Clicking the green button, I held the phone to my ear and murmured, “Hey, bro.”
“Yo. Ma’s five minutes away.”
“I’ll head for reception now,” I told him.
“We’ll see you down there in ten,” Callum responded. “Maeve thinks you need to talk to Mam in private.”
I mentally cursed the shit show my life had become. “Right.”
“Good luck, little brother,” he crowed.
I let out a quiet snort, smiling ruefully, and replied, “Thanks. I think I’m gonna need it.”
—————
Tipping my head back,I reveled in the feeling of the warmth of the sun’s rays hitting my face. I’d just watched Ma pull into the parking lot from the bench situated right outside the inn we were staying at.
Our showdown was about to go one of two ways. Ma would either be mad as a viper or sympathetic. I suspected she’d had time to chill and prayed that the prospect of acquiring a new granddaughter superseded any murderous intentions she may have. Still, going by my luck over the past few days, Mam may well have brought her frying pan along with her and was about to crack it round my skull like I’d seen her do to Da back in the day when he fucked around and found out.
The sound of heels clip-clopping alerted me to the fact that she was approaching, so I lowered my head and watched my ma walk toward me purposefully.
She was wearing her Sunday Service clothes. We had no Catholic church in Hambleton, but that didn’t stop Maureen O’Shea from worshipping Sweet Jesus once a week. She always said any church was better than no church and happily sang hymns along with the Baptists on a Sunday morning without a second thought.
Our eyes locked, and even though I could sense Ma’s disappointment, I could also detect excitement and even a sliver of hope. Maeve had done a great job in helping to get Ma’s anger out of the way, so we could have an honest heart-to-heart without tempers flaring.
She sat beside me and placed her purse on her lap.
“How was the drive?” I asked.
“Good,” she replied softly. “It gave me time to think.”
My hand snaked out and covered hers, and I murmured, “I’m sorry I let you down, Ma.”
Her head snapped around until she faced me, and her eyebrows furrowed. “You haven’t let me down, Son; you didn’tknow. Am I shocked? Of course. But the only way you could let me down would be if you walked away from this baby.”
I was taken aback by her words, but I shouldn’t have been. Nobody knew me like my ma. We’d always had a bond, and she’d always seemed to understand the demons that lived in my head. Luckily, Ma also had a knack for knowing exactly what to say to help me overcome them.
“What if I’m bad for her?” I asked.
“Now tell me, how could you be bad for anyone with a heart that big, Donovan O’Shea?”
“But Da always said?—”
She slashed a hand through the air and snapped, “Enough! When are you going to get it through your thick skull that yourathairwasn’t always right? He was a flawed man, and yes, I loved him, but if he were here now, I’d take a wooden spoon to him, I would.” Mam’s hand rose to cup my cheek. “He was always hard on you because you were the free-spirited one who he couldn’t control. Callum was his own man, but he ran everything past your da and always sought his approval, but you didn’t give two hoots what he thought, and it drove your da loo-lah.
My eyes darted between hers, and I smiled. “I did drive him loo-lah, didn’t I?”
Ma laughed softly. “And deep down, he admired you for it.”
Something warm slid through my stomach. “You think?”
“I don’t think, Son. I know. Lorcan was old school; he always believed that a son should grow up in the image of his father. Your da did with his father, and so did Callum. You didn’t, and it blindsided him. You were different from Lorcan, but you were never less; if anything, it made you more. More imaginative, more resourceful, and definitely more independent. So I repeat, how could you be bad for your baby girl when there’s so much inside you that’smore?”
Emotions hit me from all sides, and my chest twisted with the brevity of Ma’s words.
I’d always felt like an outcast within the family, like somehow I was always missing the joke. My dad never told me he was proud of me; he never interacted with me at all really, except to tell me I was an idiot and not good for much.
All my good memories were wrapped up in my ma, and it hit me that Maureen O’Shea was a canny woman and not the type to blow smoke up my ass. If she believed I had more to me than I knew, I had to take that seriously.
