![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shanahan2-banner.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy\u00a0Deirdre Shanahan.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a sky-blue day. Fern leaves spike as I wade through. Strands of grasses and stray ears of wheat weave. Nubs of rosehips bristle on hedges. From the thick nettles bunched around my knees, I could make soup. I could use dandelions even if the blackberries are frizzled after months of sunshine. Warm days slouch as we settle in, plant and sow. Next spring, Olly says, we\u2019ll reap the bounty. Then we\u2019ll eat like kings.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi.\u201d He sweeps up the road on the rusty bike we found in the hut and draws to a halt, the back mudguard wavering. \u201cDoherty\u2019ll rent part of the field for us to grow veg. For a year at least.\u201d<\/p>\n
Would we be there so long? A year or longer?<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when I was in the phone box, I saw an ad for kitchen work at the hotel. I thought of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re meant to be self-sufficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still can be. But anything you earn\u2019d help towards solar panels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to work in a hotel. Not in a kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSix months only. You did before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWaitressing. A summer job. You know I hated it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis\u2019d be easier. No hassle dealing with people. Besides, we\u2019ll need money. What if the bike needs new tyres?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay. I\u2019ll ring and find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
A train in the distance rumples my heart. We\u2019d travelled a long way to get here, a cramped top flat in Cork, a caravan in Doolin, and part of an old house on the outskirts, to arrive further north than I\u2019d expected just to have our own place. Or a place we could call our own; a green corrugated ex-army hut a farmer lets us have free. Olly said we\u2019d stepped out from a city that was tired after the night before. But the branches droop and I wonder what we\u2019ve left behind.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At night his breath rises in little gasps. The summer is too hot to talk in. Tongue thick with heat.<\/em> The shortcut through fields leads to the gnarly old hotel, tight and compact with twenty-three bedrooms, where a glass of house wine costs over a tenner. I rinse the serving dishes and fill the dishwashers after breakfast: egg cups, bowls, side plates, mugs, jugs. More awkward crockery than later in the day, but less mess. Smears of cereal, gunked-up porridge, half a slice of sourdough. Knives poke up. I can fill the machine with my eyes shut, but taking out\u2019s more tricky. I check for cleanliness and stack plates ready for the chefs. I lay cutlery in trays so the pieces rest like sleepers. My shifts are usually early, though they could be anytime and I don\u2019t mind. The busyness of the kitchen excites me. There are more saucepans than I\u2019ve ever seen; copper, steel, non-stick. Serving dishes of every size. It\u2019s like the engine room of a liner as we sail into an Atlantic of orders and demands.<\/p>\n Olly balances a tin of baked beans on the camping gaz.<\/p>\n \u201cNot too bad.\u201d He tastes the soup.<\/p>\n He said living here\u2019d be nourishing, but I long for a thick hunk of bread with lashings of butter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could do with an additional stove,\u201d I tell him.<\/p>\n \u201cBit of an unnecessary expense.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the hotel I find an out-of-date sandwich or a croissant to eat and tell myself at least I wake to birdsong. We have each other and can live as we want.<\/p>\n I slide glasses into the dishwasher to hang upside-down. Orders are called. Max, the head chef, follows them through. There is a sous chef and one for pastry. If it\u2019s desserts, his work is done. But there\u2019s always a chef needing a hand. Duck legs wait for orange jus. Pork for dressing. Fish to douse in lemon butter sauce. Each chef: precise, intent. Against calls of \u201cService!\u201d or \u201cWhere\u2019s the mains?\u201d I get lost in the crossfire.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Olly told me his blood was disordered the first time we met, or maybe the second. He\u2019d say he like the way I crashed through life and he couldn\u2019t. His white blood cells multiply too much, so he gets tired. Not often. Sometimes in the afternoon. He has a porcelain complexion and his body at night is taut silk. No shadows. Like illimitable, white Italianate marble on days of the most intense heat. He said there was a twitch and flicker of pain in his bones. Acute myelogenous. He spelled out the syllables and I wondered was that to scare me, but now I know it was down to the exactitude with which he does most things. He said, \u201cSo there\u2019s no confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The pastry chef is rangy and doesn\u2019t wear a hat. When he leans over the counter to decorate meringues, he touches the other side.