Chapter 43
43
FIONA
I didn’t think this far ahead.
It’s been a week since Oona told me to call Patrick. A week that I’ve been telling myself she’s wrong. She doesn’t really know me. She still thinks I’m a child, that I’m her coinín beag . Not Fiona Fucking Ingram.
I am still her coinín beag. And I’m Fiona Fucking Ingram. And I’m…whatever the fuck that word is that Patrick calls me, the one I’ve never managed to find online or in print, even though I’ve bought three different Irish-English dictionaries.
And I’m going to be Aran Dowd’s wife if I set foot outside this apartment. If any member of the Crew finds me anywhere in Boston.
So I finally call.
I’m convinced Patrick won’t answer. I’ll hang up. I won’t even bother with voicemail. That’s how civilized people use their phones, right? We look to see what calls we’ve missed, and we phone back if we want to .
“Fiona,” he says again, and his voice sounds strange. “Are you okay? Give me a number between one and five if someone’s keeping you from speaking freely.”
“Patrick,” I finally say. I’m laughing, because the first thing he thought was that he had to save me. And he’s laughing, probably because I didn’t give him a number. “Where are you?” I ask, and I pray he doesn’t say Philadelphia, because I know him. He’s loyal, and it would make perfect sense for him to go back to Braiden Kelly. Back to the one clan that’s ever welcomed him with open arms.
“At the bakery.”
“The bakery?”
“Yankee Roast. Where we met Rónnad.”
Thank God. But I don’t say that out loud. Instead, I say, “Then you can be here in half an hour.”
“Here?” he asks. It’s only one word. Four little letters. But it carries more than a month of all the bitter things we said on that golf course, all the hateful words we spewed inside that car.
“Beacon Street,” I tell him. “The apartment.” And then I add, “Please.”
There’s a pause, and I wish I could see his face. I wish I could reach out, that I could take his phone, that I could set it aside and pull his mouth to mine.
I can’t think.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t speak.
But finally he says, “I’m on my way.”
Relief soars over me like a jet rising off a runway. “Hurry,” I say. And just in case he doesn’t understand, in case he doesn’t know what I’m thinking, how I really feel, I whisper: “Daddy.”