by L.J. Shen
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.
“You talk to her. You hear her out. You give her shite, then you move on and let it go, focusing on your happiness. Because, Rory?”
I blink up at him.
“Blood is thicker than water, and it’s only when you’re about to lose someone in your family that you realize just how much you truly love them.”
A NOTE FROM DEBBIE (RORY’S MOM)
Before you judge me, consider this: I did everything I could, and I worked with what I had.
Can we please just keep in mind that I had Rory when I was eight-goddamn-teen? I was supposed to go to college, for Christ’s sake. To have a life, a future, a steady boyfriend. The wedding of my dreams, a big Italian family with a good boy from the right side of the tracks. All of that—poof!—gone. And for what? One mistake? Everyone makes mistakes. Some just have more weight than others.
Mine happened to crush my entire life.
Of course, I love my daughter. But that’s why I did what I had to do.
It seemed a little unfair that I was put in this situation. Single mother, struggling to put dinner on the table, forever late with paying the bills. I dwelled on the unfairness of it all for years, when I clocked in and out of a drugstore I hated, working double shifts and leaving Rory with a sixteen-year-old babysitter who occasionally forgot to feed her. Unfortunately, she was the only sitter I could afford, so I had to shove some food into Rory right before I left for my shift.
I’ve done some things I’m not proud of to make sure we had a roof over our heads. My folks weren’t mighty thrilled to find out I got knocked up overseas, and they definitely didn’t offer to help me, let alone house me. In fact, their exact words were, “You’re done here, young lady. Pack a bag and leave, or we’ll do it for you.”
They died months apart when Rory was three, so they didn’t even get to see how great she turned out. How well we both did. How we made it.
The day they told me I was no longer welcome in their house, I vowed to make sure she’d have everything I didn’t.
What did I do to support us? Well, what didn’t I do?
I worked double shifts, scrubbed diner kitchen floors on weekends with Rory in her little sling carrier attached to me, taking cat naps and staring at me periodically with her kind, intelligent silence. I started doing women’s hair in my apartment whenever I didn’t have a shift or a cleaning gig. The rules were they needed to bring the hair dye along with them, so I wasn’t responsible for the shade, and a tip was mandatory, because the blow dryer blew my electricity bill through the roof.
I went on dates with men I didn’t like and got paid by the hour. I took advantage of my killer legs. I didn’t do anything but cling on their arms, but I still threw up every time I came back home and watched my daughter sleeping soundly next to my bed. I didn’t know what I would do if she ever did that to support her kid, to make sure they had formula, clothes, and medical insurance in place.
I remember the day I started smoking. I’d put Rory to sleep—she was two years old then, exactly one year after I ran away from Glen—and slipped into my tiny, dated bathroom. I looked in the mirror, adorned with puke-green seventies tiling, and couldn’t believe the dark shade under my eyes.
I wanted to cry.
I wasn’t beautiful anymore, even though my entire life was still ahead of me. I was a few months shy of twenty-one, for crying out loud. All my friends were dating, studying, going out, or focusing on their exciting, new careers, and I was either working or begging Rory to stop crying.
I wanted to do something for myself—something destructive but indulgent. Alcohol was out of the question. I’d seen what it did to Glen. So I checked on Rory again—still asleep—and slipped out to the local mart down the block. I bought myself a pack of something fancy-looking and a Zippo and came back home. Made myself a cup of coffee, cracked a window, and lit up.
The first cigarette made me nauseous.
The second calmed me down.
I’ve never bothered to kick the habit. It’s my small way of telling the universe to fuck off.
As for the letter I sent Malachy…look.
At this point I was acutely aware of the fact that Ireland was not for the Jenkins girls. I ran away from it, leaving the father of my child arrested and eventuall
y thrown in jail. Everyone in Tolka hated me, and Rory by proxy. Malachy reminded me of Glen every single time my daughter spoke about him.
The music, the guitar, the songwriting, the charm, the alcohol, the hysterical impatience, the whirlwind romance, and the ability to drive women to madness. I was terrified, and sure, he was just a phase—the first real, exciting guy she’d ever met.
