38. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
My palms were sweaty as Wiz and I signed in as visitors at the St. Agatha Hospice facility.
I’d woken up this morning to Wiz hand feeding me saltine crackers and 7UP. Thankfully, they seemed to be staying down as I anxiously waited for one of the nurses to call our name.
“Are you feeling okay?” Wiz whispered, his expression odd as he gave my fingers a squeeze.
I nodded, leaning into him for support. “Yeah, I think so. It’s nice to actually be able to eat something. I thought I’d keel over any second because I was so hungry.”
Wiz’s expression shifted, and if anything, became more strange. I was about to ask him why he was looking at me as if I was an alien when a friendly looking blonde woman stepped out of a door, her eyes scanning the waiting room until she found us.
“You must be Ciara,” she said, her voice cheerful as she greeted us. “I’m Orla, we spoke on the phone. I must say I’m really glad you called me back, Finneas never gets any visitors so I think this will do everyone some good.”
It was clear she was a chatterbox as she led us down the winding, bright yellow hallways of the hospice facility.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked out of curiosity. She’d heard me speak, but never actually seen me before.
Orla shot me a blinding, sunshine-y smile from over her shoulder. “Because you look just like her—your mam I mean.”
My stomach did a flip flop, and for a moment, I was sure that the saltine crackers I’d eaten were about to make a reappearance.
“Finneas has pictures of her, and you, up all over his room,” the nurse continued to explain, oblivious to my very obvious distress.
Wiz’s hand tightened around mine and he leaned in close to my ear. “Are you all right? Do you want to leave?”
I shook my head. I needed to get this done and over with so that I could finally move on.
How was I ever supposed to go back to our pack if I didn’t? I’d just be the same fucked up woman that I always was and the next time something happened the overwhelming urge to run would take over again.
No. I needed to do this.
“So, he’s just inside. I’d just like to let you know that you can’t yell at him, even if you want to. It gets him all worked up and will cause all sorts of alarms to go off.”
Orla had explained over the phone that he was in the last bits of end stage liver failure and that he had no one to say goodbye to.
No one but me.
If I’d told her that I was coming here to blame him for all of my problems, she probably wouldn’t have let me in.
“I won’t do anything to rile him up,” I lied.
Orlan searched my face, her bright visage dropping for a moment before she finally shook her head and opened the door. “Finneas, I have a visitor for you.”
“If it’s that damn priest again, you can send him away. I don’t need last rites given by some twenty-year-old male model,” a familiarly gruff voice called from behind a shuttered curtain. “Either get me Father Lafferty or get the hell out.”
“You don’t need last rites, Finneas,” Orla said cheerfully as she led the charge into the room. “You’ve got some time yet before you keel over. No, I brought her.”
“Who—” the man’s voice began before Orla pulled back the curtain and everything in the room seemed to freeze in place.
Finneas—my father—was nothing like how I remembered him.
In the memories from my girlhood, Finneas Callaghan had been a behemoth. A broad Irishman with a beer gut, dark hair that was just starting to thin, and sharp features that, when he was sober, usually were pulled up into a cheerful grin.
The man in front of me was a shrunken version of that, his dark hair mostly silver now and his skin a sickly shade of yellow as we stared at each other for the first time in over fifteen years.
“Orla, what in the hell were you thinking,” Finneas snapped, his brown eyes which were more like mine than I cared to admit, widening as he took me in.
“You always talk about making amends, and well since you can’t travel to do it, I’ve brought the amends to you.” Orla, clearly not reading the temperature of the room, gave us all silly little jazz hands.
“Hello, Da,” my voice was smaller than I wanted it to be and I felt stupid for it. I cleared my throat and corrected myself. “Finneas.”
Silence hung in the room and it became more awkward by the second before Wiz, bless his heart, stepped in. “Hello, sir, I’m your daughter’s mate Jae-Sun Park. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Is it?” Finneas asked, crossing his bruised, IV-and-cord-filled arms over his chest.
Orla, finally seeming to realize that this meeting wasn’t going to be all tears and hugs, clapped her hands. “I think we should give these two a couple of minutes to catch up, Mr. Park, can I show you to the vending machines?”
Wiz shot me a look like he was asking if I was okay with that and he only left when I gave him a single nod.
Once they were gone I turned to face him again and we continued to stare at one another.
