“The way Mona found Conor.”
The way Mona found Conor.
That was like sayin’ the way life found death.
My Da had been abandoned when he was a lad. He had nothin’ or no one in this world. He was the bastard child of Cian O’Callaghan. He’d been left behind to fight for everythin’ he ever needed, while his half-siblings lived a lush life in Castle Beatha. He was never welcome on the property until he bought it. It was going under, and the O’Callaghan family was forced to sell.
Mam and Da met when Da had hit rock bottom, and his world had changed after. He’d always said life finally found him.
It was Mam.
She was his life, and she belonged to him.
In the end, she was also his death by urgin’ him to leave Boston with the gold.
They had lived together. They had died together.
Then I was turned into the thing that made my Da do desperate things—a child who’d been abandoned. If it wasn’t for Keenan and Fiona, I would have been an orphan. But they were in the foster home with Da and had made a blood pact—Keenan was his brother, and Fiona was his sister. They considered me blood through Da.
They were an odd two, Keenan and Fiona, but they fit in my life. I wasn’t an ordinary lad. I’d been turned into a killer before I was a teenager. Instead of hangin’ out with friends and playin’ games, I was settin’ traps for Craig’s men and plottin’ my revenge.
I walked over to the lough and watched as my reflection rippled. My Da had called it Lough Leane, meanin’, “lake of learning.” The name was fittin’. Secrets were still buried beneath the surface. What was left of the gold shared the water with salmon and brown trout.
When my Da had said I’d never starve, he’d meant it both metaphorically and literally.
It never slipped past me that my life and my father’s at times mirrored each other. I’d never thought about it before, but I wondered if he’d ever stood where I was, and had this same thought…
I see the man starin’ back at me, but up until this point, he was just a body who had dead eyes that didn’t care to see the livin’.
I’d seen myself plenty of times, but I’d never taken notice of the small things. How I looked a lot like my Da, but Mam was there in the reflection too—even if the resemblance was subtle.
Footsteps sounded from behind me. They were solid when they fell, but there was an airiness about them. Like she was rushin’ to get to me.
Usually, my body was stiff, but the thought of her made it take a breath and relax.
I turned at the same time she made it to me. Her hand was up, like she was going to tap me on the shoulder. The other was tucked behind her back. She rocked on her heels, her free hand joinin’ the hidden one.
“I brought a book!” she rushed out, then she pulled it from behind her back and showed it to me. “It’s a romance, but it also has pirates. Do you like pirates?”
It seemed like we fell in step with each other at the same time. I never seemed to have a destination in mind for our walks. The property was vast. It bordered mountains on one side and a forest on the other. There was always somethin’ to see. The only place I avoided with Maeve was the cemetery on the hill.
She continued, my silence never breakin’ her stride. “I think you’re going to love it! It’s set in modern day, but the feel of the book is older. Like when pirates were really pirates and they boarded boats and seized cargoes. I looooove how the author took something from long ago and modernized it but was able to keep the romance from that time and preserve it between the pages.”
I glanced at her from the side of my eye.
“I know!” She held the book up. “I’ve read it like a million times, but it’s my favorite—a classic for me. It’s so romantic, but it has so much action and suspense. It has some humor too. And the places they go? So vivid! I’m there with them when I read the story.”
She took a breath and laughed it out. “You know, I’ve mentioned before how people exhaust me. I’m an introvert. I’d rather spend time with fictional beings because they seem to recharge me. But…I don’t mind talking to you. You don’t…tire me out. You make me forget commas should be implemented, even in speech.”
Maybe because, as in her books, she was hearin’ my dialogue without me havin’ to speak my lines out loud. Like Keenan and Fiona, she gave me a voice without me havin’ to utter a word. But there were times when she’d ask me questions and then wait for me to respond—a nod or shake of the head.
“I didn’t even think…” She used the book to fan her face. “I could have brought some food. Are you hungry?”
I shrugged.
“When I get excited about a book…” She glanced at me, and when our eyes met, they held for a second before she turned them forward. “I sometimes forget the real world exists. Through the stories I read…I feel alive, like I’m living a thousand lives.”
She must have been my story then, because she made me feel the same fuckin’ way.
