As planned I met the boys later at Daisy’s, Em was busy wiping down a table when I crept up behind her and tickled her. Shrieking, she jumped then turned around and smacked me with a wet dishcloth.
“O’Connell, you scared the life out of me.”
“Sorry, baby, I couldn’t help myself.” Wrapping my arms around her tiny waist, I hauled her in for a kiss. The way that some guys kiss their long-term girlfriends or wives is an absolute travesty. A kiss should never be routine, like saying hello or good-bye. Kissing the person you love should be sign language for the soul. It should say I love you, I need you, and I’m happy to see you or sorry to see you go. If you can’t kiss like that, you should really keep your fucking lips to yourself. When I was done, Em rested her forehead against mine and closed her eyes, like she was already missing the press of my lips against hers.
“Baby, I’m supposed to be working. You’re going to get me in trouble,” she complained, but made no move to separate us.
“You don’t mind me stealing a kiss from my girl, do you, Rhona?” I asked another waitress as she passed me carrying a huge tray.
“As long as I get a turn when she’s done,” she joked.
“Here, let me get that,” I told her. Letting go of Em, I grabbed the tray, which was much too big for Rhona, and strode into the kitchen. I frowned as it occurred to me that Em must carry trays like these. They were much too heavy for her too.
“You don’t have to do that, Con, but thank you,” she told me. Pressing her hands against the small of her back, I could tell that the early evening dinner rush was taking its toll.
“No problem,” I told her. “I’m happy to help. Hey, Mike,” I said, nodding to him as he flipped burgers in the corner. He smiled as I salivated over the food laid out on his grill. I’d been dreaming about having a Daisy burger for weeks. Walking back out to put my order in with the boys, I saw Em loading up another full tray as she hurried to empty a table. Kieran had already snagged one for us, and he looked like the wait for me to come over so he could place his order was causing him real pain.
“Aren’t you a bit short tonight?” I asked Rhona, watching her scurrying to help Em.
“You can say that again. Katrina and another waitress didn’t turn up for their shifts. It’s just us for tonight.”
Nodding at the guys, I made my way over to our table.
“What’s up, Con?” Liam asked.
“Can we order already?” Kieran whined, and Tommy added a “pleeease” in the style of an annoying six-year-old.
“Sorry, boys, you’re going to have to wait a bit. They’re slammed so I think we should give them a hand.”
“Seriously!” Kieran complained. “I’m fucking wasting away here.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Liam answered. “You’re seriously going to sit there and chow down while Em’s rushed off her feet?”
We all turned in unison to watch Em, and as soon as she stumbled trying to shift her weight to lift the heavy tray, I didn’t need to ask the boys again. They fell over each other to get out of the booth and help her. Kieran reached her first and effortlessly lifted the tray and took it to the kitchen.
“I’ll do drink refills,” Liam offered.
“I’m the most likeable one of you ugly fucks, so I’ll take orders,” Tommy offered. Grabbing a pen and pencil from the counter, he walked over to a table of elderly ladies and turned on the charm. “What can I get for you fine and lovely ladies this evening then?” he asked, which made them giggle like schoolgirls.
Wrapping an arm around my waist, Em kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear. “It’s lovely of them to help, but how many orders do you think they’re going to mess up?”
“Don’t worry, love,” I replied. “I doubt many people will argue with them about it.” Between us, we were good at either scaring or charming people. There wasn’t much middle ground. Kissing my cheek, she left me to collect a food order at the ring of Mike’s bell, and I started clearing another table.
Two hours later, I had a whole new appreciation for how damn hard waitresses work. The balls of my feet ached, and I’d had a fuck-full of watching people leave shitty tips for damn fine service. None of us spoke to each other as we studied the menu. We were all going to order the same thing—we always did—but it was good to check it out just to be sure.
A juicy, succulent Daisy burger was placed down in front of me, and three more followed for the guys.
“On the house,” Rhona said, “for getting us out of a jam.”
