Declan

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I didn’t have Grace, probably wouldn’t again, but nevertheless her words stuck with me.

During those long, empty days, I kept replaying what she had said over and over again.

The words stung, were made all the more devastating because of the calm with which she had spoken them, and the unmistakable truth of them.

I had been deluding myself, but Grace’s words touched me with unmissable clarity.

As much as I claimed to love my brothers. As much as I did love my brothers. I hadn’t trusted them enough to tell them the truth.

That was a failure on my part, an oversight that I planned to correct starting now.

I made my way to Patrick’s, hating that I had to have this conversation, knowing that after it, everything would change. Still anxious for it to be over anyway.

I felt my phone vibrate, but I ignored it and kept driving.

Whatever it was would have to wait until I had said what I needed to say to my brothers.

I got there first, and was greeted at the door by Patrick, who held a sleeping Siobhan.

“Is Nya here?” I asked.

Patrick had been distracted by the baby, but when he took one look at me, his entire demeanor changed. “Upstairs,” he said.

Then, without another word he turned and handed the baby to Nya. After she went upstairs, we moved toward his study.

Once we were inside with the door closed, he said, “This isn’t an informal visit.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Declan, don’t do that.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Don’t shut me out,” he said.

Ordinarily I would have argued with him, pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t have the energy, or the wherewithal to even attempt to.

Instead I settled in the chair and said, “When are the others going to arrive?”

Patrick watched me, assessing, and then finally spoke. “They should be here any minute.”

He didn’t press, not that I was surprised.

Patrick and I were close, just as Sean and Michael were, and he had always gotten me, understood when to pry and when to back away.

Knowing that, knowing how much he trusted me, how I, almost daily, betrayed that trust, made me feel even worse.

The one silver lining of the moment was that Patrick didn’t try to make small talk. It was neither of our fortes, though he was better at it than I. Still, rather than talk, we sat in silence, silence that was surprisingly comfortable. I couldn’t help but wonder if this would be the last time that would happen.

About twenty minutes after I arrived, Michael sauntered in, and five minutes after that came Sean.

I enjoyed that moment, my brothers and I all under the same roof, the illusion that our closeness was real, wouldn’t change, comforting for these few moments.

“So is this a celebration or a planning session?” Michael asked a few moments after Sean had arrived.

I wasn’t surprised that he had been the first to speak. Patience wasn’t a strong suit of his, and of all my brothers, I suspected he would take what I had to say hardest. We all had extremely acute senses of loyalty, but Michael particularly so. To know what I had kept from him for all these years, what I had just recently started to keep from him would be devastating.

“I don’t want to drag this out any longer than I have to,” I said.

Still, I paused after I spoke that, looked at each of my brothers, saw only curiosity and acceptance in their expressions.

“You all know what happened with Mom,” I said.

Almost instantly Sean’s and Michael’s expressions changed. Michael face flashed hurt, while Sean’s was twisted into a rare expression of anger.

Patrick’s expression didn’t change at all.

Michael shook his head. “I hope I didn’t leave my wife and my hotel to talk about ancient history,” he said. On the surface, he appeared to be seething, but I knew Michael, knew that his expression of anger was only a mask for the pain that ran so deep.

He still bore the brunt of our mother’s loss, and of all of us he was the only one who visited her regularly. I always told him it was a bad idea, that he was living in the past, and only in that moment did I realize that instead of sharing those words with him I should have heeded them myself.

“Yeah, for once Michael is right. Why are we here, Declan?” Sean said.

“I know you guys have a complicated relationship with her, but trust me when I tell you that she loved you both more than I could ever say,” I said.

Sean laughed, the sound grim, disturbing. “Loved us? Loved us enough to check the hell out and leave us to the wolves?” he said.

“Sean, you know it’s not that simple,” Patrick said.

“How can you still defend her?” Sean said.

“Because he remembers what it was like,” I whispered.

Sean and Michael, who had looked at Patrick, turned to look at me. “Are you saying we don’t?” Michael said.

“I’m saying you were too young to really understand all that she went through, all that was happening,” I said.

“Maybe,” Sean said, “but I sure as hell remember what I went through.”

I couldn’t argue with him, which made my betrayal that much worse.

“I know, Sean,” I said, “but—”

“Don’t make excuses for her,” Michael said.

He had been closest to her, and even now still was, but Michael was consistent. He loved her, always would, but he would never be able to justify what she had done or forgive her for it.

I wondered if he would forgive me.

“I get the feeling that you’re not here to talk about Mom,” Patrick said.

Always the voice of reason, he quickly steered the conversation back on track. Whether that was a good thing or not was yet to be told.

“No and yes,” I said.

Michael glared, and Sean shook his head, but after a moment I continued on.

“You know I…found her,” I said.

I never talked about that time, thought about it far more often than I wanted to, but almost never spoke of that time out loud. Doing so now left me feeling awful, but I pushed on.

“Yeah,” Michael said.

“She was in the bathtub and had slit her wrists. I think she lost consciousness and slipped under the water. That’s why she…why she is like she is now.”

“Brain-damaged,” Michael said, his voice twisting.

“Yes,” I said, swallowing down the emotions before I breathed out hard and continued. “When I found her, there was a piece of paper on her vanity. I don’t even remember why I paid attention to it, not with everything that was happening…”

I trailed off, instantly transported back to that awful time. I had been so young, twelve or thirteen, far too young to find my mother submerged in a bathtub, drowning in her own blood.

