Pulling back, I rubbed the side of my neck. “I’ll call him as soon as I’m done here.”
I dreaded that call.
Aidan and I had agreed that we’d never confront our boy, that he’d come to us when and if he was ready to talk, but knowing what I did, how was I supposed to stay silent?
How was I supposed to hold the words back in?
This wasn’t my secret to tell. This was his. And he was the one who’d suffered. Not me. I was just the one who’d failed him. Over and over and over again.
God help me, but I wished Finn and Junior had let me die. Had let those flames flicker over me and had burned my shame, leaving me to rot in hell for how much I’d failed them.
My life hadn’t been easy, but a mother’s lot was to try to make her children’s better. Brighter. Instead, I’d condemned them from the start.
“Where’s here?” Declan questioned, his words breaking into my self-pity.
“I’m at Bellevue.”
“The hospital? Visiting Michael?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s with you now?”
“Jamie.”
“He’s driving you?”
“No. Fenris is.”
“You like him, don’t you? Or do you want me to switch him out too?”
“No. He’s a good boy.”
“Okay, I’ll leave you to it and will work on transferring Sean over to your detail. Give Michael my regards?”
“Will do, son.” I cleared my throat. “Declan?”
“Yes, Ma?”
“You’re a good man. I hope you know that. Aela’s lucky to have you as her husband.”
He was quiet a second. “I stopped being good a long time ago, but I’ll do whatever I have to to make sure I’m good enough for her.” Before I could answer, he mumbled, “I’ll speak with you later, Ma.”
And he cut the call.
Declan had always been my special boy. So unlike his father and brothers, and for Aidan, unlike meant different, and different was bad.
Declan loved the arts. Ballet. Opera. You’d think he was into sodomy the way Aidan had gone on about that when Dec was younger.
I’d fallen for Aidan years ago, but his failings were many, and as a father, he’d been a brute. I saw that now.
Back then, I’d just thought he wasn’t as bad as my da, and I’d been trying to keep the family together.
Five boys, six with Finn, were a lot to corral. Especially when they were all so damn rambunctious.
Conor always hacking into NASA or causing trouble on the internet.
Eoghan forever taking potshots with that BB gun Padraig had gotten him for Christmas when he was four.
There’d never been a day where Brennan and Aidan weren’t fighting, and then there was Declan, trying to hide his love for opera and the arts by getting into squabbles at school that had me in the principal’s office every day.
Life had been relatively normal, then the Aryans had taken me, and I’d checked out.
Brennan and Aidan were fully grown, but the rest of my sons were still boys. Still babies. But I’d been broken. Too broken to protect them.
So many mistakes, so many forgotten promises, so much damage wrought.
Christmas wasn’t the first time I’d tried to end it all.
The last attempt, Aidan had sent me to a special center. It was why I hated hospitals now. Why my visiting Michael meant more than he could possibly understand.
Straightening up, shielding my expression, I turned away from the window, ready to show the world at large that Lena O’Donnelly was not to be messed with.
If they only knew how frail that mask was.
Declan: Did you hear about Michael?
Eoghan: The cancer?
Declan: What else?
Eoghan: Is that rhetorical?
Declan: Doh.
Eoghan: Speak in full sentences, Dec. Jesus. Yes, I knew about Michael. Yes, I set Jamie on her to make up for his loss.
Declan: I’m giving her Sean too.
Eoghan: Good thinking, she likes him.
Declan: She sounds down.
Eoghan: She’s married to Da. Why wouldn’t she be down?
Declan: You sound miserable too.
Eoghan: Just tired.
Declan: You’re on your honeymoon. You’re supposed to be tired.
Eoghan: Yeah, I guess.
Declan: You ready to come back?
Eoghan: I’m ready for my bed. And for the quiet. It’s noisy here.
Declan: Thought you were in the middle of nowhere?
Eoghan: I am. It’s not quiet enough.
Declan: LOL. You’re such a fucking weirdo.
Eoghan: If you say so.
Declan: You going to be back in time for the ceremony?
Eoghan: Yeah. Extended the trip and we’re flying straight into Boston.
Declan: Good thinking.
Eoghan: I’m capable of it sometimes.
Declan: No shit.
Eoghan: Did Finn help you with whatever had you ringing me ten times a day?
Declan: He did. I’ll leave your miserable ass in peace.
Eoghan: About time.
Declan: Give Inessa my love.
Eoghan: Will do.
Seventeen
Eoghan
Just last year, my penthouse was a silent, cavernous space.
Empty.
Furnished but still vacant within.
A place where I rested my head, where I ate, and where I worked out.
It had become a home in that time. A home that was still a haven just not as quiet as it had once been.
This hotel was noisy.
This hotel was not a haven.
I even preferred listening to Inessa and Victoria’s horrendous taste in boy bands over this hotel.
Four AM every day, a delivery van came with fresh bread from only God knew where.
A half-hour later, the owner’s shower kicked on and the pipes started creaking.
Fifteen minutes after that, the furnace began raging.
Another hour in, the washing machine switched on in the kitchen.
Then came the cooking.
Followed by more pipes creaking and the furnace grumbling as guests woke up.
I’d slept in quieter barracks in Afghanistan.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
The whisper had me tilting my head on the pillow so I could see her. This creature who had come into my life and who had made a penthouse a home, and who had changed my world.
She didn’t know it. Neither had I until the other day.
“Why aren’t you?”
“You were huffing.”
“I was not,” I argued, immediately sitting up on my elbow. “I don’t huff.”
She sniffed. “What woke me up then?”
“Considering we’re staying in a hotel that makes an orchestra look silent, take your pick of what woke you up.”
“Grouch.”
“You sleep like you’re dead,” I retorted.
“You sleep like you’re a princess.”
“A princess?” I snickered. “Which princess do I take after?”
“The princess and the pea.” She yawned. “Go back to sleep. It’s still dark out.”
“It’s always dark out.”
“You don’t like it here, do you?”
I’d liked it plenty until I’d had to kill two people in the open air in a tiny buttfuck nowhere town.