Page 4 of Dublin Debacle

Her mother had lain in her hospital bed, hooked up to monitors and an IV, her face as white as the sheets she lay against. Emily had taken her hand in her gloved one, wishing she could touch her mother’s skin one last time.

Her eyes glassy, her voice not much more than a whisper, her mother had gripped her fingers with surprising strength. “Emily,” she’d croaked.

“Yes, mother.” Emily leaned closer, tears filling her eyes.

“Tell your father I loved him,” her mother said.

“Why?” Emily asked. “You haven’t seen him in years.”

“Tell him,” she insisted.

“I don’t even know how to get in touch with him.” Emily’s brow dipped low. “And why should you still love a man who let you leave and never tried to be a part of your life or the lives of his two children?”

“He was...trying...to...protect us,” she said, her words fading with her strength.

Emily snorted. “By divorcing you? By basically washing his hands of all three of us?”

Her mother’s lips turned up briefly on the corners. “We never...divorced,” she said. “He’s still...my one...and only.” Her eyes closed.

Emily stared at her mother’s chest, willing it to rise and fall with life-giving breaths. Just when she thought her mother had slipped away, her eyes flickered open. “I love...you...Em. Look out...for Finn.”

Tears slid down Emily’s cheeks. “I will.”

“Promise...me...you won’t let him...” her mother whispered.

Emily leaned closer, mentally cursing the constraints of the protective suit. “Let him what, mother?”

“...be a...Trav...” Her fingers tightened on Emily’s gloved hand.

“A Traveller?”

Her mother’s head dipped so slightly that Emily barely recognized the nod. “Promise.”

“I promise, Mom.” Emily held her mother’s hand, tears soaking her cheeks. “I’ll look out for Finn, and I’ll tell Da that you never stopped loving him.” She would have promised her mother the moon in that moment. “I love you, Mom.”

Memories of her mother washed over Emily. She set the big platter of drinks on the nearest table. “Find your own drinks,” she murmured to the customers, then turned and ran toward the back of the building.

Uncle Paddy and Finn were the only living relatives she had left since her father had died in a fiery automobile crash a month earlier. She didn’t count any of her blood relatives who claimed allegiance to the Travellers. If Uncle Paddy was in trouble, she couldn’t stand by and let anyone hurt him.

As she passed the Yank seated at the bar, he reached out and touched her arm. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer; the sense that something bad was about to happen to her uncle pushed her faster. Emily skidded sideways as she rounded the corner into the darkened hallway her uncle had disappeared into moments before. She ran to the office and pushed open the door. “Uncle Paddy?” she called out.

The small office that probably hadn’t changed much in the past one hundred years was filled with file cabinets, ledgers, odd supplies, but empty of people.

She ran to the men’s restroom door, pushed it open and called out, “Uncle Paddy?”

A man standing at the urinal doing his business, leered over his shoulder at Emily. “Not Paddy, but I’ll be your uncle, if you want.”

Emily didn’t grace his disgusting suggestion with a response. Instead, she backed out of the doorway and ducked her head into the ladies’ restroom. It was empty, which left the rear exit.

She raced down the hall, shoved open the rear door and stepped out into the alley.

Two men in dark clothing and black ski masks held her uncle by the arms while another man punched him in the gut, the face and again in the gut.

Her uncle hung slumped between the two men, probably unconscious, if not dead.

She didn’t stop to think of her own safety as she ran full throttle at the man throwing the punches. “You bastards,” Emily cried out. “Leave him alone.”

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