Fisher

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As I held Jade in my arms, I was struck by how right it felt, how much she belonged there.

And at least this once, I didn’t allow myself to argue with that, didn’t try to pretend it was anything but exactly what it was. Because Jade did feel right in my arms. She felt right in my life. She wouldn’t stay, couldn’t stay, but at least for now, I allowed myself to have that feeling.

I also acknowledged how deeply regretful I was, chose to tell her as much.

“Are you asleep?” I whispered, hoping she had awakened.

“No,” came her immediate response.

She was curled at my side, her head on my chest, her arm thrown across my waist.

“I apologize,” I said.

“For what?” she responded.

Were she anyone else I would think she was being dense, messing with me, but I sensed that Jade was sincere.

“For the way I behaved earlier. There was no cause for it. And I apologize,” I said.

“You’re going through some shit,” she said, shrugging. “Think nothing of it.”

“Be that as it may, I should not have done that,” I replied.

“I accept your apology,” she responded.

Then we said nothing else, both quiet, me lost in thought about what had happened today, and then tonight, Jade thinking of something I didn’t know and wasn’t brave enough to ask.

Finally, she broke the silence. “Were you always alone?” she asked.

It was a deep question, one that presumed so much about me, confirmed for me that Jade knew me, perhaps even understood me, in a way that no one else had.

“Always,” I responded.

I immediately regretted uttering the word, not because I was ashamed of my past. I wasn’t. I had played the hand that life had dealt me. But what I couldn’t abide, especially not from her, was her pity, couldn’t bear to hear the sickening words of apology and regret, the wistfulness and the relief that whatever had happened in my life hadn’t happened in hers.

But yet again I was underestimating Jade. There was none of that. She simply said, “No one ever looked out for you?”

“There was a nun. She was kind to me for a few years. Then she died,” I said.

I hadn’t thought of the old woman in years, but now, I tried to think back to when I had been young, how she would set aside a little more porridge for breakfast, occasionally give me a sweet.

That had been kind of her, especially when she’d had no obligation to do so, and it was something I was appreciative of. But other than her, there had been little kindness, most of my time being spent having to fend for myself.

I lay still, listening to the soft sound of Jade’s breathing, wondering when the conversation would transition.

I had known this was coming at some point.

Despite what she might have seen tonight, despite what this moment now meant to me, Jade still had her interests, and those interests involved not seeing any harm come to the Murphys.

“Fisher, can I ask you a question?” she asked.

I chuckled, and she joined in. “I think this is the first time you asked permission,” I said.

Jade pulled away from me then, and I instantly missed her warmth, the way her curvy body curled against mine.

She sat up, the covers falling away from her breasts. On instinct I reached up, brushed my fingers across her soft skin, before I dropped my hands.

“It was never this serious before,” she said.

“And now?” I asked, feeling a ripple of anxiety. I wasn’t sure what the question was, but it felt momentous, would change things yet again.

“Now, it’s serious,” she said.

I didn’t respond immediately but after a moment I nodded. “Ask your question, Jade,” I said.

“What are you going to do?” she said.

“That’s your question? You’ve asked that before,” I said.

“I have. Now I’m asking again, hoping that you’ll tell me,” she said.

I lifted one corner of my mouth into a humorless smile. How ironic that it would come to this. Jade cared for me, cared enough to ask and not just for her friends. And I cared for her. Cared enough that I had to answer, even though I knew it would mean the end.

“What, you think watching me get rejected by my mother and fucking me after gives you some special privilege?” I said.

The words were beneath me, so much less than Jade deserved, but I’d spoken without thought, my aim to push her away a little to spare myself the pain of pushing her away for good.

But as I watched her expression, I wanted to take the words back, cut my own tongue if only to avoid hurting her with it again. Though my words were out of line, and most days I knew Jade wouldn’t stand for it, this time she said nothing, didn’t even acknowledge the hurt I could clearly see in her face.

“No. I asked before, but I didn’t have a full view of the picture. I’m asking now because I know you better, I think I understand where you’re coming from. I’m hoping that new understanding will help me better understand what you plan,” she said.

“And help you stop me?” I asked.

To her credit, she nodded her confirmation. “Yes.”

“Well,” I said, shrugging, leaning back against the headboard, pondering this situation, feeling the unexpected need to open up to her. I decided I would. “You know a lot, what’s a little more.”

“I’m listening,” she said.

She had tucked her legs under her the same way she did when she was on the couch, and I paused for a moment, reveling in the fact that I knew something so mundane about her and that it was something that mattered so deeply to me.

“I’m going to see that they get what they deserve,” I said.

“Right,” Jade said.

Something about the way she uttered the word put me on edge, and I studied her skeptically, trying to see if I could spot the source of that feeling.

“Jade, what are you up to?” I asked.

“I’m not up to anything but trying to understand what’s happening here,” she said, sounding so calm, so rational that I didn’t believe it.

“I don’t buy it, Jade, so why not go ahead and come clean?”

“If you insist,” she said on a deep sigh and eye roll that was more like her. “But first, can I play this out for you as I see it? You don’t have to give me specifics or anything, but I want to make sure I have the basic story in order.”

“I guess I can do that,” I said.

She nodded curtly, and I noticed now that she was all business, back to the investigator that she truly was.

“Moira, that’s her name, right?” Jade asked.

I nodded quickly, ignoring the little stab of pain in my chest at the sound of my mother’s name.

“So she’s your mother, which makes you a Murphy brother,” she said.

