by J. J. McAvoy
“And in the post-Melody era?”
She giggled at that. “We’re still accessories, but we are…like one of those gadgets in a James Bond film. On the outside we look like a lipstick, but really we’re a bomb. We have the ability to do things they can’t and because of that a lot more women are now a part of everything or at least from what I hear.”
She wasn’t being coy. She really didn’t know much.
“Huh.” I didn’t really know how to reply.
“I’m going to tell you something and I was going to wait until it wasn’t your day but might as well lump all the shit together—”
“What is it?”
She sighed, opening her purse to pull out her phone and show me a medical report…Klarissa Moretti’s medical report.
“She’s pregnant,” she said as if I couldn’t read.
Looking away, I tried to think, but my mind went blank.
“I can—”
Jumping off the sink counter, I walked out of the bathroom, trying to figure out where to go.
“Ma’am.” Greyson, the hulk, stepped in front of my face. “Are you all right?”
When I didn’t answer he reached for his phone, but I shook my head.
“Stop.” My voice was barely over a whisper as the wheels began to turn in my mind. “When Ethan isn’t around you have to listen to me, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded, putting the phone back in his pocket.
“He’s not here. So take me to Klarissa Moretti’s room.”
“Ma’am—”
“Now.”
He looked over his shoulder and around us, but no one else was there, with the exception of the guards. Nodding, he led me, not to the elevator, but to the stairs.
“Ethan knows, doesn’t he…about her,” I said as we walked down the white staircase, which led to her level of the hospital. But I answered my own question. “Of course he knows. If Nari knows, he has to know.”
He said nothing as they walked down only one floor. The guards in the staircase moved for us as we went down. Opening the door to her floor, I followed him, noticing for the first time how late it was since all the lights in the rooms were dimmed. There was only a nurse on the whole floor. All the doors were closed and blinds down, but I knew no one was in there. Grayson stopped in front of a room 9219.
“This is it.” He nodded to the door.
I thought for a long time how this would go, making him say “Ma’am, don’t do it, it won’t make you feel better.”
“Grayson, ninety-percent of the things I do now aren’t to feel better.”
Hearing the nurse get up and start to leave, I turned back to her. “Excuse me!”
“Ma’am.” Grayson tried to stop me from talking to her, but I ignored him, walking over to her. She was an older woman, maybe a few years older than Evelyn. Her dull gray-blonde hair reminded me of how mine was before it was fixed.
“Did you need something Mrs. Callahan?”
Mrs. Callahan already? Apparently word got around quick. I pointed to the golden Claddagh brooch, the heart was made of a bright white pearl, that was pinned on her deep blue scrubs. “Where did you get this? I love it a lot.”
She looked down brushing her fingers over it; “This old thing? I bought it for a dollar at my neighbor’s yard sale.”
“Can I buy it from you? I’ll pay a hundred thousand for it.” I said with a smile on my face.
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“The brooch. I really like it.” I repeated it.
She looked at me as if I were insane, but took it off and gave it to me. I looked it over before telling her.
“Thank you. Grayson, please pay her,” I said, turning around, placing the brooch into my open purse and heading straight towards room 9219. The wooden door squeaked when I stepped inside. Making the woman inside, who wasn’t even looking towards me, say, “I knew you’d come.” She turned, the grin on her face deflating as she saw me instead of the man she hoped would come.
Her hair was brushed over her shoulder, and she had cuts on her arms and face, including the one from the punch I’d given her. She sat up on the bed earlier…she’d been waiting.
“How did you know he’d come?” I asked as I walked further into the room, closing the door behind me.
“Because he values family more than anything else. Once he knew, he’d have to come,” she said proudly, placing her hand on her stomach. “Aren’t I lucky? Our son’s a fighter just like his father.”
I glanced at her stomach and then at her again. “You aren’t scared of me, are you?”
“Why would I be?”
“Yeah, most people say that.” I sighed.
