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Bridget was suddenly glad her mother had hidden the brochure. Her father looked exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed, his thinning silver hair in need of a wash.
“Want me to make you some?” Bridget asked. “Or I could heat some leftovers for you if you’re hungry.”
“You’re a good girl,” he said. “But I ate while I drove.”
She hated it. Hated that he’d been out driving strangers around after working a full day at work. Hated that’d probably eaten a greasy hamburger in between fares. Hated that her brother was thinking about dying.
She stood. “Get off your feet, Dad. Sit with Mom. I have to run out anyway.”
“Run out?” her mother said. “At this hour?”
“It’s for a client who got arrested tonight. I need to be there when he posts bail.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t exactly true either.
“For God’s sake, Bridget. You’ll work yourself to the bone like your father,” her mom said.
Bridget’s dad made a noise of protest at the claim as Bridget bent to kiss him on the cheek. She did the same for her mom, then headed for the front door to get her bag and coat.
She was winding her scarf around her neck when her mom appeared in the narrow vestibule.
Bridget bent to pick up her bag. “Be back soon.”
“Bridget.” Just that: her name, spoken by her mother in a tone Bridget knew well, one that said she had something difficult to say and hadn’t quite figured out how to say it.
“What?”
Her mother looked her in the eye. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?” But she already knew her mother knew about her work with Seamus, suspected she’d known for a long time. The neighborhood was too small, the old Irish families still intimately connected through church and schools and the pubs despite the newcomers that were slowly transforming the neighborhood.
“You know what,” her mother said sharply. She took a deep breath. “I know you’re worried about Owen, about all of us, but it’s not your job to save us.”
“It’s a good thing,” Bridget said, “because I’m shit at it.”
“No.” Her mother came toward her. “You’ve done — you do — more than anyone ever expected, but that question I asked you at the table about Owen, well, that’s a question that applies to you too.”
“What question?”
“Do you think these sacrifices are fair?” her mother asked. “To you?”
Bridget sighed. “I don’t know, Mom. I haven’t asked myself that question. I can’t afford to ask it.”
Her mother lifted a hand to touch Bridget’s cheek. “I think you’re reaching the point where you can’t afford not to, sweetheart.” She looked into Bridget’s eyes. “No one expects you to sacrifice yourself at the feet of Owen’s illness. No one except you. Will you think about it?”
Bridget nodded, but not because what her mother said was true. She just needed to get out of there, out onto the street where she wasn’t Owen’s sister and her parents’ daughter, where she could pretend the people she loved most weren’t slipping through her fingers bit by bit.
“I have to go,” she said.
Her mother kissed her forehead. “God keep you, child.”
Bridget opened the door and hurried down the front steps of the porch.
God keep you, child.
It was something her mother had said to her when she was little, kissing Bridget’s forehead when she tucked her in at night or kissing her hands after Bridget had gotten in trouble.
Strange that she should say it again now, after all these years, at a time when Bridget was becoming more and more convinced that God himself couldn’t save her.
That he couldn’t save any of them.
