Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 123361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“There were also a few abortions.” She cleared her throat. “Gerald did not like to use protection, but he also didn’t want any bastard children. He was actually adamant about that, as you could imagine. I, myself, knew better than to tempt fate. I was always on the pill. Didn’t have the ambition of getting knocked up with a billionaire’s kid. Too dangerous. Looking back, maybe I should’ve. Maybe I’d fare better than I do today.” She looked around the small coffee shop with the peeling wallpaper and dusty surfaces. She lived in a small, deserted town. It was obvious she wasn’t swimming in it.
“But I was privy to everything that happened behind the scenes. He was a monster, Samuel. A real monster. Ever met one?” She sucked on the cigarette I gave her greedily, ignoring the disturbed glances the barista behind the counter shot at her—though she didn’t approach us or tell her to put it out.
“Yeah,” I said easily. “I’ve met monsters before. Multiple times, actually. So, here’s how we are going to do this, Barbara. I’ll bring the lucrative tell-all book deal, you’ll bring the juice. But whatever happens, you must remember one thing—you never met me, never saw me, and never heard of me. Am I clear?”
She nodded, finishing off her cigarette and taking a sip of the stale coffee I’d bought her.
“Absolutely. May I have another cigarette?”
I laughed, standing up and tossing the pack in her lap before disappearing back into the white blizzard.
“Sure, sweetheart, take the whole fucking pack.”
I smelled it before I saw it. The puke.
Then when I noticed the first spot, I realized they were everywhere. Vomit stains.
Yellow and faint, covering the carpets, the floor, the walls.
I dropped my backpack at the door, following their trail up the stairway, where they led. It was unlike the housekeepers to leave any sort of dirt unattended.
Unless they wanted me to see it.
It was a cry for help, I knew. And not just from my mother.
Lord, what did she do now?
I reached the second floor then rounded the hallway, my stride picking up speed. Just as I expected, the puke stains led to the master bedroom, my mother’s room. Athair had left days ago, and even though I tried my best to keep an eye on her, I knew Mother was spiraling.
I stopped outside her door, putting my hand on the doorknob and drawing a deep breath.
“Mother?”
There was no answer. I threw the door open, flashbacks of Ms. B attacking my memories, raw and vivid.
Blood.
Bath.
Wrists.
Despair.
I scanned the room. It was completely empty.
“Mother?” I echoed, confused.
Cautiously, I made my way into the en-suite bathroom, my heart in my throat. I hoped for the best but expected the worst. Mother, rehashing that scene at Ms. B’s apartment, finally making good on her idle threats to take her own life. I knew my mother was a cutter. It actually provided me a screwed-up sense of security because people who cut were less likely to perform “successful” suicide attempts.
Jane Fitzpatrick wasn’t even entirely a cutter. Sometimes she bruised herself a little, well and far away from the wrists, to draw attention. But she almost exclusively did this for my father’s and my viewing. Hunter and Cillian had no idea. They weren’t pawns in her emotional blackmail scheme.
I found her lying on the floor by the vanity, facedown.
“Mother!” I cried out, rushing to the bathroom, swinging the door open.
I fell down on both knees, turning her over by the shoulder. She was passed out cold in a pond of her own vomit. Half-dissolved pills were swimming in the vomit like little stars, their content, powdery and thick. Like stardust.
Jesus.
I grabbed her hair, shoving my fingers into her mouth, forcing her to gag and throw up more. She came to life instantly, at first protesting weakly about my hurting her as I held her head, but then she started puking more.
More pills. More everything.
“You need to get your stomach pumped,” I groaned, calling an ambulance with my free hand as I continued trying to make her throw up. “What have you done?”
But I knew exactly what she’d done and why.
The ambulance arrived four minutes later. I followed it with my own car. I tried to call Hunter and Cillian repeatedly. Both their phones went straight to voicemail.
I couldn’t understand why. It was nighttime. They should be at home with their families. I resorted to texting both of them our code word. Our emergency code.
Clover.
And then, when there was no answer: Clover, clover, clover! Pick up!
Reluctantly, I didn’t want my sisters-in-law to know the extent of how screwed-up my family was, especially with Da living out of the house and my parents probably getting a divorce. I called Persy.
Persephone and I always had this unspoken connection, of two, shy and romantic wallflowers forced to blossom in the jungle that was the Fitzpatrick family.