She snickered, even popping her head to the side. “You don’t belong in our lives. This is proof. Congrats, you may now be Ethan’s wife, but I’m going to be the mother of his child...he won’t let anything happen to either of us.”
“…hmmm.”
“What?” She glared at me. “There’s nothing you can do. Other than get used to me, that is.”
Without a word, I turned to the machine beside her, reaching inside my purse I pulled the card I’d stolen from the nurse as she gave me her brooch, swiping it on the machine.
“What are you doing? Stop!” She tried reaching over to smack my arm away but she couldn’t reach and I did what I needed to do.
“I’m sure you really love Ethan.” I said, turning to her. Picking up her morphine drip and pressing down hard, the limit was taken off it and the drug flooded into her system. “And I can’t say I do…so this may seem unfair. But life has been unfair to me too. In the past…I just let it go. Good will win out at the end of the day. That’s what I told myself…But I was wrong. Now I have a second chance, Klarissa. I can’t wait for the end of the day. I can’t be the better person. I can’t be left behind.”
Her body weakened, her arms fell back onto the bed, I swiped the nurse’s card once more, getting out of the system, setting the dose back to normal, and moving over to her, I put the control for the drip in her palm.
“Burn…in…hell.” She sneered at me as I returned the room back to normal, even moving the machine back into place.
“I already did,” I whispered back, petting her cheek before moving back to the door.
When I opened the door, Greyson looked at me and then back at the woman glaring at my back.
“She doesn’t want to talk,” I said to him.
He frowned but nodded, moving for me to walk past. I stopped near the station, the nurse now gone, most likely happily celebrating. I dropped her card on the desk before we walked across the cream-colored lobby, towards the door. There, standing in his all black suit at the very top of the white staircase, was Ethan himself. The guards were gone, and he didn’t move, he didn’t say a word, but merely watched me.
“Was she supposed to be a mistress while I was the happy Irish wife to help get Boston’s support back?”
“The Callahan men don’t have mistresses.” He said unmoved and emotionless as always.
“I heard that once,” I replied stepping up and up until I stood on the same level as him. We turned to face each other. “I was kid, we were having a cookout, my parents just had their anniversary and my grandma said, ‘Say what you want about ’em Callahan boys but ain’t none of them ever step out on their wives.’ Her voice was the first thing that went through my mind as Nari told me about Klarissa.”
“Is it—”
Before he could say anything I punched him as hard as I could. His head went back, but he took it, lifting his hand to wipe the blood from his nose.
“Dona was right. You know how to throw a punch,” he muttered.
“And you know how to use people.” I snapped back at him. “The second thing that went through my mind was whether you knew. I quickly realized you did. And if you were going to keep her as your mistress, you would have made sure Nari had no chance to speak to me. But you didn’t and she did. So that means you must have t
old her to tell me. You did this so I’d kill her and you didn’t have to have that on your hands. You didn’t kill your unborn child, your wife did.”
He didn’t bother trying to deny it. “It was only three weeks old. It wasn’t a child. It was a bunch of cells.”
“And yet you still couldn’t do it.”
Again he didn’t deny it.
“Don’t EVER use me without my consent again!”
“I’ll handle it then—”
“In another two minutes she’ll be dead,” I whispered bitterly.
“What?”
“I knew what you’d plan by the time I got to that door. I knew and I was pissed, and you were wrong to use me, but it would be worse if you’d actually done it.”
His eyebrows came together in confusion. “I thought you drew the line.”
“Neither of us has a line,” I whispered, resting my head on his shoulder. “Her IV was part sodium chloride, sucrose, bicarbonate, and vitamins. That and the increased morphine I gave her will cause her to go into heart failure, if the doctors get to her on time and try to use panels she’ll die instantly. If not, she’ll die from lack of oxygen.”
By the time I finished speaking I looked to the door, hearing a doctor and nurse running and shouting. Greyson came into the stairwell looking at me first.
