger flared in me—how could she reach for what was mine, after I had trusted her with my confidences? From that night on, Adriana’s name passed from my lips no more.

Once, I glimpsed her at the train station as I prepared to leave for Kilkenny. She saw me and turned away at once, retreating as if chased by shadows. I longed to ask what had truly happened that day. Had Jack forbidden her to speak to me? It would not have surprised me. But I would never know—not from her, nor from him.

Life went on, outwardly ordinary, as though no storms stirred beneath the surface. Yet within our walls, shadows gathered. Jack’s moods arrived like sudden squalls, impossible to predict. I excused them, telling myself they were born of debt and pressure.

“When I’ve paid everything off, it will all be different. I promise. Just hold on,” he would say, his voice frayed with desperation.

And I, in the dark, would whisper to myself: I won’t abandon him. I’ll help. We’re in this together. It felt like a vow, almost sacred. I thought loyalty would anchor us, that my steadfastness would bind him closer. No one mattered as he did.

Then came another blow—the sudden loss of my job at Abrakebabra. A brief phone call from Sinead ended it, without explanation. I didn’t protest; I had never loved the work. Yet the dismissal hollowed me. At the same time, relentless pain consumed me—urinary troubles that broke my days into fragments, each measured by minutes between trips to the bathroom. Specialists were all in Dublin, far from reach. Relief, when it came, was fleeting as rain on dry earth.

One night, nearly asleep, Jack jolted me awake, my phone clutched in his hand like evidence.

“Explain this!” he thundered. “A missed call from Ken—I knew it!”

Dazed, I stared at him. “Ken? I haven’t spoken to him in years.” But there was the name, glowing on the screen.

“I’ll call him,” I said, bewildered. Jack nodded stiffly.

“Hi Ken, sorry to call so late… I saw a missed call from you. Did you need something?” I asked, heat of shame rising in me.

“No, nothing. I didn’t call you. Actually, I have a missed call from you,” he replied, confused.

I hung up, stunned. Then I saw a sudden light pass across Jack’s face, as if memory had returned all at once.

“My God. It was me. I must have called him and forgotten. I’m an idiot,” he muttered, sinking back into sleep as though nothing had happened.

I could never quite trace the erratic fires within him—rage flaring from nowhere, memory slipping like sand through his fingers. Was it alcohol? Drugs? Some secret affliction? I didn’t know. Since his debts had mounted, he had become haunted by strange specters—wandering the house at night in half-conscious stupors. At Anglers Walk, he once urinated in the hallway, another time inside a cupboard near the bathroom. Each morning, my disbelief was met with denial, leaving me adrift in a sea of doubt.