Page 8 of Grift

Rose’s bitter laugh rings out, filling the room with its hollowness. “We rarely get what we deserve, and we never get what we want. I’d have expected you to understand that by now. And enough coddling: your actions could have cost us dearly, Patrick. We could have lost an investor, been opened up to scrutiny, and far worse, not to mention the fact that you put yourself at risk of doing serious jail time. That’s not good for the family and it’s not good for you. Your father found a way around that. I expect you to step up and do your part to make this right.”

She’s standing to leave.

“Sacrifices must be made. You know Patrick, after I married your father, I realized what a terrible mistake I’d made. He’d never loved me, but I thought eventually that might change. If I was good enough, pretty enough, interesting enough. Then one night, he hit me so hard for saying the wrong thing at a dinner party that I needed stitches,” her voice is still devoid of emotion, but when her eyes meet mine, they’re burning with a fire that I thought had long left her.

I’m on my feet in an instant. I didn’t know. He’d hit my mother, just once, in front of me when I was a kid and I’d thrown everything I had at him with so much fury even then it was the last time it happened. It’d never occurred to me that it wasn’t the first time.

Even if it was over thirty-five years ago, before I was born, in this moment I’d destroy him to make it right. Not that it would make it right.

A man should never hit a woman. That much I’d learned early on from him, in yet another lesson in why it’s important to aspire to not be like my father.

“That night, I decided that I was going to leave him,” she says. “I’d packed my bags and paid for a plane ticket to Ireland to stay with some family while I figured out my next move. But the next morning the doctor called. I was pregnant with you, Patrick. My fate was sealed. Sometimes we have to take responsibility for our actions, whether that’s marrying the wrong man or beating the wrong card thief half to death. And sometimes sacrificing for our families is the right thing to do.”

She’s around the table and almost out the door when she pauses. “Who knows, Patrick? If what I’ve seen from her father tonight is any indication, the Kensington girl has no one to look out for her. Maybe the two of you can build something worth having.”

Left in the empty room, I stare hard at the wall and try to imagine how the clash of Jessica’s light and my darkness could do anything other than snuff out her flame.

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