“She’s dead?” I asked.
He nodded.
“How sad,” I said, walking back up the stairs, leaving Ethan to stand alone. But not before adding, “Don’t be surprised if I do not speak to you for a while.”
I didn’t look at anyone. I didn’t speak as I reached the Callahan floor. One of the guards opened the door to the Evelyn’s room, the whole family sat around the suite, as if it were their home. Some of them resting on the couch. Some by the window, but my eyes went to dining table we had all just eaten at. Cora was packing away what was left of my wedding cake. Her brown eyes glanced over to me. I looked away, walking over to Evelyn’s bedside. Her eyes barely open. But a small grin was on her face as she looked over her family. Siting on her bed, I took the brooch out of my purse.
“A Claddagh.” I told her even though I knew she was aware what it was and what it meant. “Hands in loyalty.”
The corner of her mouth turned up and she nodded.
ETHAN
He handed me the ice for my face, which I took, siting on one the stairs.
“Exactly as you planned, sir,” Greyson said to me.
“No, Greyson.” I grinned. “This was much, much better.”
She knew I used her. She knew everything. This was guilt free, something I didn’t even think to achieve.
I didn’t want Klarissa.
She’d chosen to steal a condom and play God herself.
She played the game and lost.
She was never meant to be my wife.
Eleven fifty-eight p.m…Klarissa’s time of death. Ivy’s time of rebirth.
“She’s cold, sir,” Greyson said, partially terrified, partially impressed.
“Wrong again,” I replied. She was a Callahan and like all Callahans... “She’s ruthless.”
FIFTEEN
“The road to hell was paved with the bones of men who did not know when to quit fighting.”
~ Paulette Jiles
ETHAN
“The list you wanted,” I said, handing her the tablet as I read the messages coming in on my phone. In the chaos of the previous day I’d almost forgotten I’d given her my word, and I was a man of my word. Not feeling the weight lifted from my hand, I paused, looking over at her, thinking she’d fallen asleep. However, she merely stared out the window as we drove toward the house.
“Ivy,” I called out to her.
Silence was what I got in return. And I was sure she’d heard me because she shifted even more so toward her door and away. I hated many things, but nothing pissed me off more than being ignored.
“Mrs. Callahan,” I called out to her again.
This time she merely wound down the window, taking a deep breath of the cold air, her gold-blond hair blowing all round. Part of me thought to leave her alone but…
“Wife!” I snapped at her.
And she snapped back, not in words. She grabbed the tablet from my hand and flung it out the window. Sitting up, she tapped Toby on the shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am.” The bastard was a little too happy.
“Can I get a phone?” she asked him softly and her face was far too close to his for my own liking.
“And who are you seeking to call?” I asked her.
Still silence.
“Toby, I don’t need to call anyone, just so I can listen to music and get Internet, please,” she said to him then sat back, closing her eyes.
The corners of his mouth turned up into a small smile and I had half the mind to beat the shit out of him. However, knowing him, he’d only laugh outright seeing me get worked up over a woman. Fine. She didn’t want to speak. I wouldn’t speak to her then.
“Toby, get her whatever she wants. One less thing I need to concern myself with,” I muttered, putting the phone back into my coat jacket and leaning back into the seat as well.
The car was silent the whole way back to the house. And no sooner had we gone through the gates and pulled up at the door, the butlers already waiting, had she jumped out on her own, slamming the door behind her as she stomped away, like a child. Rolling my eyes, I stepped out and rounded the car, stopping right beside Toby, again with that ill-advised look of humor on his face.
“Next time my wife refuses to speak with me and thus addresses you…your next words should be ‘You’ll need to speak with your husband, ma’am.’ Understood?” I didn’t wait for him to reply and walked up the stairs into the house myself. Taking off my coat and handing it to the butler, I prepared myself for our most likely fight. I highly doubted she’d be able to keep her anger bottled inside for long.
