Page 70 of Stolen Mafia Vows
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
I turn around to walk straight back out of the house, but her calm voice stops me.
“You’re not going anywhere, lad. Sit yourself down.”
Gran pulls out a chair, eyebrows disappearing beneath her graying curls, and grips the back of the seat until I make my way around the table and follow her orders.
Without a word, she fills the kettle with water and switches it on to boil. Then she washes her hands, retrieves the medical kit from the cabinet above the sink and carries it to the table. While she busies herself locating the equipment she needs, and pulling on blue latex gloves, I remove my sweater, the bullet lodged inside my shoulder sending shards of red-hot pain up and down my spine.
She opens one of the lower cabinets and pulls out a bottle of whisky, then she pours large shots into two heavy-bottomed glasses, and downs one herself before handing me the second drink.
The minor wound, the graze, is fixed easily with some antiseptic wipes, and a large Band-aid. I’ve never questioned Gran’s role within the family before, but watching her work deftly and efficiently, not a glimmer of repulsion or fear in her eyes at the cause of the wounds, my mind is suddenly flooded with visions of her from when I was a lad.
She was always there, in the background, the person who saw and heard it all, but never interfered. The fixer upper. The one who pre-empted the family’s needs. She would be waiting with a meal if anyone was hungry, a drink if they were thirsty, aresolution to a problem that needed solving. The constant. The guiding light. The family’s very own North Star.
Gran inspects the bullet wound more closely. Then, straightening with a nod, she says softly, “Finish your drink, lad.”
I down the whisky in one, and Gran refills the glass.
I’m still holding it when she places a wad of tissue on my arm and pours whisky into the open wound. The sting takes my breath away, but I force myself to swallow my second shot and wait for another refill.
“What does this have to do with Ruairi?” Gran asks as she removes the bullet with a pair of tweezers soaked in boiling water from the kettle.
“He was meeting Caleb Murray when he was killed. Emily’s brother,” I quickly add because I’ve no idea how much Gran knows. “Pa wants a war.”
“But you’re worried what that will mean for you and Emily.” She disposes of the bullet without a glance and cleans the wound with more antiseptic wipes.
“Her family never told her what they were. Until today.”
Talking about it is like dissecting the various components of the situation and sorting them into an order that I can make sense of.
“She thinks that I married her to get to her family.”
“Didn’t they tell her about the peace agreement between the Murrays and the Byrnes?” She pulls nylon thread through the eye of a sterilized needle and gestures for me to pull out the seat next to me so that she can sit down. Pinching the flesh together, she inserts the tip of the needle into one end of the woundand begins stitching. Her movements are gentle but firm.
“They did, but she’s confused. And scared. Her family is angry with her for marrying me, but she isn’t there, and I don’t know where she’s gone.”
“Let me guess.” She keeps her eyes firmly fixed on the raggedy flesh on my arm. “They think she’s with you.”
I feel calm sitting here talking to Gran despite the flames licking the inside of my skull from the pain. “I think Pa has her.”
Voices reach us from the entrance hall before my father enters the kitchen flanked by my Uncle Dermott and Uncle Sean.
Pa takes one look at the scene, his face visibly graying as his lips pinch together, lines fanning his mouth like a web. He strides around the table, says, “I’ll take it from here,” and replaces Gran in the seat when she stands up and moves aside.
He picks up the needle, without making eye contact. “Out with it, lad. You got something to say, then just fucking say it.” The next stitch sends tiny flickers of pain jolting through me, and I down the whisky in my glass.
Gran instantly refills it, her familiar perfume doing little to ground me, and pats my arm reassuringly as she steps back from the table.
“What did you do with Emily?” No point holding back. I’ve a deadline to meet before this whole thing is beyond my control.
“What makes you think I have her?”
Another stitch. Another wave of pain. I don’t flinch.
“Where else would shego?”
“Did her father do this to you?”
