“What is the meaning of all this?” she demanded. “First of all, he’s dead. Second, you were better off without him. Trust me on that one, sweetie.”

“So you say, Mom. You never gave me a chance to find out myself.”

“He was a lazy drunk and a terrible flirt.”

“He was also talented and funny and sent me gifts every Christmas and birthday. Things that were much more interesting than your Sephora gift cards and eyebrow-enhancing creams,” I mumbled.

“I’m sorry I wanted you to get yourself some nice things. You could’ve used it to buy better makeup to cover your birthmark. It’s easy to be the cool parent when you don’t do the actual parenting,” she huffed. “Are you looking for your half-sister? Bet she lives in a fancy-schmancy house. All that money ought to have gone somewhere.”

What she meant by somewhere was probably not to you.

I want to look for my half-sister, but I don’t know where to start. To be honest, I haven’t really planned this trip. I just wanted to see the place where my dad was buried. Expecting…what? Some magical connection with the cold stone beneath me? Probably. Not that I would ever admit that aloud.

“Anything else, Mom?”

“Don’t you give me this attitude, young lady. Not when I did my best to raise you and all he did was drink your inheritance.”

I grunted.

Money, money, money. It’s always about the money.

“I can’t believe they buried him near a church,” she mused. “Hopefully the grass won’t grow black, like his heart.”

She hung up after a string of complaints about her too-prominent new highlights and milking a promise from me that I’d buy her a carton of duty-free Parliament cigarettes on my return trip.

Now here I am, in a cemetery in central Dublin, staring at a gray squirrel who is eyeing the bag of chips peeking from my backpack. I envy its coat of fur. I’d legitimately consider walking around with a sheet of fur all over my body to protect myself from the constant chill.

“They’re not even that good. Who puts vinegar on chips? It’s barbaric.” I yank the bag out of my backpack, pull a chip out, and throw it its way. The squirrel jumps back in fear, but then gingerly makes its way to the snack. It sniffs the chip, grabs it with its tiny paws, and makes a run up a nearby tree.

“Where I come from, you get jailed for assisting a murderer,” a voice cracks behind me.

I look around with a jerk. A priest is standing a few paces behind my father’s grave—black robe, big cross, all-ye-sinners-are-doomed expression, the entire shebang. I jump to my feet, grabbing my bag and phone, and swivel to face him.

Okay, so he doesn’t look super dangerous, but being all alone in a foreign land makes me hyperaware of my vulnerability.

“Now, now.”

The man takes slow steps down the rolling green hill on which my father is buried, his hands knotted behind his back. He looks like he lived through both World Wars, the Renaissance…and Hannibal’s invasion of Italy.

“No need to be scared. I reckon you’re highly uninformed regarding the gray squirrels and their hidden agenda.”

He stops behind my father’s tombstone, gazing at the prominent birthmark on my temple. I hate when people do that—stare so openly. Especially because it looks like a scar. A crescent-shaped thing, it is somehow even paler than my normal shade of dead. Mom always encourages me to do something about it. Cover it with makeup. Remove it with a laser treatment.

Something flickers in his eyes when he sees my birthmark. He has fluffy white hair and a face stained with age. His eyes are so small under heaps of wrinkly skin, I can’t even make out their color.

“The gray squirrels endanger the red squirrels, driving them out of their own territory. The reds were here first. But the grays are better at problem solving. Street smart. The grays also carry a disease that only affects the red squirrels.” He removes his reading glasses, cleaning them with the hem of his robe.

I swallow, shifting my weight from foot to foot. He slides his glasses back on.

“’Course, the grays also eat the reds’ food and are better at reproducing. Red squirrels don’t reproduce under pressure.”

I stare at him, not sure if he is an avid environmentalist, an awkward conversationalist, or simply batshit crazy. Why is he talking to me about squirrels?

More importantly—why am I listening?

“I, um, thanks for the info.” I play with the hoop in my nose.

Leave, Rory. Start walking in the opposite direction before he gives you a lecture about ants.

“Just an interesting anecdote about squirrels. And maybe about how unwelcome guests sometimes take over territory simply because they’re better than the locals.” He smiles, tilting his head. “And you are?”

Confused and excessively emotional. “Rory.” I clear my throat. “Rory Jenkins.”

“You’re not from here, Rory.”

“America.” I kick a little stone at my feet, somehow feeling like a punished kid, though I’ve no good reason to. “I’m from New Jersey.”

“That’s why you fed it.” He nods. “Should I take a guess why you’re here, or are you in a sharing mood?”

I’m too embarrassed to tell him I came here to find closure before I go to college, practically flushing all the money I’ve saved the past two years working at Applebee’s down the crap-stained toilet.

“Neither.” I fling my backpack over my shoulder. It’s time to go back to the hotel. Nothing is going to come out of this stupid trip. “Thanks for the fun facts about squirrels, though.”

It was totally worth the trip across the ocean.

I’d taken my first steps toward the cemetery’s gate when I hear his voice behind me.

“You’re Glen O’Connell’s daughter.”

I stop, feeling my shoulders tense. My whole body turns to stone. Slowly, I swivel on my heel, muscles frozen.

“How do you know?”

“You’re the third offspring to visit his grave. I’d heard the last one was supposed to be American. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“We?”

“Well, I.”

“Where are the other two?” I look around, as if they’re hiding behind tombstones.

“One lives just a short drive from here. Known her since she was a wee baby. Still attends this church with her mammy every Sunday. Glen was in her life as much as he could be, considering his…er, limitations.”

Translation: Alcoholism. Strangely, I still envy her.

“And the other one?”

“Lived up north. County Antrim.”

“Why the past tense?”

“He passed away a few weeks ago. Leukemia, would you believe? Such a young lad. He met his da a couple times, but never got to know him quite well.”

My heart sinks like an anchor, clawing at the bottom of my stomach. I had a brother who died, and now I’ll never get to meet him or know him at all. I have a potential family here. This guy…I could have hugged him, comforted him in his last days.

I know next to nothing about my father. Only that he died at age fifty of a heart attack that wasn’t unwarranted, considering his affection for fast cars, fast women, smoking, drinking, and artery-clogging food. He was born in Tolka, the son of a butcher and a teacher, and shot to fame writing “Belle’s Bells,” a Christmas song that exploded all over the charts in Ireland, the UK, and the US, giving Mariah Carey and George Michael a run for their money. The Christmas song was his first and last brush with labor, or anything similar to a career, but it was enough to secure him a house in Dublin and an annual budget for food and booze.