Chapter 33
thirty-three
There is violence coursing through my veins as my daughter tells us her story.
Everything I’ve known has been a lie. One after another.
By the very people who practically raised me alongside Katherine.
I always knew there was something off with Sheila when it came to her relationship with her daughter, but Kat never said anything.
Never made mention of the kind of loneliness and abuse she suffered at the hands of her own kin.
Even Seamus was a disappointment. Knowing that he wasn’t the one responsible for Kat’s suffering eases only a fraction of the fury at what he and his mother did. What every McDonough has done for too many years.
It makes me wonder how long everything with Sheila has been in motion. Ava says that she told her rather directly that Seamus isn’t Katherine and Marianne’s father.
Marianne.
I tried to reach out to my wife several times over the last week while Ava fought for her life against fever and blood loss. She never once answered. Even the twins tried to contact her.
Nothing.
What part did she play in Katherine’s death?
Ava is holding something back. I can feel it and see it in her face as she talks about what went down just hours before we rescued her. Her face floods with doubt and apprehension when it comes time to tell us about what the man named Kellan did to her.
While Marianne watched.
Except I already know.
Not that it makes a difference. I listen to what she has to say about Marianne either way. Ava pushes forward in her story, her breath accelerating the closer she gets to describing her torture.
Torture that my wife watched and did nothing about.
“All I had to do was threaten to slit his throat in their bed. Easy peasy. She would have done anything for Liam.”
There was no small amount of glee in her voice when she told my daughter that. It is the very note that caused me to doubt my daughter’s words. I used it as a barrier to keep the truth at bay. The truth I have always known but refused to reconcile.
The more Ava unravels Marianne’s treachery, the more the picture reveals itself to me. Missing pieces from so many years ago slide into place without resistance.
I never questioned it before, but now I marvel at how easily Marianne suddenly fit into our lives. We were kids at the time. Thirteen or fourteen, and she moved in down the street. She was in all our classes and in Katherine’s after-school activities.
Her parents were friends with Seamus. He had them over for dinner a few times. Those were the nights Sheila was away doing work for her charity out here. Now that I think back on it, I never once saw Marianne and Sheila in the same room together. Not once.
Marianne was everywhere in our lives, and we just accepted that.
When Katherine’s father promised her to Noah Kelly, it was Marianne who volunteered to take her place, and it was Marianne who ran to me crying with a broken face.
She was proof that Noah raped and beat her because she wasn’t Katherine. Isn’t what he wanted.
Another part of the puzzle that never quite fit correctly.
Noah was adamant about his innocence. Said he couldn’t remember anything about that night. I chalked it up to him beating her while he was drunk. What if it was more than that?
What if she drugged him?
My stomach churns, twisting itself in knots.
I barely remember the night I got Marianne pregnant.
Katherine’s note broke something in me, but I had a plan to run after her.
Drag her back kicking and screaming because our love was forever.
It always will be. Even after all these years.
It is her and me. There will be no one else.
A sick sense of dread spreads over me. Marianne tried to stop me. Told me to give her space. She handed me a beer. Just one beer, and that is all I remember about that night. About most of the nights we had sex.
Shit.
I rush from Ava’s room and into the hallway, my breaths heavy as I beeline for the guest bathroom.
Ava doesn’t need to see me like this. Slamming the door behind me, I heave the contents of my meager breakfast into the porcelain toilet, tears streaking down my face as I struggle to come to terms with everything.
She fucking drugged me.
The bitch.
Marianne took away my choice. I love my children. They are all more like me than like that ragged whore, but it doesn’t take away the stabbing pain in my heart. Katherine loved me so much that she sacrificed her freedom for my life, and all I ever did was sulk and curse her name.
“Da,” Seamus calls with a slight knock on the door. “Are you all right in there?”
Swallowing back the bitter pain, I close the lid and flush the toilet before turning to the sink.
“Yeah,” I holler at him through the door. “Must have been something I ate.”
Seamus chuckles. “Don’t let Nan hear you say that,” he teases and then pauses. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I rinse my face and pat it dry. Checking myself in the mirror, I nod at my reflection and turn to exit the bathroom. Seamus stands on the other side, worry etched into the lines of his face.
“What’s with the concern, son?” I ask him. “Just a stomach problem is all.”
He doesn’t look convinced. The boy has always been perceptive.
He wears his heart on his sleeve and his emotions like a shield.
It doesn’t surprise me that he picks up on them just as easily.
I have a thought or two about having Matthias train him in looking for micro-expressions.
Even if I do think it is nothing more than voodoo witchcraft.
“I just—” He hesitates, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “I know there was never any love lost between you and”—he can’t say her name. Jesus, she’s fucked us all up—“but I also know it can’t be easy. You still trusted her. She was your wife.”
I stare at him for a moment, taking him in. There are traces of Marianne in his face, but those emerald eyes and red hair are all me. And funnily enough, he looks more like Katherine. The McDonough gene certainly favors him and his brother.
“Is it hard?” I ask. “Yes. But it is harder knowing I fell into her web of lies. But I don’t regret it, my son.
” I clasp a hand on the back of his neck, bringing our foreheads together.
I stare him straight in the eye. “Because even though the pain is throbbing and heartache is piercing, she gave me the most wonderful gifts I could ever ask for.”
“A sky-high credit card bill,” he jokes. I smile at his antics.
“You and your siblings,” I tell him seriously. “The five of you are the most important things in my life, and I wouldn’t change that for the world. Understand?”
Seamus nods, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as he swallows back the emotion.
“Nothing could ever make me not love you or turn my back on you.”
“I love you too, Da,” he assures me. “I just don’t like to see you hurting.”
I kiss his forehead like I used to when he was a child. “Pain reminds us that we are human.” I release my hold. “It reminds us to be humble.”
Seamus smiles at me. The fucker got so tall over the years that he is now eye level with me. Katherine is the love of my life, and although it hurts to have lost her and it hurts to know that the one we called our friend betrayed us all along, I wouldn’t change anything for the world.
I may have lost Katherine, but I gained something in her absence. Children that I love with all my heart. The family I always dreamed of having. I won’t let anyone take that away from me.
Fola roimh gach ní eile.
Blood before all else.