by Jamie Pope
“Hiya, Pop,” he heard Maeve say.
It was then his eyes focused on his father. He was in a hospital bed, a sheet covering up his useless body. He looked much older than he was. He wasn’t even sixty yet, but he looked like a man who had lived a very long, hard life. His hair was shockingly white, not the oil-slick black it used to be. He wasn’t big anymore. His presence didn’t take up space. He was frail, his skin so translucent that you could nearly see all the veins beneath it.
Cullen felt no fear or anxiety from his presence. It was the first time he had been in a room with his father and was sure that the man wouldn’t lift a fist to him. He was still numb, but maybe there was some sadness there. Sadness over a life wasted. He didn’t expect to feel that.
His father’s eyes focused. They settled on Maeve, then went to Liam. It was a moment before they went to him. Seamus’s eyes settled on him for a long while. They were staring at each other in a silent deadlock in which Cullen refused to look away. Recognition sparked in his eyes and he immediately began to struggle to sit up, but his body wasn’t strong enough to accomplish the task.
“Pop, don’t,” Liam said. “Just rest.”
“Is . . . that . . . my . . . son?” Every word was a struggle to get out. Cullen couldn’t make himself move or respond. He stood where he was, staring at the man he didn’t recognize anymore.
“That’s Cullen. He’s come to see you,” Liam said softly.
“Come here, son.”
He wasn’t acknowledging his other children. It bothered Cullen. They had come from far away to be with their father as well. Liam had been more loyal to him than anyone and yet they were ignored, not even greeted. All of the attention was on Cullen. It was a feeling he was used to. It was a feeling he hated.
“Say hello to your children.”
His father frowned in confusion, as if he didn’t have other children.
“Your other children. The little ones.” He gently pushed both Liam and Maeve forward. “They’re the reason I’m here. You acknowledge them right now, you old bastard.”
“Hello, Liam. Hello, Maeve. Thank you.” They both nodded. It was clear they were both emotional. Maeve was on the verge of tears. Liam didn’t look far behind. “How are you feeling, Pop?” Maeve asked.
“My son is here,” he answered, looking at Cullen as if Liam wasn’t his. “Let me see you, Cullen.”
He gave his father what he wanted and walked closer. He was a man now. A decorated veteran. A retired intelligence officer. A man who worked hard and earned what he had. No handouts. No leg ups. He did it alone. He wanted him to see who he was in spite of him.
“You did well for yourself.”
Cullen nodded.
“You live in America now?”
He nodded again, not giving him more information than that.
“Is that your girl?” He looked beyond Cullen to Wyn, taking her in for a moment. It was rare that somebody who looked like Wyn was in Northern Ireland. He tensed, waiting for his father to say something about the color of her skin.
“Yes, she’s mine,” he said through clenched teeth.
“American?”
“Yes.”
“She’s posh. Good work.”
The compliment knocked him off-center. It was so surreal having this conversation with him. His father acted as if nothing happened, like there weren’t multiple daily beatings. Like he never had gotten so drunk in a pub that Cullen had to literally drag his passed-out body home. He acted like his alcoholism and his destruction never existed.
And maybe it didn’t in his mind. Maybe the alcohol had done in his brain.
“You’ve seen me now. I’m going to step out and let Maeve and Liam visit with you.” He turned to go.
“You’re going to leave me again?” The question was clear. His voice had been getting stronger as their conversation continued, but this time his voice was crystal clear, no slurring, no struggle.
“I never wanted to see you in the first place.”
“Why? I loved you. I never wanted you to go.” Cullen’s anger sparked and rose wildly. His balled his hands into fists and forced himself to stay on the spot. “I had to go. I would have been nothing there with you.”
“You could’ve come back for me. Taken me with you. Set me up in a nice place. I was lonely without you.”
“What?” He couldn’t process what his father was saying. “You expected me to come back?”
“If you had, I wouldn’t be in this bloody place now.”
Cullen couldn’t say that Maeve hadn’t warned him. She told him that his father blamed him, but actually hearing it sent him over the edge. He took off his coat, pulled his shirt over his head, and bared his back to his father. “You did this to me.”
He heard his siblings cry out in distress.
“No,” his father denied it.
“You beat me bloody every damn day for years. You took your anger and your grief out on me. I didn’t deserve it. You were my father. You were supposed to protect me. You nearly destroyed me. I don’t owe you a fucking thing.” He put his shirt back on. “Good-bye, Pop. I hope you find more peace in the next world than you did in this one.”
