“Now, let’s not fuss,” Mom said. She was always the peacemaker. Not that Dad and I ever really fought.
At least, not before today, it seemed.
“Are we going to be allowed to leave once you’ve been ordained?” Dad asked, and gathered up the plates from the table as he rose, carrying them to the kitchen sink.
“I don’t know.”
“Who’s trying to hurt you?”
“I don’t know that either,” I snapped. “Dad,seriously. If I knew I’d tell you. I don’t like this any more than you do—”
“On the contrary, Aidan,” he said sadly. “You don’t seem to have a problem with any of it.”
I had to admit Dad had a point. When exactlyhadbulletproof glass and bodyguards begun to seem like everyday parts of life to me?
“John,” my mother said firmly, “will you give us a minute?”
Dad looked like she was going to say no, but then he nodded and went back down the hallway.
“Mom, seriously—” I began.
“Yes, Aidan. Seriously,” she said. “Come and sit down.”
Growing up, my parents had never used corporal punishment. Never once raised a hand even in a mock-threat. They were loving but firm, and if we did something wrong, the guilt was always worse than the punishment—the idea that we’d disappointed them. Mom, especially—it was theworst, feeling like we’d disappointed her.
I felt very much the same right then as I followed her to the breakfast table, where we sat in the warm, sunny alcove and looked at each other.
“Aidan, what’s going on with you?”
“Mom, honestly—nothing.”
“That’s not honesty. You can’t even look me in the face. That’s not you, Aidan. That’s not who you are and it’s not how I raised you. So what I want to know is, does Teo have anything to do with these changes?”
She was so patient, so gentle, that it brought tears to my eyes. “Mom, I—” I began, about to tell her yet again that it was nothing, but the stress rose up over me like a giant wave: car crashes, threats, being told I should distance myself from Finch, people shooting at me, watching Teo almostkill a manfor me, but most of all, justTeo.
Teo’s hands on me, making me feel things I never knew existed, opening up my heart, and then telling me to go ahead and take my vows…
Teo telling me he’d murdered his own father and walking out on me, contemptuous of any relief confession might bring…thatImight bring…
I pulled off my glasses and started to cry, really cry, like I’d never cried before. I heard a scraping of chair legs, and then my mother’s arms were around me, holding me close, pulling me into her chest and letting me let it all out. She held me there tight and safe just like when I was a kid, and I wept with the same abandon as a child.
After a long time, I quietened, and she loosened his arms, though she kept one along the back of my chair, curled around my shoulders.
I sniffled, “I’m s-sor—”
“Don’t you dare say sorry, Aidan John O’Leary,” she said at once, and gave me a squeeze. “I’m glad you got it out.”
I nodded, trying to wipe my nose. My eyes felt sore and red.
“I think you must be very stressed and very anxious,” Mom said kindly. “And I don’t blame you one bit. And I bet you’ve been living with these problems and not sharing them, making a martyr of yourself. Am I right, Saint Aidan?” She chuckled, and I did, too.
Saint Aidan was what the whole family had called me from the time I was ten. Sometimes it was mocking. Most of the time it was affectionate. And I hadn’t minded all that much, although it gave me a blasphemous thrill from time to time.
“It’s everything,” I admitted. “It’s just—everything. I’ve always been so certain of what I wanted, whatGodwanted. Now every time I think I’ve figured it out, I seem to get another curveball thrown at me.”
“Listen, Aidan, is one of these curveballs…well, is it Teo?”
Just hearing his name made me tear up again. “Maybe,” I said, my voice breaking.
