In the Unlikely Event

The first songs he sold were about me.

He was furious with me. He blamed me for the argument leading to Kathleen’s death. He became a single father before he’d even turned twenty-four. And for what? A girl who’d allegedly had an abortion with his baby and told him to stop writing to her after he confessed his family was falling apart.

On our way back to the cottage, while we are both in too much shock to touch the Kathleen subject, Mal opens up about Maeve.

“Her husband, Sean, was the lorry driver who collided with Kathleen. We were friends, before…” He looks up and shakes his head. “We were mates once. But when the accident happened, when he was bursting with adrenaline, his truth came out. He told me I never deserved my wife. That I never truly loved her. He screamed that she died because of me.”

I wince. The truth has a way to hit you harder than any lie. It’s what you need to face when you look in the mirror every day.

Sean had reminded him he was unworthy of his wife.

So Mal reminded Sean he wasn’t worthy of his either.

“I took Maeve as a lover to prove she didn’t love him, just like I didn’t love Kiki. I paraded her around Tolka as retaliation, making a point of doing it openly. I kissed her in public places, pinched her arse in the queue when we were at the bank. In short, I was a cunt. I hurt so much, I wanted to hurt others. I’m just grateful you weren’t around when I was at my worst.”

“Then you took other women to bed, too? Why?” I ask, my voice barely audible.

“Being with Maeve gave my loneliness a kind of…I don’t know, a stubborn quality. She was in it because she thought we had a future and she wanted her hands on whatever money she thought I had, but I was in it for revenge. What finally made me stop was hearing her kids were being bullied at school because everyone knew their mam was sleeping with a man who wasn’t their dad. I couldn’t stomach it. I broke it off and wrote Maeve a check to send them to a school where no one knew them and they could start fresh. Then I tried to erase the aftertaste of Maeve with an ever-growing line of women who knocked on my door. But the longer the line became, the shorter my attention span grew. In the last few years, I’ve been solely focused on Tamsin. She’s the only thing that’s kept me sane, the only person who’s mattered. Until you.”

I say nothing to this, because even though I’m flattered, I can’t help but also feel angry.

“When I saw your name on the back of that cover, I had a Pavlovian response,” he continues. “I picked up the phone and accepted the job Ryner had offered me months before. I laid down my ultimatums, and one of them was doing things my way—demanding you as the photographer. Ryner desperately needed a hitmaker for Richards. He agreed to all of my requests, including this crazy one to transport you here. It’s amazing what you can get away with in the name of the creative process. I could’ve told him I needed the entire Victoria’s Secret cast and ten kilograms of cocaine to write this album and been the happiest pig alive.”

I swat him when he says that, and can’t help but laugh because he could have said it, and still, it’s me he asked for.

“So, I moved Tamsin to her grandparents’ house for a couple months and planned on making your life miserable and sabotaging your career. I know, extremely toddler-like of me. Trust me, it didn’t sound as outrageously stupid when I thought about it without saying it out loud. I wanted to make your boyfriend break up with you, to shove your face in the reality I’ve lived. But very early on, I learned two things that stood in the way of my Marvel-villain-like master plan.”

Mal rubs his cheek. His hair is a tousled perfection, his eyebrows furrowed, and the curves of his cheeks are so angular and prominent, I can’t believe he is truly flesh and blood.

“One, I discovered you didn’t really do all the horrible things I thought you’d done to me. That definitely put a damper on my Rory-is-Satan quest. And two, even if you had, even if all of it were true, I found I still couldn’t knowingly and maliciously hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt you. I still loved you too much, regardless of how you felt about me. I loved you when you hated me, I loved you when I thought you were indifferent to me, and I loved you when you were on the fence about me. But when I realized you loved me back? All bets were off. The world kept spinning. Days went by. Things changed—other than one thing, my love for you.”

When we reach the door, I look down at my feet. Shame consumes me. Shame for all the times I wasn’t here for Mal when he needed me most. Shame that I became a person he thought wouldn’t love Tamsin wholeheartedly and unconditionally.

Not only does she belong to the man I love, but she also belonged to my half-sister, and no matter how I felt about her, she will always be a part of me.

I swallow. “I want to meet Tamsin. Properly, I mean.”

I look up, and there is so much relief and love in his eyes, I’m surprised my heart doesn’t pop like a piñata—all colorful ribbons and candy and joy—through my chest.

It’s hard to stay mad at Mal for keeping Tamsin a secret, knowing he had every reason to believe I was a monster. I even find it hard to stay mad at Glen for nearly killing me when I was a baby. After all, those events led me here, after all these years. I’m not upset with Mal anymore for keeping what he knew about my father a secret when I came here the first time around—not because he was right to keep the information from me, but because I found out something important about Mal today. He puts his loved ones first. And sometimes he does twisted things to keep us safe and sheltered, just like Mom.

Love makes you do twisted things.

I’m not justifying it—hell, I’d like to maim Mal every single day for how he handled everything with Sean and Maeve—but I’d be hypocritical not to see where their actions came from. I cheated on Callum, too.

“You can’t play God anymore.” I point at Mal’s face.

He nods. “Who says I play Him?” He rubs the back of his neck, grinning.

I swat his chest. “You can’t keep any secrets from me. I mean it.”

“I won’t,” he promises.

“What do I do about Debbie?” I play with my nose hoop as Mal pushes open the door.

He shoves my suitcase into the cottage and steps in after me.

“On one hand, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for what she’s done, sheltering me from the truth in a way that would make me feel loved and appreciated by a father. I know she did that to protect me—portrayed herself in a bad light to make sure I thought highly of him, even though she had a wonky way of going about it, and even though we had such a weird relationship throughout my teenage years. When I left the bar earlier, I was ready to go back home and patch things up with her. Then you told me all the lies about the abortion and her sending you letters and the pictures I took of you, not to mention hiding your letters from me. How do I forgive that? She almost took my happiness from me. Almost.”

How do I forgive my mother for wanting to keep me away from the love of my life?

Mal cups my cheeks, smiling down at me. I never considered just how perfect we fit. He is tall enough to tuck my head under his chin. Just enough wider than me to cover me completely, but not comically so. Everything about us is in sync. It’s like we were made for each other, two pieces of an elaborate puzzle that can only go together.