Authors: K. Ryan
That has to be enough for now.
"THAT WAS THE last time I saw her," Father Lindsay sighs heavily and leans back against his desk with both hands.
His words linger in the room, heavy and for too long, no one knows what else to say. Now that the truth has finally been revealed, at least what Father Lindsay knows of it, I don't know how to feel. Don't know how to make sense of it. I know what I want to believe, I know what I
need
to believe, but it doesn't bring me any relief.
"Did he get the letter?" Bennett wonders out loud and I'm glad someone finally had the courage to break this silence.
Father Lindsay lifts a shoulder with a sad smile. "I'm not sure. Roark and I have never spoken about it. On some level, I'm not sure if I want to know. All I do know is that a few days after I saw her, she gave birth to you," he nods to Rae, "and then a month later—"
"She swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills," she finishes for him, her voice barely above a whisper.
For the first time since Father Lindsay started this story, I finally let myself take a good look at Rae. Her hands are folded lifelessly in her lap, and those eyes, usually so full and vibrant, are hollow and dull. This Rae, with no fight or determination or even any snark to be found, isn't one I like seeing.
"If yah really want to know the rest of the story," Father Lindsay sighs. "I suppose you'll have to ask your da."
Rae's head snaps up and drills a fierce gaze right through the priest. Then she shoves out of her chair, heads right for the door, and slams it on her way out.
Rae
Jesus looks pretty pissed.
I tilt my head to the side, squinting up at the crucified man mounted to the wall and scrunch up my nose in thought. No, pissed isn't the right word.
He looks disappointed.
That downturned mouth, stretched lines on his face, the way his eyes lift to the ceiling. He's probably thinking to himself,
Look at what you've done, people. I'm sitting here, nailed to a cross, paying for your sins, and you can't even
try
to be good? Not even a little bit?
I think I know a little bit about how he feels.
The stiff pew squeaks under my weight and I blow out a labored breath. My eyes close for just a moment, but it's long enough to really let myself absorb the quiet of this place. The solemnity. The peace.
It's weird. I never thought I'd ever feel this way about being in a church. But I guess if I have to be near people right now, I might as well be some place where silence, or at the very least whispering, is the accepted norm. Ironic, of course, because the last time I was here the quiet creeped me out. Now it's oddly comforting.
Maybe it's equally ironic that I've found comfort some place where everyone believes my mom is in hell.
That's what happens to people who kill themselves, right? They go to hell.
If that's where she is...I don't know how I feel.
I'm just numb. Blank and shell-shocked.
My eyes lift back to the figure mounted on the wall. What would he think? Would he welcome my mother into heaven with open arms and wash away all her sins? Forgive her for what she had done? Or would he judge her the same way everyone else has?
I don't really know if God exists or if Jesus really took away the sins of the world on that cross, but for my mom's sake, I'd like to believe that if he does exist, he's a forgiving God and not a vengeful one. There's no hope for her anywhere if he can't look past her sins and see the stupidity and the naivety behind them.
Some shuffling behind me pulls my attention away from an emaciated, scowling Jesus, and I turn my head just in time to see Jack settle into the pew behind me. He takes a moment to make a cross motion from the top of his head, both shoulders, and finally to his chest before he stretches both tattooed forearms out into the empty space beside me.
Quiet still permeates the vast hall with its aged, stained glass windows and creaky floor boards and Jack's presence in it doesn't dissipate that. It's a strange feeling, being so close to him and not wanting to leap up from the pew to put as much distance between us as possible.
"Hey," he murmurs to me, leaning forward just enough to make sure I can hear him.
"Hey."
Jack pushes off the back of my pew, satisfied with my answer, and gives me a little more space. His hands clasp together, though, and hang stagnant a foot away from my shoulders.
"You want to hear something funny?" I ask him, tilting my head back just enough to glance at him over my shoulder. His grey eyes squint at me, like he's mentally preparing himself for whatever I'm about to say.
"What's that?"
"I haven't thought about my ex-boyfriend or losing my job one time since all this started a few weeks ago."
Jack's dark eyebrows knit together and then, a moment later, a relieved smile spreads across his face. That warm sensation settling in the pit of my stomach is something I can't really focus on right now.
"There's always a silver lining in everything, I guess," he shrugs easily.
"It really just shows how much I cared about any of it to begin with," my eyes slide back to Jesus on his cross, literally hanging on to our every word. "Some things are just more important than others."
All it takes, I suppose, is finding out your dad isn't really your dad and your actual one would rather pretend you never happened. At least Valentino Moretti had the decency to acknowledge my existence in public, which is more than I can say for Roark Callahan. But I don't say that out loud and I can't think about it for too long. If I do, I'll just start crying and then I won't be able to stop. Crying in front of Jack is not an option.
A few more silent moments pass between us in peace before I turn my head again to ask, "Where's Benn?"
"Ah, him and Father Lindsay are still in his office hashing some things out. I figured I'd come out here and...I don't know, see if yah were okay and say a prayer or somethin'."
Like I'd ever be okay again. Like my life would ever be the same again after today. But because I just can't dwell on the bomb Father Lindsay dropped on my life or the fact that he actually came out here to check on me, I shift my focus elsewhere for the time being.
"A prayer?"
"Yeah," he nods and then unclasps his hands to run one over his mouth.
It just tumbles out from my lips before I can stop them. "For my mom or your dad? Or both?"