I only half-lied in that letter. I told him the truth about the thought process of being pregnant at eighteen. I just lied about my identity.
It wasn’t Rory who wrote to him; it was me.
And I didn’t abort the baby; I kept her.
Not that I didn’t think about having an abortion at the time. I went as far as booking an appointment at the clinic. But when I arrived and flipped through the leaflets, the clock moving at a snail’s pace, each tick-tock sound flicking my skin like a welt, I realized I couldn’t do it.
Not to her. Not to me. We were in this together.
Then there was her scar.
Of course, I wanted her to hide or remove it. But I couldn’t afford the plastic surgery. I hate it, okay? That’s the truth. It’s a constant reminder of how I failed my daughter. I couldn’t keep her safe from her own father, even when the writing was on the wall, smeared in a drunk’s man vomit.
There are the good souls asking me why I didn’t tell Rory the entire story. Well, what kind of good would it have done her? It was easier to keep her innocence intact, to send Father Doherty gifts, which he sent back to her, and pretend her father was functioning and loving and present. Should I really have told her we sent him to jail? Should I have scarred her again before she even knew how to spell her own name?
I let her think what she wanted to think.
That he was some kind of a hero, that she was deeply loved.
She already thought I was lame. So I scored a few more lameness points. Big deal.
All I ever wanted was to protect my daughter.
By hiding the letters.
By telling Malachy to back off.
Sure, the way I did it may offend some people. I definitely took it too far. Most parents in my position, I believe, would have ignored Mal’s letters. Or simply not opened them in the first place. But I thought I was saving her.
And I’ll do anything in my power to help her.
Even if it kills me.
Even if it villainizes me.
That’s what they don’t tell you in the movies. Bad guys have hearts, too.
Present
Mal
Finding Debbie Jenkins at my doorstep was akin to finding dog shit on my porch, lit on fire, attached to a ticking time bomb, which had been secured to a school bus full of kids.
This woman has messed with my life more than anyone else I know, and still, I called her here, knowing that Rory needs her. I put her on a plane—first class, in case you were wondering, a luxury I’d never indulge in myself—so she could salvage her relationship with her daughter.
When I open the door, she’s staring at her pointy, glittery cowgirl boots with a frown, drawing a circle with the tip of the right one. Rory wasn’t exaggerating about the hairspray, highlights, and Coyote Ugly outfit. Her mother looks like a Vegas showgirl who fell asleep under the blazing sun and woke up twenty years later.
Rory is in the bedroom, dead to the world after a turbulent few days, and I want to make this as painless as possible for my wife.
“Debbie.” I open the door, stepping aside. “Do you need help with your suitcase?”
“I didn’t bring one. I wasn’t expecting her to—”
“Forgive you? I wouldn’t, either. But Rory’s better than that.” Than us.
She still refuses to look at me. If nothing else, her shame is evidence that she has a soul. That’s good. Souls are rolling, organic, never-dying things. Bodies are born and die and decay in between.
Debbie steps in gingerly. I make her a cup of tea without asking if she needs it, while she perches her arse on a stool by the breakfast nook.
I slide the cup toward her and stand at the other end, waiting. Her chin is still tucked into her neck, and she’s doing everything she can to avoid eye contact.
“I didn’t…” she starts, then clamps her mouth shut. She opens her mouth again. “I mean, my daughter has always been my number-one priority. She still is. You should know that.”
“Funny thing is, she was my priority, too,” I answer evenly.
“You can’t blame me for not wanting her to repeat my mistakes,” she says to her thighs. “You know what went down when I was here. The entire village does.”
“No, but I can blame you for naturally assuming I’m as bad as Glen.”
She finally looks up at me, her eyes big and green, like Rory’s. Unlike Rory’s, they’re also sad and crinkly and bloodshot. They’ve seen things they never wanted to witness. We have that in common.
“You were a young boy, a drunk, a busker, a shameless flirt.” She shakes her head. “Look, I’m not here to fight. Thanks for the ticket, but I’m here to see my daughter and go. And I’ll be taking her with me.”
“Fat chance.” I yawn, cupping my mouth and revealing my wedding band.