“I…I dragged her out of the tub. I shouldn’t have been strong enough to do that, but maybe it was pure adrenaline,” I said.

“I don’t even remember how the ambulance arrived, who called it, but I watched, terrified as they loaded her into the ambulance, and I just knew I would never see her again or talk to her again. I don’t know where you were. School maybe, but I was at home all alone. I don’t know why the police weren’t there.”

“That was probably Aengus’s doing,” Patrick said, his own voice deep with emotion.

“Probably,” I said. “But I went back into the house and remembered that piece of paper. I was too scared to read it then, so I shoved it into my pocket, not sure what it was or what it meant, and I didn’t look at it until days later.”

“What was it?” Patrick asked, bringing me back to the present.

“Mom’s note,” I said flatly.

“She left a note?” Patrick said.

It seemed insane to me that I hadn’t told him about this before, but I hadn’t.

I nodded.

“Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?” Patrick asked.

He wasn’t angry, not yet, but he was getting there.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You have to do better than that,” Sean said.

I shrugged. “I would, except I don’t know.”

I didn’t even have to look at Michael to know that he was frustrated, almost angry.

I understood, but I decided that it was time for me to tell the complete truth, and in this case I didn’t know the answer to that question.

“So that stuff you told me she said? She didn’t say it?” Patrick asked.

I knew exactly what he was speaking of. That promise I’d made. The one I’d forced on the others.

My mother had been an interesting combination, both far too weak to survive the life that she had built for herself, but still a fighter. And in those long weeks that she clung to life, back when we had hope that the mother we had loved would be restored to us, Patrick as the oldest had borne the brunt of the weight.

Aengus hadn’t allowed any of us to visit her, and that had been a source of extreme tension. One night, Patrick had sworn to me that he would kill him one day.

In that moment, thinking of my mother’s words made me want to make sure he didn’t, and that was how the promise had been born.

“She didn’t speak the words, but she said something like them in her note,” I said.

“What does that mean, Declan?” Patrick asked.

“It means she left a note and she made me swear not to allow myself to become anything like him…” I trailed off then, lost in the past, but then refocused. “I know why she did it. I know she knew that I was more like him than she ever wanted me to be. But just as she didn’t want that to happen to me, I didn’t want it to happen to any of you,” I said.

“What is this bullshit, Declan?” Michael asked through clenched teeth. “You fucking lied to us.”

“I don’t like to think of it that way, but yes,” I said.

Speaking those words after all these years was like a weight off my chest. I hadn’t realized how much carrying all this by myself had affected me, but I saw that now. But just because I was relieved for the moment, I knew I still had a lot to explain and make amends for.

“Is that all you’ve been keeping from us?” Patrick asked.

He was looking at me suspiciously, and I knew exactly what he was talking about.

“I’ve been slowing things down in the business,” I said.

“We know about that. What else?” he responded without pause.

I rubbed my neck and began to pace. I felt all of their eyes on me, felt their questions. I wanted out of that pressure, but I didn’t deserve to be out, and they deserved answers. The truth. All of it.

“You know I hate Aengus as much as the rest of you. Maybe more,” I said.

“But?” Sean asked. I looked at him and saw his eyes were narrowed, suspicious. I often teased my little brother for being unserious, but he was serious now.

I preferred the other version of him.

“You know I don’t condone any of the shit he’s done,” I said.

“Stop fucking stalling, Declan,” Michael said.

I looked to him and saw the rage that he wasn’t even trying to hide. If I wasn’t his brother, I had no doubt his response would be far worse than sharp words and a harsh look.

“I’m not stalling. I’m just trying to explain,” I responded.

“Then explain,” Patrick said.

“He’s nothing. Worse than nothing, but…” I trailed off, trying to compose what it was I needed to say. Then I started again. “But—”

“But what? You and he are fucking besties or something. Probably had a couple beers and laughed about how I almost went to fucking jail or how Nya got kidnapped,” Michael said through clenched teeth.

“Michael,” Patrick said, his voice holding an edge of warning.

“It’s all right, Patrick,” I said, keeping my gaze on Michael.

“I can’t tell you how close I came to killing him after that,” I said. Michael was still angry, but he stayed silent, which I took as a sign to continue. “But I didn’t.”

“Because of her?” Sean whispered, still unable to say our mother’s name.

“Partially. And partially because I see myself in him. I know how easy it would be for me to become him,” I said, confessing what I had feared for all these years.

“Bullshit,” Michael spat.

“You don’t trust my word anymore?” I asked.

Michael glared. “I probably shouldn’t, but that’s not the bullshit. The bullshit is that you’d ever think you were anything like Aengus. I can’t believe that you would,” he said.

“I would,” I responded.

“Then you’re a fucking idiot,” Michael said.

I huffed out a quick laugh. “I might not disagree.”

“You can’t,” Sean interjected.

In the space of those few sentences, it seemed like everything had changed. There was still tension, but things appeared to have calmed. My brothers were pissed, but they didn’t hate me, and I suspected they forgave me.

As we stood there, the buzz of my vibrating phone pierced the silence.

“That fucking thing has been buzzing nonstop,” Michael snapped. “Answer it.”

I froze for a moment and then reached into my pocket to grab the phone.

I had fourteen missed calls, but that wasn’t the important thing. The number they came from was.

I quickly dialed the number, everything else falling away.

My brothers must have sensed something was wrong for they all looked at me, their gazes intense.

I listened to the phone ring, hoping that she would answer. When the line clicked, signaling the phone had been picked up, I said, “Grace?”

“Nope,” came Aengus’s voice.