‘My father would never do that. You know that he liked Milo? We all loved Milo. I was going to marry him. Did he tell you that? Right up until the day that he raped my kid sister.’
‘But –’
‘Stop, Margie, this is pointless. Your brother is responsible for so much pain. Ruby has –’ and then I stopped myself speaking further.
‘Where is she? How come she’s not turning up on Google?’
‘Are you trying to find her? Why? Leave her alone. She’s had a tough time.’
‘So has Milo, as I’m sure you can imagine.’
‘I don’t think about him any more,’ I lied.
‘He’s sick.’
‘So?’
‘You don’t care?’
I said nothing.
‘It’s serious. He could die in there.’
‘Milo has cancer?’
‘Yeah.’
I inhaled deeply as a lump formed in my throat. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘You could go see him.’
‘I can’t, I’m sorry.’
‘He wants you to go see him.’
‘No.’
I got up from the table and walked towards the exit. Margie shouted after me. ‘First your sister has him incarcerated and kills my ma, and now you’re going to let him die in there? He still loves you. But you’re fucking monsters, both of you. And the DNA is wrong. I don’t care what you say.’
I broke down in the office and had to hide in the printer room for half an hour before I could pull myself together to go back to my desk.
The next day, Grandma died in Dublin. I managed to get cover at work. I went to Boston, and Dad and I flew to Dublin together from there. Mom needed us. And I had not met my niece, Lucy, yet. I had stubbornly refused to go to Dublin, but she was eighteen months old now and I was forced to accept that Ruby wasn’t ever coming home. Kathy wanted to come to Ireland too, but Dad told her it wouldn’t be appropriate. We left her sulking with her knitting needles.
On the six-hour-long flight to Dublin, I asked Dad about the trial, how the DNA was gathered, and how it was matched to Milo. The mere mention of it made him wince. I had not been present for it, except to be a witness at the end, one of the worst days of my life. Dad opened a miniature bottle of bourbon. ‘I’m not sure, but in court the forensics woman who had tested the semen found inside your sister said the DNA matched with Milo’s. It was a 99.2 per cent match.’ He took a long sip of his drink. ‘I don’t know whether they match it to a hair sample or aswab or his blood. Some of the evidence, I couldn’t stay to listen to it. It was distressing, and I felt bad too, you know. I let him stay over in our house. It’s part of my faith to trust everyone, but it let me down when it came to that man. Your aunt Rachel stayed for the whole thing. She said that if it wasn’t for the DNA, he could have got away with it. I feel bad for calling the cops and for the fact that Ruby had to go through the whole court case, but at least he won’t do it again. I think it may have re-traumatized her and led to her alcoholism, but there was no other way to stop him legally.’
I asked him casually how well he knew the Boston District Attorney.
‘Met him a couple times at the Mayor’s Gala and at some fundraisers. I didn’t take to him much. Seems like a slippery kind of guy. A sniffer.’ That was the term Dad used for a cocaine user. By the way he was talking, I knew he would not and could not have interfered in any way in the trial. I already knew via Google how DNA was sampled and tested and matched. I only asked Dad to see if there was any way he could have meddled in the process to make sure Milo was found guilty, but Dad was nothing but honest, and if he ever bent the rules, it was to benefit somebody. Now I knew there was no room for doubt. Margie was wrong. I felt bad for her, but she was another victim of Milo. She just didn’t know it.
I told Dad about Fabian. He was furious with him for his betrayal. ‘That man has no right to call himself a Christian.’ That got me thinking about my own Christianity. Was it the right thing to do to turn my back on Milo when he was sick? Maybe I should advocate for him? I asked Dad. At first, he was horrified, but then he suggested that we pray together. We did so with clasped hands, in our aeroplane seats, as the bar trolley passed us by. After about ten minutes, Dad loosened his grasp.
‘Let Ruby decide,’ he said.
‘What?’ I gasped.
‘Tell her the truth and ask her if it’s okay to visit. If you do it behind her back, she might be hurt again, and we don’t want to risk her sobriety.’
I felt a stab of guilt. Maybe Ruby would say no.