“You’ve grown,” Finneas finally said, breaking our game of mental chicken. “You look just like your mam.”
He turned to the little bedside table that was absolutely packed full of pictures of her—and of me too I realized with a jolt.
“I hate you,” the words tumbled out of me and I thought they shocked us both.
Finneas’s shoulders sank. “I know it and have since you left.”
Anger filled me so acutely that I was dizzy with it. “I left because you were a drunk who liked to bully women and children and then you didn’t even try to better yourself when people took your child away.”
I loved the dads and my family, but in my most faded memories I could remember us being happy together before alcohol got in the way.
His jaw tightened as he looked away from me with obvious guilt. “I am sorry for it. I couldn’t handle it when your mam left and even less after she died. By the time someone peeled me off of the floor of a pub you were already eighteen and I figured you’d want nothing to do with me.”
“I don’t want anything to do with you. I just wanted to come here and tell you that you are the reason why I can’t seem to function as a fucking adult—why every single one of my relationships seems to end in a blaze of gods damned glory. You were broken and because of that, instead of getting help or anything, you broke me and you broke Mam.” I lobbed the words at him like they were projectiles, my vision blurring slightly as I sucked in a deep breath.
“Ciara I—” The machines around Finneas started to beep wildly and suddenly nurses were hustling into the room.
“We need to treat him and you need to leave,” Orla said, guiding me to the door, her cheerful expression gone as she slammed the door shut behind me.
Wiz was nowhere to be found and my world continued to spin, the yellow walls of the hallway becoming too bright.
Someone—I think it was Wiz—called my name but I was already slumping to the ground as blackness edged into my vision and I was gone.
“Well, you didn’t hit your head when you went down, though looking at this nasty cut I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re maybe experiencing some concussion-like symptoms. You said you didn’t get it checked out when it happened?”
After I’d passed out, Wiz and one of the hospice doctors had hustled me into an empty exam room.
Wiz was hovering just behind me, his expression stony as the doctor shined a light in my eyes.
“I didn’t, but the paramedic just said it was a cut,” I told him, still feeling shaky like someone had tossed me into a blender.
“Hmm,” the doctor said under his breath, as he tucked the pen light back into his coat pocket. “When was the date of your last period?”
I frowned. “I don’t have them on my current birth control.”
“And do you have unprotected sex? Without a condom I mean.”
My face warmed because, frankly, we never used condoms. My birth control was touted as one of the most effective on the market and I’d never had any trouble with it before.
“I’m not pregnant, doctor.”
“Well, nausea, trouble sleeping, anxiety, anemia,” he counted off all of my symptoms on his fingers. “All tell me that either you are dying or that you’ve got an extra passenger in there.”
“I can’t be pregnant. My birth control is ninety-nine percent effective.”
“You can still get pregnant with that one percent, my dear,” the doctor said, huffing a dry laugh. “Do you have a male omega partner?”
I hesitated before nodding.
“And when was his last estrus? I assume it was recent. Did you know that omegas go through a period of hyper-fertility during their heats, meaning that your run of the mill birth control would have had nearly no effect. If you didn’t change your birth control for his estrus and he didn’t wrap up… then I have a feeling you may be pregnant.”
I gaped at the man. “That’s impossible.”
But even as I said it, I knew that it was more than possible, in fact, it was likely. I’d cried more the last three months than I thought I ever had and add that in with the constant nausea…
“Well, we can’t say for certain unless you take a test…”
“Which I have,” Wiz finally chimed in from behind me as he rifled through his backpack and produced a little white box.
“When the hell did you buy that?” I asked, staring at it like it was a poisonous snake.
Wiz gave me a sheepish smile. “Our front desk attendant said something to me last night that kind of got my gears turning. I was going to talk to you about it today, but then you passed out in the hallway and here we are.”
The doctor stood. “You can use the attached bathroom if you’d like. I’d highly suggest setting up an appointment with a doctor as soon as possible either way.”
With that, he left Wiz and me alone, both still staring at the box.
“I can’t be pregnant,” I repeated.
“Just take the test so we know either way,” Wiz told me gently as he put it in my hand and guided me to the bathroom.
Once I’d shut the door, feeling a little dazed, I began to read the instructions on the box.
“Do you know how to do it?” Wiz’s question was muffled by the door.
