Page 61 of Irish Daddies
Juniper, barely four and dragging a blanket behind her like a cape, comes toddling out next. She blinks sleepily up at me and says, “We made cookies.”
James finally steps fully off the porch and crouches down beside Aspen, gently herding her toward the door with one hand while ruffling the boys’ hair with the other. “We saved some for youtwo,” he says. “Peanut butter and chocolate chip. The important kind.” He looks at me, “Hope that’s okay.”
“You don’t have to ask me for permission,” I say quietly, more to myself than anyone else. “You’re doing what I can’t.”
“They’re still yours,” he replies, just as softly. “And you should eat too. You look skinny.”
By the time I turn back to Alaina, she’s stepped off the path and into the driveway. Her eyes are wet but steady. She opens her arms to me, and I walk into them without thinking. I fold into her like I’m drowning and she’s the shore. Like maybe, if I hold her tight enough, I’ll find the part of me I lost somewhere between pain and survival.
“You don’t have to do this,” she murmurs against my ear, her breath warm, her voice steady even as her throat works against tears. “You could run. I could help you disappear. Canada, Mexico, anywhere you want. Just point to a globe.”
I close my eyes. “I can’t,” I whisper back, even though it isn’t true. Long ago, it was. When I was locked in a room, starved and studied. When I had no say in what happened to me or my body or my boys. But that’s not what this is anymore. This is a choice. This is power. And that’s scarier than anything that came before. “I can’t keep teaching them to be afraid,” I add. “I won’t let them grow up thinking safety means hiding.”
She pulls back to look me in the eyes, hands gripping my arms like she could hold me in place if she needed to. “Then end it,” she says fiercely. “Whatever this is—this thing that keeps dragging you back—end it so you can come home. I hope you destroy it. I hope you burn it to the ground and walk away. I want you back. Whole.”
Her voice cracks on the last word.
“I’ll try,” I say. “That’s the plan.”
James is holding the front door open now. Inside, the kids’ laughter is already echoing through the house, bouncing off the walls like nothing’s wrong. Alaina heads in first, casting one last look over her shoulder. I help the boys carry their little bags up the porch steps—stuffed animals and pajamas and picture books Alaina already has duplicates of. I let them hug me one last time, whispering reminders to listen, to be good, to remember that I love them more than anything in the world. I kiss their foreheads and try not to inhale like I’m memorizing them.
“You should stay for dinner,” Alaina says with a strangled voice, her head tilted. “You can end whatever it is tomorrow, can’t you? In the morning?”
I laugh. “No, I have to go. Thank you.” I reach for her and smell the lingering scent of shampoo in her wet hair.
“You sure you don’t want a cookie?” James asks.
I sigh, rolling my eyes dramatically. “Okay, okay, let me try one of these cookies.”
And a moment later, Alaina is waving from the porch as I back out of the driveway. My hand trembles as I raise it, and I force it to stay lifted until I turn the corner and lose sight of them.
Only then do I let it drop to my lap. The silence that replaces their laughter is deafening. Like a verdict. Like a sentence passed down. I tell myself that this silence is my penance for every choice I’ve made and for the blood on my hands. For what I’m about to do next.
And then I take a bite of the cookie my best friend gave me. No matter what I’ve done, she still thinks I deserve to be fed.
36
KELLAN
The house feels biggerwithout them.
It’s not, of course. Same square footage. But it feels like the walls have pulled back from me, like the space between everything has grown teeth without the boys and Caroline to soften it.
She’ll be back soon, dropped off by the driver. So, I stay in the kitchen, chopping fruit with hands that are too steady for what we’re about to do. It’s just something to do. She likes breakfast for dinner, and it’s an easy way to pretend that life is normal, to greet her back into…this. Us. Strawberries, bananas, and waffle batter that’s starting to bubble at the edges of the bowl.
Declan drops a rolled blueprint on the counter like a guillotine. The paper curls, unfurling with a kind of finality. “One more time before she gets here,” he says, palms flat against the marble, his shoulders taut with sweat. “Just to be absolutely sure we know every move.”
I keep chopping. I keeplistening. Half to Declan, half to the silence beyond us, listening for Isaac’s little gremlin giggle or the slap of Joshua’s feet across the hardwood. For Caroline’s voicecalling out for a missing shoe or a lost sippy cup or a goddamn moment of peace.
There’s none of that now. Just us. Just this.
“When he comes over,” Declan says, tapping the map, “he likes to sit here. The head of the table. Makes him feel like a king. If he has guards, they’ll be posted here and here. One eye on the perimeter. One inside.”
I scrape batter into the waffle iron and close the lid with more force than I mean to. “But they won’t likely be inside,” I murmur, watching the iron hiss.
“If they are,” Rian adds, raising the drink in his hand like he’s making some fucked-up toast, “we spread out. One of us on Athair. One for each guard. Take them out clean.”
My eyes are locked on my batter, feigning nonchalance as my heart strains painfully against my sternum. “We wait until after Caroline’s toast. She’ll give the signal. And Kellan, you’ll be next to him, so you’ll disarm him, like we said.”