“By blood only,” I responded.

“That’s what matters for the purposes of this conversation,” she countered, and I didn’t have the energy to contradict her.

But after that quick aside, she kept going.

“For some reason, you weren’t raised with the rest of them. You were sent to Ireland, grew up in an orphanage away from your brothers, your parents.”

“Yes,” I responded.

“That has to be a tough way to grow up. I’m sure it could breed some resentment,” she said.

“You think so?” I asked sarcastically.

Jade had cut her eyes at me sharply but kept going. “So you’re growing up in this hardscrabble life, and you see them, your brothers, off in America living it up while you fight for scraps,” she said.

“Continue,” I responded, hoping that my voice didn’t give her any insight into what I was thinking, though inside I was both marveling at her intelligence, and incredibly uncomfortable with the fact that she was doing such a good job laying out my life story.

“So for some reason, you get it in your head that the Murphys are responsible for whatever it is you’re going through. You see their success, know how they got it, and it pisses you off and makes you want to be a beacon of justice and do good and light and all that kind of stuff,” she said.

“Not for goodness and light,” I said.

“Clarify,” she responded.

“I have firsthand evidence that the brothers were involved. Do you know they almost let her die?” I asked.

She shook her head, but didn’t try to contradict me, which was the only reason I continued.

“They waited hours after she tried to kill herself to get help. You condone that?”

“I don’t,” she responded, “but if I were to take a wild guess, I would say you probably think her attempt is related to something one of the others did?”

“What they did, who they are. They drove her to the brink of insanity and then pushed her right over,” I said.

My voice was trembling now, the venom and volcanic anger a combination that was almost leaving me light-headed.

“May I ask who your source is?” she asked.

Jade’s very politely worded and incredibly incisive question broke the haze of anger.

“Why is my source important?” I asked, skeptical, but also wanting to know what she was trying to get at.

“The source is important because you have to know if you can trust it,” she said.

“I can,” I responded, though I wasn’t nearly as firm in that belief as I wanted to be.

“So you’re not going to share it with me?” she asked, still all business.

“If you wish. It’s Aengus Murphy. My father,” I said.

Jade’s eyes widened a tiny bit, but she quickly schooled her features and was again unreadable.

“He told you all that stuff, what was happening while you were growing up. Did he find you later or something?”

“No, he visited me sometimes at the orphanage,” I said.

“And that doesn’t strike you as odd?” she asked.

“Why would it?” I responded.

“Because if he could visit you in the orphanage, why couldn’t you live with him?” she said.

It was a question I had asked myself a million times when I was younger, but one I didn’t dare voice out loud. Now, I could admit the reason. I had always been so afraid that if I ever asked Aengus any questions, he’d never come see me again, and then where would I be? Alone, more alone than I already felt.

“What do you know about him?” Jade asked, her voice penetrating my thoughts.

“I know that he’s my father, and I know that he’s given me an explanation of everything that’s happened. And I know that he wasn’t treated the way he should be, and I know that the Murphys have stolen from him.”

“Do you know that, or did he tell you that?” she asked.

“What are you trying to get at, Jade?” I asked, starting to become impatient and uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation.

“I’m just saying, you’ve made a big decision, one that is potentially life threatening, based on someone else’s information,” she said.

I looked at her, incredulous, wondering what she meant.

“What do you mean?” I said, deciding to ask the question at the top of my mind.

“I mean you can’t design a plan to wipe out your brothers—brothers, Fisher,” she said, emphasizing the word when I started to glare at her.

“Why can’t I?” I said.

“Because doing so would be stupid, and you’re not a stupid man, at least not usually,” she added.

“So what would you have me do, Jade?” I asked.

“I think you’re wrong about the brothers, but what I think doesn’t matter either. What matters is what you know, and right now you don’t know nearly enough. You’re making decisions based on hearsay and one person’s word,” she said.

“Are you questioning my father?” I asked with a vehemence that I didn’t entirely feel, disliking that Jade seemed to be jumping to conclusions, disliking even more the fact that she was probably right to do so.

“I don’t know the man. Can’t say that I’ve heard very many good things about him, but it wouldn’t matter if he was a saint. You don’t make these kinds of choices without doing your own research, doing your due diligence,” she said.

“I’ve been here for a year. I know everything about them, almost everything, anyway,” I said.

“Yeah. But you don’t know why,” she said.

But I did know why.

Or at least I thought I did.

Jade pounced on that moment’s hesitation, raised herself up on her knees, her breasts swaying with her motion.

“I saw that. That little space. You know I’m right,” she said, sounding almost gleeful.

“I know no such thing,” I said.

“Yes you do,” she responded, her face lit with a brilliant smile.

“And this has been your plan. Send me on a wild goose chase to get evidence, working on the theory that I won’t find anything and thus will be swayed from my course,” I said.

“More or less,” she responded, shrugging.

“Jade…”

I trailed off, thinking, not wanting to give Jade’s point credence, but knowing that it had it nonetheless.

I had based so many of my life decisions, all of them really, on what Aengus had told me, and I didn’t know much myself.

I also couldn’t say, at least not fully and without reservation, that I believed him, trusted him as much as I had when I was a child too afraid of being alone.

So in a sense, Jade was right. I had no doubt what I would find, but so far the brothers had proven to surprise me so maybe that would continue.

“You’re the professional. Where should I look?” I asked.

The beaming smile on Jade’s face would have been enough to light an entire room.

“I’m glad you asked,” she said, the smile on her face growing ever brighter.