Chapter 22 #2
That’s classic Mam. If she can’t be the center of attention, she’ll drag everyone else down with her. I answer levelly: “Breagha’s my maid of honor. She’ll help me.”
“And those cap sleeves,” Mam says, and she clicks her tongue. “They look awfully flimsy. You know how clumsy you can be. I would hate for you to rip one just before the service.”
I eye my mother with the same glare I’d give a venomous snake. “The dress is well made. Nothing will rip.”
She’s on a roll now. “Those shoes look like something an old lady would wear. You want strappy sandals, a couple of inches. Something to make your ankles look less fat.”
I have a sudden vision of Wolf’s hands on my ankles, tightening a terrycloth belt. I’m almost breathless as I say, “Wolf doesn’t have any problem with my ankles.”
Mam ignores me. “That veil is a disaster. It makes those freckles on your arms look like smeared paint… You’ll need a lot of makeup to cover up those blemishes.”
“Like the makeup you use to cover your scar?” The venom drips out without my even trying. Just once in my life, I want my mother to tell me I’m beautiful. Just once, I want Mam to treat me like her daughter, like someone it’s possible for her to love.
Very calmly, very carefully, I turn to Mrs. Gallagher and hand her Wolf’s black credit card. “We’ll take it,” I say.
Breagha comes with me into the fitting room. She helps me with the buttons. She makes sure my hands don’t get caught in the cap sleeves. Without saying a word, she gathers up the dress and the veil and the shoes and she scurries to the front of the store while I’m still pulling on my sweats.
When I step out of the room, Mam is studying her fingernails. “I have to get a manicure before Sunday,” she says. “So many hands to shake in the receiving line.”
“Excellent,” I say. “While you’re doing that, I can stop at the tattoo parlor.”
Mam offers a tight laugh until she realizes I’m not smiling. “You are not getting a tattoo, young lady.”
“I’m twenty-six years old, and I can do whatever the fuck I want to do.”
“Your father and I will not spend a penny for you to mutilate—”
“I’ll use Wolf’s credit card.”
“I’ll see that you don’t get it back from that woman after she charges the dress.”
“Do I actually have to remind you that I have my own money, Mam?” Until sixty seconds ago, I never even considered getting a tattoo. Now, I’ll kill for the opportunity.
“Don’t call me that. I rue the day you were ever born, you ungrateful little—”
“You can’t stop me, Mam. I’ m getting the biggest tattoo you’ve ever seen, Mam.
It will cover my entire chest. Mam.” I gesture with my hands, filling the air between us.
“Green dollar bills down my arms. A huge red snake across my chest. Big black letters spelling it all out—Twenty Million Dollar Bride. It will be amazing, Mam. Just you wait, Mam. Everyone will love it, Mam!”
I don’t realize I’m screaming until my mother whispers her reply through locked jaws.
Her scar has gone pure white, like scales on a fish’s belly.
“You stupid little bitch,” she sneers. “You know full well your father had to pay Cole Wolf to take you off our hands. Nobody wants you. Nobody will ever want you. We just had to get you out of the way so Breagha can get the man she deserves.”
It’s only the truth. I’ve known it for years. But hearing it out loud, right here, in public, stings like my scalpel slicing through all the old scars on my legs.
“Mommy,” Breagha says. She’s standing in the doorway, holding three bags that overflow with silver tissue paper. “Kate.”
I don’t say anything. I just shove her aside and stomp through the shop, barely stopping to snatch Wolf’s credit card from a distressed Mrs. Gallagher.
I don’t say a word while we wait at the airport.
I don’t say a word while we take our first-class seats on the commercial flight.
I don’t say a word as I find a pen in the seat pocket in front of me and use it to draw on little white napkins, square after square after square.
Dollar bills. Twisted snakes. Spiky black letters.
But Mam wins in the end. She must have texted Da from the plane, must have told him everything that happened.
Because Lochlann O’Brian is waiting when we exit the secured part of the terminal. He frog-marches me to a waiting limo, leaning in close enough that I can smell sauerkraut on his breath and feel the butt of his pistol beneath his arm. He forces me into the back seat and climbs in right beside me.
We wait for Mam to join us, her lip curled like someone’s been telling filthy jokes. Breagha enters last of all, her face deadly pale. “Let’s go!” O’Brian calls out to the driver, and we start our silent trip back to the family compound.
When we get to Canton, O’Brian strong-arms me down to the cellar. He frisks me, shoving me hard against the wall, so I have to stare at a shiny new padlock anchored to the door. His hands are rough, and he spends more time than he has to poking between my legs.
When he spins me around, I raise a knee to catch him in the bollocks, but he’s ready for me, crushing my windpipe with one heavy forearm.
His free hand checks for contraband in my bra.
As I wheeze for breath, he digs my phone out of my front pocket.
It doesn’t shatter when he drops it, but the case splinters under the heel of his steel-toed boots.
“You fucking shitehawk!” I howl, but he’s already shoving me into my new room. The door slams shut. He laughs like a jackal as I throw myself against the solid sheet of wood, but he’s already snapped the lock into place.