Sparrow

She laughed.

She thought it was a joke.

It wasn’t. This is what should have happened. We shouldn’t have spent a minute away from each other while we had a chance. Nothing bad would have happened if I told nine-year-old Sparrow that she was mine.

No Paddy.

No Catalina.

No Brock.

I would never lay a finger on her mother’s body, let alone hide it in the woods.

And now we were going to spend the rest of our lives apart. Damn that “Saving All My Love For You.”

TROY

Two weeks later

LAST TIME I saw him, Paddy Rowan reminded me that I couldn’t run away from my past. He was right. The truth was one hell of a runner, and it would eventually catch up with you. It caught up with him. It caught up with me. It was delivered coldly, like revenge, on a plate of misery, to my beautiful, wide-eyed, innocent, spitfire wife.

I wished I could cram all my lies into a ball of venom and shove it down my throat, swallowing the pain she felt, making it all better for her. But I couldn’t.

When I first married her, I didn’t tell her my father was responsible for our marriage because I didn’t want this to shame my family, my mother, myself. I didn’t want her to run off to the police with it. Didn’t even feel like I owed her shit. The truth was mine, and for me to stew in. Alone.

I couldn’t even stomach the fact that Brock and Catalina knew.

But as we got closer, things changed. I no longer cared about the stupid Brennan pride, but I still didn’t tell her. She didn’t need to know that her mom ditched her for a married man. Didn’t deserve to be saddled by more injustice and pain. For all she knew, her mom could have been kidnapped or murdered or just flat-out crazy, living with a herd of cats in the woods. I didn’t want to reopen that old wound for Sparrow. The parent-child relationship was the most complex thing in the human race, I knew that first-hand, and that scab was too deep and tender to dig open.

A lot of puss and blood hid behind that old scab. It was going to hurt like hell for her.

I wasn’t sure which part was the worst for Sparrow—how I hid her mother, got rid of the evidence, or that I didn’t tell her about all this in the first place. One thing was for sure, yet understandable—my apology was not accepted.

Two weeks after I left that hospital room, it happened.

I expected the phone call, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less. I answered the call with one hand, using the other to shove someone’s head into a public toilet full of shit.

Not the best part of my job, but still better than rotting below fluorescent lights in an office all day.

I yanked his head back up and growled into his ear. “Last chance, buddy. Tell me where to find the scum who raped Don’s daughter and I’ll let you keep your balls.”

Jensen, who called me, spoke from the other line. “I don’t know any rapists.”

The hustler I was dealing with didn’t answer, so I shoved his head deeper into the toilet, this time keeping it for longer. Let him miss the privilege of breathing oxygen. Maybe that would refresh his memory as to the whereabouts of the guy who raped my client’s kid. After all, I got a hot tip that he was the one who helped him hide for cash.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I told Jensen. “What’s good?”

“Your soon-to-be ex-wife’s bank account,” he said through tight lips. “That’s what’s good. It just got six hundred thousand dollars healthier.”

She’d cashed Paddy’s check.

“Thanks.” I hung up and threw my phone against the dirty, heavily graffitied wall. I let out a few juicy curses before pulling the man’s head back up. He was a little purple, but not enough for my taste.

“I just received some very bad fucking news, and I’m really in the mood for some torturing. One last time—where’s the fucker?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll tell you,” he whimpered.

Disappointment slammed into me. He was going to cooperate, after all. Shame. I was hoping to have some fun beating the living hell out of him.

Then I remembered nothing was fun anymore.

Nothing was worth doing when Red wasn’t around.

The only thing I wanted to do, and couldn’t, sadly was her.

SPARROW

Six weeks later

“THIS ONE’S PERFECT! Can we have it? Please tell me we can have it. It’s so, so, pretty. I really want it. It’d be perfect for us. So can we? Please say that we can. Lucy, tell her it’s the best. Sparrow, we gotta buy it.”

I leaned against Lucy’s rental car, arms crossed. Laughing into a foam cup full of goodness, I watched Daisy practically hugging the white and pink food truck. It really was beautiful, and honestly, it was also perfect for a pancake business. All sugary and sweet. I wouldn’t be surprised if Daisy started licking it, it looked so tasty.