IF I HAD YOU Chapter One

Paul G. O'Connor — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 13:51:24 -0400

IF I HAD YOU
by Paul G. O’Connor

CHAPTER ONE

He always wanted to fall in love.
How life would have changed or been different,
To be able to say one day, ‘If I had you’.
This is a story of falling in love…and out,
And other things, or something like that.
It all began on a ‘soft day’ in Ireland, but let me start at the beginning…

***

There are times it may be just as bad to win as it is to lose. You can start with the simple act of
buying a lottery ticket. Then a bet on your favorite sports team or you ride with friends to a casino and
wager on a hunch or ‘tip’. You win and keep going. It feels good. You want to keep that feeling. You
win a little more. Then one day you put everything you have on a sure winner and it comes in last.
You’re busted. Lose it all.
In the same manner, it’s not hard to find a person who believes that when you fall in love
once, it may be possible you can fall in love again. That’s not always the case. It’s like dealing
with Nature’s slot machine. At the start, when you’ve met a person you like, you bet a piece of
your heart. You win a little. You want to keep that feeling and invest a bigger piece of yourself.
Keep going. Get in deeper and deeper, bet more and more. Then it ends. You lose. Payment due
but there’s nothing left. Can’t get back to where you began. You turn away from everyone and
everything. There’s a type of journal inside my head. Private. Memories and thoughts to myself.
You don’t let those things out. Certainly not around the company I kept. No one cares anyway.
Everyone has problems. Circumstances change everyone.
Life is a gamble.
Oddly enough, my life began to change and sober up at a local bar. I got friendly with
Nick Sullivan, the night bartender. Good kid, mid twenties. Always seemed to talk about a
woman he met years ago and how hard it was to find someone. He owed money to a loan shark
in Boston, Massachusetts, his grandmother owed money to a loan shark in Dublin, Ireland and
there was a young woman named Molly, they both owed something too.
The problem was as simple as that. The solution was not.

***

Years earlier Nick Sullivan was about to start college. He was given a plane ticket to
Ireland as a high school graduation gift. The plan had been to stay with his grandmother, Una
Connelly, or ‘Nana’ as he called her. Nick’s mother, Martha, who lived outside of Boston, had
often said to anyone who’d listen, “The experience would be something he’d never forget.” That
much was certain.
He would spend most of the summer in County Clare on the West coast of Ireland, visit
with relatives and pick up a bit of money helping out. “Just a few pennies here and there” Nana
mentioned, “quiet like, off the books”, at his Cousin Dan’s pub in the town of Newmarket-on-
Fergus or ‘Cora Chaitlin’, the old name in Irish. This meant the ‘weir of Cathleen’, named after
a holy woman who tradition claims lived in the area. Nana often railed to anyone who’d listen,
“that she was certainly the last holy woman who ever took a breath in the town.”
It had been common knowledge Una Connelly was known to have ‘disagreements’ with
her neighbors and prone to feuds.

The name Newmarket is supposed to have come from Sir Edward O’Brien, 2 nd Baronet,
who had a passionate interest in horse racing and wanted to create a rival to the city of
Newmarket in England, considered at the time to be the ‘headquarters of horse racing’.
He built a gazebo-like belvedere on a hill opposite the entrance to nearby Dromoland
Castle in the early 1700’s so he could observe in comfort his horses racing on a nearby course.
Nana also loved horses. She was no descendent or relation to Sir Edward but proclaimed
her love of horses ‘was in the blood.’ She loved horses more than people.
She lived in a modest house at the edge of Newmarket, off the Limerick-Ennis road you
take in from Shannon. Her husband Hugh Connelly had passed away from a combination of too
much drink and too much smoke. It was never determined which of the two had done him in.
Una always swore she’d put what little money she had left on the winner being ‘the drink.’
Una had been determined to make sure she would never lose her home. Hugh left her
with mounds of debt and a house to pay off.
She worked at the village laundry, had a part time job cleaning houses and on weekends,
the church. This hardly kept her afloat. So other means of earning income were explored. The
one source of income that was easiest and most enjoyable was found after she read in a magazine
that you should, ‘do what you love then it’s not work.’
It sounded like good advice. Una took that to heart and made it a goal as she looked to
find another part time job. After a while it came to her. She loved horses. Una began to work at
what she loved…horses.
Specifically, betting on them.
So, the race for more income with less effort began and continued every week.

