9.
Jonathan
Ada stared up at me with wide, surprised brown eyes. Had she expected me to deny her request? Surely, I didn’t come across as that much of a bastard? Okay, so maybe that was a dumb question, but I was having a hard time untangling my feelings. No one had ever asked anything like this of me. I wasn’t used to being relied upon in such a way, at least not for a very long time. Not since my teens and twenties when Mam had needed me to lean on every time one of her prick boyfriends had broken her heart or upended her life.
One of them, Steve Duggan, had even tried tricking her into signing over the deed to her house. It had only been my last-minute intervention and insistence on reading the documents he’d been trying to have her sign that had prevented it from happening.
Ada looked so vulnerable. I fought the irrational urge to pull her into my arms and just hold her. What was wrong with me? I was so focused on her I’d almost forgotten that Lissa was still waiting for me to take her out to dinner.
I cleared my throat. “I go away on business sometimes. But on those occasions, I can call or text you to check in, if that’s okay?”
She wore a grateful smile. “Yes, that works fine.” Her gaze lowered in a way that was almost shy. I hadn’t seen that look on her before, and it made something in my chest constrict. “I better go now. I’ve already kept you long enough.”
“Have a good night, Ada.”
“You, too, and thanks again. This really means a lot to me.”
She walked back across the hall, closing her door gently behind her. When I returned to my apartment, Lissa stood by the kitchen island scrolling on her phone. Her eyes lifted at my presence, and a sultry smile shaped her lips. I was suddenly struck by the differences between her and Ada. Lissa was beautiful and smart, a financial analyst and the daughter of a government TD. On paper, she was perfect, so why did I find myself so preoccupied by the unfortunate woman living in my spare apartment?
“Are we leaving now?” Lissa asked.
I cleared all thoughts of Conor Rose’s daughter from my mind. “Yes, my driver is waiting downstairs. Let’s go.”
Lissa slid her phone into her slim handbag, and I ushered her out. As we were going down in the lift, she asked, “Who was that woman?”
“Pardon?”
She flared her eyes like I was being dim. “The woman who came to your door just now looking to speak with you?”
“Oh. Yes. That was Ada. She’s a relative—of sorts”
One dark eyebrow rose. “Of sorts?” she chuckled. “What does that mean?”
“It means we’re not blood related, but she’s technically family. Her father and my mother were married.”
“Were? Did they get divorced?”
“No, they’ve passed.” My throat constricted. I hadn’t brought up the fact that I was recently bereaved. Not because I was trying to hide it, I just didn’t want to talk about Mam, and certainly not with the woman I was casually dating. My feelings were still too raw, and Lissa was supposed to be a distraction.
“I’m so sorry,” she reached out to squeeze my arm, and for some reason, I didn’t like it. Her empathy felt forced, or maybe I was just being sensitive. By her tone, she clearly assumed the deaths happened a while ago. It had only been three weeks. By rights I shouldn’t really be dating anyone. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, but Lissa and I had gone out twice before Ada came to me with news of what had happened to our parents. And when she’d texted asking to meet up again tonight, I’d impulsively agreed. Despite not wanting to talk about what I was going through, I didn’t want to be alone.
“Thank you,” I said as we reached the ground floor and walked to my car. Ben was there to open the door for us.
“So, you two live next door to one another? How did that happen?”
“I own the apartment she’s staying in. She’s renting it from me for a while.”
Lissa turned to me in her seat, tilting her head in curiosity. “Oh? Why is that?”
“The lease ended on her place, and she needed somewhere to live.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie. I just didn’t want to get into the whole story of how I’d effectively made Ada homeless.
“And you offered her a place? That was nice of you.”
I shot her a look. “I’m not nice, and you know it.”
Lissa pressed her lips together, suppressing a shrewd smile. “Yes, which makes me wonder.”
“Makes you wonder what?”
She didn’t respond for a moment, her expression thoughtful as she studied me. Then she stated, “She’s very pretty.”
I resisted a smirk. Was she threatened by Ada? Interesting. “Oh, you noticed, did you?”
Lissa shot me a cynical look. “She seems like one of those women who pretends not to know how she can use her beauty to her advantage.”
I stared at her, narrowing my gaze. “You got all that from a thirty-second encounter?”
“I have a talent for taking the measure of people.”
“Yes, well, you don’t need to worry about her using her beauty on me. I’m doing her a favour because my mother was fond of her. That’s all.”
