I took comfort in the fact that Amy and I had already spoken our vows. I had a hold on her that was unbreakable. It made me a bit nervous that we were headed to the United States, where people seemed to divorce on a whim, but I didn’t think she could get one without my consent, so I tried not to worry.
I had more pressing matters to worry about.
I was leaving the country of my birth to build a life in a place I’d never been, with a woman I barely knew but was carrying my child, and I had to leave my wife and my mother behind. I’d barely slept.
Amy and Mum were sleeping together in my mum’s room and Moira was asleep in the bed I’d only ever shared with my wife. That knowledge made my guts clench in shame.
My wife hadn’t deserved to be pulled into this mess. I’d kept so much from her trying to protect her that she’d unknowingly climbed aboard a sinking ship, and the most horrible part of it was that I wouldn’t have gone back to change it.
I knew she deserved more, but I’d never give her up.
“Mum,” I called, walking slowly into her room. “Wake up, it’s time.”
I made my way to Amy’s side of the bed, and brushed her hair away from her face. Dried tears had made a few strands stick to her cheeks, and as I pulled them away, I leaned down to kiss those spots.
She wouldn’t have let me that close if she was awake, and I didn’t feel one ounce of shame for taking what I could.
“What time is it?” she asked sleepily, before stiffening where she lay.
“Goin’ on t’ree. We need to leave,” I answered, the words like invisible razorblades in my mouth.
It felt wrong to leave her. All of it felt wrong. I couldn’t tell if it was just because I hated to be away from her or if my instincts were trying to tell me something. The anxiety was making me sweat.
“Is she awake?” my mum asked as she climbed out of bed, her tone a clear indication of which “she” she was referring to.
“Not yet.”
“Better go wake her.”
I nodded, but couldn’t force myself away from Amy’s curled up form. It felt wrong. My head was screaming at me to do something, but I didn’t know what. Christ, I felt like I was being torn in two.
Amy scooted to the edge of the bed, and I had to take a step back so she could climb out from under the blankets. When she got to her feet, she mumbled something about getting dressed and grabbed a stack of clothes off my mum’s dresser before moving around me and walking into the bathroom.
I brushed my hair away from my face and followed her out of the room. I needed to get moving. The ship we were riding on wouldn’t wait because I hadn’t given Moira enough time to get ready.
“Hey, wake up,” I said gently, reaching out to gently shake Moira’s shoulder. “It’s time to go.”
I’d explained our plan the day before on one of the rare occasions that Moira had been awake to discuss it. She seemed to sleep a hell of a lot, but Doc assured me that it was normal. Between the pregnancy and the beating she’d taken, she needed the extra rest. So far the baby had held fast, and after the first twenty-four hours I’d begun to feel a mixture of relief and… I couldn’t say it was disappointment. That wasn’t right.
I would never be glad for my child to die, no matter how it was conceived. However, when she’d continued on with no sign of a miscarriage, I’d finally realized that there was no turning back. This woman who had seemed so nice and smart and beautiful when I’d first met her was actually going to have my child… and I didn’t love her. Not even the slightest bit.
And the woman that I loved more than life would not give me my first child the way we’d dreamed.
“Patrick?” Moira answered as I continued to pat and shake her shoulder. “Is it time to go?”
“Soon,” I answered, looking over her bruised face as I turned on the light. “How are ye feelin’?”
“Like absolute garbage,” she whispered, rolling onto her side before gingerly pushing herself up. “I’m so sorry for all of dis, Patrick. I didn’t know ye were married or I wouldn’t have come.”
“Not yer fault,” I reassured her, dropping down to sit on the edge of the bed. “I wasn’t married when I met ye. Hadn’t even proposed yet.”
“Ye work fast.”
“I would’ve married her de day I proposed.”
“What are we goin’ to do?”
“I’ve no idea.” I rubbed my hands over my tired eyes. “Let’s get to Oregon, we can sort it all out den.”
