He expected this. He always knew that if his Charlie went off and did something stupid, got himself killed for it, Deirdre’s eyes would bore into him, and she would proclaim him at fault. He did not respond to her charge; he only asked a question. “Who did it?”
Her accusatory finger lowered. “An American, they say, but that’s all they’ll say. One man. Took out eight, five dead, if ya believe that. And Charlie, right there in the way. Doin’ a job he didn’t believe in for people he didn’t like.”
She looked back over her shoulder to the car a moment, and when she returned her attention to him, he realized that was the third time she’d done this.
He himself looked to the car but could see nothing save for the sun’s angry reflection on the windshield.
Something stirred within him. “What…what is—”
She spoke again. “You didn’t know. He didn’t want you to know.”
“He didn’t want me to knowwhat?”
“You didn’t know Charlie was a father. You didn’t know that, did ya?”
His knees weakened. He locked them tight. “A…father?”
“We had a baby in the spring. Ronan’s his name. Seven months old, nearly.”
Campbell realized he was a grandfather, and the realization had come in the very same minute he’d learned his son had died.
“Why…why didn’t he tell me he—”
“ ’Cause he wanted nothing to do with you.” She shrugged. “He didn’t love you, you’d done too much to turn him into what he turned into for him to love you. But…for some damn reason he could never explain to his own bleedin’ wife…he wanted tobeyou. Wanted to be just like his da.”
A stray cloud passed, the first Campbell had noticed all day long. With it, the reflection on the Peugeot lessened and he caught a glimpse of movement in the back of the car now, and his knees unlocked suddenly, his legs nearly giving out.
He saw just the silhouette of a child’s head in a baby seat.
He began to move forward, but she put a hand up. “Not another step out of you.”
“But…but I—”
“No.”
“I can help you both, Deirdre. I have money. I have plenty of—”
“I’m sure you do. I bet you have heaps of blood-soaked money stuffed to the rafters in that wee cottage there. But I won’t be takin’ it from ya.”
“You have to let me help him…Ronan, you say? You have to let me help Ronan.”
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of letting you think you put it all right with Charlie, helpin’ out his boy after it was too late to help him.”
There was no reasoning with this woman; he knew this. When he’d first met her, he’d been at his son’s bedside. Charlie Coyle had been wounded in the Legion; Campbell Coyle had learned and come to a hospital in Marseille. A nineteen-year-old girl had been there, just a waif of a lass, but she’d been strong like an army general, ordering the doctors about, making sure Campbell’s boy had everything just right.
Campbell had been impressed with her.
Since that day nearly five years ago, he’d only seen her a few times, but he’d always taken her as strong, and his son needed strength, because his son had issues.
Trauma, addictions. Weaknesses.
Deirdre had no doubt kept him alive, but she’d also done her part to keep Charlie’s dad away.
Campbell finally said, “WhatcanI do?”
Deirdre all but yelled back at him. “You can go right to hell! No doubt you know your way there.”
His body felt weak, unsteady. He felt much older than his forty-seven years, maybe because he’d learned his boy was dead, maybe because he’d learned he was now a grandfather, but maybe also because he felt the weight of all his life’s decisions on his back like he never had before.
