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I landed in Dublin and was in a cab headed to Emily Murphy’s flat on Wilton Place before I felt anything but a mild sort of shock that I had actually managed to leave the country. “Are you visiting a relative?” the cab driver asked.
“I’m going to Trinity for a year.”
He glanced in his rear-view mirror. “Ah, Protestant then?”
“What? Oh, no. I’m a lapsed Catholic. Well, not even lapsed, never started. My grandmother was from the North. She grew up in a convent.” This need for self-identification was always in play in Ireland. Unlike race in America, Irish people looked alike and needed a guide to hate each other. It was almost impossible to remain mysterious about your belief system or to deny religion when choosing a side was necessary.

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James and I went to the pub, had a few drinks, and he made it very clear any mention of his dead fiancée was off limits. My jet lag resulted in a stagger to my room, but a few days later we slept together. I was immediately drawn to this man, his broken heart, his anger, his humor, and his connection to my childhood. Of course it ended badly, with his shooting out the mansions’ windows with a pellet gun and fucking another woman, an old girlfriend, in the room next to me.

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Here’s what I knew about the world at seventeen: men could walk on the moon, all good politicians would be assassinated, and people murdered one another for no good reason. Six million Jews, gypsies, gays, Catholics and anyone who lacked Aryan cred were exterminated. Not just Anne Frank. Hippies were doomed to failure and capable of the utmost hypocrisy. The Beatles would never reform. The Summer of Love was over. Adults were treacherous and selfish. Men blame women for being beautiful. Men didn’t like smart girls. Men didn’t want an uncontrollable woman. I was uncontrollable. We dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My parents got married on the day we bombed Hiroshima. Placing your hands over your head would not protect you from atomic fall out. Cancer was fatal. Heroin was fatal. Love was fatal. I wanted to save everyone I loved from harm. I was powerless to save anyone from anything.

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