Chapter 15
Fifteen
A silence hung between us as we appraised each other, the candlelight glinting off his marble skin.
He broke the silence first and I was glad because I had lost all of my words and thoughts.
"You said that Natalie and Ryan are the total of your family. I’d like you to tell me what happened to your parents.
Where are they?" Damn. I'd known this topic was coming but I'd dreaded it all the same.
I took a rather large gulp of my wine and topped up my glass.
I hated talking about my parents. It was like having the worst superpower—the ability to destroy a cheerful mood in ten seconds flat.
"My dad left when I was four, so I don't really remember him," I said, trying to keep my voice as relaxed as possible. “My mum passed when I was twelve." My hand went to my bleeding heart necklace, I clasped it, rubbing it gently between my finger and thumb. Alfie eyed me, his gaze intrusive.
"Tell me how she died." He didn't ask, didn't politely request. He'd demanded I tell him this deeply personal thing. Yet, it didn't anger me. It was refreshing to be with someone who didn’t tiptoe around my mum’s ghost.
"She was driving when our car was hit broadside by another vehicle.
The driver was drunk. Her car went into the river.
" The rush of water sounded in my ears. It was a sound I'd heard a thousand times since that day.
It had faded over time, but every now and again, I could smell that dank river water.
I could hear the banging as my mum tried to kick the windshield open.
I closed my eyes and took a deep, steadying breath, then another and another.
They didn't help so much, really. They just reminded me that I wasn't drowning.
I opened my eyes and found him watching me still.
"You were in the car."
"Yes." I could have stopped and left it there, but I didn't. I told him all of it.
"One of the windows was already open part of the way and the car filled up so fast with water.
My mum sent me out through the window. It didn't occur to me that she wouldn't be able to fit through as well.
" I gritted my teeth against the nausea that swarmed me whenever I thought about that moment, that specific moment when I'd swam away, abandoning my mother to die alone.
When I met his eyes, he looked so sad for me. I wanted to flip the table. "Don't you dare pity me. I can't stand it."
"I don't pity you, O'Connell. I was just wondering how you turned out so…"
"Normal?" I finished for him. "I have good people around me. When my dad left, my mum moved in with my gran, so she raised me after mum died." I took another sip of wine, eyeing him over the rim of the glass. I straightened my spine, relaxing as the sound of rushing water faded away.
"She was diagnosed with cancer when I was 16, and she passed away when I was 18." Those two years had been brutal. I hadn't been ready to be an adult. I hadn't been ready to grow up.
"You cared for her?"
"Of course." Watching her skin turn paper thin while she shrank into a shell of her former self had been a thing of nightmares.
But yes, I'd cared for her, with Keira as my back up.
That girl had been my ride-or-die since we were in nursery school.
I wouldn't have gotten through any of my losses without her.
"Tell me about them. The people you lost.”
"Hell, Alfie. Are you trying to ruin the night?"
"You don't want to talk about them?" He tilted his head again, eyeing me, but I stared right back at him.
"I don't like to."
"Why not?"
"Because it makes me cry." I hadn't meant to sound flippant, but talking about their lives was somehow worse than talking about their deaths. I can say how my mum was killed. I can use venom to spit out those words. But ask me to describe the way her feather-light blond hair would tickle my cheek when she kissed me and I would crumble. Her death was a pain that, despite the years, still hadn’t passed. I wasn’t sure it ever would.
Alfie watched me closely, his index finger tapping against the stem of his untouched wine glass, waiting for me.
I knew without asking that he would wait all night if he had to.
This was something I was learning about him.
When he wanted something, whether it be a person, property, or information, he zeroed in and didn't deviate until he had it. Right now, what he wanted seemed to be the contents of my head. I took a breath. I didn’t understand why I was doing it, but something in his eyes had me opening my mouth on a subject I usually avoided at all costs.
"My mum, Judith, she taught me to grow strawberries when I was three." I hadn't talked about my family in so long, it felt strange to feel my mum's name on my tongue—like reading an old diary.
"Those strawberries were the first thing I ever grew and after that I was hooked.
