Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
brIDGET
When I was in school, my teacher had me read Dante's Inferno—the circles of hell as a metaphor for our lives.
At the time, it didn't make sense to me.
I could sort of fathom that there were levels of damnation, gradations of sin, and certain actions that were worse than others.
I understood that some people did terrible things and deserved more serious punishment, yes, but the idea of distinct layers was something my adolescent brain couldn't quite grasp.
Until now. Because pacing outside Declan's room, waiting for him to wake up, waiting to find out whether he's suffered brain damage or anything else they haven't told me yet, is absolutely a layer of Dante's hell I’ve never experienced before.
“Are you next of kin?” A doctor in a white coat approaches, clipboard in hand.
God. How many more times do I have to talk to doctors in white coats? Why do they wear white anyway? And don’t they only say next of kin when someone’s dead?
I shake my head. “No. I'm his friend.”
When I hear voices behind me, I turn to see Declan's parents coming down the hall. I’m torn between the urge to run to them and the urge to hide. His mother reaches for me first.
Aileen McCarthy is one of the nicest, strongest women I have ever known, a woman I have often wished was my own mother.
She pulls me into a hug before she's even said a word. Her gray hair is in a messy bun, and she’s wearing matching black lounge clothes, as if she were pulled from the quiet of her home to get this news.
“What happened?” she says as her husband comes up behind her. Even now, Cormac McCarthy is a terrifying man. Absolutely enormous, with a thick beard shot through with gray and deep laugh lines around his eyes. Declan has his eyes.
“Bridget,” he says warmly, hugging me. “Good to see you here, lass. You’re a good friend.” He leans down and kisses both my cheeks.
Their son’s in a hospital bed, and they don't question why I'm here. They're just glad someone they know is. My heart aches.
I want Cormac and Aileen as my parents. I would be so good to them.
My god, these pregnancy hormones are driving me up a wall.
“We just went to get ice cream,” I say, shaking my head.
“And then these men came at us—they must have been following us because they just came out of nowhere and picked a fight.” Aileen grimaces, but Cormac nods.
“Declan got… protective, and the next thing I knew, the entire ice cream parlor had cleared, and they were on the attack.”
“Oh my god.” Aileen covers her mouth. “What did you do?”
“I texted Cavin straight away. Thankfully, the bodyguards had actually followed us there—they didn't wait for instructions.”
“They did what they had to,” Mr. McCarthy says, his eyes snapping with something cold and certain. This is why they call him the gentle giant. He is kind and protective, and he has that McCarthy edge to him they all share. He reaches for me. “Lass.”
Then I'm crying, swiping at my eyes all over again. Apparently, crying all over the McCarthys is my game plan tonight. “I’m sorry,” I manage to sniffle out.
“Don't you dare apologize for caring about my son,” Aileen says from behind me, her hands warm on my shoulders. “Don't you dare.”
And that's what breaks me properly. Not just Declan's injury.
Not just the fear of not knowing. It's the knowledge that he's marrying someone else, and I'm standing in a hospital corridor, carrying his baby. These two wonderful people are treating me like I’m already in their family, and I can't say a single word about any of it.
I pull myself together, even though neither of them rushes me.
“You want to see him?” I ask, stepping back and swiping my face. “I'm so sorry. I've been holding you up—”
“If you apologize one more time,” Aileen says, shaking her head as she tugs a strand of my hair. She winks. “The doctors are running some tests. We're just occupying time so we don't have to sit in that waiting room, imagining the worst. You've done us a favor.”
“Have you eaten?” Cormac asks. “Did you even get your ice cream?”
I smile sadly and shake my head.
“Come on, then,” Aileen says, slipping her arm through mine. “I happen to know the cafeteria is open late, and they do a very respectable ice cream for a hospital.”
Cormac is already on the phone. “Keenan. I'm sorry, I know it's late—” He rounds the corner ahead of us as Aileen and I walk down the hallway together. Then she takes my hand. Just that—her hand in mine.
Right now, it is the nicest thing anyone has done for me in months.
My god, what I wouldn't give to be able to tell her what I just found out, but I can't. It's way too complicated. Ugh, I can't even tell my own sister.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and when I pull it out, I see a note from Dr. Rosenberg.
Dr. R
I feel the need to remind you that termination remains an option, Bridget.
I know it's not my decision to make, and I wish you nothing but the best. But there may be serious complications, and given what I know of the McCarthy family situation, I don't know whether the father is in any position to support you through this.
I shove my phone in my pocket before Aileen can see it. She's very politely studying the menu board above the cafeteria counter and giving me a little privacy. Tactful. Of course she's tactful. She raised Declan.
I think about his message for longer than I’ll care to admit, even as the word complications repeats over and over in my mind.
But I'm already imagining a little face just like his.
Those eyes. That chin. A little girl with her daddy's long lashes, or a little boy, larger than life, filling every room he walks into. I can feel it—not the baby, not yet. It’s too soon for that—but the life I could build around this…
without him. Because it has to be without him.
Somewhere new. A story about a one-night stand and a man who was never in the picture. No one would ever have to know.
Aileen brings me back a cup of ice cream.
“Here y’are,” she says. “It was Declan's idea, wasn't it? The ice cream.”
“Mine, but he didn’t need asking twice.”
She laughs out loud as I take a spoonful, and there is something about the cold, creamy sweetness that actually distracts me for a moment. Just a moment.
“You wouldn’t believe it. He's been in touch with my doctor—got a response even though he's on holiday.” I shake my head.
“Of course he did. The McCarthy men are not very accustomed to hearing no.”
“Aye. May’ve noticed.”
“Ha.” She laughs, warm and a little rueful. “No, they are not.” She pauses, stirring her own spoon idly. “Do you know what I was doing today?”
“What's that?”
“Picking out flowers. For the… wedding.” She says it carefully, with that particular steadiness that tells me she has said it to herself a few times first, testing how much it costs.
I have gotten very good at reading micro-expressions. You spend enough time in hospital rooms, and you learn to notice the small things—the way a nurse's eyes shift, the particular weight of a silence before delivered news.
Aileen McCarthy is watching me now, the way I watch doctors.
“She'll do well by him,” I say. My voice is perfectly even. I’m very proud of it. “I'm sure of it.”
Aileen looks at me for a moment longer than is quite comfortable before she says, “I never married for love, you know. I was very lucky. Cormac practically had to drag me back when I tried to run—but he caught me.” A small smile.
“We made it work. Things were complicated for a while. It took some time.” She pauses. “Maybe they'll find their way too.”
“Of course they will,” I say, putting my spoon down because I have no more appetite for ice cream. “He's a good man. He'll take care of whatever is his.”
Her voice cracks, just slightly. “I just hope he finds happiness.”
My phone rings on the table between us. Cormac. Aileen snatches it up.
“He’s still out, but Doc says it’s promising,” Cormac says, loud enough to carry. “Just checking on you.”
“We’re on our way.”
Aileen is already standing. I follow.
And somewhere between the cafeteria and the lift, I make a quiet, private vow to whatever version of god is still listening to me: If Declan is alright—if he walks out of this hospital whole—then I will not burden him with a single word of this.
I will raise this baby alone. I will build a life somewhere quiet, and I won’t look back. I will be fine.
I am very good at deciding to be fine.