***

On the other side of the Atlantic another race was in progress when that summer started.
Nick and his family rushed to Logan Airport in Boston. Nick would have liked to catch the flight
with just some friends but his mother, Martha, would have none of it. She announced to all the
relatives within a hundred mile radius of Boston, and there were many suspects, that Nick was
flying to Ireland for the summer.
The on-ramp to Logan was jammed that day. It was recalled later at the wake of a distant
cousin, an Irish wake being the place stories ended and began, that ‘the exit to Logan was filled
with every relation of the Sullivan’s in Massachusetts, even a few from Connecticut’.
Martha was in a nervous state, as she maneuvered the car from lane to lane. She was
frantic and cursed, only in her mind of course, at the traffic situation getting to the airport.
“Did they all decide to show up and take the same plane to Ireland?” Martha railed to the
heavens. You could tell she was Nana’s daughter. She loved to rail at the world.
The Sullivan family liked to attack their problems.
‘It had to be something in the blood’, Nick always thought.
As is the custom, everyone stopped for a drink in an airport bar before heading to the
plane. This is where you could get a full count of those who came to say goodbye and give time
for stragglers to catch up. Ordering their drinks first were ‘Uncles’ Mike, Jim, Brian, Pat, Neil,
and Jose.
Jose had married into the family and although he wasn’t Irish he’d endeared himself to
them by having a vacation home in Spain, just outside of Valencia. He’d promised at the
wedding reception that, “All members of the Sullivan family were invited to vacation at Casa
Montoya and there would always be a stocked bar waiting for them.”
Needless to say, Jose was immediately christened part Irish. ‘Slainte, Jose O’Montoya’.

After a few rounds at the airport bar, Martha leaned forward and called out to Mike and
Jose. They had come alone, and were watching sports on the bar’s television. Martha’s voice
pierced their ears like a well aimed pub dart, “Listen to me. Flight announcements have been
given out several times.”
She took a short breath, let fly again and told them, “Anita has been tapping her watch for
ten minutes.” Jim’s wife, Anita, was always the one to keep a group moving forward. Uncles
Brian and Neil were bachelors and deep in conversation with a waitress while Uncle Pat and his
wife Debbie were ordering food.
Martha stepped out of the bar area and waved at Nick, who had just finished sneaking a
third drink from Uncle Mike.
Nick looked back at her and slurred in defiance, “It’s only sloda….”
Martha grunted then took charge and gave a shout.
“The plane is leaving and so am I.”
She started to walk away. A flurry of activity followed. Bags were grabbed, a mound of
cash thrown on the bar, food orders cancelled, phone numbers scribbled on napkins and all of
them headed toward the Departure gate.
When the group arrived at the gate Nick turned to say goodbye to his mother. Everyone
stopped and stood still. Nick leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek, then a long hug.
That’s when all the tears started.
Martha was a mess and rubbed a ball of tissue across her eyes. Uncle Mike sniffed, “He’s
not going off to war.” The other Uncles shook Nick’s hand, slipped him a few bucks, and patted
him on the back. Debbie looked over at Martha, then immediately looked down and blew her
nose. Even Anita’s eyes watered as she started to tap on her watch again.
Nick continued through the security barrier. He waved back one time, shuffled along with
the crowd then boarded.
The family began to drift toward a huge window on the concourse in order to view the
plane take off.
Mike nudged Anita who was looking at an Air India plane on a runway to her left. “Over
there” he whispered, as an Aer Lingus flight rose and angled toward the clouds from the runway
to her right.
Cheers and sighs erupted.
“Well, he’s off now.” Uncle Pat proclaimed. His wife Debbie gave a slight wave. Uncles
Mike and Jose nodded. Uncles Neil and Brian groaned as they both looked at a piece of wet, torn
napkin from the bar with several smeared phone numbers on it.
Anita rubbed her watch and felt the need to impart Martha with some wisdom.
“Everything’s so different in another country. No need to worry of course but… I wonder
what he’ll do while he’s there.”
Martha stepped forward, clutched a clump of wet tissue in one hand, pressed her other hand
against the glass and whispered, “I wonder.”

]]>

Paul G. O'Connor | Updates

IF I HAD YOU Chapter One