“It’s not rocket science, Wiz,” I called, rolling my eyes.
“Have you ever taken a pregnancy test before?”
No I had not, but he didn’t need to know that.
It was a digital pregnancy test that touted that it could get results fifteen days sooner than all the rest. I didn’t need any of that because, if I was pregnant, I was going to be about three months along.
I peed on the end of the stick and set it on the counter, my heart in my throat.
It was times like this I wish I had Aurelia and Brynn with me. They would have waited outside of the door, joking and trying to make me feel better.
And then I remembered that I was still angry with Aurelia for lying to me and my mood soured once again.
Lifting my shirt, I stared at my stomach, turning one way and then the other and trying to figure out if I looked pregnant while I waited for the test.
My belly looked the same size as always, though there was just the tiniest pooch of distended flesh just underneath my belly button.
Lifting my shirt higher, I stared at my breasts. They had also felt more tender lately, but I figured that being manhandled by four different men would make anyone’s breasts sore.
“Ciara, waiting out here on my own is killing me,” Wiz said as I continued to try and see if there were any physical signs of my being pregnant.
With a sigh, I opened the door. “It’s not done yet.”
Wiz crossed into the bathroom and checked the stick for himself. “How long do these things take?”
Grabbing the box I read the directions again. “Three minutes.”
“This has been the longest three minutes of my life,” he grumbled, his hands reaching for me and hovering for a brief second before he pulled me in for a hug.
“I can’t be a mother,” I mumbled into his chest, gripping his shirt in both of my fists. “I’d be a shit mother.”
“You would not,” Wiz insisted, gathering me into his arms and sitting on top of the closed lid of the toilet. “You’d be a kick ass mom.”
“How? I run away at the drop of a hat and I can’t even have a civil conversation with a dying man. What about that makes me mother material?”
“Do you think your mom was a bad mother? She ran away from you and then died.”
I’d never thought of it like that nor had I believed my bottle-glasses wearing therapist in high school when she told me that the reason I ran away from things was because I watched my mam do the same. It all sounded too much like a psychology textbook to be true.
But as we sat together, me perched on Wiz’s legs, I couldn’t help but wonder if that woman had a point.
“She wasn’t a bad mother.” My words were quiet, almost a whisper, when I finally spoke. “But everything is so fucked up now, Wiz, how am I supposed to go back to them and say: ‘hey guys, sorry for running away like that, my da was dying and I couldn’t cope—and oh! Artie, I’m pregnant with your baby, whoops!’”
That was if they even wanted to see me. Guilt had made me run, but the fear of being rejected by them was what was making me not want to go back.
“I don’t know what you’ll say once we see them again, if I’m being honest.” Wiz sighed and rested his head on my shoulder, just inside of the crook of my neck. “But I think all of it starts with talking to your dad again, gorgeous.”
“And say what? That I forgive him? I don’t forgive him and I don’t know if I can,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Maybe it’s not about forgiveness. Maybe it’s about understanding his story so that we don’t repeat history again. You deserve happiness, Ciara, but you won’t ever accept it unless you learn to let go of all of this shit you’ve been holding on to.”
Wiping at the sudden stray tears on my cheeks, I wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him. His lips were soft against mine, his hand gripping my chin as we comforted each other.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re pretty wise?” I asked, my voice wobbly.
Wiz’s lips pulled up into a cheeky grin. “Once or twice.”
The pregnancy test on the counter let out a little beep, drawing both of our attention to it.
Picking it up, I brought it in between us and we read it together.
“Well,” Wiz said, as we stared at the result together. “That’s that then.”
My hand drifted down to my stomach because he was right. There was no going back from here and I needed to figure my shit out.
Because it wasn’t just me anymore.
“Just let me talk to him one more time,” I pleaded with Orla who was blocking the way to Finneas’s hospice room.
Orla crossed her arms over her chest. “The last time I let you speak to him you nearly stressed him into a premature grave. So tell me why I should?”
“Because I promise not to do that this time?” I tried weakly.
Orla looked as if she was about to tell me where I could go when Finneas’s weak voice came through the crack of the door. “Oh, Orla, just let her in. It’s not like she can kill me any more than my shite liver can.”
Orla’s shoulders sank a bit. “Fine, but you better behave. I know he did some awful things, but right now he’s a dying old man and should be treated as such.”
