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chaos.”
    Kevin’s mobile vibrated from within his back pocket. He checked it, thinking it might be his work crew already bitching about something and the day not yet begun. Instead, he saw Danny’s number and decided to call him back later. “That’s Danny, probably checking on when we’ll arrive at the party.”
    “He doing door duty again this year?”
    “Doubtful. I get the feeling he just wants to relax.”
    “Ay,” Liam confirmed. “I worry about that boy. His marriage—”
    “I know it.”
    Kevin was almost out the door when Liam inserted his last say for the moment. “No need to drop in for lunch. I’m fine, I tell you.”
    The door closed behind Kevin with a well-oiled click. He yawned up at the disappearing moon shadow and decided to walk the rest of the way down the track to the cottage that was his childhood home. He would return for lunch anyhow. This was what good sons did, check in on their fathers.

Liam Donellan’s journal
    The journalist didn’t like my answer to her question, “What makes you so good?” At the time I shunned notions of “good” because they implied the existence of opposing concepts like bad, evil, and sin—which no matchmaker ought to consider for they’re the death of empathy. After all, I, as matchmaker, can’t pick the people who come to me with hopes of happiness. I’ve matched all manner of unsavory characters without judgment for they’re in need of love too.
    She had an empathy of her own, this journalist, which was why I allowed her to question me in the first place. It was true that I didn’t think of myself as something so prosaically Catholic as “good.” Even then, I believed good people—people like you, my son—fared poorly in life. They’re too vulnerable to disillusionment, which is an unsuitable trait for a successful matchmaker.
    In the end, disillusionment breeds resentment, which is a kind of hatred. A matchmaker must not hate his petitioners. This above all is taboo. However, I waged battle against this truism once, a long time ago. I thought I was superior enough to feel the fester without effect. There were no winners. In fact, the fallout continues, and when the toxic results of my life finally settle, and when you raise your head to take in the new view, I can only hope you won’t detest me.

• 5 •
    At Patsy’s, the restaurant across the street from Internet Café, Kate Meehan sat in a window seat with a cup of tea. She eyed the sandwiches on her neighbors’ plates: cucumber with parsley, egg salad with sprouts, two-layer ham salad—all in various shapes of heart, clover, diamond, and circle, all with the crusts trimmed off. Next would come the deviled ham toasts and broiled cheese breads, the scones and currant brioches served with lemon curd and apple butter. And finally, the festive petit four tea cakes and strawberry meringues and peach sorbets.
    It was enough to make her wretch. Really, who were these people?
    Your average demanding consumers, that’s what. She understood that much from her own business dealings. She also understood the shenanigans required of all small business owners, and she smiled as she eavesdropped on Patsy, who advertised her official English-style high tea with a sidewalk placard. “Our lemon curd is identical to that Queen Victoria herself enjoyed. The recipe came into my family through marriage. The head chef at the time married my cousin’s great-grandmother. In fact, most of our recipes hail from Queen Victoria’s royal kitchen.”
    Verbal vomit, Kate had long ago noted, was the inexpert liar’s downfall. The opposite case—communicating just enough—was an art form. And the reason she was here in Lisfenora, when all was said.
    Kate reached into her bra cup and pulled out the letter that had arrived back in July. What an exasperating day that had been. She’d been out of her mind with boredom, about to succumb to yet another bout of tepid sex with that fledgling porn queen, Becky