I didn’t realize how close we were sitting or how it would look, until I heard my wife clear her throat from the doorway.
“I just forgot a sweatshirt,” Amy mumbled, averting her eyes as she walked into the room.
I jumped from my spot on the bed, but the damage was done. She didn’t look at me once as she pulled her clothing out of our half-empty dresser drawer. Her hands were shaking, but she ignored us as we watched her shuffle through her things until she found what she was looking for.
I’d already packed my things into a duffel that rested at the end of the bed, and as she walked back out of the room, I picked it up and slung it over my shoulder to follow her.
“I brought ye de t’ings ye asked for,” I told Moira, who was looking at me in apology. “We’ll have to buy ye some new clothes once we get where we’re goin.’ Ye’ll not fit in dose for much longer.” I gestured to the bag by the door.
“T’ank ye,” she whispered. I nodded once and tried to smile, but I was sure it looked more like a grimace.
When it was finally time for us to go, my entire body was tight with tension. A part of me wanted to tell Amy to pack a bag—that she’d be going with us. But I couldn’t leave my mum alone, no matter how much I wanted Amy with me.
She was across the room with Vera and they were hugging each other goodbye with low promises to see one another soon. I was glad that she’d made such a good friend, and even more glad that her new friend would be in Oregon with us as we tried to settle in.
“I’ll walk Moira out,” Mum said, glancing at Charlie, who was standing at the open front door. Then she turned fully to me and used both hands to pull my face down to hers. “I’ll see ye in a few days. I love ye, even when yer bein’ an eejit.” I felt a lump form in my throat as she kissed me quickly on the lips, and I pulled her into a tight hug. “It’ll all turn out in the end,” she whispered into my ear. “Ye’ll see.”
With a quick pat on my back, she let me go and led Moira, Vera and Charlie out the door, leaving me alone with Amy.
We stood awkwardly facing each other and I didn’t know how to cross the gap between us.
“I’ll see ye in a week, yeah?” I asked her, breaking the silence.
“Yeah, it’ll be nice to be on home soil again,” she replied uncomfortably.
Fuck this.
I stepped forward and gripped her arms, pulling her against me before she could protest. Wrapping one hand securely around her waist, I moved the other to the hair at the base of her neck so I could tip her face toward mine.
“One week,” I said, my voice raspy. “I’ll see ye in one week, and den we’re goin’ to figure dis out.”
“I’m not sure there’s anything—”
I refused to listen to her tell me that we couldn’t be fixed and I stopped her words with my mouth. She stiffened as my teeth bit into the fleshy part of her bottom lip, but I didn’t stop, and soon she was relaxing against me and sliding her hands under the back of my coat to grip the t-shirt underneath.
“I love ye,” I said harshly before pressing my tongue into her mouth. “We will sort all of dis as soon as ye get to America.”
Tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks, and I shuddered. How the hell was I supposed to leave her?
“We’ll sort it out,” she agreed, bringing her hands up to cover my cheeks. “I love you so much.”
“I love ye, too. Me beautiful wife,” I groaned back, thanking God that whatever I’d said had finally gotten through to her.
/> I’d find a way to earn back her trust. I had to. There was no other option.
I loved her more than anything else on earth—more than my mother, more than myself. I’d do whatever it took, jump through whatever hoop I could, beg on my knees if I had to.
I would not allow her to pull away from me.
“You have to go,” she whispered achingly, running one of her fingers over my eyebrow. “I’ll see you in a week.”
“Be careful. I took care of Moira’s brudder, but ye still need to be careful, yeah?” I kissed her hard. “I don’t want to leave ye.”
“It’s only a week,” she reassured me, and I wasn’t sure how our roles had become so reversed that it was as if she was comforting me. “That’s not so long.”
“Trick, we need to go, man.” Charlie called, popping his head inside the front door.
