Chapter Thirty #2
But she looks around him anyway, her eyes meeting mine. “Ronin?” Her voice comes out small, confused. Her gaze drops to the ropes again, and panic starts to break through. “Why are you still here?” She looks back at Malachy, her voice unsteady. “Grandda, what’s happening?”
“It’s nothing you need to worry yourself over, Alannah girl,” he says, his voice low and coaxing now. “You should be back at the house.”
She shakes her head and glances toward the back of the room.
I follow her gaze and see her coat from yesterday still lying across one of the tables.
Her face crumples, and tears spill down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Grandda. I know I shouldn’t be in here…
” Her voice shakes as she looks between us. “But… why?”
Malachy’s jaw tightens. “It’s nothing. Men’s business. Your soon-to-be ex-husband is refusing to see reason.”
Her eyes flick between us, confusion written all over her face. Then I see it click. Her lips part, trembling. “So that’s why…” She looks at me, more tears spilling over. “You came all this way to ask me for a divorce?”
“No.” The word tears out of me. “No, Alannah, I didn’t—”
Malachy cuts in before I can say more. “I had the papers drawn up. The marriage can be annulled. It’ll be as though it never happened.
” His voice hardens. “You won’t be tied to a man who humiliated you, lied to you, and tried to take you back to Boston against your will.
” His eyes cut to me. “He refuses to sign.”
“I won’t,” I say, looking at her as she swipes at her tears with the back of her hand. “Not unless it’s what you want.”
Her hand drops. “What I want?”
She looks at her grandfather, her voice breaking. “Grandda, you were going to shoot him if he didn’t sign?”
“I’ll do what needs doing.”
She turns back to me, tears still on her cheeks. “But you won’t sign?”
“Not unless you ask me to.”
Her eyes flick to the gun in Malachy’s hand. “But my grandda will kill you if you don’t.”
“Yes,” I say.
The worry on her face cracks something open in my chest. After everything I’ve done, after every reason I’ve given her to hate me, she’s still afraid for me.
She turns to her grandfather and holds out a trembling hand.
“Can I see them?” No one moves, and her fingers curl slightly, like she has to force herself not to let her hand drop.
Her voice comes quieter this time. “Please, Grandda.”
Malachy holds my stare as he passes the gun to Conor, reaches inside his jacket, and pulls out the folded papers. He hands them to her without looking away from me.
Alannah takes them with shaking fingers and lowers her eyes to the pages.
As she reads, her hand comes up to her chest, rubbing absently, as if the words are hurting her instead of setting her free.
When she’s done, she lifts her head, but she doesn’t quite meet my eyes.
More tears slip down her cheeks. “Ronin… I’d like you to sign these papers.
” Her voice catches, and she clears her throat.
“And I’d like you to go home.” Then, barely above a whisper, “Please.”
She hands the papers back to her grandfather, then turns toward the door.
She grabs her coat from the table as she passes, and I watch her walk away from me again.
This time, there’s no chasing after her.
No pretending I can fix it later. I told her I’d sign if she asked me to, and she did.
I should feel better knowing I finally gave her the choice I stole so many times before. I don’t.
When she reaches the door, she looks back at me, tears still running down her face, one hand pressed over her mouth. “Goodbye, Ronin.”
Then she’s gone.
I keep staring at the doorway long after the door swings shut behind her. Slowly, I look down at the broken ring on the floor between my feet, then at the papers in Malachy’s hand. I swallow past the ache in my throat and clear it. “All right,” I say, forcing the words out. “Show me where to sign.”
***
I’m the last one off the plane. I’d fallen asleep almost as soon as I sat down, dead to the world until a stewardess touched my shoulder after everyone else had already cleared out. I grab my bag, the same one I carried onto Paulie Shea’s boat when I left for Ireland, and make my way off.
Fuck Paulie. Malachy had far too many wolves in our henhouse, and the thought stays with me all the way up the corridor. It makes me wonder how much my da knows about it. Or how much he’s known all along.
By the time I make it into the terminal, I’m still thinking about Cork.
