Page 17 of Sins of Arrogance

The af­ter­noon sun shim­mers on the bay, turn­ing the boats into hazy blips of bob­bing color. A soft breeze lifts strands of my hair and car­ries the scent of sea salt and grilled meat from the ter­race.

My fa­ther’s con­tri­bu­tion to fam­ily tra­di­tion. Bro­gan Shaugh­nessy, wealthy boss of the Irish mob, turns steaks on the bar­be­cue. He only does it dur­ing the sum­mer months, but I re­mem­ber how much my mom loved it.

At least I think I re­mem­ber that. Is it a real mem­ory, or part of the movie that plays in my head when mamo tells fam­ily sto­ries?

Does it mat­ter?

Dad does his thing at the grill and it makes me feel closer to the mom I lost at the age of six. An­other good thing about Sun­days.

It’s also the one day a week that Mick al­most never re­turns to work af­ter eat­ing, de­spite it be­ing served sev­eral hours be­fore our usual din­ner­time.

My fam­ily is gath­ered around the long out­door din­ing ta­ble shaded by an enor­mous cream-col­ored sail at­tached to sturdy trel­lises on three sides. The scent of the climb­ing roses mixes with the other smells of sum­mer and I breathe in deeply.

Fi­nally, the painful mem­o­ries dis­ap­pear into the haze on the wa­ter.

I smile at the sight of Fitz climb­ing up be­side my grand­mother with a bowl of fresh wa­ter­melon chunks. They’re both fiends for it and grab for a chunk at the same time.

The good boy that he is, Fitz of­fers it to mamo, who in­sists he eats it. Of course.

She’s the op­po­site of her de­ceased hus­band, my grand­fa­ther, in al­most ev­ery way, but es­pe­cially how she dotes on the chil­dren in the fam­ily.

My gaze shifts to Fi lean­ing into Zoe, whis­per­ing some­thing that makes them both snort into their wine. I love see­ing my sis­ter come out of her shell. Be­fore Zoe, Fi was a silent guest at the din­ner ta­ble, even among fam­ily, only open­ing up around mamo, me and our cousin, Róise.

Róise doesn’t live here any­more, but we have new peo­ple liv­ing in the man­sion to fill the empty space at the ta­ble.

Hope and her two chil­dren. Es­ther, the teenager, is coax­ing Enoch, Fitz’s new best friend, to try a shrimp from the cock­tail plat­ter. Their mother is hov­er­ing at my fa­ther’s side, her ex­pres­sion filled with a wor­ry­ing amount of hero wor­ship and ado­ra­tion.

I sup­pose that to a woman raised in a white su­prem­a­cist cult and mar­ried off to an abu­sive man nearly old enough to be her grand­fa­ther at the ten­der age of six­teen, my fa­ther must seem like a hero among men.

But his feet of clay will crush her heart if she doesn’t watch out. I should know.

And then there’s her.

Dier­dre’s high-heeled san­dals click against the stones of the ter­race as she walks to­ward us, Mick at her side.

Where he has been pre­sum­ably since leav­ing our apart­ment to speak to her three hours ago.

She’s got her arm through his, cling­ing pos­ses­sively and I have to school my fea­tures into pas­siv­ity.

Noth­ing to see here.

Mick pulls out her chair and Dier­dre slides into the seat one over from me like she be­longs there, all long legs and art­ful dis­in­ter­est. She’s wear­ing a breezy de­signer sun­dress and sun­glasses too big for her face.

Her lips curve like a woman with a se­cret. Or sev­eral.

Mick doesn’t greet me, but his hand rests on the back of my chair when he takes the empty seat be­tween Dier­dre and me.

“So,” Dier­dre says, tilt­ing her head to­ward me with an air of in­sou­ciance I don’t trust for a sec­ond. “This is fam­ily din­ner.”

The words are in­no­cent enough, but this woman is trou­ble.

“New York sum­mers are some­thing else. It’s not like this in Dublin, is it, Micky? So hot.” She fans her face with her hand, her eyes now fixed in­tently on my hus­band’s face.

He makes a sound that could be agree­ment or a grunt.

Dier­dre doesn’t seem both­ered by his tac­i­tur­nity. But then she knows what he’s like. They’re prac­ti­cally fam­ily af­ter all. The sar­casm in­side my head is strong, but I keep it there.

Twirling her wine glass by the stem, her eyes flick to­ward mamo, then back to me. Cat­a­logu­ing. As­sess­ing.