His mouth pulls apart in a wince. My word choice clearly wasn't lost on him. "I, uh..."
"That's okay," I just wave it off. "You don't have to tell me. Your prayers are your business."
Jack blows out a heavy breath and the clenched hands clasped together next to me tighten. At this point, I'm not quite sure what he's even doing here, let alone the fact that he's still sitting here, talking to me. Is he here to comfort me out of some noble sense of civility? That doesn't exactly seem like something he would do, especially since the bulk of our interactions have seemed more like a game of chess than a normal conversation.
He's an impassive mystery and in any other circumstance, if he was any other person, I might be tempted to untangle the threads tying him together.
"So what does this make us then?" I throw out lightly. "Brother and sister?"
It's more for my benefit than his, to try to find some humor in this twisted development, but that doesn't mean he's unaffected. Almost immediately, he slams back against the pew and his Adam's apple bobs up and down a few times before he finds his bearings again. Knowing he's just as disturbed by that thought as I am is comforting and I don't like the way that feels.
"I think real family is the one you make. Blood doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it."
My eyes lift to the cross in front of us and finally settle on the stained glass windows instead. "Lord knows blood isn't by choice."
"No," he allows carefully and now he's leaning into the back of my pew again, close enough that I can feel his breath at my ear. "It's not. But Sean and Brennan are my family because I was raised with them. I love them as my brothers regardless of who our parents are. The same with you and your sister. I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply to..."
He trails off and a wry smile twists my lips.
"Us?" I finish for him.
He nods tightly, but that's all I'm probably going to get from him on that particular subject. I almost want to thank him for including my sister in that sentiment. He's right about that at least. She's still my sister, whether we're bound by blood or not, because I've always loved her like one. Blood doesn't change anything.
If he and I had been raised in the same household, raised to be brother and sister...no, I don't think I want to go there. This is already confusing enough.
I don't want to talk about this anymore and since it looks like he has no intention of leaving his post, my eyes drift down to the ink etched into his skin.
"What's this one mean?" I point down to a script,
O neart go neart,
on the top of his right forearm.
Jack's gaze falls to the tattoo and answers quickly, "It's Irish for
from strength to strength
."
"Hm," I muse softly, my eyes unable to stop their trail up and down both his inked arms. I nod to another script that reads,
Eire go Brach.
"And this one?"
His lips curl up into a proud smile. "Live Ireland."
Now I point to the wide Celtic cross on the inside of his left forearm. "I'm pretty sure I know what this one means. How long have you had that?"
He turns his wrist to glance at the tattoo. "About ten years. This was the first one I ever got." Then he gestures to the large intricate knot right at the tip of the cross. "That's called a triquetra knot."
"Like a trinity knot?" I squint a little to get a better look at it.
"Yeah," he nods with a soft smile. "But for me, the trinity means me and my brothers."
Given everything I know about him, I guess that makes sense. My focus shifts to a thin rope wrapped all the way around his right wrist. "What about this one?"
He doesn't even have to look at it to know which one I'm talking about. "That's a
caim
symbol. It means sanctuary in Irish. Traditionally, it's supposed to be a prayer, you know? You draw an invisible circle around someone you love while you say this prayer and it'll protect them. Keep them safe." Jack's eyes drop to the floor. "It's supposed to remind you that you're safe and you're loved. I guess it doesn't always work out that way, does it?"
In light of the story we'd just heard, the questions I have number in the millions. But just this one manages to bubble up to the surface: "What happened to your parents? Your real ones?"
Jack blows out a sharp breath and his hands clasp together in front of him again. "My dad died in the ring."
From the little Father Lindsay had mentioned Jack's real dad, I'd gotten the impression that Roark Callahan harbored some serious guilt about how his best friend died. I just don't know how to breach that subject without tip-toeing knee-deep into another family drama I don't want any part of.
"He took a bad hit to the side of the head," he pushes on quietly. "Fell back, landed wrong on his neck, and that was it, I guess. And my mom..." he sighs heavily and pushes himself back against his pew a little more. "My mom took off about a year after I was born. My dad always said she just didn't seem all that connected to her life here and then one day she was just gone. I guess that's for the best if she didn't really want to be here. If she doesn't want to be part of my life then I'd rather have her out of it altogether."
His eyes dart over to me too quickly, like he just realized what he said and how I might take it, but I keep my focus ahead. I don't look back.
"Anyway," Jack continues. "I know they tried to find her after...everything. I guess my dad—my real one—had gotten full custody of me after they split, so when they
did
find her, she told my dad to leave her alone."
The longer he talked, the harder it was to tell which father he was talking about.
"So they adopted me. A judge made them my guardians first and then they did all the legal paperwork so my mom couldn't show up and try to take me away."
He didn't need to elaborate to let me know she'd never shown.
"How generous of them."
To his credit, he doesn't acknowledge the bitterness laced in my voice. Instead, he chooses to say nothing and just allows the silence between us to do the talking for him. I wonder if he's thinking about all the improbable similarities between us—one dead parent and the other wanted nothing to do with us, each of us raised by people who weren't our biological parents. We never really stood a chance of having a normal childhood, but I think Jack fared better than I did. At least he had people who genuinely cared about his well-being.
"Do you ever want to look for her?"
I shouldn't butt into his business anymore than I already have, but I'm asking for more than just him.
Ice clouds his eyes, turning them into a stormy, fierce steel grey and he shakes his head tightly. "No. I don't. And I never will."