“I’m only fifty-eight,” Finneas protested as Orla led me back inside.
Wiz had left to find some lunch for us and to see if he could get an appointment for an obstetrician that would take me, making me suddenly glad I’d never given up my Irish passport.
“Still dying,” Orla insisted, gripping the little tablet she carried tightly as she looked between the two of us as if she was gauging whether or not we were about to get into a screaming match.
Finneas waved her off. “Go, Orla, she’s not going to smother me with a pillow if you leave for a bit.”
“She better not,” Orla grumbled, finally turning to head for the door. “But I’m leaving the door open just in case.”
Then she was gone and it was just him and me again.
“Want to take a seat?” he asked, gesturing to the little chair next to his bed.
I hesitated for a moment before settling into it with a sigh.
We sat in silence for a long time, both probably unsure of what to say.
In the end it was Finneas who spoke first. “I’ve seen all of your Olympic routines. You’re good at it, just like your mam was.”
That surprised me. How often had he thought of me when I made it my life’s mission to never think about him?
“I love skating,” I said, offering the information as an olive branch. “We all do it in Seattle and I’ve even started pair skating with my omega partner.”
“So there’s more than just that young man?” Finneas asked, sounding surprised.
I nodded. “There’s five of us in total.”
“Really? You were always such an independent little girl that I was sure that pack life wouldn’t be for you.”
My mental hackles started to rise at that but I forced myself to calm down. “I was never independent. Just lonely.”
“I am sorry for that,” Finneas said in almost a whisper as he shifted uncomfortably in his hospital bed. “I—we never meant for you to be an only child.”
I guessed that the ‘we’ was him and Mam.
“How did things get so very messed up, Finneas?” I asked, ignoring his wince when I used his first name. “You weren’t always like that. I remember that we used to be okay once.”
Finneas sighed heavily. “Did I ever tell you about my parents?”
I shook my head and he nodded as if that made sense.
“My mam ran off when I was three and my da was the village drunk. Never met a bottle he couldn’t make it to the bottom of. Spent my childhood peeling him off of pub floors. Then I met Mona—your mam.”
I’d never heard the story of how they’d met before and I leaned in, eager to glean any information about her that I could. “She was all of sixteen and her family moved from the north. She sat behind me in maths and I was smitten from day one. She pulled me right out of my world with my own da and we ran away after finishing school and never looked back. All the way to Dublin where I joined the Garda and she taught figure skating which we always joked was her first love.”
Finneas’s expression was far away, like he wasn’t even in the room with me anymore and instead was somewhere in the past with her.
“I never drank then, my memories of my da still too fresh in my mind and when we had you I swore I’d break the cycle.”
“So what happened?” It was one thing to tell me he tried, but it was another to tell me why things had gone the way they had.
“We lost a baby. You probably don’t remember it because you were only four, but we lost a little boy all the way in your mam’s eighth month. She wouldn’t even look at me and spent all her time hanging on to you for dear life, like she was afraid you would disappear too if she let you go.”
My spine straightened a bit at the mention of a baby and I had to keep my hand from drifting to my own stomach.
“So I started going out with the rest of the department more often and before I knew it couldn’t go through the day without the taste of alcohol. I became the exact thing I swore I wouldn’t and it became my everything and anyone trying to take my everything became my enemy,” Finneas’s fists were clenched in his lap and he glared down at them.
We sat in silence for a few minutes as I tried to digest all of the information that he’d just thrown at me.
“Why didn’t you get help? Once Mam left?”
Finneas’s smile was so full of self-loathing that it took my breath away. “I still couldn’t see that I was the problem. I let my pride get in the way and didn’t realize it until the department wrung me out to dry in rehab six years ago and by then it was all too late. Mona was gone and you were a grown stranger.”
A knock on the door brought our attention to where Orla was poking her head into the room. “Visiting hours for the day are ending in just a couple of minutes.”
I stood, gripping the straps of my purse tightly. “I still don’t forgive you.”
Finneas nodded, his eyes sad. “And I don’t blame you.”
Nibbling on my lower lip with indecision I finally let out a whooshing sigh. “Can I come again? To see you I mean.”
For the first time since I’d come in, Finneas smiled the same smile I remember from my earliest memories. The one that I sometimes saw when I looked in the mirror.
“I’d like that very much.”