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Olly lies on his front on the floor when I come in, even though it\u2019s cold in places where we haven\u2019t covered it in rugs or carpet offcuts. A cobweb hangs in the corner of the window.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStretching the vagus nerve. Sets the body in tune.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs that a yoga thing?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. But good to do. The nerve affects so much of the body. It means wanderer. Would you press on my back?\u201d I lay my fingers on his spine and stroke the skin. Since we\u2019d come he\u2019d been well. He\u2019d coughed less and looked stronger. More robust. \u201cThanks, that\u2019s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n He rises and shakes himself as if to find his body working again. His face is pale as light, as moth wings. He wraps his arms across his chest, clinging to himself like a person drowning. He\u2019s intent upon getting stronger. His own medication. He\u2019ll get stronger. His blood count\u2019ll improve. He\u2019s scoured medical papers and journals. Only a matter of time. Living in the right element will help. \u201cDid you have a good day?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBusier.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHeight of the season, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I collect the saucepans from the far end near the ovens. The pastry chef blitzes a yellow paste in a mixer. When the swirling stops he pours in beaten egg, holding back a little.<\/p>\n \u201cToo much can ruin it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you making?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChoux. <\/em>For eclairs.\u201d<\/p>\n He pipes pastry onto a tray. Little mounds, like breasts, and lengths. He holds the nozzle and works along the tray until it is full.<\/p>\n \u201cHow are they so light?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWater. Steam holds them. And the butter has to be right. French.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSecret ingredients.\u201d<\/p>\n He smiles.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The hut is dark as evening lengthens, despite the single bulb. Olly has laid a fire in the stove and logs spill over the floor next to it. There\u2019s a sofa, two odd armchairs, and a small table.<\/p>\n \u201cWifi\u2019d help.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not the point,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to be connected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be, in our own way. More meaningfully.\u201d His hair catches the light.<\/p>\n Later I lie on the bed and hold him around the waist, gathering him in. He\u2019s warm and full of sun even if it doesn\u2019t show on his face. The walls curve to become the roof in one continual sweep. Maybe it was a garage. The farmer must have done it up and put in the stove later, even if it splutters and smokes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The pastry chef works under an overhang of saucepans. Steely grey. Shimmering. Shadows of cold light. He\u2019s always making something: chocolate leaves, glac\u00e9 fruit, icing sugar shapes. When service finishes, calm falls, though it never lasts. Always a hum of irritation towards the next sitting. I take a break outside with a fag. I shouldn\u2019t, so I stand at a little distance from the bins and near the delivery room.<\/p>\n \u201cLate shift?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone was ill.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGlad you stepped in. Easier to work when someone\u2019s clearing up.\u201d He smiles and swipes around to the oven and opens the door. The tray of pastries is steaming sweet and he sets them on a cooling tray. He aims a kind of syringe into their undersides. \u201cThere.\u201d He sucks his finger as he finishes.<\/p>\n I should hang around. Learn something so I can cook more than tasteless soups and lumpen bread. He dunks the pastries into a bowl of melted chocolate and they rise up tonsured, the sauce slicked down.<\/p>\n \u201cBit lopsided, so I can\u2019t serve this one.\u201d He offers but I don\u2019t have a plate. He raises the \u00e9clair to my mouth, sinks it onto my tongue. Airy light. Yellow as a cloud. The cream oozes out.<\/p>\n \u201cDelicious.\u201d My mouth is slick and moist inside. He says his name is Neil and pushes back his fringe.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, chef. Two galettes.