Conor had the pleasure of escorting me to the airport himself.
Bought the ticket, stayed with me the whole time, and walked me right out across the tarmac to the plane like I might turn and run for it if he gave me half a chance.
I was halfway up the stairs when he called after me that my da had been told when the plane was due in.
That he’d be waiting at the airport in Boston.
And there they are. My da and Seamus, already walking toward me.
As we get closer, I can see the concern in their eyes, and I know exactly what they’re seeing.
Even with the blood washed off and my nose reset for the second time, I still look like death warmed over.
One eye is swollen shut, fresh stitches sit above my eyebrow, and bruises show on every bit of exposed skin.
My da reaches me first, his face tight, then pulls me carefully into a hug.
It still hurts, but I don’t pull back, and he lets out a rough breath against my shoulder. “Good to have you home, son.”
He eases back, and Seamus takes the bag from my hand before pulling me into a hug with his free arm.
“Glad to see you in one piece, Ronin,” he says.
Then he tips his head toward the exit. “C’mon.
Let’s get out of here.” I nod, and the three of us make our way through the terminal to the car waiting at the curb outside.
Once we’re on the road, my da looks at me in the rearview mirror. “You did the right thing,” he says. “Signing those papers.”
I rest my head against the seat and turn toward the window to avoid his eyes. I don’t bother pretending I don’t know what he means. “Yeah,” I mutter.
There’s nothing else to say, so I keep looking out the window and watch the city blur by, brick buildings and dirty grey slush piled along the curbs.
I’ve only been gone a few weeks, but it feels a hell of a lot longer.
When I left Boston, I was so damn sure I’d be bringing Alannah home with me.
Now I’m back without her, and I may never see her again.
What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I don’t know how long we’ve been driving when my da speaks again. “You want to come by the house?” When I don’t answer, he goes on. “Your ma would be glad to see you. Get a hot meal in you.”
I picture my mother’s kitchen. The smell of dinner. Her taking one look at me and the pity I might see on her face. I can’t do it. “I just want to go home,” I say. “Be on my own a bit.”
“All right,” he says quietly, and that’s the end of it.
The rest of the ride passes in silence, and when the car slows outside my place, I have the door open before it fully stops.
I drag my bag from the seat beside me and step out with a quick thanks.
Then I make my way to the front door as fast as I can manage and let myself in.
I drop my bag by the front door and head upstairs. In the master bedroom, I pass Alannah’s boxes stacked against the wall, still packed from when we thought she was somewhere in Boston cooling off and would come home when she was ready.
She’s not coming here.
I lower myself onto the edge of the bed.
My eye lands on the photograph on the bedside table, the one of Alannah and me from our wedding day in front of St. Brigid’s.
I’m holding her close to my side, both of us smiling into the camera like we had any idea how little time it would last. I reach into the inside pocket of my coat, pull out the two halves of my wedding band, and set them beside the picture.
Fuck.
I feel the first tear slide down my cheek Then another. And another. I cover my face with my hands, ignoring the pain when I press too hard against the swollen eye, because it hurts less than looking at what’s left of us.
I should’ve told her the truth before the church.
Before the ring. Before I stood there and let her make vows to me while I was still lying to her.
The thought breaks something loose in me.
I bend forward, hands still over my face, and the first sob tears out before I can swallow it down.
Then another follows. I sit there on the edge of the bed, shaking with it, trying to breathe through a nose that barely works and a chest that feels like it’s been split open.
The papers are signed. Alannah hates me, and she’s going to move on.
One day, she’ll find someone who can make her happy.
Someone who’ll stay loyal and treat her better than I ever did.
And I want that for her. God, I do. But it hurts so much, knowing I had everything and ruined it with my own hands.
By the time the tears finally stop, I can barely stay upright.
I lower myself onto my side, still staring at the photograph and my broken ring.
All that remains of my marriage, sitting there on the bedside table.
I keep looking at it because looking away feels too much like letting go, and I’m not ready for that.
Not tonight. Maybe not ever. So I stay there, watching what’s left of us until the room goes dark.