Chapter 3 – Two Homes, One Heart
For nearly a year after the fire, Josephine lived a split life. Bray was where the grief lived, and Dublin was where she came to breathe. Monday, Wednesday, Friday: the echo of a burned house and a homeless friend. Tuesday, Thursday, weekend: a kettle boiling, a couch made up with blankets, and me waiting with questions I rarely asked aloud.
She carried more than any one person should have had to. In Bray, she helped William navigate the long process of paperwork, housing offices, and endless inspections. She waited beside him in charity offices and council meetings. She brought food when his temporary accommodation didn’t have a kitchen. Sometimes, she brought nothing but her company—and it was enough.
Then she would come to me. She’d bring stories from the shelters, folded leaflets from support services, and sometimes tears she couldn’t shed anywhere else. I became her sounding board, her escape hatch. But I also saw how it wore her down.
We never talked about the toll it took—not directly. But I could see it in her eyes, the way her sentences shortened over time, the way her energy flattened when she walked through my door. And I knew: while William had lost his house, Josephine was slowly losing her strength.
The system moved slowly, but eventually, in 2006, William was handed a new set of keys. A new house. A new start. And with that moment, the chapter closed.
Josephine no longer had to split her life. And in many ways, that should have been the moment of relief. But it was also the moment our triangle unraveled.
William drifted away, his gratitude wrapped in silence. Josephine stopped traveling to Bray. And slowly, without any fight or final goodbye, the old rhythm died out.
It was the end of something. But none of us said it. We just let it go.