With a cup of tea and a sandwich in hand, Em squeezed onto the bench beside me. Pulling her closer, I kept one arm around her and used the other to lift up my burger, demolishing a quarter of it in one bite. She giggled as I moaned appreciatively.
“Sunshine, you should never have introduced me to these things. I’m addicted,” I told her.
“A little of what you like now and then does you good,” she told me. Giving her a squeeze, I plowed straight back into my food.
When she froze with her cup of tea halfway to her mouth, I looked up to follow her line of sight. Standing in the doorway was a middle-aged, dowdy-looking woman with plain clothes. She nervously clutched an old cloth shopping bag as she scanned the cafe, her gaze only stopping when it met Em’s.
“Who’s that, babe?” I asked, knowing from how she was acting that I wouldn’t like her answer.
“My mother,” she whispered.
* * *
The woman walked slowly toward us in a way that reminded me of Em when I first met her. For a moment, I felt a swell of pity when I thought about her experiencing everything Sunshine had. Then I woke the fuck up.
“Hello, Emily. You look beautiful,” she spoke quietly.
“Hello, Mum,” Em replied.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I said angrily, as I tried to urge Em out of the booth. My huge body was wedged in the seat, and with Kieran and the guys to my right and Em to my left, both unwilling to budge, I was trapped.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, staring at the ground. She seemed to be searching for her words and was visibly shaking. “I know I shouldn’t be here but I was wondering if I could speak to you alone for a few minutes.”
“No fucking way!” I answered without thinking. This bitch had done enough damage. Frank might be behind bars, but the bitch was still messing with Sunshine’s head just by being here.
“It’s okay, baby.” Em soothed me with her hand on my knee. “Let’s just listen to what she has to say.”
I didn’t like it at all, but my girl knew her mind, and she didn’t question any decisions I made about my useless bitch of a mother. I nodded to show I was okay but clenched my jaw shut, trying not to interfere.
“You’ve got five minutes, Mum. The guys will leave but O’Connell stays with me.” This calmed me down slightly, but not by much.
“Okay,” her mum agreed quietly.
Tommy, Liam, and Kieran shuffled out of the booth, taking the last of their burgers with them and shooting daggers at Em’s ma the whole time. Once they’d left, she sat down gingerly at the table.
“What are you doing here, Mum?” Em asked suspiciously. “I haven’t seen you leave the house in years.”
“Frank’s trial starts soon, and his barrister asked me to come down to London so he could go over my evidence.”
“I hope you’re not here to ask me for anything,” Em answered. “If you want to stand up for him and lie in court, that’s up to you but that animal deserves to go away for life, and I’m going to do everything I can to see that happens.” Her spine stiffened as she spoke, and I couldn’t have been more proud of her.
“Yes, no, I mean that’s not why I wanted to come here,” she answered, getting all flustered. “Frank has asked me to give you something but that’s not why I came,” she clarified.
“I knew you were here for him. Just give me whatever that psycho wants you to deliver and leave,” Em said angrily.
“Please, Emily,” her mum pleaded.
“Please what, Mum?” she replied. “Please be nice, please don’t argue, or please forgive you for doing absolutely nothing while that man beat and raped me?” She didn’t shout. She didn’t even raise her voice at her mother. Instead she was eerily calm. Tears were streaming down her mother’s face, and with a resigned sigh, Em rubbed her own tiredly with her hands.
“Just go home, Mum,” Em said softly. The woman pulled a long white envelope from her tattered bag and slid it across the table toward us.
“You have no idea how sorry I am for my part in what happened, and I don’t ever expect you to forgive me, but I’d like to explain myself to you someday, and I’d like the opportunity to know you. I don’t expect you to hear me out anytime soon, but can I come by the cafe from time to time, just to say hello and see you?” she asked hopefully.
“I don’t know. You’ve had years to get to know me. I can’t help feeling that whatever you’re doing is in Frank’s best interest.”
“Believe me, if Frank knew I did anything other than follow his instructions, I’d be beaten black and blue when he next had the opportunity.”