“I love ye,” I said again hurriedly. “If I get dere before ye leave, I’ll call ye.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding even as I kissed her. “Now go.” She planted her hands against my stomach and pushed me away, but I immediately grabbed her hair in both hands and pulled her back, kissing her harshly.
“Trick! Let’s go.” Charlie called again.
I tore my mouth from Amy’s and dropped my hands from her hair. I knew that if I held her for a second longer, I wouldn’t leave. I’d fuck everything up worse, because I’d refuse to take one step from her side.
I grabbed my duffel from the floor and threw it over my shoulder before looking back at the woman who held my entire world in her hands. Her arms were wrapped around her waist, and her shoulders were bunched up nearly to her ears as she huddled against the wall, watching my every movement. I wanted to go back to her. Everything in my body was screaming for me to reach for her again, but I knew I couldn’t.
Instead, I nodded at her and pursed my lips in a kiss before turning my back and striding toward the door.
I didn’t look back again. I didn’t have the willpower.
Years later, I wondered what I would have seen on her face if I’d glanced back just once.
Chapter 36
Amy
It was my last shift, though no one in the pub knew it. Three days had passed since Patrick had left, and though I missed him, I also felt a little numb about it all. I had to pull all that numbness in around me like a cloak. Thinking about Patrick alone with Moira made me want to scream and rip my own hair out. It was agony… so I didn’t think about it. Late the next night, Peg, Doc and I would be headed for the steamer that would carry us to the US and my husband, who I was sure was waiting impatiently for our arrival.
I wasn’t nervous, not really, but I’d had this weird energy running through my body that entire night and it made me feel like I was going to jump out of my skin. Intuition? Maybe. But I couldn’t tell if it was because we were going to be on a freaking boat in the middle of the ocean for days, or if it was because I was so anxious to see Patrick again.
I was still so angry with him.
I’d had so many different emotions since he’d left. I was angry, sad, confused, nervous…jealous. God, it felt as if the jealousy would completely eat me up from the inside.
I hated Moira for taking away the one thing that I’d known I could give Patrick, the one thing reserved for me and me alone. She was having his child. His child. And here I was after months of marriage with nothing in my belly but a seething mass of emotions. It wasn’t fair.
I knew that life wasn’t fair, of course I did. But the whole situation with Moira was just too much for me to handle. I wanted to cry and scream and scratch at the hives that had become a constant reminder of my husband’s infidelity every second of every day. Instead, I just kept living like nothing was wrong and I pulled that cloak of numbness tighter around me.
Underneath it all, I just missed him so badly. Having him away at college was nothing like knowing he was somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean. I had no way to even contact him.
My night was finally almost over, and I was thinking about the things I needed to pack as I carried some garbage out the back door of the pub. I tried to ignore the hair prickling on the back of my neck as I lifted the dumpster lid and threw out the bag of trash, but something had me reaching up to rub it.
Then everything went black.
***
I woke up tied to a chair in the middle of a living room I’d never seen before, facing a man sitting on a flowered sofa. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him, and I had a hard time focusing my eyes because my head was pounding with every beat of my heart.
“Yer finally awake,” he said calmly, sitting completely still except for the way his lips moved when he talked. I opened my mouth to answer, and that’s when I realized there was something wrapped around my head and pulled tightly between my teeth.
“It’s a belt in yer mout’,” he commented as my eyes grew huge in my face. “So ye won’t bite yer tongue.”
Why the fuck would I bite my tongue? Where was I? Oh, God, it was like every horror movie I’d ever seen. Don’t go out to the dumpster alone, you fool! Run the other way!
“Amy Gallagher. Wife of Patrick Gallagher, ‘De Butcher of Dublin’, de papers call him.” He finally leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been waitin’ to talk to ye.”
I tried to mumble back that I didn’t know who he was or what the hell he was talking about, but the words came out as a bunch of gibberish. I didn’t know why he wanted to talk, but I’d talk to him about whatever he wanted if that meant he would let me go.
