I opened it up to a random page in the middle, then changed my mind and flipped back to the first page. I had a feeling I was going to be there a while.
“It was a pleasure to burn…”
“Amy!” Vera plopped down on the couch next to me. “Shit, girl. I’ve been calling your name.”
“What do you need?”
“Huh?”
“Did you need something?”
“You’re just gonna sit here and read while all of this,” she waved her hand around in front of her, “is going on around you?”
“That was the plan.”
“You okay?”
“Yep. Fine.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t be. I’d be freaking out big time.”
“I’m good.”
She looked at me like there was an alien climbing out of my head. “What are you doing?”
“I was trying to read.”
“No, what are you doing?”
I pretended that I hadn’t heard the emphasis she’d put into her words and scowled at her. “I was reading, and now I’m talking to you. Soon as you’re done, I’m gonna get back to reading.”
She shook her head in amazement. “You’re nuts, you know that, right?”
“I prefer apathetic.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Before I could reply, Peg was calling my name from the kitchen. It was a smart move on her part, because she knew that I’d answer her.
I slowly turned down the corner of my page, even though I’d read the thing a million times and it didn’t matter where I started up again, then placed it back on its little shelf. Vera stayed behind as I made my way toward Peg, but she followed my movements with her eyes as if she was still trying to figure me out.
“What’s up?” I asked Peg, strolling into the kitchen.
“The lads are makin’ some plans. Ye should be in here for this.”
“Okay,” I replied easily, sitting down at Robbie’s spot and folding my hands on the smooth wooden table.
The men watched me warily as they crowded around me.
“Ham,” the man who must have been Charlie’s dad said, reaching out to shake my hand. “That’s Doc.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Amy.”
“Trick’s wife,” he replied with a smile. He seemed nice.
“For today.”
Patrick took a step forward, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw Charlie’s hand grip his shoulder hard as if to stop him.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked calmly, looking directly at Ham. What a weird name.
“We leave on a steamer in two days,” he said, pulling out a chair and flipping it around so he could straddle it. “Got two spaces open—we can only take two of you with us then.”
“That seems easy enough,” I replied.
“Gotta leave two behind.”
“So take Patrick and the girl.”
“I’m not leavin’ ye and Mum, are ye out of yer mind?” Patrick exploded, stepping forward to slam his palm down on the table.
“The girl has to leave, right?” I asked Ham, completely ignoring Patrick’s outburst. Why was I calling her a girl? The woman had a baby in her belly, for Christ’s sake. “So she’s one of the people, automatically.”
“Gotta get that girl outta here before they realize where she’s gone,” he confirmed with a nod. “Doc set her arm, but she won’t be up to fightin’ anyone off for a while.”
“Okay, well if Patrick doesn’t want to go with her, then I guess Peg goes.”
“I can’t just leave ye here,” Patrick interrupted again.
“I’ll not leave ye to take care of that whore.” Peg’s comment was quiet but resolute.
“Mum—”
“Ye’ve made yer bed, son.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said softly, running his hands through his hair.
“We’ve got contacts on another steamer that leaves at the end of the week,” Charlie chimed in. “Whoever stays back can leave on that one. It’s only four days difference.”
“It’s settled then, Patrick and the woman—” Peg said.
“Her name is Moira,” Patrick corrected quietly.
Peg paused and turned to look at Patrick.
“I don’t care if her name is the fuckin’ Virgin Mary!” she yelled at him, finally losing what little composure she had left. “How could ye? I taught ye better than that! Ye think it’s okay to be fuckin’ other woman while yer wife’s home in yer bed?” She reached out and slapped him across the face. “How could ye do that to Amy? Amy, who’s been nothin’ but good to ye! Dealin’ with yer travelin’ from home and leavin’ her here more often than not! She’s waited on ye! She’s done nothin’ that other girls were doin’ because she was waitin’ on yer sorry arse to come home to her, and what do ye do? Tell me, Patrick Gallagher! Say it! What did ye do to her?”
“Enough.” My words were quiet, but they rang out like a gunshot through the room. “You don’t need to stick up for me, though I love you for it. This isn’t getting anything done, and we need to plan.”
Peg had angry tears rolling down her cheeks, and Patrick looked like his world had just ended. I realized that they were hurting with the cool detachment that I’d developed throughout my childhood. It was all too much on the tail of Robbie’s death. They looked so overwhelmed.
I felt bad for them, but that was pretty much the extent of my emotional reaction.
“So Patrick and—” I cleared my throat and glanced at Patrick, who was looking at me with a stricken expression. “Moira will take the first steamer, Peg and I will come at the end of the week.”
“I’ll stay behind and go with them,” Doc spoke up for the first time. “Girl in there doesn’t need me for the trip, and you all need to get back home with that steamer. Don’t feel right leavin’ them here alone.”
Ham watched him for a minute and then nodded. “You’ll stay with the women.”
“If there’s an open spot, then Amy can go with ye on the first one,” Peg argued.
“Not going to happen,” I answered flatly. There was no way in hell that I was going anywhere with Patrick and that woman.
“I can—” Patrick began to speak again.
