29. Saoirse
Saoirse
Slipped The Memory
My dreams cling to me, making it difficult for me to rise.
I’m furious. With myself and my life, and Finn most of all. It manifests as black and red in my head.
Has it slipped the memory of how he used you to get close enough to kill your uncle Seamus? How weak are you?
I’m not weak! It’s complicated.
The red and blackness roils, sending clouds into my better judgment.
Sinner. Lying to yourself is the worst lie of all.
I force my eyes open.
Time for me to face facts. I can’t go on sleeping with the enemy. I like it too much.
And even worse, I think I’m starting to like Finn. Not as a boyfriend. God, no!
But as a secret sexual partner.
This is how I see it. Finn made up his mind about me a long time ago, and that’s what rules him. He’s fixed on me, tunnel vision, incapable of wanting anyone else.
He’s hunting my soul. I can feel it in my bones.
On the other hand, I handed my heart and body to him on a silver platter.
But somehow, I never lost my head.
I should thank heaven for small mercies.
There’s only one missed call on my phone when I come out of the bathroom. I glance at it.
It’s from Declan. I’ll need some time to think up a convincing lie before I reply.
I’m treated like a queen here, so I flick a text to the kitchen asking them to send over breakfast in bed: fruit salad, fruit yogurt, Barry’s tea with skim milk.
It was clever of Finn to suggest I set my story straight with the kind female driver he sent to bring me home. Clever, and devious. I mustn’t forget that he’s the prince of lies.
Now that Finn’s gone, all my insecurities creep back. So many of them…
He’s free to see whomever he likes, but I’m married.
He’s a massive ride, but I’m not.
He’s wicked gorgeous, and I’m only pretty on my best days.
“Hmm…” It’s easier just to keep on hating him. He can’t hurt me that way.
I’ve got to check that my story is straight.
Patrick went to bed. I lingered in the living room to look at old family photo albums and fell asleep on the couch. Orla Morris was on dispatch duty when I called the driving service, so she came out to fetch me.
I press the return call icon and wait for Declan to pick up.
Which he does. “Get your arse into the study, Saoirse. Now.”
It’s the first time he’s asked me to meet him alone. My darling husband likes to keep witnesses around at all times so he can counteract any stories I might tell Patrick.
I’m amazed he hasn’t posted a soldier at the bedpost so I can’t tell stories about us there as well.
One of the lads brings my breakfast tray and taps to let me know he’s left on the stool outside. I fill up a bowl with fruit and yogurt and pour a cup of tea.
It’s not only information I use to manipulate my environment; I damn well know how to use my sexuality too.
On the off-chance that Declan’s gotten suspicious about what I did last night, I need to look a certain way.
My hair’s long enough to reach an inch or two past my waist. Having tousled bed hair won’t work.
Facing the mirror, I try a few styles. Pony tail, fishtail braid, swept back behind an Alice band.
Not old-country enough. Ah, got it. A classic knotted chignon.
Done.
Today’s as hot as it ever was, so a modest knee-length broderie Anglaise dress, colored pale apricot, with small puff off-the-shoulder sleeves is perfect.
Shoes? Espadrilles. Scent? Nothing but soap.
I pick up my bowl of yogurt and fruit on the way out. I’m halfway finished eating by the time I knock on the door. Stupid ass big house.
“Come.” Declan calls for the knocker to enter, which I do.
He scowls at me. “Shut the door.”
Only my supreme indifference stops me from shaking. I fucked Finn O’Shea last night. A sin on so many levels.
I go to the window and look out at the lawn. My emotions are on lock. “You told me to come here, Dec. Remember?”
“Sit.”
I sit in the armchair on the right. It’s comfortable. I loosen my espadrilles and tuck my feet under me. I continue eating.
Declan doesn’t have the finesse to mindfuck me. He’s very one-note when it comes to tricks and games.
He barrels into the conversation like a bull in a china shop.
“You were at Patrick’s all night?”
Reaching for my purse, I offer to give him Orla’s contact details after telling him the story about the family photo album.
He shakes his head. “No. I have all that on the tracker. How did Patrick seem to you?”
No lies needed. “He’s getting on in years, is our Da. He told me he wants to visit Mam’s family over in Connemara. Reconnect with her side.”
A gentle smile tilts the corners of my mouth. “He’s fierce sentimental. But that’s the Irish in him.”
I finish my breakfast bowl and lean forward to put it on his desk. “I’m sure Da will be around for a good many years still, Dec. He’s a trooper.”
I see him debating whether to tell me. “I’ve decided to put Patrick in charge of Fourth Avenue. Some of the captains were not… happy with Feargal being bumped up to such a position of control.”
I’m outraged. “I backed Feargal to take over. My support should weigh more than their biased opinions!”
He nods. “Yes. Maybe so. But I’ve got to play politics. Feargal can still run the pubs and shite like that. But I need to put Patrick back in control of the real estate. It’s our name on the leases, at the end of the day. Your da will be in a better position to have our backs.”