\u201d The instruction comes from Max, the head chef. Neil makes for the warming cabinet. Pans clatter. Then there\u2019s a tinny, echoey quiet. The last of the \u00e9clair is full and rich. For months I haven\u2019t tasted anything so rich. The evening is a rush of calls and stacking plates, drying the odd one that comes out wet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hollyhocks flourish in the sandy soil, pinky cups of petals towering. Olly buys seeds and old plant pots in town. The evenings are long and dusky. He shops weekly, returning with two bulging bags he balances on the handlebars. We have the calm among the fields. One small place to belong to. The Americans built it when they were stationed up the road. Doherty used it for machinery and tractors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We were reading when the light bulb fell and smashed onto the floor in a glittering of fibre.<\/p>\n \u201cHow did that happen?\u201d Olly pulls up a chair to stand on and checks the solitary flex dropping down.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fitting\u2019s rusty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTurn off the switch.\u201d In mid-light he examines the fitting while I sweep up scratchy bits of bulb. \u201cI\u2019ll cycle up in a couple of days and see Doherty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not tomorrow?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got candles.\u201d Olly steps down and searches in the canvas holdall. In there was a basic first aid kit, string, torches, matches.<\/p>\n He lights two stumpy candles for either end of the dresser and stretches out on the sofa. In the glow of flickering flames, his eye sockets are hollow, his cheeks thinner. But he wants to be here. We both do. Natural and free. Independent. Except the more we try, we coil back on ourselves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n China gleams white and shiny. Stacks of cups. Neil stirs a saucepan on the hob. Glossy liquid bubbles.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that? Gravy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCaramelising sugar to make baskets. I want them to hold soft fruits from the garden.\u201d The sugar bursts and simmers and he turns off the heat. When it\u2019s cooler, he spoons dollops onto a baking tray. \u201cTen minutes should do.\u201d He slips the tray into the oven.<\/p>\n I collect dirty plates from the serving hatch. When the rush quietens, Neil moulds the stiffened sugar over an orange. Its zest spikes the air. He shapes the lattice, smoothing it down, then leaves it for a couple of minutes until the sugar hardens. An odd bonnet he upends and light falls through the crinkly lace.<\/p>\n \u201cMagic.\u201d<\/p>\n He smiles. Sets one down, along with others in a row. Sparkly rust, with flutes and curves.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019d you learn to cook?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLake District. Then France. Australia really fired my interest. I was travelling for a year. I met a chef from Dublin who suggested here, so I came.\u201d<\/p>\n Max calls for petits fours<\/em> and Neil hurries off. A clatter, then shouts for plating up. Bouillabaisse and turbot. Lobster bisque. Salmon roulade.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The air is tense with the buzz of insects like distant traffic. Olly wants to read about planting. We roll apart at night on the hard metal bed. In silence I pull into myself to warm. I could go on, or leave him. Then what? Who to come back to? Nowhere beckons. In the morning, as temperatures slope down to autumn, I leave for work with time to spare.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The grounds are laid with flowerbeds and a kitchen garden for guests is bordered by a brick wall. I don\u2019t want to go there but when I pass the dining room, I peep in.<\/p>\n We need tea towels from the linen cupboards upstairs. The corridor is panelled and the walls display prints of the hotel when it was a house. All the doors are the same but one under the staircase is open. I peer in. A bed takes up most of the room, though a corner has a fitted wardrobe. In an alcove, a table with a slim mirror could be a desk. It\u2019s snug. Every bit of space cleverly used.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019re you doing?\u201d Neil smiles.<\/p>\n \u201cCome for tea towels. And you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOff-duty. Staff block.\u201d He motions to a corridor. \u201cThis is a nice room.\u201d He opens a door. The walls climb with leaves and fleshy pink petals. A tangle of luscious green and yellowy tones. The rug is zany, stripped in emerald and mint. \u201cThis is my favourite.\u201d He heads up the passage, going deeper into the centre of the house, and starts to climb a staircase. You forget the house is old until the steps creak.<\/p>\n The bedroom has cool blue walls. A little sofa sits at the end of the bed and there\u2019s a small chandelier of blue and green glass. Thick sheepskin rugs. An armchair is duck blue. The bay window draped in heavy brocade has a window seat. Gold swags run from a pelmet with cords. I haven\u2019t seen such lavish curtains since I was in my grandmother\u2019s house<\/p>\n \u201cUp here has the best view.\u201d<\/p>\n I follow up three flights. The horizon is full of light. We touch the sky. The bay opens. I had forgotten the sea was out there.<\/p>\n I sit on the bed. \u201cWon\u2019t the maids come?