“Yeah. I’ll get them for you.” He sprinted to the package room and returned with four boxes.
I slipped a ten-dollar bill into his hand and received a grateful smile. Tipping was discouraged by the co-op board, but I didn’t give a fuck. “Thanks, Luis. I’ll see you later.”
“Thank you, Mr. Michaels.” He tucked away the bill and stepped behind the desk. I left him to handle another delivery person.
Inside my apartment I kicked off my shoes and went straight to the bathroom, where I washed off the cut on the side of my head. I winced, touching the tender spot where the bottle had winged me, and dabbed on some Neosporin. Bastards. The sight of my red blood swirling down the drain made me a little queasy. Since my accident and hospital stay, I’d hated the sight of blood and averted my eyes, hoping I wouldn’t get sick. Residual effects of being trapped in a car with my parents for hours before they could use the jaws of life to pry me free. They found me covered in blood, both theirs and mine. I closed my eyes and breathed through the panic.
My phone buzzed, and my heart leaped.
“Marty. How are you?”I knew they wouldn’t abandon me. All my anger vanished—Cassie was my sister, and Marty was the father of my nieces and nephew. I’d always be there for them.
“Okay, but could be better.”
My pulse spiked. “What’s wrong? Are the kids okay?”
“Yeah. They’re fine. It’s just…well, this deal I was working on fell through, and we were counting on it. I was wondering if you could lend us some money. Just until I get my first commission. I’m working with my father on a big condo development that could make us all rich.”
Incredible. He didn’t even ask how I was doing or anything. “Why don’t you borrow the money from your father? If he’s such a big developer, he must be rolling in it.”
“It’s all tied up in property. He doesn’t have the kind of liquidity we need.”
“And how much is that?” I swore I must be the biggest fool in the city, listening to this bullshit, but I had to know.
“Only about a million or two.”
“Only,” I replied, and my sarcasm must’ve bled through the phone as Marty jumped on me.
“It’s nothing to you. We’re family. Do you want your nieces and nephew to be homeless?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Marty. Don’t pull that guilt shit on me. None of this would’ve happened if you didn’t come up with that scheme and drag Cassie and me into it.”
“You agreed to help. And Cassie didn’t know how broke we really were.”
“Help?” Amazing how someone could twist the facts around. “I agreed because Cassie was pregnant. She bears some responsibility too. She had two million dollars she blew through. I warned her to put some aside.”
“She did, but we spent it, and don’t forget, she didn’t get as much as you.” I could hear the envy in his voice.
“She didn’t almost die and spend six months in the hospital having surgery after surgery, did she?”
Over a decade and a half later and it still haunted me. It always would.
“No, but come on, Ronan, why’re you being like this?”
“Like what? An adult and trying to get you and my sister to act the same? Don’t you think it’s time you and Cassie stood on your own two feet? You took the money I gave you for the victims and spent part of it on yourselves. What the fuck was that about?” All my pent-up anger and fear from the attack spilled out. “Do you know how hard it was for my attorney to work that out with the government and pay everything off so I could unfreeze my assets?”
“We had so much credit-card debt.…Like I said, I didn’t want to upset Cassie, so I kept the worst of it from her. I was gonna pay it back, but then they froze our bank accounts too and we lost the apartment—it’s been hard.”
I rolled my eyes. “You want to know what’s hard? Spending six years in prison for something I didn’t do. The fact that I just got attacked outside my own apartment. Someone threw a bottle at my head.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. But I have to say, I really regret ever making that deal with you. It’s ruined my life. No one wants to talk to me, all my friends are gone.”
“You’ll make new ones. It’ll eventually die down. I mean, remember all those junk bond guys from the eighties. They’re all out of prison and doing fine now. It’ll just take some time, but people will forget.”
I hated his nonchalance and refusal to take any responsibility for what happened. “You know, I’m sick and tired of everyone telling me people will forget in a few years. I’m livingnow. And it sucks. What makes it all worse is that I thought I’d have my family by my side, but instead you not only left me, you don’t even pretend to understand how I feel or that it’s all your fault this is happening to me.”
“I didn’t force you to do anything.”
