Page 27 of Cosmo

“Why wasn’t he with his dad?” Mims asked, obviously missing his own father.

“That’s what you do, honey. Find out, but…a lot of questions were just answered for me. Now, it’s up to a vote whether he stays or goes.”

“We’re not kicking him out because of this,” Mims hollered. “That’s not fair! Don’t you think he’s been through enough?”

Murphy understood that sentiment, especially coming from Mims, who’d lost his real family because of his sexuality. He missed them every day. “Mims, we have to be a family here. It’s as important as any part of this.”

“Why? Because we steal shit together?”

“No! Because if someone doesn’t see us all as family, if we’re not close to them, and if they don’t trust us and care for us, how easy would it be for them to give us up to the cops or our enemies?”

Mims deflated visibly, his shoulder slumping as he nodded. “I guess you’re right. You know my vote.”

“Taken. But Mims, I have to disclose this.”

“Then disclose it to him first.”

Murphy sighed again. “He doesn’t even know about our other business. I can’t tell him why we were looking into him.”

Mims started typing so fast that his fingers were a blur. “I hate this part of it.”

“I know. I do, too.” Then Murphy thought of something and asked, “Why didn’t this come up immediately?”

“You saw it. It didn’t have Liam’s name in the paper. They do that to keep the kid’s identity protected. It had to be the dad.”

“Still, it took this long?”

Mims did his lightning typing and Murphy watched as Mims’s head cocked to one side, and his lip was being gnawed on. “This is weird,” he finally said.

“What?”

“That search brought up exactly this. That one article. You’d think that this would be the news over weeks back then! Even with the war and all that, this is big!”

Murphy agreed. “The same thing, well, almost, happened to a woman in the nineties, I believe, and it was all over the television, newspapers, everything. Maybe this was so close to that it wasn’t shocking enough. Poison instead of drowning isn’t as exciting,” he said with all the disdain he could. “Sensationalism sells.”

Tally was back with them, sniffling. “Or the church. They’re Roman Catholic Irish, I’d bet.”

Mims was staring at her like she was crazy. “Why would the church care?”

“The other woman that did something similar to this, she was religious and their religion, like Catholics, didn’t believe in birthcontrol. They think having a lot of kids brings them closer to God.”

“That’s insane!”

“It is,” Tally agreed. “To some churches, women are on the earth solely for procreation. The Catholics were totally against birth control for centuries, but it’s only been a few decades when they’ve allowed it.”

“The church,” Murphy spat. His thoughts on religion was well known. “You don’t know that’s why, though, Tally.”

“The story is as old as the world. Women combat bad marriages by killing the things the husband loves most. His children. Other women are in such bad marriages they have mental breaks. Then, of course, there are those who are just evil. We may never know why Cosmo’s mother did this. But we know he needs us, probably more than any of you boys.”

Murphy felt like he was being backed into a corner. “Dammit, Tally, need and being smart are two different things! He’ll find out about us eventually, even if we keep him on and not bring him in, and then what?”

“You’ll speak to Eazy and the boys, Murphy. Then decide what to do from there, like you said. I get no vote, of course, except for maybe the conscience of the group.”

“I’m with Mama.”

Her voice softening even more, she soothed, “Mims, I appreciate that, but none of this is Murphy’s fault. We can’t gang up against him. His worry isn’t just for him and his own husband and children, but for you all, too. Like he said, you’re all family.”

Tears streamed down Mims’s cheeks as he nodded to her. “Okay. I’ll remember that.”

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