Not that he’s the kind of man I want to admit to having a part in raising, but still. I’m at least some of the reason he’s like this. Maybe he got it from me. God knows I wasn’t the easiest kid when I was growing up, and it’s only now that I’m a parent myself that I can imagine what a pain in the arse I was to my mum and dad back in Ireland.
“You want me to come down?” I offer. Truth be told, I don’t want to leave the house quite yet. I feel like the girl from last night might come back, and I want to be here when and if she does. But I’m not going to leave Martha high and dry, especially not with the amount of stress she’s going through.
“No, no,” she murmurs. “I—I just wanted to talk to someone about it. Sometimes, I feel like…”
She doesn’t need to finish that sentence for me. We’re both his parents, and we have a unique understanding of what it feels like to be responsible for someone like our son. The shame that comes with it, the guilt, that feeling that we might have unleashed something on the world that does more harm to it than good. The constant questions of whether we could have done anything differently, or whether he was destined to be like this from the start.
“Is it my fault, Martin?” she asks softly.
“No,” I assure her, and I mean it. “He’s responsible for what he does, Martha, you know that. And you can’t keep covering for him. You have to let him make his own mistakes?—”
“Even when it comes to destroying a whole apartment?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Even then.”
She sighs, a rush of static down the line. “I’m sorry to bother you this early, Martin. You get some rest.”
“We’ll talk later,” I promise her, though I can already sense that she doesn’t much want to speak with me after everything that’s happened. I’m a constant reminder of the ways in which our family failed, and she only calls me when she can’t deny it any longer.
“Sure. Speak soon.”
And with that, she hangs up, leaving me sitting in silence.
I toss the phone onto the bed and stalk toward the shower. I need to scrub the last twenty-four hours off of my body, because they feel like they’ve crept beneath my skin and thrown me entirely off my game. First, that woman on the side of the road—bringing her back to the house, the way she slipped into my lap, the way she kissed me. Then, waking up the next morning to find her gone and my ex-wife on the phone, terrified about what our son might do next.
My mind drifts to the bruises on the woman’s arms, how she brushed off my questions about where they had come from. Seems like there are plenty of people having problems out there, even if I can only do so much to help them.
It’s no wonder that she took off so early; she probably thought I would turn on her just like the person who did that to her. I can only hope that she’s still safe, even if I have no way to prove that for certain.
Could last night have been nothing but a dream? It’s starting to feel that way now. Like a break from reality that my brain offered me so I didn’t have to think about the mess of my real life.
But even as I flick on the shower and the memories of her flood into my mind, I know that I could never have come up with something as vivid and perfect as her.
Even if I get the feeling that I’m never going to see her again.
5
LILA
Nine months later…
“Oh God!”I cry out, gripping the arms of the wheelchair and squirming in discomfort as another rush of pain courses through my body.
“You’re going to be alright,” the nurse tells me, her voice smooth and comforting, or at least as much as it can be given the circumstances.
“I’m finding that pretty hard to believe,” I grit out, clamping my hands over my belly, which is straining beneath the confines of the paper hospital gown.
“Remember the breathing exercises,” the nurse reminds me. “In and out, like you’re trying to push the air out through your pursed lips.”
I do my best to follow her instructions as another surge of pain courses through my abdomen. But, given what’s about to come, I know that staying calm is not exactly on the menu.
Not when I have twins to give birth to.
I look down at my belly again, sending a silent prayer to the two children inside of me—make this easy, please, make this easy.I know it’s stupid, but right now I’m willing to do just about anything if it means that I don’t have to suffer through every second of this birth. If someone came to me with a religion right now, I would be hard-pressed not to take them up on it, just for a little hint of relief.
I arrived at the hospital about a half hour ago, after my water broke at home in my tiny apartment—I still don’t know how I’m going to fit me and two whole babies in there, but I will figure that out when the time comes. Right now, I have to worry about fitting them through somewhere else entirely?—
“Ah!” I cry out, the sound of my voice echoing off the polished corridors around us. My hips lift from the chair, trying to ease some of the pain coursing around my lower back, but until I get every painkiller they have in this place inside of me, I know I’m just going to have to suffer through it.
