“Everything I did was to protect you, Maddie. I know you may never forgive me for what you lost, but I hate myself for how my decisions hurt you. For what they cost you.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
My first thought was to snap back and ask why she hadn’t told me she’d gotten married or that she’d had a child. My grandson. But I didn’t speak to Maddie the way I did others. I didn’t treat her the way my father treated me, instead, looking to my mother as the role model for parenting.
“I was afraid,” I said. “I was afraid of what Nolan would do, and I was afraid of what my father would do.”
“Do you love him?”
I nodded, still unable to say the words out loud. Still afraid of two dead men and the hold they had over me.
“Why did you choose him if you were afraid of what they would do?”
My eyes snapped up to my daughter. “I didn’t choose him, Maddie. Not the way you think. I wasn’t trying to get pregnant.”
“Then what were you trying to do?” she shouted.
“I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be cherished, if only for a night.” I shook my head. “I know you don’t want to hear this—”
“I do want to hear this. I want to hear all of it. I want you to make me understand how you could keep my father from me and let me believe that monster was a part of me. I want to understand why you said nothing even after he killed my husband!”
“I didn’t know you had a husband!” I shouted back. “I didn’t know anything about him, Maddie. If you’d told me about him...” I paused and took a breath. “If you’d told me about Henry, I would have protected you both.”
“How?”
“I would have let Cian kill the motherfucker,” I said, looking my daughter in the eye. Her breathing hitched as a small gaspescaped her lips. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard me swear. Though I was thankful she was more demure than I was. Maddie didn’t swear until she lost her temper. Then all bets were off.
“It was pure Irish luck that Cian was in that bar that night. I still don’t know what he was doing there; I never asked. But I went in there looking for one night. It was supposed to be a stranger. Someone I would never see again. Lord knows my husband didn’t give me the same courtesy.”
I lifted the glass to my lips and took a healthy swallow, wishing it were something a little stronger. Maddie turned away and grabbed two smaller glasses, then opened the freezer and pulled out a bottle of vodka. Without a word, she poured some into the glasses and sat across from me at the table, sliding one of the glasses in my direction.
“Thank you,” I said before gulping down the contents and refilling the glass.
“I love you, Mom.” Maddie reached over and placed her hand over mine. “But I’m so angry and hurt that I don’t know how to get past it.”
“I don’t know how to help you, Maddie. What I did was wrong; there is no excuse for it. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I just made everything worse.”
“You really didn’t know?”
“Not for sure. I suspected; hell, I even hoped, but I couldn’t confirm it. Not without putting him in danger.”
And I wasn’t willing to do that. I lived a life of misery to protect him, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Even after my father died, I never said a word because my father had friends. Men and women loyal to him who wouldn’t think twice about finishing what he started.
That was clear from the files I found in his office.
“Maddie, how did you find out?” I asked carefully.
My daughter took a deep breath and blew it out before taking a sip of her own drink. She would be turning twenty-nine this summer, and I wondered how she felt about her life. When we lived in New York, she seemed happy. Happier than she was here, but maybe that was because she could see Henry every day. Even if she never got to talk to him or hold him in her arms.
“I received a package.”
“A package?” I asked, sitting up straighter. “What kind of package?”
“Pictures and a tape recording.”
“A video?” I asked, curious about what was on it.
Maddie shook her head. “A voice recording. I don’t know where it was from, but I heard Uncle Sal talking. And Nolan.”
