He had always been the unusual one. From the earliest, that boy showed compassion for those, who usually considered to be outcasts of the society. When their father left them, Corrigan started spending a lot of time in Dublin docks. Although he promised his mother to quit drinking, Corrigan couldn’t stop. Being an elder one, Ciaran worried about him a lot but also understood that his brother couldn’t act differently. They met their father several years later; he came home to attend the funerals of his ex-wife, who lost her battle against cancer. Corrigan, who had never forgiven his father for leaving them, gave out all his clothes to beggars and poor people. Then, following his heart’s desire, he became a priest and after some traveling he settled down in New York, in the nastiest district one could only imagine.
Corrigan started helping prostitutes there. His elder brother joined him later after he was injured during the terrorist attack in Dublin. When Ciaran saw the conditions his brother lived in, he was chocked. Not only the prostitutes were using his bathroom, they felt homy there. There were two women who especially sparkled Ciaran’s interest. That was Tillie, who – according to Jazz’s jokes – had a big crush on Corrigan and Tillie’s daughter, Jazz, whose young age and beauty couldn’t leave anybody indifferent. Ciaran learned that his brother – the one who vowed to practice celibacy - started seeing a woman from Guatemala and those forbidden feelings caused a lot of inner conflicts. He was afraid to lose faith.
When Jazz and Tillie were arrested, it was Corrigan, who took it upon himself to help them. The judge, Mr. Soderberg, gave Tillie 12 months prison term while Jazz got nothing, for she had two little children and her mother took the fall. On their way back, Corrigan’s car was smashed by another one. The girl was killed immediately but Corrigan died in a hospital. The pair from another car left the place. They were artists, who returned to the city after a year of solitude, for they had tried to quit drugs. The woman, Lara, couldn’t stop thinking about the accident. She went to the girl’s funeral and met Ciaran. They talked a lot and soon enough she understood that she was falling for him. Many years later, when Jaslyn – one of Jazz’s daughters – came to Dublin to learn more about her mother, she found out that Ciaran and Lara got married.
Claire didn’t know what to do. That was the day when her new acquaintances had to pay her a visit. They were alike and unlike. Their sons were killed in Vietnam and that common grief united them. The problem was that Claire was rich and the rest was not. She wanted them to like her, to treat her as an equal. She even wanted to hire Gloria, the woman she especially liked, in order to get rid of her loneliness, for her husband, Mr. Soderberg spent more time at court that at home. That was not a purely selfish idea, she really wanted to help. Gloria lived in the nastiest place, in a house, where prostitutes, drugs addicts and pimps dwelled. When the group finally entered her flat, she didn’t know what to do, say and even how to sit. She felt useless and pathetic. They started discussing a man who walked a rope between the towers of the World Trade Center. When Claire was seeing Gloria off, they saw the social workers with two scared girls – Jazz’s daughters – and that was the moment when Gloria found a new sense of her life, she adopted the girls.
Claire was dying and Jaslyn was lying next to her. She had to say bye to another dear person. The world continued to spin.