Just to be clear, it is not the same wedding band I wore when I married Kath. I couldn’t chance jinxing my marriage to Rory with a band that was a constant reminder of the biggest tragedy in my life.
Debbie’s eyes widen, and she opens her mouth, about to say something, just as we hear a groggy voice from the corridor.
“Mom? What are you doing here?”
Rory is rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and whaddaya know? Her ring twinkles as she does. Debbie looks between us, her mouth slacking in shock. Guess I should’ve given her a heads-up before I got her on that plane. Oops.
I stand up and rap the counter.
“I believe you have some things to discuss. Have fun, ladies.”
“Mal! What the heck?” Rory grabs my wrist as I make my way to the door.
I need to visit Tamsin and explain to her with my usual delicacy (of a tank) that there’s someone new in our lives. Someone I love dearly.
I kiss the side of my wife’s neck. “Tamsin only has two grandmas. Don’t you reckon she deserves three?”
That’s all I need to say to make her melt and smile at me cunningly.
“You’re a pig,” she whispers.
I steal another kiss, laughing as I march to the door. “Then you’re my shit.”
Rory
“Explain yourself,” I tell her.
I flick the kettle on and try to calm my heartbeat. Talking to my mother right now is the last thing I want, but it needs to happen. On one hand, I’m grateful and surprised she’s put on a show for my entire existence, feeding me sweet lies to protect me. It’s kind of endearing, in a screwed-up, totally dysfunctional way. On the other, she tore Mal and me apart for years. Everything would have looked so different had she just given me his letters.
But then again, Tamsin wouldn’t have been born.
Mal wouldn’t have her.
I would never know that Summer is a backstabbing friend who slept with my boyfriend.
And I never would have landed the job with Ryner that taught me who I am as an artist.
“No, you explain yourself to me, Rory. What is this marriage nonsense? You hardly know the guy! Plus, you have a boyfriend.” Mom shoots on her feet, waving her hand in the air, her bangles clashing, creating a wind-chimes kind of sound.
It transports me back to adolescence, and I find myself touching the hoop in my nose, gritting my teeth.
“Callum and I broke up.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I cheated on him. And before you say anything—please remember you cheated on your boyfriend with Glen, too.”
Mom’s face falls. She raises a finger, about to defend herself, but I interject.
“Besides, I found out afterwards that he cheated on me first—with Summer, of all people. Although, to be honest, looking back, I’
ve always had my suspicions. He always tried to change me, to clip my wings in small, roundabout ways. And anyway, Mal and I are married, and after the bullshit Ryner pulled when Ashton Richards died, I’m not in a hurry to get back into the glitz and glamor of this industry.”
I didn’t know this to be true until the words escape my mouth. But as soon as they do, it becomes crystal clear to me.
I should be doing something different.
People like Ryner don’t inspire me. I’m a photographer. I take photos. It brings me, and others, joy. I could be a photographer anywhere. I could take pictures of things that are far more interesting than pampered, delusional, plastic pop princesses and self-entitled rock stars who think the sun shines from their buttholes.
Mal sold his soul to the devil and started selling his songs because he had to.
I don’t have to.
I don’t need any special medical treatment. I am perfectly content making pennies.
“Rory! Oh my goodness. How am I supposed to react to this? You didn’t even invite me to your wedding!” Mom slaps the back of her hand to her forehead.
“Mom, we married in private. Just the two of us and witnesses.”
“Like, in Vegas?”
“Like, in Cyprus.”
Her eyes are wide and frighteningly, radioactively green. “But Rory, what if he isn’t the one?”
“He is.” I take both her hands, ushering her to the backyard. I want her to see where we fell in love. On that piece of green grass, under the sky that was lit with a thousand stars.
“Look here.” I point at the backyard. “Eight years ago, almost nine, I sat here with Mal and knew that no other boy would ever make my heart beat as fast and hard. And you know what? No one ever did. I know you are wary. I know Ireland brings many harsh memories to the surface. Father Doherty told me all about them. I’m sorry, Mom, but I knew you never would, and I needed to learn the truth.”