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve finished.\u201d He flicks back the silky eiderdown to reveal piercing white sheets and sits on the edge of the bed. \u201cYou can relax here, even if it costs a packet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow much d\u2019you reckon?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThree hundred a night? But this is an apartment.\u201d He points to doors either side of a cheval mirror.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always look in?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThought you\u2019d be interested.\u201d He sits next to me and smells of vanilla and cardamom. His lips. His eyes, light grey. On me. Seeing. Seeing me seeing him. He presses my shoulder gently, drawing me down. We lie, cool as cutlery. \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is too good. We\u2019ll spoil the bed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe maids\u2019ll sort it.\u201d<\/p>\n I can\u2019t help this. Can\u2019t help him. Those aromas. Heat and wine. Berries and softness. I want to drink him. He rolls towards me. Eases off my top. Presses my nipples. Sucks. In the end it is a relief. No one will see. We can be ourselves.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At night, Olly\u2019s breathing is light and quick. Always an anxiety about the air. And if we need a hospital, what will I do then? I keep in what I have done. If you crack me open, it might be revealed. But it is nothing. Nothing I can\u2019t handle. And it isn\u2019t often. Once a week. A fortnight.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I hurry upstairs to 127.<\/p>\n \u201cYou collecting tea towels?\u201d Max stops me in the corridor. \u201cWe need napkins as well.\u201d He loads my arms with a pile.<\/p>\n \u201cNow?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course. Lunchtime service.\u201d<\/p>\n I retreat downstairs while Neil most likely waits for me. The shift is longer, emptier, full of the clatter of pans.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMax always thinks he\u2019s in charge.\u201d Neil lays his hands on my shoulders after I tell him what happened. Outside, in the corridor, people pass by. We are intruding on someone\u2019s room. Taking part of their life. We listen to the voices rise and fall beyond the door. We listen to footsteps approach and retreat.<\/p>\n \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d I say. Suddenly, a thud in my gut. I think of Olly.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re only trying to find their room,\u201d says Neil. The fat bed takes us. I haven\u2019t had such ease for weeks. Months. We should leave, but he pats my pillow. Goose feathers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you do when you\u2019re not in the kitchen?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSurf, mostly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRound here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. The coast\u2019s not so good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what took you to Australia?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe. I followed a girl.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the hut, I keep getting lost but going nowhere. I go to the lane for dill, but I return with none. I forget myself. Silence leaps between us. The fields are worn, crops gathered in. I scrape the window frame free of moss. I sweep out cobwebs from the spare room where we dumped cases, boxes, and two pallets the farmer said we could have. My case has clothes I will never wear.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We enter other rooms. In one, Neil shows me a clawfoot bath. Another has a double shower. We sit the pillows in chairs and make sure to lie on the eiderdown. We do not watch TV or make drinks. We never eat the biscuits. Outside, guests pull cases into the lift, leaving behind their rooms, their crumpled sheets, their soiled towels. Someone brushes against our door. \u201cHey,\u201d says Neil. \u201cIt\u2019s all right.\u201d He strokes my arm. \u201cThey\u2019re only guests checking out.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A van delivers carpet offcuts that Olly piles in the spare room. Garish floral sweeps with coils and swirls and blocks of blue and red. Nothing matches.<\/p>\n \u201cInsulation,\u201d says Olly. We spread newspaper on the stone floor to lie the off-cuts on top, a crazy jigsaw. Several edges do not match up and have to overlap. \u201cSet us up for winter.\u201d<\/p>\n But winter is way off and I want the slow days of September. I want their warmth to seep in. I should tell him. I should. I must say something about the seasons.