“He’s already booked his ticket back home.” To the old country. “Which he has every right to do, what with him being retired and all.”
“Then he must cancel it. Be sure to tell him that, pet, yeah?”
Patrick’s been out of the loop for too long. The reins of power have slipped his grasp. As a fully-fledged seat at the table, no one knows better than me how he doesn’t have the chops to rule over a fraction of the Maguire empire, never mind a significant portion of it.
“This arrangement is only going to put more work on me, Dec.”
He sucks his teeth and pretends to deliberate. “It’s time your father stepped up and did some work. Fourth Avenue is the best place for him to do it. After all, it was Patrick who suggested we reach out to Eamon when we needed to arrange—”
To arrange what? “Eamon’s dead.” Need I remind him? “And weren’t Eamon and Patrick rivals for my mam’s affection?”
He pretends to be busy looking over some papers. “Sure, but Eamon never had his own kids, so when the demon drink used to take hold of him, he was prone to thinking of you and Maeve as his own children.”
Say what? No one has ever mentioned my sister’s name. Not since she was taken away before my marvelous wedding day.
My husband explains, but I can tell his wheels are spinning because he let a cat out of the bag. “Patrick knew of Eamon’s weakness… and he would sometimes use it to his own advantage.”
“Advantages, such as?”
Declan lets the papers drop on the desk. “It’s no more fecking questions you’ll be asking me, Saoirse!”
Now I’m the one scowling. It doesn’t go well with the cute outfit I’m wearing.
“Is that all?” I stand up and start smoothing down the creases in my dress.
Declan opens a drawer, takes out a silver hip flask, and places it on the desk.
“This was found in your room.”
My insides turn to water which promptly turns to ice. I don’t understand how risk-takers and lawbreakers get off on the adrenaline rush.
It feels like a trap, so that’s how I’m going to manage this.
“By whom?”
Dec clicks his tongue, a sure sign of irritation. “By someone who wanted to find out if you were still alive in there, Saoirse. You never sleep late. And you missed the driver coming to pick you up for work.”
That could be anyone.
I didn’t get a good look at the flask last night. I need to check if there’s anything incriminating on it. Time for me to get a closer look.
I lean over and reach to pick it up, but Declan pulls the flask out of reach.
“I’m waiting, pet.” There’s a bite in the way he calls me by my term of endearment.
It’s Finn’s hip flask. Probably still has traces of my lips around it.
“I went past the cemetery to visit Mam’s resting place. Someone must have been pouring one out for the dear departed.”
“So, you took it?”
I gulp and nod. What else can I do? “Yes, I mean, it’s not like anyone there’s going to be using it?”
A slow smile spreads over my husband’s face. “And you didn’t think to make the connection between our discussions about the underground fighter from Boston… and this?” He points to the flask, like it’s toxic.
He pushes the flask towards me so I can read the words engraved on it.
An t-anam
I don’t want to give one of those fake laughs. Every guilty person ever has done that.
I pretend to be confused. “It was dark. How was I meant to read that? Besides, it says ‘The Ghost’. So, I’d say that flask was in the right place at the right time for me to find it. Like… in a cemetery. Get it?”
It’s a joke, but Dec isn’t laughing.
Fuck. I think I overexplained. It’s a dead giveaway that I’m spinning.
His expression is granite. “You make a habit of finding shite at the cemetery, don’t you, Saoirse.”
No. I don’t. But I’ve used the cemetery two times when it comes to excuses.
Like when Finn waited for me to visit my Mam’s grave so he could give me a big bouquet of red roses.
I told Dec I found them in the cemetery trash can. Telling lies to a man who wasn’t even my husband yet. Back when I still had hope to choose my own path in life.
That’s close to seven years ago now, but we both seem to remember the incident.
I hold out my hand for the flask. “Finders keepers.”
Declan puts it back in the drawer. “I’ll hold onto it, if you don’t mind. You never know when The Ghost might come looking for it.”
Feargal is standing outside the guest bedroom. “Everything all right, Mrs. M?”
I pull myself together so no one can read my lying eyes.
“I hope so. Gotta keep juggling those balls. Are you free to drive me to work today, Feargal?” I want to tell him about Patrick being dragged out of retirement to run the Fourth Avenue real estate division.
“I’ll get my key fob, Mrs. M. Give you a lift, for old times’ sake.”
Feargal ducks away, leaving me alone with my jumbled emotions. I can’t keep lying to everybody, but most of all myself. I’m risking everything to hold onto a fantasy.
My marriage. My career. My heart.
I’m not stupid enough to think that this time, it’ll be different. I have to remember that I’m a pawn in Finn’s power games.
And that means I can never see him again.
And if he forces another interaction on me, I can’t succumb to our attraction to each other. Okay, my attraction to him.
The lies end now.
Because I think I might have been lying to myself, all the while trying to convince myself that I hate the man who makes me feel like a queen when I come.