“Do you know what you want?” Sparrow leaned forward, her face almost touching mine, her green eyes dark and intense.
“Yes,” I hissed slowly, holding her gaze. “I want you both to fuck off.”
“No, Sam. You think you want revenge. But what you want…” she trailed off, shaking her head “…what you really want is completely different.”
“Even if I wanted the things you think I want, getting them would ruin everything. I’m a monster,” I growled, feeling the invisible chain to my resolve tightening, ready to snap, unleashing all my pent-up anger.
Sparrow palmed my cheek, flashing me a sad smile. “If a monster can be made, it can be unmade, too. Good night, my darling boy.” She kissed my nose and slid out of the car.
Troy followed her.
For a few seconds, it was just me and the car and the silence, punctuated by the wails of an ambulance a good few yards away.
Then I started laughing.
A good, deep laugh.
One that rumbled through my whole body.
“I don’t want Aisling, you fools.” I kicked my car into drive. “But I will have her.”
It was time to take what Aisling had offered me so freely.
First, I would have what I’d deprived myself of for so long. An American Princess.
Then I would ruin her father.
It would piss him off more anyway.
“He is gone!” Mother burst through my bedroom door, looking like a demon right out of a horror flick—a second before it crawled its way out of a pond. “His things are gone. Suits. Clothes. Laptops. Briefcase. The only thing he left is his wedding band, the bastard!”
I sat upright in my bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The world blurred into focus slowly. It was a Thursday. A few days after the charity ball. Da hadn’t been back in the house since. He stayed with Cillian and Persephone until things cooled down. Or so we thought until three seconds ago.
“Mother, I—”
“I didn’t do it!” she howled, pounding a fist against her chest. “You believe me, don’t you? It wasn’t me. I swear. Not the poisoning. Not the cufflinks. I mean, heavens, Aisling, we both know how obsessed he is with those cufflinks. I would never!”
“I believe you,” I said and meant it. I got out of the bed, still dizzy, and walked over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder and rubbing slowly. “But I’m going to need some time to get to the bottom of all this. Okay?”
“You must help me, Aisling. You must.” She dropped down to her knees, hugging my midsection. I stared at her in disbelief mixed with annoyance. I’d never seen her so desperate in my life. I was growing more and more suspicious, especially after the cufflinks, that whoever was doing this wanted to hurt my father specifically, not my parents as a unit. But in their quest to ruin my father’s life, they also terrorized my mother, who was beyond frail and brittle and already had her own demons to battle.
Just a few weeks ago, I found fresh cuts above her wrists.
“Get up, Mother.” I patted her head awkwardly, glancing around to ensure we didn’t have an audience. She folded into two, doubling down by collapsing on the floor.
“I can’t,” she wailed. “Oh, Aisling, this is such a nightmare. I need something for my nerves.” She clutched my bare toes, and I felt her tears wetting them. My stomach turned and twisted. I wanted to run away.
“I’m not prescribing you anything, Mother. I’m not a psychiatrist. You need to see a professional who will assess you. Besides, you should adopt some coping mechanisms. Bad things happen to everyone. Life is about rising to the occasion, any occasion. Think of life as a garden. You don’t choose where to be planted, but you can only choose whether to bloom or wither.”
“Oh but, Ash, it is hard to bloom in the storm. All I need is a little pick-me-up. I even have a list of things that might help. It’s right here.” She messed with the pocket of her nightgown, producing a wrinkled paper and handing it to me.
I scanned the list, my blood turning cold.
“That’s a lot of pills. Some of them are strong. Zoloft. Prozac … you cannot mix them together, and you definitely can’t consume alcohol if you take any of them.”
Then something had occurred to me. Something that made me want to throw up. It was perfectly possible she had already taken them. Because all those things were prescribed to so many of her bored, housewife friends, and they all loved to exchange pills like it was some sort of a hobby. If she asked for them, it might be because she wanted more of them.
“You haven’t taken any, have you?”
She sniffed but didn’t say anything. I stepped back, shaking her off of my feet.