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With the brocade curtains drawn, we lie on the pile carpet. Undress each other. Spread ourselves. The walls have sweeps of arching leaves and glowing orange flowers. The intricacy of sepals. Neil extends my arms, first one and then the next. We cling like branches and I taste his skin, the salt on it. He licks me. Softness rising. Afterwards he props up a cushion behind our heads and we inhale each other\u2019s breaths. The days are cool. The mornings hold a nip. On an early shift, starting at seven, I don\u2019t mind. We make our breaks coincide. Creep upstairs. My belly warms. I feel him before I see him. I feel, from a distance, the fire of him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He is not on duty when I unload crockery from room service trays. Breakfasts never seem to finish. The rush of lunch arrives and the day\u2019s busyness swallows everything. The next day he isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t expect him.\u201d Max checks the fridge for milk. \u201cHe\u2019s moved up the coast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMoved?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure. But he\u2019s not working here. I know he wants to surf and there\u2019s beaches further north. Donegal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we have a new chef starting next week. Young men come and go. Though Neil was good and stayed with us two years.\u201d His French accent doesn\u2019t muddy his disappointment.<\/p>\n I retreat to the steel shelves of pots and pans and the clatter of service but I can\u2019t find the small jugs. Ladles hang. Plates lie against each other. Solid white utilitarian crockery. Breakfast and dinner. Funerals and weddings. The gleam of everything is brazen bright. I leave the dishwasher on too long. Max shouts about a lack of plates and I drop one. Gone off without me. Or not without<\/em>, not exactly, if he\u2019d never intended to ask anyway. What had I been thinking?<\/p>\n Before I finish, I can\u2019t see how a few pastries from the cooling shelf will be missed. I eat mine outside during a break. When my shift ends I carry the rest back in a box used for room service. All the little bits of me are out of place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On the way home, my stomach rumbles. I grasp a tree. I vomit. Filth splatters into the soil. Fear whispers. Pregnant. But we had always been careful. I wipe my mouth. My saliva smells rancid.<\/p>\n \u201cYou okay?\u201d Olly carries a bucket of water up from the river. Dark clouds move across its surface.<\/p>\n \u201cFine.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been watering the veg.\u201d He crosses to the cabbages, throws water over them, lets it swirl through the beetroots and carrots and sink down into the soil.<\/p>\n I want to swill away the sickness. Wash it out. Olly paces the earth as if he owns it. I walk round the back of the shed and chuck the pastry onto the compost. Stale. Ridden with bacteria. If he was sick, no theorising or explaining would help. Rowan leaves frazzle like torn lace against the sky. The branches of trees touch one another at the very tips.<\/p>\n \u201cFood for all the creatures. Hawthorn and crabapple for the birds. Blackberries for shrews and voles. Nature looks after its own. A larder in the hedgerow.\u201d Olly smiles in a delight I haven\u2019t seen for months. \u201cWe\u2019ll get our share soon.\u201d He walks towards the door.<\/p>\n I\u2019d forgotten how he opened up a space in me and light flowed in.<\/p>\n Sitting on a kitchen chair, Olly pulls at his muddy wellingtons. The wonky shelves on the dresser are full of jars of soaking beans, greys and slushy purples like bruises. He slips off his sweater and lies on the sofa, hair flopping over his forehead, longer than when we arrived. I snuggle in next to him. His cheeks are ruddier. Fatter.<\/em> His hips and legs are firm. His arms and hands. Over two hundred bones are inside him. Inside the bones, the sickly cells had lived until they didn\u2019t, until the hospital did its work, and he was freed to go where he could begin again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> It\u2019s a sky-blue day. Fern leaves spike as I wade in. Strands of grasses and stray ears of wheat weave. Nubs of rosehips bristle on hedges. From the thick nettles bunched around my knees, I could make soup. I could use dandelions even if the blackberries are frizzled after months of sunshine. Warm days slouch as we settle in, plant and sow. Next spring, Olly says, we\u2019ll reap the bounty. Then we\u2019ll eat like kings.<\/p>\n A short story by Deirdre Shanahan<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44448,"featured_media":117944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44448"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117942"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117964,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117942\/revisions\/117964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/shanahan.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nDeirdre Shanahan<\/strong> was a writer of fiction. Her d\u00e9but novel, Caravan of the Lost and Left Behind<\/i><\/a>, was published by Bluemoose Books in 2019, and her story collection, Carrying Fire and Water<\/em><\/a>, was published by Splice in 2020. This story was one of two she was preparing for publication when she passed away unexpectedly in August 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"