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After everything was done, Finn asked permission to leave the family and my older brother gave it to him without question. To take himself as far from Ireland as possible, Finn took his daughter and settled in Seattle, finally free from the mafia and the dangers it had brought into his life. I had seen to it personally that they never wanted for money. I made sure that Caitlin had access to the very best schools and that she never really wanted for anything.
As much as I tried to help him, Finn had lost himself in his grief. He didn’t marry again, nor did he even try to date after Nora’s loss. The two of them had been a once in a lifetime kind of love and that weighed heavily on him.
He drank. Alot.
I’d done everything that I could to help, but he was too lost in his grief to really care for his daughter. Over the years, he’d called me for a few favors in getting Caitlin out of one kind of trouble after another, mostly minor things like shoplifting or drunk driving. In the time since, the Murphys had moved out of Ireland and settled down more permanently in Boston, so I had my fair share of connections that I used to keep her record clean.
I had hoped Finn would break out of his sorrow and be some kind of a father figure for her eventually, but it was too late now. I was the only one Caitlin had left.
My phone had rung late Friday night. I’m not sure if Finn had known his body was failing him, but his voice had carried a deep sorrow that hadn’t been there any of the times he’d phoned me before. I hadn’t said a word as he rattled off her most recent trouble. This time, she was in over her head. He’d asked me for one last favor, and I’d agreed wholeheartedly. If I didn’t intercede on her behalf, she was going to be spending most of her early adult life behind bars.
Nora would have had my head if I let that happen. I can even see her scolding me like she used to in the past. She would always get this cute little dimple on her right cheek when she was annoyed at Finn’s and my shenanigans. She’d never been a big fan of surprises and I remembered one time when Finn and I had planned the biggest surprise birthday party for her twenty-first birthday. She’d thrown a fit but had ended up smiling in the end.
I missed her. Even though she wasn’t technically a blood relative, she’d always be like a sister to me in my heart. I would make it my mission to see to it that her daughter wouldn’t pay the price for our mistakes back then. I had made Nora a promise to take care of her daughter and I intended to keep it.
CHAPTER4
Caitlin
After the funeral, a black car arrived for me and brought me back home. I stood in the entryway, feeling a bit lost now that my father was no longer here. I walked into the living room and gazed at his favorite brown leather recliner. Without fail, that’s where he would sit in the evenings. He’d have a full glass of the best Irish whiskey on the table beside him and he’d have the television on, but he wasn’t really ever watching it.
His eyes had always been solely focused on my mother’s portrait on the mantel. When I was little, he’d commissioned a painter to paint her portrait based on a much smaller photograph, and it had come out beautifully. I didn’t really remember her since she’d died when I was so young, but I liked to look at her sometimes too.
My father had told me that I had her eyes.
On occasion, he’d stare back at me with this mournful expression, and I wondered if he wished it had been me instead of her. He wore his grief every single day and that was a lot for me to bear, so I went out a lot just so I didn’t have to see it. I avoided coming home until well after the usual time he’d stagger to his bed and pass out. Anything to evade those eyes gazing at me like that. He never lashed out at me, nor was he ever cruel. Even at his drunkest, he never hit me or abused me in any way. He would just sigh like he’d given up on me, which seemed almost worse.
He wasn’t anything of a father to me for as long as I could remember. Standing here in the entryway felt wrong somehow and I made my way upstairs up to my bedroom, feeling empty.
I didn’t know what to do now.
I couldn’t leave the state or do any traveling. I was free from prison at least since I was out on bail, but my arraignment hearing was only a week away. Mr. Abernathy, my lawyer, had made sure that I knew that my presence was paramount and that I needed to be on time that day.
I sat down on my bed and hugged my knees into my chest, and I started to cry. Crying was the wrong word, really. Isobbed. I sobbed for the loss of my father. I sobbed for my helplessness in my situation with the courts, and I sobbed about being well and truly alone for the first time in my life.
I had no one but myself now.
The charges leveled against me were severe. At the worst, I was probably looking at a maximum of twenty years in prison. I’d be almost forty by the time I got out. I’d miss out on college and dating, everything that I’d looked forward to once the endless drone of school had ended.
I sobbed big, fat, heavy tears long after the sun set. I didn’t even take off my black funeral dress. Eventually, I sobbed hard enough to put myself to sleep.
I didn’t wake up until morning.
* * *
When I woke up the next morning, my eyelids felt like they had been glued together. I glanced down at myself, looking at the wrinkled dress in disgust. I got up and reached back, pulling the zipper down and suddenly needing to get myself out of the sorrowful outfit as quickly as possible. I changed into a pair of jeans and a gray crop top, feeling more myself today.
I took a deep breath and told myself that I’d cried all my tears yesterday. It was time to pick myself up and move on. I’d survived this far on my own and I would continue doing so. I’d make the best of whatever was to come, even if it meant that I was going to do it behind bars.
I trudged down to the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of cereal. Luckily, the milk in the fridge was still good, and I crunched down on a spoonful. My dad had always made sure to have my favorite cereals in the pantry. Today, I’d settled on Cinnamon Toast Crunch, rather than my usual Golden Grahams or Fruity Pebbles. There were a couple of others I liked, but those were my all-time favs. I poured myself a glass of orange juice and stared at the carton, thinking of my father.
Sometimes, he would join me in the morning, but those days were over now. I glanced at his chair and sighed. I almost picked up the bowl and walked into the dining room, which to my knowledge had never been used a single day since we’d moved here.
There was no family here in Seattle to invite over for Thanksgiving dinner anyway, so it just sat here and gathered dust until our maid came over to clean it. If she didn’t come weekly, there would have been a mountain of it covering that table.
Was she even going to know to come to our house anymore? How did I go about contacting her? How was I even supposed to pay her?
The sweet sugary goodness of the cereal could only provide me with so much comfort. Then the doorbell rang, and I stopped midway into my spoonful. I ignored it for a second, but when it rang again, I sighed heavily and got up from the table. If it was a stupid Girl Scout selling overpriced Girl Scout cookies, I was going to slam the door in her face before my cereal went soggy.
