Page 27 of One Kill

I can’t stop staring. It’s more fascinating than the fucking two-hour movie I just forced myself to watch. About halfway up the stairs, he stops just before his head disappears above the drywall and nods his head, telling me to follow him.

I hesitate for just a second, not quite sure how good of an idea it is to get even more attached to this life, to this idea that I could have a family again. I could love my childhood sweetheart and the daughter I thought never survived. But my logic is bitch-slapped by my visceral need to participate in whatever routine they share.Haveshared since that day I ran from the bloody corpses of my parents and my baby, cutting the umbilical cord and never looking back.

Well, except for that diner. Every fucking year, I mourned the death of my baby, spending an entire twenty-four hours allowing my vaulted down heart to crack, to come out and revisit the most painful day of my life.

I wish I could tell that terrified, confused, sixteen-year-old girl to… do something different. But even as I look back, I can’t imagine carrying a dead body with me as I ran for my life through the streets of New Jersey covered in blood. Going to a hospital was out of the question, they had the Irish on auto dial. A church? They were owned by the mob. There was nothing but Manhattan left for me, where a rival mob would welcome good intel in exchange for safety.

By the time we reach Hallie’s bedroom, I’m thinking of a million ways to make this work, but as soon as we enter her private little space, all thoughts of the Italians and the Irish disappear completely. I’m in her world, where the two biggest walls are essentially bookshelves, half filled with books, the other half with stuffed animals and trinkets. Her desk is in the corner of the two giant shelves with her laptop neatly closed and put away, her school books piled high.

Murphy gently places her in the middle of her king-size bed, half of it inside the nook of the bookshelf. She mumbles something about love and daddy and I watch, fascinated, as Murph bends down and places his lips on her forehead, wishing her sweet dreams full of fictional book boyfriends.

What now? Making a mental note to ask what the ever-loving fuck that was about, I jolt in surprise when his hand touches mine, pulling me closer to Hallie’s fast asleep form.

“Tell her goodnight.” It’s like he’s teaching me the basics of being a mom and I’m already failing.

My eyes fixed on Hallie, I blink, my chest heating with some weird feeling of pride and… love, I think. I remember this. It’s how I felt every time I was with Murphy Gallagher, the good Irish boy from down the street. It’s how I felt about my parents every time they hugged me.

With shaky hands and a heart trying to gallop its way out of my ribcage, I bend at the waist and place my lips on her forehead. In that one specific moment, I have an epiphany, the clarity of my entire existence comes into view in the forefront of my mind and everything… every single thing… is simple.

I’m a mother. She’s mine. Nothing else in this world could possibly come between us.

Stranger than the emotions that have taken permanent residence in my heart, are the tears threatening to fall down my cheeks and onto hers. No, I can’t do that.

Taking in a deep breath, I find the strength to rise back up and step away from the perfection that is asleep in her gigantic bed.

“It’s huge, isn’t it?” Murphy’s voice is suddenly so close, his lips grazing the outer shell of my ear, and I know he’s not talking about the bed. “This feeling every time you look at her?”

I can’t speak so I just nod, because he’s right, it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. Bigger, even, than life itself.

“How do you live with it? I mean… how can you contain it?” My question seems strange but it’s like my entire existence is now focused on her and only her. How do parents do it? Have a life outside of this love?

“You don’t. Everything you do revolves around her and her needs. When she’s a baby, as a toddler, as a child, and now as a teenager. You just evolve with her and adapt to whatever it is she needs from you.” His lips land on the side of my neck and linger there long enough to have my heartbeat slamming against my chest again. “Mostly, you give her love. It’s all she needs, really.”

Suddenly, I wonder if he’s still talking about Hallie as he turns me around in his arms and brings our foreheads together until we’re inside our own private bubble. “All any of us need… is love.”

For the first time since they’ve been back in my life, I allow myself to lower my guard and just bask in the warmth of these foreign emotions. Not foreign because I’ve never felt love, but because it’s been so long that I have to remind my brain that it’s possible.

Losing a child, no matter the circumstances or the age, is the most traumatizing experience possible. Yes, my parents’ brutal murder broke something inside me, but seeing my baby’s lifeless body lying in a pool of my own blood destroyed every single part of me. Working in the shadows of the mafia, killing and fighting for your life, is nothing compared to those couple of hours trapped inside a closet, trying to survive the loss of everyone I loved.

Yet, standing here with Murphy’s hands centering me as our daughter sleeps safely and comfortably in her bed just two feet away from us is like a magnet bringing the broken pieces of my heart back together.

Murphy brings his soft lips to mine with a ghost of a kiss, barely a physical touch but with the emotional weight of a tsunami. When he pulls away, my lids are heavy with lust and need but as I focus on the sight of him, it’s the smirk dancing at the corner of his lips that brings back memories of us from more than a decade ago.

“Come on, Jaybear.” With my hand firmly trapped in his palm, he leads me to the corner of the bookshelf and plugs in a nightlight. The sudden appearance of stars and planets on the ceiling is mesmerizing. It’s like Hallie has her own observatory right here in her bedroom.

“Wow.” Yeah, real original, that reaction.

“She used to get night terrors when she was a toddler and this helped a little.” Fuck, I missed so much… everything, really.

That thought provokes a ball of hatred in my gut and the urge to dig up the men who killed my parents and kill them all over again is overwhelming. Instead, I allow Murphy to lead us outside the room and down the stairs until we’re back in the kitchen.

“Her room is big, and all those books?” I need to know more about her, learn her quirks and loves and dislikes.

“When I bought this house, it was badly in need of renovations. The only reason I could afford it was because it was a foreclosure. Plus, my parents and I negotiated the price based on the work it needed.” Taking out the tea bags and a kettle, Murphy makes us a pot as our ancestors taught us. None of this American shit with water in the microwave.

The kitchen sink isn’t piled up with dishes, the faux-marble counters don’t have a single spot of dirt on them, and the floors aren’t littered with crumbs. In other words, these two have a system and it works. They take care of each other. When I was a kid, my mother did everything and expected me to learn her ways while my father “took care of business”. I didn’t know it back then, but I do today. He was working for the Irish and putting us all in danger.

Sitting behind the breakfast bar that is basically a prolonged part of the kitchen counter, my breathing returns to something more natural, less frenzied. More controllable.

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