Cool fingers curled around her hand and Niamh turned back to Kiyo. His look was one of compassion mingled with frustration. “He kept you from living.”
Niamh shrugged, her lips trembling with grief. “But he helped me survive.”
Kiyo squeezed his eyes closed as if he felt her pain. His hand gripped hers. “There’s more to life than just surviving. You reminded me of that.”
Emotion swelled hot and thick between them, and hope glimmered in the depths of Niamh’s heart.
“Tell me something good about him. A good memory?” Kiyo asked, as if he knew she needed the balance from remembrance.
She searched her memories. “There are so many. How he’d hold me when I had a vision, even though the older and stronger I got, it was really difficult for him to contain me. Sometimes I left bruises,” she remembered in remorse. “I told him not to hold me through it, but he said he couldn’t see me like that. That he needed to be there to comfort me.
“I think that’s one of the things about him I miss most.” She struggled against her grief. “Knowing he was there to shield me when I was vulnerable.” She chuckled at a thought. “And his sense of humor. Ronan had the most wicked sense of humor. Completely politically incorrect but in a world gone PC mad, he was refreshing. He’d crack me up in the most inappropriate places.
“We visited Vatican City a few years back and he was bored from the get-go, and frankly being annoying. He kept making loud comments about the disproportionate distribution of wealth, the hypocrisy and disgusting display of money when there were people begging for food on the streets of Rome. Whether or not you agree with him, it was pretty bloody embarrassing when you’re crammed into the place with thousands of other people, trying to pretend like you don’t know the cheeky bastard.” She laughed now, remembering his “couldn’t give a feck” attitude and how much she’d loved him for it.
“When we got to St. Peter’s Basilica, I’d gotten away from him and was standing with a crowd in front of the Pietà. Have you seen it in real life?” She turned her head on the pillow to ask him. The Pietà was a sculpture by Michelangelo of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Jesus.
Kiyo nodded. “I’ve seen it.”
“There’s something about it, isn’t there? You don’t have to believe in God or Jesus Christ to feel it.”
“I know what you’re talking about.”
“I was lost in the moment. Perhaps it was the Catholics around me crying over the sculpture or maybe it was just the sorrow Michelangelo captured in a grieving mother’s face. I don’t know what it was about it, protected behind its glass wall … I just knew I felt a deep spiritual sadness.” Niamh sighed heavily. “And then my bloody brother appeared and cracked the most blasphemous, terrible, awful joke as loudly as he bloody possibly could.” Niamh shook with laughter. “It wasn’t even funny, but the moment was so badly ruined that I started to laugh. It was awful. I couldn’t stop laughing, and the more I laughed, the more he laughed and the guiltier I felt.”
Kiyo grinned as she peeked at him through the hands covering her face. Her cheeks were still hot remembering the moment.
“Oh, it was equal parts horrifying and hilarious. I thought the tourists and guards were going to lynch us. He was such an arsehole,” she said affectionately. “He made light of things because everything was always so heavy for me. I didn’t really see how much he did that until he was gone.”
Niamh turned onto her side, hands to her cheeks. Kiyo’s chest rose and fell with shallow breaths as he held her gaze. “I feel like someone stole a piece of me that I’ll never get back. Like there’s always going to be this emptiness inside me because he’s gone. It was different when Mam died. A different kind of aloneness. I loved her, but we weren’t close. I know that sounds strange, but we just never bonded the way she and Ronan did. You were close to your mam … did you feel that way when she died? That emptiness?”
“Yeah,” he answered without hesitation, voice hoarse. “It had always been us two against the world. She never blamed me for any of it. She always told me she’d never change what happened because in the end, she had me. My mother was a dreamer.” He smiled softly. “She believed in magic and romance even after my father left her. Despite his betrayal, despite her family’s betrayal and the way they and everyone else treated us, she still saw the good in people. There was an innocence about her. A light. I see the same thing in you.”