{"id":252122,"date":"2026-07-13T01:46:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T22:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/assembling-ailish-some-secrets-are-too-hard-to-hold-they-fester-they-break-you-guard-sharon\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T01:46:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T22:46:26","slug":"assembling-ailish-some-secrets-are-too-hard-to-hold-they-fester-they-break-you-guard-sharon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/assembling-ailish-some-secrets-are-too-hard-to-hold-they-fester-they-break-you-guard-sharon\/","title":{"rendered":"Assembling Ailish: Some Secrets Are Too Hard To Hold. They Fester. They Break You – Guard, Sharon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Assembling<\/figure>\n

Maybe this is a marriage of economy … But. The music starts. I turn my head. All my dreams are blown to tiny colour-bright shards. In her wedding dress Sarah is breathtaking. Raw silk skimming tanned shoulders, tight to the waist. Curls artfully escaping her bun, the veil, falling softly on the precise construction of her neck. Neat pointed shoe-tips peeping from a full skirt. A Disney Princess come to life.<\/p>\n

Brendan walks his smiling daughter up the aisle to the heartbreaking sight of Michael\u2019s side profile, soft and nervous in response, smiling and in love. I forget to breathe. Inhale sharply. Exhale. A sound that translates almost as a sob. * * * I have played this wedding out in fantasy a million times over.<\/p>\n

Adjusted the script, the lighting, the setting, the sound, as Barbara, oblivious, channelled new titbits of information my way. \u2018Lilies. In her bouquet. I thought lilies were for funerals. Is that a Spanish thing, d\u2019you think?\u2019 \u2018A DJ, not a band.\u2019 \u2018The Bridge House. Nearly three hundred guests. Thank God Brendan has pots of money, that\u2019s going to cost a fortune.\u2019 \u2018A harpist in the church. Did you ever?\u2019 \u2018One bridesmaid, but six flower girls and pageboys.\u2019 Small details, insignificant, brushstrokes on a canvas, creating a picture in my head.<\/p>\n

The bits I added myself. Originally: I\u2019d imagined it in the farmhouse. Our first meeting, the first time to lay eyes on each other, since. Before the wedding. A family meal. Looks. Longing. Mutual. An accidental-on-purpose encounter in the yard. Moonlit. Eyes connecting, hands brushing. Adjustment: Our first meeting. In the church, as I take my place three pews behind.<\/p>\n

Him turning. Eyes connecting. Knowing. Truth. \u2018Do you take this woman …?\u2019 the priest would say. \u2018I don\u2019t. I can\u2019t,\u2019 he might say. His voice choked with realisation, emotion. Adjustment: The first time I see him in the flesh, since, is here, here and now, and here and now he can. Here and now, he can take this woman. Here and now, he does. He takes this woman with delight, a whoop of encouragement, of joy, rippling through the congregation.<\/p>\n

\u2018You can clap if you like,\u2019 says the priest. And they do. As Michael kisses his bride, they cheer. As he walks her down the aisle, they forget they are in a church at all. Some even whistle. And he whistles past me. Without so much as a look. * * * Mulled wine and jewelled colours and Christmas tree twinkles. Spotlights. Hairspray. Perfume. The heady sweet sweat of hangover. Laughter. Young flesh mixing with tired mixing with old. Elena\u2019s mother, wheelchair-bound, staying at the hotel in the care of Elena\u2019s older sister, Ana.<\/p>\n

Careworn, mannish.<\/p>\n

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and dialogue, are drawn from the author\u2019s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Published 2025 by Poolbeg Press Ltd. 123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle, Dublin 13, Ireland Email: poolbeg@poolbeg.com Sharon Guard \u00a9 2025 \u00a9 Poolbeg Press Ltd. 2025, copyright for editing, typesetting, layout, design, ebook. and cover image. The moral right of the author has been asserted.<\/p>\n

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-78199-677-5 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or re- trieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condi- tion that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher\u2019s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.<\/p>\n

www.poolbeg.com 1kitap1.com\/en About the Author Sharon Guard was born in Dublin in 1968, where she still lives and works in the pharmaceutical industry. She graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Limerick in 2023. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in New Irish Writing, SWERVE Magazine, The Ogham Stone and the Washing Windows anthologies. She won the Molly Keane Creative Writing Award in 2020 and her story, Artifice, was shortlisted for the RT\u00c9 Short Story Competition 2024.<\/p>\n

Assembling Ailish is her first novel. 1kitap1.com\/en For Jonathan 1kitap1.com\/en She hesitates. She who is told not to break, who is asked did she break or why did she break. Go for it, I tell her. TEACHING MY DAUGHTER HOW TO BREAK AN EGG Victoria Kennefick egg \/ shell Carcanet Press (2024) 1kitap1.com\/en \u2018Shall we begin?\u2019 the woman says. \u2018Where do we start?\u2019 \u2018There\u2019s no right or wrong place.<\/p>\n

Somewhere that feels natural.\u2019 \u2018A random memory?\u2019 \u2018Specifics are better.\u2019 \u2018From my childhood? Or more recent?\u2019 \u2018Something clear. Something calling.\u2019 You pick up the water. Sip. \u2018That\u2019s the problem, isn\u2019t it?\u2019 you say. \u2018The problem?\u2019 \u2018They\u2019re all clear. They\u2019re all calling.\u2019 \u2018How do you mean?\u2019 \u2018Everything has equal weight. Equal pull. Now she\u2019s gone. There\u2019s no new version to figure out, to argue with.<\/p>\n

To fix. The memories are set. In aspic.\u2019 \u2018Not in aspic.\u2019 \u2018I can\u2019t change them.\u2019 Your voice in your ears sounds small. Weak. Pathetic. \u2018You can change your perspective on them,\u2019 the woman says. \u2018A story I can live with?\u2019 \u2018Isn\u2019t that why you\u2019re here?\u2019 \u2018I suppose it is.\u2019 A rush of adrenaline \u2013 you might have predicted it \u2013 catches you unawares. * * * My mother was a small-boned woman.<\/p>\n

Raptor-like, with fluttery hands … \u2018What? You said I couldn\u2019t get it wrong?\u2019 \u2018It\u2019s not wrong. Nothing is wrong,\u2019 the woman says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “Assembling Ailish: Some secrets are too hard to hold. They fester. They Break you” by Guard, Sharon, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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