Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 84342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“You said you talked to Dad. Then you started asking questions like you were trying to figure out if he told me something.”
“No, no, you’re being paranoid, really. Everything’s fine.”
“Mom,” I say sharply.
She stops putting away some silverware and stands near the sink, staring out the back window. “I told myself I’d let it go. If you didn’t show up, I swore I’d just let it go. But now you’re here and I still don’t want to talk about it.”
“Talk about what, Mom? I’m getting tired of all this insinuation. Both you and Genaro are acting like some big secret’s eating you alive. Just tell me what’s happening.”
Mom turns and there are tears in her eyes. I sit back in surprise. I haven’t seen my mother cry since my father left all those years ago and I’m thrown back in time so suddenly it’s physically jarring. I remember so clearly sitting at this exact table when I was barely a little girl and trying to console my mother, my grown mother, my rock and my world, and being totally incapable of making her calm down. I remember feeling so overwhelmed and unnerved at the idea of adults losing control of their emotions, especially my mother. Even now I find it hard to think back on those days.
“Your father and I made peace with what happened between us a long time ago,” she says quietly, staring down at her hands. “I know you haven’t forgiven him, but I think you would, if you understood.”
“Understood what?”
“Sweetie, your father left me for a reason. He left me for a very good reason, in fact, and I hate myself for not telling you sooner. I think you’re going to hate me too, and I need you to know how sorry I am. I wanted everything to work and I tried so hard, but when he found out the truth—well, he was well within his rights to go.”
I push my chair back from the table. My hands tremble and I feel dizzy as tears roll down my mother’s cheeks. “What did you do?” I ask softly, trying not to cry, trying to hold it together because we can’t both be a wreck.
“It was a mistake. A very stupid mistake with a man named Ronan O’Shea.”
I gag at that name, O’Shea. Cillian’s grinning face comes back. His words hit me like hammer blows. I want to scream but it’s like I’m Fynn in a coma, locked inside my body, unable to move a muscle. I watch my mother in horror as she just keeps talking and I want her to stop, to shut her mouth, to let me keep the illusion of my life intact, but she doesn’t, and I break and break and break.
Chapter 23
Mirella
“I met him at work.” Her voice is a monotone and I sit in my chair, my body stiff as a board like my muscles are locked into place. I’m watching a train slam into a passenger van and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. “I was waitressing at a bar back then called Swan’s Lonely Heart, a real Irish pub sort of place back before pubs were popular, and he was a regular. He’d sit at the end of the bar and watch soccer and drink whiskey and laughs with all the others regulars, a bunch of rough red-haired Irish bastards, you know the type. Things were rocky with Genaro and I was having a hard time accepting the life he lived, and it was easy to forget about him in the middle of a shift when the drinkers are all drunk and happy and the music’s real loud and they’re getting excited about a soccer match on TV. I knew what Genaro was before we got together, but I thought maybe after we got married it would all be okay.” She shakes her head, tears rolling silently along her wrinkled cheeks. “It wasn’t, of course. I was so young and so stupid back then.”
“Tell me you didn’t,” I manage to croak.
Mom continues on like she didn’t hear me. “Ronan was so kind and so handsome. He was by far the best-looking man in the place every night and he’d almost always have a girl or two or sometimes three on his arm. We’d talk and laugh and flirt a bit and I always thought it was perfectly innocent. He was kind and tipped well, and also scary, but the good sort of scary. I was just an idiot girl back then and he charmed me, although I think I wanted to be charmed. When I took a break to talk to Ronan, my problems went away, no more Genaro, no more arguments at home, no more danger. I could pretend like I was just another girl flirting with just another guy and that was all right with me. And one night, Ronan came into the bar without a girl on his arm, and he didn’t pick one up even though I saw more than a few looking at him, and he just kept talking to me every chance he got. Like he was there on a mission. And you should’ve seen him, Mirella, he was so attractive and outgoing, it was hard to ignore him. That night, he stayed until closing and offered to get me a drink, so we went out together, and he has this little white car with a loud engine and he laughed a lot and touched my hand, and one thing led to another, and—”