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Grabbing the box I read the directions again. “Three minutes.”
“This has been the longest three minutes of my life,” he grumbled, his hands reaching for me and hovering for a brief second before he pulled me in for a hug.
“I can’t be a mother,” I mumbled into his chest, gripping his shirt in both of my fists. “I’d be a shit mother.”
“You would not,” Wiz insisted, gathering me into his arms and sitting on top of the closed lid of the toilet. “You’d be a kick ass mom.”
“How? I run away at the drop of a hat and I can’t even have a civil conversation with a dying man. What about that makes me mother material?”
“Do you think your mom was a bad mother? She ran away from you and then died.”
I’d never thought of it like that nor had I believed my bottle-glasses wearing therapist in high school when she told me that the reason I ran away from things was because I watched my mam do the same. It all sounded too much like a psychology textbook to be true.
But as we sat together, me perched on Wiz’s legs, I couldn’t help but wonder if that woman had a point.
“She wasn’t a bad mother.” My words were quiet, almost a whisper, when I finally spoke. “But everything is so fucked up now, Wiz, how am I supposed to go back to them and say: ‘hey guys, sorry for running away like that, my da was dying and I couldn’t cope—and oh! Artie, I’m pregnant with your baby, whoops!’”
That was if they even wanted to see me. Guilt had made me run, but the fear of being rejected by them was what was making me not want to go back.
“I don’t know what you’ll say once we see them again, if I’m being honest.” Wiz sighed and rested his head on my shoulder, just inside of the crook of my neck. “But I think all of it starts with talking to your dad again, gorgeous.”
“And say what? That I forgive him? I don’t forgive him and I don’t know if I can,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Maybe it’s not about forgiveness. Maybe it’s about understanding his story so that we don’t repeat history again. You deserve happiness, Ciara, but you won’t ever accept it unless you learn to let go of all of this shit you’ve been holding on to.”
Wiping at the sudden stray tears on my cheeks, I wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him. His lips were soft against mine, his hand gripping my chin as we comforted each other.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re pretty wise?” I asked, my voice wobbly.
Wiz’s lips pulled up into a cheeky grin. “Once or twice.”
The pregnancy test on the counter let out a little beep, drawing both of our attention to it.
Picking it up, I brought it in between us and we read it together.
“Well,” Wiz said, as we stared at the result together. “That’s that then.”
My hand drifted down to my stomach because he was right. There was no going back from here and I needed to figure my shit out.
Because it wasn’t just me anymore.
“Just let me talk to him one more time,” I pleaded with Orla who was blocking the way to Finneas’s hospice room.
Orla crossed her arms over her chest. “The last time I let you speak to him you nearly stressed him into a premature grave. So tell me why I should?”
“Because I promise not to do that this time?” I tried weakly.
Orla looked as if she was about to tell me where I could go when Finneas’s weak voice came through the crack of the door. “Oh, Orla, just let her in. It’s not like she can kill me any more than my shite liver can.”
Orla’s shoulders sank a bit. “Fine, but you better behave. I know he did some awful things, but right now he’s a dying old man and should be treated as such.”
“I’m only fifty-eight,” Finneas protested as Orla led me back inside.
Wiz had left to find some lunch for us and to see if he could get an appointment for an obstetrician that would take me, making me suddenly glad I’d never given up my Irish passport.
“Still dying,” Orla insisted, gripping the little tablet she carried tightly as she looked between the two of us as if she was gauging whether or not we were about to get into a screaming match.
Finneas waved her off. “Go, Orla, she’s not going to smother me with a pillow if you leave for a bit.”
