Page 289 of Mangled Memory
“Then how?”
“If I had to guess, and I don’t want to be right, your sister did this.” I look at the paper again before letting it flit to the desk below me. “It’s dated less than a month after she moved in with me.”
“Liam told me about the idea of her helping Dad. We both think it’s bullshit he spouted to spin you up. There’s no reason she’d help that arrogant ass.”
But the light is dawning. “Even if it meant Janie’s quality of life?”
His mouth opens and shuts like a fish on land fighting to breathe. He stares off into nothingness, lost in thought. When he comes back fromwhatever memory or assumption he must have of his sister, he shakes his head. “It’s the only thing I can think of that would even make her consider it. Me or Liam? Maybe… well, probably. But Mom? Yeah, I can see it.”
“So my whole marriage is a sham. She used me so your mom could have more progressive health care and not have to fund it.” I extend a hand like the paper is proof of what I’m discovering. “So she was helping.”
He shrugs. “It looks that way.”
“And Seamus wasn’t lying…”
“Apparently.”
“Well?” I don’t even know what I’m asking or insinuating. I’m just… stuck.
“But—” Cian pauses as if trying to figure out a brain teaser. “With your logic that he’s being truthful, why did she stop? And when?”
“Only she knows.”
Cian shakes his head. “No, Christian. You’re wrong. She doesn’t. Her amnesia isn’t an act. There have been too many moments over too long where she could’ve made a mistake and slipped up. My sister is sharp, and we both know she can be cunning, but she’s no liar. She’d have let down her guard somewhere. That hasn’t happened with me. Liam hasn’t revealed it’s happened with him. Have you seen anything to indicate she knows more than she’s letting on?”
“Other than her declaring to Seamus that she remembered when no one was supposed to be within earshot?” Well, except a man she’s been trying to discredit since the day I took that bullet.
“Shit. I know.” His hands rest atop his head, elbows wide. “But I don’t… There would be signs.”
There would be signs.Cian’s words roll through my head all day and into the evening.
I head home after eleven because I don’t want to see his sister or speak with her. Forgery, falsehood, farce. All three F-words lead me to the same place. Fool—that’s me.
A sticky note is on the counter.
There are leftovers on a plate in the fridgefor you. Corinne says it’s one of your favorites. We need to talk, Honey. It’s not what you think.
The fuck it isn’t. It’s exactly what I think it is.
I consider the food for two seconds before I decide on a liquid diet. There’s little I suspect I can keep down. Bourbon, though… that’ll do.
One tumbler later, I access the cameras on my phone to find Ayla asleep in the guest room. Hell behind door number one or hell behind door number—the choices are ridiculous.
I shower and fall into bed in our room.Our room. I’ve got to get my head straight around this language. Nothing is ours. Technically, with the guardianship, I guess everything is mine. The businesses, the houses, the money. I can easily adjust the order where she has no access.
My head knows I should; my heart can’t bear to consider it.
I slide into fitful sleep, waking less rested than I’ve been in ages. I skip Georgio in the morning since looking at the machine makes me think of my caffeine-addicted wife and her once-cute coffee-related chatter.
How many days can I use my home as a hotel, coming in late and leaving early to avoid living there? I guess the answer is indefinitely, but that means a dwindling of my soul.
No. It’s not my house that is the problem. It’s that my life, my love—hell, my heart, mind, and soul—are tied to the woman who made my house a home. As furious as I am over the whole fucked-up situation, when it boils down to it, I’m brutalized by her betrayal and withdrawing based on her violating every gift I’ve given her.
Me: Assuming you’re covering Ayla today.
Fitzgerald Young: Always.
She may deserve my wrath, but she doesn’t deserveanything more.