After a long pause of me clenching and unclenching my fists and silently willing her to tell her mother to get fucked, Em finally answered. “Fine, but only now and again, and I’m not talking about Frank,” she agreed.
“What the fuck, Sunshine?” I asked her. Her only response was to link her fingers through mine and squeeze my hand tightly.
“I understand,” her mum replied, “and thank you.”
Slipping quickly out of the booth, her mother paused to stare at Em like she was trying to memorize her face, then dropped her gaze to the floor and walked out of the cafe. As soon as she was gone, Em slumped against me. Letting go of her hand, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her in for a hug. I knew, even before she hiccupped, that she was crying because her tears began to soak through my shirt. My heart broke for her. Sunshine rarely ever cried. She was a pro at bottling up her feelings and going quiet when something was bothering her. But her ma had cut old wounds wide open, and now her pain was bleeding out. I didn’t have it in my heart to complain about her giving in to her mother and allowing future contact. That conversation could wait for another day. Right now, Em needed me, and I knew only too well how deeply the wounds inflicted by a bad parent ran.
“Come on, love. Let’s get you home. I’ll run you a nice hot bath, you can put on a shitty chick flick, and we’ll fall asleep cuddling. Sniffing back the tears, I saw the ghost of a smile as she wiped her face with her hands.
“That sounds nice,” she said. “Let’s open the letter first though. Whatever’s inside won’t be good and I just want it over and done with” she said, looking at the envelope in disgust. The fact that Frank had even held it made it tainted. I wanted to snatch it away and open it when I was on my own, shield her from whatever was inside. But Danny was right. No way would she put up with that shit. Quickly, like she was ripping off a Band-Aid, she tore open the letter and pulled out a sheet of paper, folded around a single photograph. She glanced at it briefly before allowing it to fall to the table and burying her face in the crook of my neck. She didn’t make a sound but the warm, wet tears against my skin broke my heart. I picked up the note with shaky hands to see what had moved her so badly. In bold black type was printed the message:
You are MINE. You have always been MINE.
The picture it came with made me want to vomit. She must have been about seventeen when it was taken. In it, she was unconscious on the floor so I assumed he’d knocked her out. What made me sick was the hand in the photo that had pushed down her shirt and her bra to caress her breast.
“What else did he do when I was asleep or unconscious? How many other photos does he have? Or worse, what if there are videos?” she mumbled into my neck.
I squeezed her to me tightly but I didn’t have a single word of compassion to give her. What could I possibly say that would make this cluster fuck any better? The only thing I knew how to do when people tried to hurt me and mine was to hurt back. Without that option, I was helpless. And it was fucking killing me.
After wiping away the tears, Em went to the bathroom to clean herself up. Before she came back, the guys jumped in and I slid the letter and picture into my back pocket. There were some things they didn’t need to see.
“What the fuck did she want?” Kier asked.
“She’s delivering a letter Frank’s sent from prison but apparently that’s secondary to her being sorry for everything and wanting the opportunity to get to know her daughter better.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Liam commented.
“What do you want to do, Con?” Tommy asked me.
I sighed deeply as I answered him. “It’s her ma so it’s her choice. But if that bitch thinks that I’ll allow her to break Em a second time, she’s got another thing coming.”
“The sooner Frank’s trial is over the better,” Kieran said. “I don’t think any of us will rest easy until this thing is done.”
“There’s something else,” I told them. “Turns out that Frank took pictures when he abused Em. Now he’s sending them to her to mess with us. ” A collection of “fucks” sounded around the table before Kieran spoke up.
“And her fucking mother is delivering them?” Kieran asked angrily.
“The last one was mailed but without Frank’s fingerprints, there was nothing to tie it to him. Unless her ma testifies that Frank gave her this letter and that it hasn’t been tampered with, the police ain’t likely to be inclined to do anything about this one either,” I said.
“So what now?” Liam asked, like I had all the fucking answers.
“We sit tight and wait for the trial. There’s nothing else we can do.”