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“That must have gone well.” I laughed, imagining with delight how Tommy might have responded to the return of the file if he’d actually been able to survive what they’d done to him.
Father Patrick touched the ridge of his nose, which looked like it’d been smashed once or twice before. “I don’t have any way of making things right. Of making what happened in the school before I got there . . . right.”
“Don’t fucking absolve yourself, Father. You took your time reporting what happened. And if it wasn’t for Sinead, you never would have done it.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, boyo,” he said. “You’re the one who lit the match.”
“Pikey Tom lit the match,” I snapped. In the wake of my fury, Father Patrick made a sign of the cross, which made me want to murder him where he stood.
I had to hand it to the fucker. He looked ready to take whatever I was going to throw at him, and I again felt the reinforcement of what I had been taught to be true. There was no benefit to weakness. There was no comfort in it, no strength. Weakness was only rewarded with pain. Loathing.
And this guy, despite his effort at strength right now, was full of loathing.
“I know it’s no excuse,” Father Patrick said. “But I didn’t realize how bad it was and once I did . . . I confess, to my shame, that I didn’t want to believe it to be true. I hesitated doing what I knew needed to be done. And for that, I’ll spend my life asking forgiveness from the Heavenly Father and all the boys at the school. Especially Tom.”
Stupidly, I thought of those three months between the moment I knew Poppy was being abused by the senator and the moment I put a bullet in his head. Three months.
Hesitation had its own shame.
“So?” I asked, looking down at the blue folder. “What’s in there?”
“Your criminal record. Birth record. School too. Hospital.”
“I bet that was good reading.”
“I haven’t read it, Ronan. I’m just trying to give it back to you.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Give you some peace. Some closure.”
I grabbed the file out of his hands and took two steps back to the fireplace, tossing the folder into the embers there. “There,” I said. “You gave it to me. Now go feel your shame back in the church. And Father, for your own good, don’t come down here again.”
Father Patrick wasn’t much older than me and I’d known plenty of boys from the neighborhood who’d picked a collar as a way out of the crime and poverty. There was a sense that we might have known each other at a different time. A different way.
“Ronan. If you ever feel the need to confess your sins—”
I shut the door in his face.
Behind me there was the pop in the fireplace, and I turned to see the blue edge of the file folder start to go brown and then black as it smoldered.
I’d never seen my file. Any of those files. The hospital records I’d lived through. I had no interest in revisiting split lips and bruises across my shoulders. And school, well, caring about Maths and Geography was a luxury I’d never had.
But the birth record was . . . interesting.
My ma’s name was Gwen. That was all I knew of her, really. That and she’d died just after I was born. A massive hematoma, bleeding to death before the doctors could save her. It didn’t matter—her last name or where she was from. I mean . . . what could it possibly matter?
It didn’t. It didn’t fucking matter.
Before the whole thing went up in flames, I grabbed it out of the fire. Dropped it on the wood floor and stepped on what was burning.
I could see, just under the ragged burnt edge of the folder, my intake photo in Derry when I’d gotten pinched for taking the car. And then punching a constable. Fourteen years old and so mad. So fucking mad. What a gobshite I was. A total prick. But that rage had been the key to survival.
Looking at that picture and the bruises around those furious eyes felt like someone was walking across my grave. So, I picked up the folder and set it on the mantel, the picture turned away from me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Poppy
I woke up slowly. Sweetly, almost. It was completely decadent to be naked in a cocoon of warm blankets. There was no spike of fear. No wave of worry. There was just asleep and then awake and memories of Ronan.
God. I was consumed by him. By his distance and his intimacy. Torn in half by what he gave me and how much more I wanted from him.
I pushed off the covers and pulled on the sweatpants and sweater that were folded on the foot of the bed. Whatever I was—prisoner, escapee—apparently, I didn’t get underwear. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair as best I could and my shoulder was aching, so I slipped on my sling before stepping out into the main room of the cottage, braced for Ronan and his cold, slicing distance. But the main room was empty. The fireplace was cold. Rubbing my arms against the chill, I stepped into the kitchen and pressed my hands against the kettle. It was cold too.