“Aw, you’re sweet,” Lissa said as we arrived at the restaurant. I sensed from her tone she wasn’t thrilled about my new tenant, which meant she might very well be threatened by her. Should she be? Lissa implied Ada feigned obliviousness about her looks to somehow use them to her advantage. Was that what was happening? Was I being led by my dick, helping her not out of the goodness of my heart but because she was pleasing to look at? No, that wasn’t it. Ada was admittedly beautiful, but she didn’t strike me as using it to get ahead. Besides, that wasn’t why I was helping her.
The woman had been sleeping in her car . Her shame and embarrassment when I’d discovered the fact made me feel at odds with myself. I’d clung to the idea of her being like her father, but after having spent some time with her, I’d known I was wrong. And my guilt at misjudging her had me wrestling with the urge to make it up to her. Letting her live in my apartment was my way of doing that. Her looks had nothing to do with it.
All through dinner I was distracted. I’d planned on taking Lissa home after we ate, but I’d changed my mind. The third or fourth date was typically when I spent the night with a woman, but at the end of our meal, I found myself dropping her off at her place and saying goodnight without so much as a chaste kiss on the lips.
I went back to my apartment alone, polished off a bottle of bourbon and then fell into bed hoping not to dream of the past. It had been happening a lot lately. My dreams were a strange mixture of my childhood and the present.
Case in point, I hadn’t thought about Ronnie in years. He’d been Mam’s boyfriend when I was ten, and he was the worst kind of arsehole. In front of my mother, he’d be perfectly nice, and then when she went out to work, he’d verbally abuse me and threaten to convince Mam to send me away to live in a boarding school. I’d tried telling her about it, but she’d been so infatuated with Ronnie that she hadn’t believed me. He’d had her completely wrapped around his finger, and because he’d been helping pay some of her bills, she’d thought the sun shone out of his backside.
It was only when she’d come home early one day and witnessed him shouting insults at me that she’d finally realised the truth. She’d kicked Ronnie out that very same day.
I’d like to say he was the last bad apple she’d welcomed into our lives, but that would have been a lie. Mam had been a gentle, soft woman. The sort of woman who’d believed in fate and guardian angels and signs from the universe. One of my earliest memories as a small boy was spending time with her in my grandparents’ back garden. I spotted a yellow ladybird on the grass and was fascinated because I’d only ever seen red ones. Mam had smiled fondly and told me it was a good omen, that yellow ladybirds symbolised future prosperity and that whenever I saw one, it was a higher power telling me good things were coming. As a wide-eyed little kid, I’d believed her. Now, I simply saw it as the kind of na?ve thinking that had her handing her heart over to the wrong men time and again.
Mam had been far too trusting and easily charmed, and something about her seemed to call to every prick in a fifty-mile radius. It was why when she’d introduced me to Ada’s father, a man who I’d discovered through the grapevine was a longtime alcoholic who’d been in debt most of his life and had had his licence revoked for drunk driving, I reached my capacity to watch her get walked all over again. I’d told her it was him or me.
She’d refused to choose, which, in essence, meant she chose him.
And I’d lost her forever.
Now, having listened to Ada speak of her father at the funeral and the few times he’d come up in conversation, I’d begun to doubt myself. Had I made a mistake giving Mam that ultimatum? Had Conor Rose been, by some sick twist of fate and despite his checkered past, the only good, decent man my mother had ever been with?
Some part of me didn’t want to know the answer. I wasn’t certain I could withstand the pain of what might possibly be the truth.
The following night, I knocked in on Ada. She answered the door with a somewhat awkward smile, “All good. Thanks for checking on me.”
“Sleep well,” I said as she closed the door.
Okay, that was unsatisfyingly brief. I hadn’t expected the interaction to be so curt, and I felt rather rejected. I needed to get a grip. She just wanted me to ensure she wasn’t having a medical emergency. We weren’t friends, and she wasn’t going to invite me in for tea and crumpets.
On Monday, my half sister and building manager, Maggie, knocked on my office door at work.
“I’m about to head to a meeting, so make it quick.” I was short with her because I’d been in a grumpy mood all morning. I’d had a heart-wrenching dream about Mam last night. She’d been standing at the end of a bridge, but no matter how much I ran, I could never get to her. The bridge just kept expanding and expanding, rendering her forever out of reach.
I was never snappish with Maggie. Of all the people in my life, her company was the most preferable. She’d just caught me at a bad moment.
