Chapter 26
Niall
Niall had never especially hated the smell of hospitals, but he was starting to understand why people did.
He was building a bank of bad times – after Rafe and now this to see his dad.
The pungent tang of disinfectant, that smelled an awful lot like the stuff the janitor used at school when someone was sick, tore at his nostrils.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ Carli said, when they reached his father’s room.
‘No, come in with me.’ Niall took her hand, it might be soft and small, but it made him stronger, somehow. ‘Please. Dad will love that you’re here.’
‘No,’ Carli insisted. ‘You have a bit of private time first and I’ll come in afterwards, okay?’
Reluctantly, without Carli, Niall pushed open the door of the room where Jamie and Nate were sitting round his dad’s bed.
His father looked so pale and helpless wired up to a machine with an oxygen mask on his face.
How could that be Jimmy Butler? The lifeless, grey form couldn’t be the same man who’d raised him on his shoulders as a kid.
Who’d read him bedtime stories but also told him off countless times.
The man who’d castigated him into next week when he’d driven that car with too much whisky in his bloodstream and his brother in the passenger seat.
How could Jimmy Butler be dying? His dad.
How could his dad be dying? The man who’d shown him right from wrong and what it was to be a man.
To work hard and do your best and own your mistakes.
And he had done those things. Sure, he chastised himself all the time, but there wasn’t a mistake Niall hadn’t owned or a lazy moment where he’d said he couldn’t be bothered any more.
Yes, there were times when he struggled but he was always trying.
Like Cal said, this was his father. This man.
Not Archie Butler. Niall glanced at Jamie and Nate.
His brothers. Jamie from the same parents, Nate adopted but blood, nonetheless. He hugged them both.
‘You okay, bro?’ Jamie asked. Nate clapped him on the back. Silent and understanding.
Niall nodded. ‘Where’s Mum?’
‘Gone home to get some things. Dad’s not getting out of hospital any time soon, but he’s stable, and she wants to sleep over here with him.’
His parents’ love for each other. There was nothing like it. If the shoe had been on the other foot and his mum was sick, his dad would have camped out by her bedside, too. If they’d been at risk of being separated by 12,000 miles, they’d have found a way to be together.
‘Where’s Carli?’ Jamie asked.
‘She’s outside. I’ll go bring her in.’
When Carli came into the room, she stalled at the sight of Jimmy in the bed.
‘I’m sorry.’ She held Niall in such a tight embrace that he wished he could stay there all day, life on pause with no need to move forward and experience the pain of the future.
‘I’ve missed so much time with him,’ he muttered to her. ‘Why am I here only now? I should have been here all these years. What use is now when he’s out for the count?’
‘He knows you love him.’ Carli’s fingers traced and softened the line of tension down his jawline. ‘That’s what matters.’
‘Hey,’ Jamie interrupted with the welcome distraction of a memory. ‘Mind that time when Dad caught us all selling drams of whisky off the house wall to try to make a fast buck? You must have been about ten, Nate.’
‘Aye. I remember his exact words,’ said Nate.
‘“I admire your entrepreneurial spirit, boys, but not your family loyalty. You’ll be paying that bottle back out of your pocket money.” I might have even tried to make a whisky sour by adding some Jif Lemon to it.
Offered it to old Jean Fraser and her pal as an aphrodisiac. Oh, fucking dear!’
‘Jean always had a soft spot for you after that,’ Jamie noted.
‘She still does. Brings her dog to me all the time and I treat him for free to make up for the shame.’
The brothers shared more stories of their father and Niall found himself laughing more than crying and his mood lifting. Carli had some warming memories of her own.
‘Didn’t he say you could do better than me?’ Niall asked.
‘No, he never said that,’ Carli corrected. ‘He said, “Niall doesn’t understand himself fully yet, but one thing he does understand is love. And from what I can see, my son is head over heels in love with you.” And that is word for word because I never forgot it.’
‘Are you kidding me? He said that to you?’
There were tears in Carli’s eyes. ‘Yes, he did.’
‘And you never told me?’
‘No, I kept it to myself. Didn’t want you to feel emasculated. Or to pre-empt you telling me yourself.’
‘Jesus, Jimmy Butler, what a man. Wasted running a distillery when he could have made it big in the matchmaking industry.’ Niall scored his hand down his jaw and looked again at his dad lying under the thin hospital sheet, his breathing laboured but steady.
Why did the past hurt so much? He turned to his brothers, saw his own life reflected in each one of them.
These men he’d known forever, who understood him, accepted him.
God, he loved them. And this beautiful woman standing next to him.
His blood ran thick and fast with love for her, too.
But it wasn’t possible to have both in his everyday life.
And that was the soul wrenching thing, but the thing he would have to find a way to live with.
Back at the house, Niall headed to his mum’s library, in many ways as important a part of the house as the kitchen or the lounge.
Not because they ever spent any time there as a family, but because it represented her, the woman she was, besides being a mother.
The library represented safety for all of them, and it was filled wall to wall with shelves of love in the form of romance books.
It was the place Niall had brought Carli to be alone with her, to read to her, and unforgettably, the place he’d first told her he loved her.
But Niall wasn’t going to the library for romance; today he wanted to find this thing Cal had told him about. The thing that would show him his dad was proud of him.
On the desk, Cal had said. A red book, like a photograph album. Something his mum had put together for his dad in the wake of his illness, although Jimmy had been collecting the contents for years.
Niall scanned the desk but nothing jumped out.
He checked in the drawers and surrounding shelves, but nothing resembled the book Cal had described.
That was strange, although not entirely odd as his mum could have it in another room or have taken it to the hospital for his dad.
He would find out and track it down. He had to.
Before he left, Niall stood in the middle of the room, soaking in the cool silence, the shelves on the back wall, where he’d sat with Carli the day he could never forget. At last, he could allow himself to smile when he looked over there because the memory was no longer bittersweet.