I wasn’t thinking about escape—I knew I was trapped. But maybe if I gave him what he wanted he wouldn’t hurt me. Maybe he’d let me go. I clung to that hope as he lifted one finger as if I should wait, and walked out of the room.
When he returned, he was carrying a ball peen hammer, some scissors, and a pair of pliers.
“I can see why Trick wanted ye,” he said conversationally, setting a small table to the right of my chair and laying the tools on top of it. “Yer quite pretty. Nuttin’ like me fiancé, but dere are few woman as beautiful as her.”
My eyes followed his movements as I barely breathed, and at the mention of his fiancé, my eyes shot to the door.
“Oh, she won’t be here,” he commented, catching the movement of my eyes. “I’m not quite sure where she is at de moment.”
He pulled a chair in from the kitchen and sat down so close that our knees were touching. “I was hopin’ ye could help me wit’ dat. Nod if ye’d like to help me,” he ordered with a smile.
I nodded frantically, willing to do anything for him to let me go. He wanted me to help him find his fiancé? I’d search for her myself.
“Wonderful,” he said, reaching behind my hair to gently loosen the belt and pull it down until it was resting against my collar bone. “Would ye like a drink of water?” I nodded again, as I tried to moisten my mouth with saliva. My mouth was so dry that my tongue was sticking to the top of my mouth.
“Dere now, dat’s better,” he said, after he’d lifted a glass of water to my mouth. “I’m so glad dat yer willin’ to help me. Dat makes everyt’in’ so much easier.”
He set the water down on the table and then turned to face me again.
“Where is Moira?” he asked, reaching out to run his fingers through my hair.
His fingers caught in the tangles of my hair and I shivered in revulsion as panic hit me harder and more quickly than it ever had in my life. For a moment I was completely silent as I gaped at him. This was because of Moira?
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I wasn’t sure if they were still on the ocean, where they were on the ocean, or even if they’d made it to North Carolina.
He made a chastising noise with his mouth, and I realized then that I should have asked who Moira was. By answering the way I had, he knew that I knew something.
“Please, please, I don’t know,” I pleaded quickly as he stood and grabbed the scissors off the table.
“Every time ye lie, ye’ll be punished,” he replied, gripping my hair and pulling until my neck was arched over the back rung of the chair. I fought to bring my head forward, but all that did was make the position of my neck hurt worse.
He began to use the scissors on my hair, and though I was relieved that he wasn’t hurting me, I couldn’t stop the hysterical sobs that ripped out of my throat. I couldn’t see how much he cut off, but I could feel the cold edge of the scissors against my scalp over and over again, and by the time he was done, I could actually feel cool air against the crown of my head.
“Dat was not so bad,” he scolded, sitting down calmly in front of me again as he discarded the scissors. “Butcher paid a visit to Michael, did ye know? Left his callin’ card, so to speak, so I know he’s got her somewhere and yer his wife, so I’m sure ye know where he’s keepin’ her. Maybe even feelin’ a bit out of sorts with his bastard in her belly? So why don’t ye tell me, hmmm? Where is Moira?”
“I don’t know! I swear I don’t,” I told him, looking directly into his eyes. His pupils were like pinpricks, and I was suddenly afraid that he wasn’t only crazy and angry, but that he was on something, too.
He sighed deeply, and I watched in terror as he pulled the table so that it slid under my left hand, between the arm of the chair and my fingers. He moved his tools around, setting them just so. When he picked up the hammer, I felt my entire body freeze in terror.
I didn’t see it hit my index finger. As he raised the hammer, I’d instinctively shut my eyes against what I knew would happen.
It didn’t change a fucking thing, though. I still felt the cold metal crush the bone as I bit my tongue and then screamed, blood pouring out of my mouth and down my chin as I lost all control of my bladder.
I’d never felt such pain before. It was radiating up my arm in waves that I couldn’t control, and when I tried to curl my hand into a fist to protect the other digits, his large hand slammed down on top of mine, making me howl once again.