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been hit on the head by a flying brick. Stunned and stricken and shocked beyond belief.
    “In a minute you'll tell me you're joking,” she gasped.
    “In a minute I won't,” I said stoutly. I hated doing this to her, especially because I was the second of her daughters to ANGELS / 31
    have a failed marriage, but it was important not to mislead her.
    False hope was worse than no hope.
    “But,” she said, struggling for breath, “but you've always been the good one. Say something,” she angrily urged my father.
    He appeared reluctantly from behind the newspaper shield. His eyes were petrified. “Seven-year itch,” he offered tentatively.
    “ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ,” Helen countered, then elbowed Anna, who thought for a moment, then said, “ The Misfits .”
    “You're describing yourself,” Helen replied scathingly, then curled her lip at the wall of newspaper. “See, Dad? We can all name Marilyn Monroe films, but how does it help?”
    “It's actually nine years I've been married,” I quietly told Dad's newspaper. He meant well.
    “This has come as an awful shock to me,” Mum reiterated.
    “I thought you'd be glad, seeing as you all hate Garv.”
    “I know, but—” Abruptly Mum collected herself. “Stop that nonsense, we don't all hate him.”
    But they did—all apart from Claire, who'd gotten to know him when she'd had a teenage fling with his big brother (also confusingly known as Garv). She'd always thought my Garv was sweet, especially since he'd fixed her tape deck for her. (You wouldn't want to get her on the subject of the elder Garv, mind.) But despite Claire's stamp of approval, my Garv had somehow—through no fault of his own—acquired a reputation for tightfistedness.
    The stinginess allegation had raised its ugly head the first night I'd ever officially taken him out with my family. He'd been knocking around on the fringes for a good while before that, but I'd realized I was serious about him and that it was time he met my family properly. With a sense of occasion we repaired to Phelan's, the local pub, and the salient fact is that Garv didn't stand his round.

    32 / MARIAN KEYES
    Not Standing Your Round is a mortal sin in my family and there's always great competition to out-generosity and out-convivialize all the others. Hand-to-hand combat almost breaks out as people try to be the first to get to the bar.
    On the night in question, Garv was more than willing to buy drinks for my family, but he was nervous and way too mild-mannered to stand up to them. As soon as anyone's drink had passed the halfway mark, he'd leap to his feet, fumbling for his money, asking, “Same again?” But each time he did so, the table erupted like the floor of the stock exchange, with everyone yelling at him to sit down and put his money away, that he was insulting us. Even I joined in, getting carried away in the heat of the moment.
    Beaten back by a hail of words, Garv reluctantly lowered himself back onto his bar stool.
    The net result of the evening was that Dad bought a round, Rachel bought a round, I bought a round, Anna bought a round, then Dad bought another round. And Garv gained a reputation as a tightwad.
    Hot on the heels of that miscarriage of justice came the polo-shirt incident. A story that begins happily and ends tragically. One Saturday afternoon Garv and I were traipsing around town, halfheartedly going in and out of clothes shops. Because Garv had just bought a car, money was tight, so we were on the lookout for bargains. Free things, preferably. Then, by pure chance, we found a polo shirt in the bottom of a clearance bin. To our great surprise it had none of the characteristics you normally associate with things found in clearance bins—like three sleeves, no neck hole, and indelible, bile-colored stains. In fact, it was perfect—the right size, the right price, and a pale icy color that made his normally gray eyes look blue.
    It was only when we got it home that we realized there was