Chapter Three
Hennessy
“The Whiskey Sisters.”
That’s what the four of us have been called for as long as I can remember. Never in a derogatory way, though—it was always a sweet term of endearment used by our friends and neighbors. But it was more than a nod to the names our parents chose for us—it was about our relationship to the business itself. “Every O’Halloran has a stake in O’Halloran’s,” our father would tell us. And he wasn’t kidding.
I was drafted to wash dishes when I turned fifteen. Jameson got to file Pops’s paperwork. Walker learned the ins and outs of mixology long before she was old enough to drink. Even Bailey spent her summer vacations serving fish and chips to the tourists passing through town. It was a family business in the truest sense of the word.
After a fitful night’s sleep in my childhood bedroom, I dress and slip down the rear staircase—the one that goes from the apartment kitchen into the back corridor of the pub, where my father’s office and the kitchen are. When we were kids, my mother would send us down that way to kiss our father good night.
Everything is dark and still when I open the door at the bottom of the stairs. It’ll be another hour yet before Donovan comes in to prep for lunch, so I’ve got the whole place to myself. I head into my father’s office without bothering to flip the switch that illuminates the small, narrow hallway. I know it’s exactly eighteen paces from here. I know that I need to lift the door just a hair so it doesn’t catch on the frame. And I know the switch to my left will light the small lamp on Pops’s desk. With a deep sigh, I sit down in his wooden desk chair on wheels, the kind that they stopped manufacturing years ago because the base was unstable.
Sitting at the back edge of the calendar/blotter are framed pictures of us all. Mama and Pops on their wedding day. My high school graduation. James’s wedding to the dipstick. Bailey’s sweet sixteen. My favorite, by far, is a picture of Pops, sound asleep on Jameson’s couch, with a teeny, tiny Jackson also asleep, right atop Pops’s chest. I pick up the silver frame and rub a thumb across the image of my father’s face, so peaceful and content with his first grandson.
When the rage bubbles up from somewhere deep inside, I am totally unprepared. It seems to come out of nowhere. My chest and neck and face grow hot in stages, and I’m sure I must look like a thermometer with its mercury rising higher and higher. Hot tears sting my eyes and threaten to spill down my cheeks. My breath comes in short, raspy pants, and I have to jump up to my feet. I pace the room, my hands raking through my long, thick hair. It’s as if I’m going to come right out of my skin.
Pant. Pant. Pant.
Pace. Pace. Pace.
So many memories missed. So much time lost.
I’ve been such a fool.
The five words hit me like brutal slaps across the face. My head actually turns to one side instinctively, as if to avoid the blows. But they keep coming.
Such a damned fool.
I’m vaguely aware of the huffing sound that I’m making. My heart feels as if it’s going to pound right out of my chest, and my heated skin quickly turns cool and damp with sweat. I know this feeling. This is a panic attack. But I’m helpless to stop the cycle once it’s started. I pace in circles and pant, waiting helplessly for the deep-seated accusations to float to the surface of my subconscious.
I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I never wanted to be a lawyer.
I gasp and immediately stop pacing so I can bend at the waist and plant my palms on my thighs.
Breathe, Hennessy. Breathe.
Slowly…
Okay. I’m okay.
I went to law school to please my father.
I gulp back a cry that threatens to rise from my throat, but I can’t keep the tears at bay any longer, and they slide in long, salty tracks down my face.
I didn’t want to leave home…but I did.
My next breath is difficult to take against the tightening of my lungs and chest.
I didn’t want to move away. I didn’t want the job.
“Oh…God…” I groan miserably and force myself to sit down again. It’s there. It’s all right there, just under the surface, where it’s been for more years than I’d care to admit. I was the dutiful child, fulfilling her father’s dream of a better life in a big city, where I could be more than just the daughter of the local pub owners. But that’s exactly who I was. Who I still am. And no amount of money, no flashy car, no swank apartment is ever going to change that.
“I’m sorry, Pops,” I whisper to my father’s picture on the desk as I swipe at my tears. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to disappoint you. But I’m so lonely. I’m so unhappy.”