It was magical to me that I could watch something come to life before my very eyes.
" I paused, remembering. "She loved gardens more than anything else in the world, except for me of course. She was always desperate to go to this show, it’s called the Chelsea Flower Show.
She promised she would take me but we could never afford the tickets.
And my gran was a gardener too. That's where my mum learned it. "
"They were gardeners by profession?"
"No." I shook my head. "My gran was a housewife and worked part time as a cleaner after my grandad died.
He died before I was born. My mum was a primary school teacher.
Being a gardener by trade, I think it just wasn't something that women did in my gran's time or my mum’s.
Outside work was seen more as a man's profession. "
"You don't see it that way?" he asked, and I shrugged.
"I like to be outside. I don't worry about whether I'm supposed to like it or not."
His lips quirked, just a little. I wondered for the hundredth time why he tried so hard to hide that smile.
"What about your father? What do you remember about him?"
My dad. My runaway father. I barely thought of him now. He was like an imaginary friend I’d grown out of.
"Barely anything and I don’t know much about him either.
My gran always hated talking about him. I’ve tried looking for him a few times over the years but I don’t even know where to start.
I don’t even know if he knows that mum died.
" I paused, trying to dredge up old memories, but they were covered in so much dust I could barely make them out.
When I remembered my dad, I always imagined him as this great bear of a man, with shaggy hair and a thick Irish accent, but when I look at photos of him I can see he wasn't really that big at all, it's just that I was still small.
I think that was how most children see their parents—as big shields of protection. Then they grow up and see they're just normal people. Except my parents were gone before I could grow up, so my view of them will be eternally childlike, unable to mature.
A dense cloud of old pain had settled on me and I was grateful when we were interrupted again by the ma?tre d'.
"An appetiser, compliments of the chef. Coquille Saint-Jaques." He placed a plate of four scallops between us before disappearing again. I looked at them dubiously, trying not to grimace.
"I don't really like seafood," I whispered, desperate not to insult Jean or Alfie. Alfie stuck one with his fork and raised it to my mouth. I looked at the grey-ish morsel on the end of his fork. I really didn’t want to eat that.
"Humour me." Humour me . I had a feeling those two words could get me into a lot of trouble if I let them. I scowled at him but I knew that that fork wasn't going anywhere. Screw it. I was starving. With a grimace, I took it in my mouth, chewed and swallowed quickly. It wasn't nearly as bad as it looked but I wouldn’t tell Alfie that. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right. Though, judging by the smug expression on his face, he didn’t need me to tell him.
"Good." He nodded with approval but didn't offer me another. "So, your sister moved in after your grandmother passed away?"
"Yeah, a while after. I'd known she existed but had never spoken to her.
Then, one day, about six months after my gran died, she found me on Facebook.
She talked about wanting a fresh start for her and Ryan and I didn't even think about it, I just told her to come.” It had felt like I was getting a second shot at having a family and now, as much as I dreamed of going to college, I couldn't imagine leaving them.
"Have you worked at Rosie's for long?"
"About three years or so. I worked a few different jobs before that. I worked at a pub for a while which I didn't mind, but I had to leave and that's when I ended up at Rosie's. I'd been there a lot with my mum when I was little, so working there just seemed right."
"Why did you have to leave your job at the pub?"
I realised that, without meaning to, I'd allowed us to wander into Adam territory.
“Oh, they just had to let me go. No big deal.”
Alfie narrowed his eyes on me. “You’re lying.” I flinched, caught entirely off guard. “I deal with liars in business everyday. I won’t accept it from you. Tell me why you had to leave.”
I sighed. I was just laying all my shit bare tonight.
"I had this boyfriend." I stopped short, wondering how to say the next part. Should I even say it at all? "It ended badly," I said finally, and watched as his hand tightened on the stem of his wine glass.
“It ended badly.” He repeated my words, stretching out the syllables, trying to find the hidden meaning inside them. "How exactly?"
"He became fixated."
"He was violent?" His eyes pierced me, daring me to lie to him.