“Are you okay? Are you getting enough sleep? You look tired.”
“Thanks. Very kind of you to say,” I grumped as I collected some documents from a cabinet behind me. “What do you need?”
“Well, all right, then, if that’s how it’s going to be,” Maggie said, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “I’ve been meaning to give this to you. It’s the contact details of a grief counsellor. Shay and his dad saw her after his mother passed. She comes highly recommended.”
I picked up the paper and stared at the name and contact details, my gut twisting at the idea of talking to anyone about the utter hell I currently lived in. “Thank you.”
“Are you going to make an appointment?”
“Maybe.”
“I think you should. You haven’t been yourself.”
“Maggie, I said I might. If you keep pushing, I’ll tear up this paper and throw it in the bin.” She blinked, and I knew by her face that I’d upset her. I released a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. Look, I’ll think about the counselling, but right now, I really have to go, or I’ll be late for my meeting.”
She left, and I felt like a piece of shit for being a dick to her. Maggie didn’t deserve it. I made a note to have Therese send her a box of the fancy tea she liked as an apology.
I hated feeling this way. I was so completely off-kilter.
Despite my erratic emotional state, the week passed in a predictable fashion. I went to work, came home, checked on Ada. She always answered the door in soft, cosy looking pyjamas or loungewear. Sometimes her hair was down, the dark, voluminous tresses hanging about her shoulders. Other times, it was tied back in a ponytail or a braid, and I’d be struck with the foreign urge to release it from its clip or tie.
We didn’t converse much, merely exchanging brief “hellos” and “all goods.” Why did I find myself longing to ask her how her day had been? More to the point, why did I wish for her to ask about mine?
She never did, and when Saturday rolled around, I made myself scarce knowing she’d be coming to clean the apartment. I felt distinctly uncomfortable with the situation even though I was the one who’d suggested it. I didn’t want her cleaning my place, but I suspected she wouldn’t accept staying next door if it felt too much like charity. She needed to know she was earning her keep.
So, I took Lissa out to dinner again; only this time when I tried to end the night chastely, she looked upset.
“If you’re not feeling this, you can tell me, Jonathan. I won’t be offended.”
“Pardon?”
She emitted a frustrated laugh. “We’ve been on four dates now, and you haven’t so much as given me a peck on the lips. Come on, I can tell you’re not really into me.”
Once again, I felt like a piece of shit. I was using her as a distraction from my grief, and it wasn’t fair to her. “I’m sorry. I promise this has nothing to do with you. I’m going through some personal things at the moment, and it probably isn’t a good time for me to date anyone.”
“That’s fine. I understand,” she said, surprisingly accepting of the situation as she pulled me into a brief hug. “I hope that whatever you’re going through sorts itself out soon.”
I got back to my apartment just after eleven. It was empty and spotlessly clean. Ada had left the place immaculate, and what was that I smelled? Pulled on by the strings of a memory, my nose led me to the kitchen where a red pot sat on the stove. On top of the pot lay a note written in a messy, scrawled hand. There was something wild in Ada’s handwriting, something that called to me.
Jonathan,
I cooked too much spaghetti (not used to only cooking for one). Anyway, I had this leftover and thought you might like it.
Ada.
I lifted the lid, and the mix of garlic, tomato, basil and olive oil assaulted my senses. This wasn’t just any spaghetti. This my mother’s recipe. I knew it from the subtle vinegary scent of Worcestershire sauce. It wasn’t a typical ingredient in Italian cuisine, but Mam had loved the addition, said it gave the recipe an extra pep.
Acting on instinct, I slid open a drawer and grabbed a fork. I twisted some spaghetti around the tines and shoved it in my mouth. Agony wracked my insides. It tasted exactly like the spaghetti Mam had cooked countless times when I was a kid, and a wave of emotion assaulted me. I dropped the fork, put the lid back on the pot and cried for the first time since I’d heard about my mother’s passing.
I couldn’t … I couldn’t eat this. Couldn’t smell it. I needed it gone .
Fuelled by pain, I picked up the pot and strode out of my apartment and across the hall. I knocked harshly on Ada’s door, and she answered, looking like I’d woken her.
“Jonathan?”
I shoved the pot at her. “Don’t leave food in my place ever again,” I ground out then turned and stormed back to my apartment, leaving her standing in the doorway, a confused and startled expression etched upon her face.