"I know about the diary, Orla’s diary," I tell her, wanting to get this over and done with. She goes very still at my words, but I don’t stop. "Conn brought it to a meeting yesterday. He found it at Tony's house, in the room where Orla kept it hidden under the floor, after Orla died." I turn to look at her. "I read it."
Her eyes are wide and filled with tears. "All of it?" she asks, her voice shaking and low.
"Not all of it, no. Conn had tabbed what he thought was necessary and your brothers and I, along with my father and brothers read it."
She looks away from me. Her gaze goes to the Hellebores that are in bloom in the gardens.
"Daire lied to me," I say. "About what happened, but more importantly, she lied about who you are." I take a deep breath and lay everything bare. "Everything she told me was constructed to make me believe the worst about you. I believed it because..." I stop, trying to figure out how to say this in a way that doesn’t make me even more of an asshole and the truth is, there isn’t any other way. "I believed it because I was already looking for reasons not to trust you, and she gave me one."
Quinn doesn't say anything.
"I was wrong," I say. "About all of it."
She breathes out slowly. "I know," she says, quietly.
That's all. Not I told you so, not, do you understand what that cost me? Just I know. I hate how exhausted she sounds, like this has been weighing her down for years and it has. But not anymore. It’s out in the open and she can finally be free from it all.
"Tell me what happened," I say. "From the beginning, I want to know all of it."
She looks at me. "Why?"
"Because I got it wrong, and I want the real version. I want to hear what happened from you."
She's quiet for a moment. Long enough that I think she's going to refuse, that the damage is too extensive, that she's decided the explanation serves me but not her and she has no reason to give it.
"Growing up, I’ve always known that I was the odd one out. My da loves my brothers, Daithí, more so than the others, but he still loves them. But Mam has always made it very clear that only one child matters to her: Daire. No one could ever compare to her precious daughter.”
God, those fucking assholes. “Who loved you, Quinn?”
She looks up at me with glassy eyes. “Caden,” she whispers. “Mamie.”
My brows furrow at the name. “Who’s Mamie?”
“She is our housekeeper and she was the woman who looked after me, she is amazing and I’m going to miss her so much.”
I make a mental note to find out everything I can about the woman.
“It’s only recently that Daithí has got his shit together,” she tells me with a twisted smile. “I don’t know what happened, but something did. He stopped sleeping around and he’s more present. He’s done everything he can to get the truth out there about Orla.”
“Do you want to talk about her?” I ask. She seems to be dodging telling me about what happened with Orla.
She shakes her head. “You know the truth. I’m glad you do, but I tried to help and it didn’t do anything. In fact, it just made things worse.”
"I’m sorry,” I tell her, hating that I believed Daire instead of waiting like Quinn had said and letting her tell me the truth.
"I knew I was making it harder for myself," she says. "I knew Daire would find out and there'd be consequences. There always were." She pauses. "I tried to help her anyway."
"What happened when you tried to help?" I ask.
She looks back at the garden. "I went to mam. I told her what Daire was doing to Orla." She breathes hard, her hands shaking. "She slapped me across the face and told me I was jealous, that I was lying, and that I'd never amount to anything." A pause. "So I had no one to go to after that."
Fucking hell. I didn’t expect it to be her mother that hit her. Fucking bitch.
“I read Orla’s diary, she said your cheek was bad.”
She nods. “Mam’s rings caught me as she backhanded me.”
"Tell me about your father. Our wedding day wasn’t the first time he hit you. He hit you when we were engaged too.”