When I got to our wing, she was pulling the doorknob to her former room in confusion. Hearing my footsteps, she glanced up at me as I already began to take off my cufflinks.
“We were attacked. The house is still on lockdown. Only a Callahan’s fingerprints and voice can open the doors till I unlock everything…like this.” I grabbed my doorknob of my door. “Ethan Callahan.”
The door beeped before opening. She glared at me and lifted up her middle finger, only her middle finger, to show me her wedding ring.
“Right, you’re a Callahan now.” I smirked. “Whenever you’d like to be added to the system, let me know. Until then you can either come inside before I close the door, or you can sleep in the hall, like a dog not a wife.”
She cracked her jaw to the side, and I waited. When she glared at me and didn’t move I shrugged, walking into my…our room, closing the door behind me.
Insane woman.
Pushing her out of my mind, I walked to my closet, throwing my coat onto the couch and pulling out my pistol. I thought back to my mother’s gift to her. It was just like her. If there was anything my mother loved, it was a good gun. If there was anything my father hated, it was my mother with a gun, most likely because she’d end up shooting at him. She’d actually shot him twice.
Wait… Taking out my phone, I called my aunt.
“Ethan?”
“Make sure no one ever tells my wife that my mother shot at my father. I’d rather that tradition die with my mother.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but what’s spoken between the Callahan women are secrets even to their husbands—”
“I bet he’s regretting that food comment now.” I heard my uncle Declan snicker over the line.
“Tell Uncle I don’t have regrets,” I said.
“Tell him yourself,” she said. I heard her hand him the phone.
“Ethan.”
“Uncle.”
“I’ve always wondered what I’d say to you when this day came,” he said as I put my ear piece in my ear and threw the phone to the side.
“And what day is that?�
�
“Your wedding day. Well, I’m a little late on account of the fact that you threw that wedding without much warning, but luckily good advice never expires.”
“And how are you sure it’s good?” I asked, taking off my shirt.
“Because I’m happily married. So was your father and so was your grandfather. Obviously we got it right.”
“Very well, impart your sage knowledge if you must, but please not now. I’d like to get some sleep before someone else gets on my bad side,” I said, pulling off my shoes.
“So damn hardheaded.” He sighed as I heard what sounded like a bottle opening.
“Don’t you think it’s a little early for scotch?”
“Nope,” he replied, and I smirked. Obviously he wasn’t next to my aunt anymore. “Ethan, the secret to being happily married, no matter to what type of person, is losing.”
“Come again?”
“I know it must be difficult for someone like you, who’s done everything to always win. However, wives are different. They have the ability to let you know they are pissed even when they aren’t speaking.”
I paused, glancing at the camera in the upper room of my closet. “Have you been spying on me, Uncle?”
“No, why?” He sounded honest, which made me doubt him more. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is you will have no peace with an angry wife. Fighting is good, it’s healthy, makes for good sex too—”
“Goodbye—”
“However, there comes a point in every battle you must concede to defeat. Did you know Aunt Coraline thought it would be a good idea to go see the aurora borealis and sleep in a fucking tent? She hates tents. She fucking hates being in the forest. The last thing I wanted was to haul my ass up to the ice block that is Canada, to see the sky change fucking colors, on top of which listen to her bitch about how damn cold she was or how many bugs there were. She’d love it for about ten minutes and then want to leave. A younger me would have tried to explain this to her rationally. We’d fight. She’d ignore me for days until my blue balls and I gave in. We’d go to where she wanted and she’d do exactly what I knew she’d do and we’d spend time looking for a hotel. Thank God I’m no longer the younger me. I said, sure, honey, let’s go. She was all excited packing while I looked for a hotel. So when we got to the fucking ice capital of the world and she had her magical moment I was the hero who already had a hotel waiting. No blue balls. No fighting. Just us in a well-heated suite. Why?”