Chapter 18 Liam
She hadn't said a word since we pulled out of the underground garage.
I glanced over at her in the passenger seat, watching her twist the hem of her cardigan between two fingers, over and over, a nervous habit I remembered from years ago. It was kind of comforting to see that in some ways, she hadn’t changed at all.
"You're quiet," I said, easing the SUV onto the river road, my da's compound still fifteen minutes out.
"I'm thinking."
"About?"
"About how I never said goodbye to anyone when I left." She kept her eyes fixed out the window, her jaw clenched tight. "And now I get to walk back in and let everyone see exactly how that turned out."
"They won't see it like that."
"They’ll absolutely see it like that, Liam.
" She finally turned to look at me, something raw and unguarded flashing across her face before she could smooth it back into practiced defiance.
"Your very Catholic family doesn't do divorce.
Everybody's going to have an opinion, and everybody's going to have it loudly, over dinner, while your father slowly dissociates. "
I almost laughed, because she wasn't wrong. That was exactly the kind of dinner my family specialized in.
And I wouldn’t have changed it for a thing.
"Hey." I reached over without really deciding to and closed my hand over hers, stilling the anxious twisting of fabric between her fingers. She startled, but she didn't pull away. "Nobody in that house is going to say one word to you tonight that I don't personally allow. You understand me?"
"That's not really the reassurance you think it is."
"Fair." I laced my fingers through hers instead, resting our joined hands on the console between us, feeling the familiar weight of her palm against mine, worn soft in places I remembered and calloused in new ones I didn't. The years had put new lines on her hands.
I found I wanted to know the story behind every single one of them.
"Let me try again. You've survived worse rooms than my father's dining room.
You survived almost a year of actual marriage to me.
That should qualify you for combat pay."
That got the smallest huff of laughter out of her, unwilling, quickly stifled. "That's not funny."
"A little funny."
"Sure. Whatever you say." But some of the tension finally eased out of her shoulders, just slightly, her thumb shifting to trace absent, unconscious circles against the back of my hand. It undid something in my chest, and I coughed to loosen the sudden tightness forming there.
"For what it's worth," I said, quieter now, "nobody in my family ever saw you as a failure. Not once. Not even the night you left."
"You're just saying that."
"I'm really not." I kept my eyes on the road so I wouldn’t have to look at her.
"Da asks about you every once in a while. I think he likes knowing if you’re safe.
" I paused. "He's going to be thrilled you're back, Roxy, whatever happens with us.
That's the truth, whether you believe it right now or not. "
She was quiet for a long moment, staring down at our joined hands.
"I forgot what this felt like," she said finally, so soft I almost missed it over the hum of the engine. "You, being like this. All…supportive."
"Just because we’re getting divorced, it doesn’t mean we have to stop being friends."
The corner of her mouth lifted, small and reluctant.
For one unguarded mile, it felt like we were just two people who used to love each other easily, before the world got its hands on us and complicated everything.
I held onto that feeling as long as the drive allowed, greedy for it, storing it away like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter.
Then the iron gates of my da's compound came into view, and I felt her hand tighten in mine.
"Ready?" I asked.
"No. But let's go anyway."
* * *
The house was already loud by the time we walked in: my father's booming laugh audible from the front hall, the clatter of my great-grandmother's good china being set, some younger cousins shrieking playfully in the next room.
Roxy squared her shoulders beside me, chin lifting into that familiar, defiant tilt I'd fallen in love with.
And she walked in like she owned the place, even though I could feel that her palm had gone slightly damp with nerves.
Da spotted her before anyone else did.
"There she is." The Murphy patriarch rose from the green reading chair and crossed the room in three long strides, arms already open. To my relief, Roxy let herself be pulled into a real hug. "God, look at you. You look wonderful, sweetheart. Doesn't she look wonderful, everyone?"
A chorus of agreement rose up from the room, warm and genuine, and I watched some of the rigid tension finally leave Roxy's spine.
I let her get pulled into the current of my family, watching from a few steps back as my aunt fussed over her hair, as my sisters-in-law demanded to know everything about wherever she'd been, as the whole warm chaos of the house I'd grown up in absorbed her back in like she'd never left at all.
It was Declan's voice that cut through my satisfaction, easy and light, drink already in hand as he ambled over to greet her.
"Roxy Murphy," he said, that same charming grin he'd worn since we were kids, pulling her into a loose, cousinly hug. "Look what the cat dragged back into town."
"Declan." Her voice was perfectly pleasant. I was impressed that she even remembered his name. But I caught something passing behind her eyes as she said his name, there and gone so fast I nearly convinced myself I'd imagined it.
I filed it away without fully understanding why, some old instinct prickling at the back of my neck. Just old wounds resurfacing, old family tension she'd never quite reconciled with. Nothing more.