The tears have morphed into a wash down my face now, and the only thing left to do is lay my head atop my arms on the desk and sob. And then something strange happens. My mother’s voice echoes from somewhere in the dark recesses of my memory.
“Cradle to grave, Hennessy,” she says after I’ve had a fight with Jameson over a Barbie. “Your sisters are the only ones who will be with you from the time you’re born to the time you die. Not me. Not Pops. Not Grandma Elsie. Not your best friend or even the man you’ll marry someday. So you must stick together—not fall apart. Do you understand me, Henny?”
I’d nodded but still pouted in my mind, unable to grasp this concept at ten years old. But I’m not ten anymore.
I sit up straight, pluck a wad of tissues out of a box on the desk, and blow my nose in a most unfeminine manner. Then I take a long, slow, shaky breath, wipe my eyes, and start opening drawers and rummaging through filing cabinets. I pore over ledgers and inspect invoices.
It takes hours. I stay holed up in the office, no one even aware of my presence there in the back of the pub. I plow through the countless tiny, intricate jigsaw pieces until I finally have a clear understanding of just how deep of a pile of crap we’re standing in. Except, it’s more of a mountain than a pile, and by the time I return the last bank statement to the last file folder and close the last desk drawer, I know the depths to which my father went to provide for and protect his girls.
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Jameson says from the doorway. I didn’t even hear her open the door. “Hey! Hey, hey…what is it? You’ve been crying!” She’s kneeling down next to my chair in a heartbeat, taking my hands in hers and searching my eyes for a clue.
“I’m okay now. Really,” I reassure her with a weak smile. “Pull up that stool and come sit with me. I’ve been going through Pops’s papers…”
“But we’ve been through all of those already, Henny. There isn’t anything there…”
“Yes, there is. Not alone, but when you put it all together, you can see the pattern. You can tell where things start to go wrong and how Pops tried to make it right. But he couldn’t. By the time he got involved with this Truitt person, he must have been desperate.”
She looks at me, her green eyes widening with comprehension.
“Wait—what are you saying? Pops knew Truitt? I thought he came into the picture after the bank called the loan. You know, to try and scoop up the property for pennies on the dollar.”
“I don’t think so,” I say softly. “Pops was desperate to leave something for us. And, more importantly, he didn’t want to be a financial burden on any of his children. He was going to sell, James.”
“No!” she squeaks in protest. “Pops would never do that! This…” She gestures at the room around us. “This was his life. His and Mama’s.”
“I’d like to believe he was railroaded or blackmailed into it, but if you follow the money, you’ll see that it was the only option he could find. Jesus, no wonder he had an aneurysm. His blood pressure must’ve been through the roof! Did you notice anything?”
She looks stunned as she pulls up the stool in the corner and sits so we’re eye-to-eye.
“He…he was preoccupied, I suppose. A little forgetful, maybe? Especially in the fall…”
I pick up the papers from The Truitt Group and wave them around.
“And that’s exactly when all this was happening. Near as I can tell, Truitt had some inside information that the pub was in trouble. He reached out to Pops and expressed an interest in the business.”
“So he is a predator,” she says with some satisfaction.
For me, it’s not so cut and dry.
“Maybe, in that he had Pops over a barrel. But honestly, he didn’t try to undercut him. In fact, near as I can tell, he was offering full fair-market value on the pub. Pops would have walked away debt-free with a good chunk of change in his pocket.”
We stare at one another silently for a very long, very awkward moment.
“So…” she begins. “What does that mean?”
I sigh.
“I think it means that Pops saw selling as a way to avoid the embarrassment of foreclosure…and a way to avoid letting on to us just how much debt he was in. He probably intended to play it off as being his plan all along. And by then, there wouldn’t be anything any of us could have done about it, anyway. But now he’s gone, and we know the whole story. And, just maybe, we can still do something to turn this thing around.”
My sister is nodding, her face solemn as she processes what I’m saying.
“So, this isn’t just about money anymore,” Jameson observes.
“No,” I agree. “It’s about pride. His pride…and ours.”