“No.” I stared him down until he gave in with a defeated nod. We weren’t going to get anywhere if we continued on about who went with who. The plan was set—Patrick and Moira on one and Peg and I on the other. The end.
“Okay, is there anything else we need to go over?” I asked Ham. I had work in an hour and I wasn’t even sure how I’d get my clean clothes out of the bedroom Moira was sleeping in. I couldn’t believe that I was still going to work as if my life as I’d known it was gone. Then I brushed that thought away. I was fine and I needed the money.
“Pack light, only things you can carry. Leave everything else in the house as-is. Trip to North Carolina will be rough, so make sure you bring some pain relievers and shit with you. Maybe some Dramamine.”
“We’re going to North Carolina?”
“Just stoppin’ there. We’ll ride the bikes to Oregon.”
I nodded and stood from the table, done with the conversation.
I’d never been to Oregon.
Chapter 34
Amy
“Are ye ever goin’ to speak to me?” Patrick asked quietly from the couch as I walked in from work that night.
Charlie and Vera had walked me to Dillon’s and had stayed for my entire shift to keep watch. It had seemed a bit overboard, but I didn’t really mind it. They’d gone out of their way to act as if everything was normal, and I’d been grateful for the reprieve. We’d all agreed that mentioning anything out of the ordinary wasn’t a good idea since we weren’t sure who was looking for Moira.
It had been fucking wonderful to pretend she didn’t exist for a few hours.
Unfortunately, the minute I’d walked through my front door, reality intruded.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked tiredly, taking off my coa
t and hanging it on the hook by the door. I needed to remember to take it with me when we left.
“I don’t know, Amy. Somet'in’. Fuckin’ hit me. Yell at me. Anyt’in.’ ”
“I can yell if you want, but I’m not sure it would do any good. Would that make you feel better?” I walked around the couch and sat in the chair next to it as Patrick ran his hands over his face.
“It was before we got married,” he said softly.
“She’s not that pregnant,” I replied flatly.
“I’m not lyin.’ It was before I’d even proposed to ye.”
“Not long before.”
“No,” he answered painfully, and suddenly I had to know everything.
“How long before?”
He didn’t answer, just stared at me as if memorizing my face.
“How long before, Patrick?”
“De night before Mum called and told me somet’in’ was wrong.”
The words felt like a punch to my chest, and suddenly I was afraid that I’d never be able to breathe again. I’d been so scared that night. I remembered lying in my bed, begging silently for Patrick, but too afraid to reach out. To think, just the next day I’d thought that my prayers had been answered when he’d come and taken me away.
“Yeah, not long before,” I whispered to myself.
“We were not toget’er den. If we’d been toget’er, I—”
“I was waiting for you,” I cut in, my voice barely recognizable it was so quiet. “You kissed me and said you wouldn’t fuck me because you were going to marry me first. I was devastated the night before you came home. I remember so clearly, because I hadn’t been out of my bed all day and my mom had come in to tell me that I wasn’t finding a place to live by rotting away in my bed. And then the next morning, you were there… like magic.”
The scenes played like a movie in my head, and by the time they were finished, I couldn’t help the hysterical laugh that came out of my mouth.
“I was so stupid. So fucking naïve.”
“Don’t say dat. Yer not stupid. Ye were never stupid.”
“I made comments about your experience,” I spoke over him, “I pushed you because I was angry, and the entire time you were fucking other people. No wonder you didn’t mind waiting until we were married.”
“Dat’s not how it was.”
“So fucking stupid.” I shook my head, scrubbing my hands over my face.
“It was one night. One night. Dat’s all. I was pissed—”
“You’re really going to use the drunk excuse right now? Really, Patrick?”
“I wasn’t in me right mind—” I gripped the arms of the chair, but he was off the couch and kneeling in front of me before I could push myself to my feet. “Please, Amy. Please, listen.”
I leaned back in the chair as far as I could and wrapped my arms around my chest. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. My stomach was churning and my heart was racing… but a part of me ached to know it all. I needed the details, so I could try to make sense of the whole thing.
He loved me. I knew he did. How could he do this?
“I began me night early at a pub near me flat. I was alone. I was missin’ home and me da had just come to Mum’s to tell us dat he was in trouble. Me classes were goin’ poorly and I’d just finished me exams.” His hands were gently gripping my thighs, his thumbs rubbing back and forth in an unconscious gesture. “I was havin’ a shite week. Den dese men came in de pub, and I recognized one of dem. Local IRA, not high level, but not low level eit’er. Somewhere in de middle. Dey stopped at dis table full o’women, and I couldn’t hear what was said, but one of de women stiffened and den left de bar.”
He swallowed hard and his chest began rising and falling as if he couldn’t catch his breath.
“I followed her,” he whispered, “I stopped her to ask her if she was okay. She knew me, but I didn’t recognize her. She liked me, I could tell by her body language dat she’d been watchin’ me for a while. It was so easy. I wasn’t t'inkin’ clearly, I barely remember gettin' back to me flat. But I’d seen her wit’ dose men in de bar, and in me muddled brain it had seemed like de perfect revenge. I wanted to punish dat man in de bar—fuck dem de way dey’d fucked me. It meant nuttin’! It was a mistake, but it was only one night.”
I clenched my jaw, but a raw noise of pain still burst out of my throat.
“One night, but not only once, huh?” I asked hoarsely, looking away from him.
“Forgive me,” he begged. “Please. Please. I love ye, only ye. Forgive me.”
“No.”
I didn’t look at him, but I heard his sob as his head dropped to my knees.
Chapter 35
Patrick
I made my way into the large house silently, the key Moira had given me barely making a sound as I’d unlocked the front door. There was one thing that had to be done before I left Ireland for good.
I’d expected some kind of guards or maybe even a few large dogs, but all I encountered as I made my way through the house were darkened rooms and the low hum of the furnace. I knew he was there because his car was parked in the driveway, and it amazed me how little he cared for his own safety.
I’m sure he believed he was untouchable, and in most circles he was probably considered so… but I had nothing to lose. I was leaving to go halfway across the world in a matter of hours, and in just a few days the only people I cared about would be following behind me. His reputation was no longer relevant. His arms couldn’t reach me.
I moved on silently to Moira’s room and found the bag she’d told me would be under her bed. I quickly located the music box her mother had given her as a child and stuffed it into the bottom of the bag before pulling shirts and pants from her dresser. When I got to her underthings, my stomach cramped. I shouldn’t be touching them. It was wrong. I shouldn’t be touching any woman’s underthings that weren’t my wife’s.
As soon as I was finished, I set Moira’s bag outside the door to Michael’s room and stepped inside.
He was asleep on his back when I found him, his arms tucked under the blankets like a child and his face slack with slumber. The look was almost innocent, and it was hard to imagine that the minute he awoke, he’d look like a completely different man.
I stepped up beside him and quickly hopped onto the bed, pinning his arms to his sides with the blanket he’d so kindly wrapped himself in. The moment my weight hit him, his eyes snapped open and it only took seconds before he realized that the blankets and my legs had completely trapped him.
“Ye’ll die for dis, ye fuckin’ bastard,” he said menacingly, trying to work his arms slowly out of the blankets.
I could feel his every move, but I didn’t stop his almost imperceptible struggle. I wanted him to feel it. I wanted him to know that he was trapped.
“Do ye know why I’m here?” I asked, flipping open my blade before resting it on my thigh.
“I’m guessing me whore of a sister somehow got out of her room,” he growled, his legs beginning to kick at the blankets. It was really too bad that he insisted on having such a tightly made bed.
“Ye almost killed me child,” I said quietly.
“Yer bastard, ye mean?”
I clenched my fist around the handle of my blade and reminded myself that I wasn’t finished yet.
“Did ye set up de blast dat killed me da?”
He froze beneath me.
“It wasn’t meant to kill him.”
“I’d come to that conclusion meself.”
“It was just a warnin.’ ”
“A warnin’ dat would have killed me mum.”
“We’re in a war, Trick. Sometimes—”
“Spare me yer rhetoric!” I hissed through my clenched teeth. “Ye killed me da and ye nearly killed me child.”
“Moira is me sister. It’s me job to punish her for wrongdoin’s.”
He believed it. All of it. I could see it in his eyes. He thought that beating a woman almost to death was an
acceptable punishment, that it was alright to kill a person’s spouse as an effective way to keep him in line.
He believed that the end justified the means.
“Immanuel Kant was a philosopher,” I began slowly as he watched me in confusion. “He believed dat people should be viewed as de ends, not de means.”
I paused and watched as he tried to understand the conversation’s change in direction. He was nervous and afraid and began to shake beneath me.
“For dat reason alone, I’ll allow ye to pray.”
“What?” he asked in horror.
“Beg forgiveness.”
His eyes widened in fear as he lay frozen for a long moment.
“Our Fadder,” he sobbed, “who art in heaven—”
I cut his words and his neck with a deep slash of my knife from ear to ear. Then I climbed off the bed and wiped my blade down on the corner of his sheets.
For the first time, I didn’t feel an ounce of remorse, and I wondered briefly when I’d become such a monster. Then I made my way back outside, locking the front door and climbing onto my motorcycle so I could go home.
***
I sat alone in the silent house for a long time after I got back. I’d fucked up so badly that I knew any chance of righting my life was completely gone. I’d never again step foot in my own country, I had little money to start a new life, and both my mother and my wife hated me.
I couldn’t blame Amy for her anger. One poor decision, one mistake, and I’d broken all trust between us. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t yet made any promises to each other. I’d known the morning after my night with Moira that I’d made a horrible mistake, but it had been too late then to right it.
I wondered if Amy would have forgiven me if I had told her after it had happened. Perhaps she would have fought me, but eventually forgiven me—I’d never know. But I did know that if I had the chance to go back and tell her, I still wouldn’t have.
She wouldn’t have married me. She would have allowed me to work back into her good graces, but it would have taken time, time we didn’t have. Because Moira showing up at my door, pregnant with my child, was inevitable. And when that happened, I would have lost Amy forever.