He walked out. There was nothing more he wanted to hear from him. There was nothing more for Cullen to say.
His lungs expanded as soon as he left the care facility. They hurt, feeling as if a bomb had gone off inside him. He needed to clear his head, to be anywhere but here. A hand reached out to grab him and he swung around, seeing that Wyn was there, heavy concern etched into her face.
“Let’s take a walk,” she said. He nodded and took her hand. Walking away was what he needed to do, but part of him felt miserable about it.
Chapter 17
They had walked for hours that day. Wyn had made sure she held onto his hand tightly as they made their way to the city. It was important for her to make sure Cullen didn’t feel alone. But she was glad he confronted his father. Glad he showed him the scars that hadn’t healed in twenty years. She didn’t know if it had any impact on the man, but he had needed to see them. Maeve and Liam had needed to see them. They had known that Seamus had beat his son, but she was sure that they didn’t know how bad it had been until that moment. She could read the shocked disgust on their faces.
But she also knew they were torn. Their father was dying. It was clear as soon as they walked into the room. Wyn had watched them all. Cullen’s face had gone to stone. His entire body had as soon as his father had set eyes upon him. It was hard for Wyn to fathom that shell of a man, who couldn’t even sit up on his own, was the man who had beat his son like that.
It would have been the same for the other Whelan children as they grew. They hadn’t really known their father in his prime, taken away when they were little more than babies. They didn’t remember him the way Cullen did. To them, he was just absent. But even when they were in the same room, he was still absent to them. He had only focused on his eldest son. His eyes coming alive. There was happiness there and maybe a little bit of hatred. His father seemed obsessed with him. He blamed him for his weaknesses. He blamed him for not coming back.
Wyn wanted to talk to Cullen about it. But she remained silent for the day. He would have to let her know when he was ready. If he was ready. She decided that her role was just to be there for him.
They walked around the city. Through the parks. He showed her places he had been as a boy. He explained how different they were. How different they felt now that the city was no longer in danger of exploding into violence at any moment.
They were now back at the hotel. The sun was starting to set. Wyn had ordered room service for them. The food had been there for about ten minutes, but Cullen made no move to eat.
“Cullen, you need to eat. You’ve barely eaten anything in the past two days.”
He looked up at her from his spot in the chair by the window. “I’m not hungry.”
“I didn’t ask you if you were hungry. I told you that you needed t
o eat. It’s not healthy.”
He got up and walked over to her. “Would you like to go France with me? Not to Paris, but to this little town on the sea that I went to when I was still in the army. We can have good wine and lay in bed all morning and in the afternoons we can explore the town.”
“I would go anywhere with you.”
He came over to her, cupped her face in his hands, and looked into her eyes. “You mean that?”
“Yes. Anywhere. I love you, Cullen.”
The words slipped out, but she didn’t want to take them back. It was something she had been feeling for a long time. He looked at her and then something she never expected to happen, happened. His eyes filled with tears. “Not today, Wyn. Don’t tell me that today.”
“Why not? I should have told you that yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time.”
Tears streamed down his face. She knew she was seeing something no one else had seen. She felt as if she knew all of him now. There were no secrets. Nothing held back. He pulled her close and kissed her. She could feel his rawness in the kiss. She wanted to soothe him. She wanted to make every ounce of hurt inside him disappear, but she didn’t have that power. So she decided just to love him in that moment. She began undressing him, pulling off his shirt, her lips leaving his for only moments. She ran her hands up his back, feeling his scars. She hated that they were there, but she didn’t wish them away, because they were a part of him, a part of who he was as a man.
“I don’t deserve you, Wyn.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not, love?” He picked her up and brought her to the bed, laying her down gently. “It’s true. I never dreamed I could be with someone like you. It doesn’t feel real to me.”
“How can I make it feel real?”
He unbuttoned her pants and slid them down her body. He stared at her for a moment, his eyes taking her in. She felt so beautiful when he looked at her.
“I never want to live someplace so cold again,” he told her. “It takes far too long to undress you when you’re wearing so much.”
“Okay. So we won’t.”
He finished undressing her and himself and laid beside her in bed, their naked skin pressed against each other. “You’d give up D.C.?”
“Yes,” she said, kissing him.
“I would never ask you to do that. You love your job. You’re a good professor.”
“I can teach anywhere. It’s just a job. I want to share my life.”
He looked so tortured for a moment, but he closed the distance between their mouths as he placed his heavy body on top of hers. She loved his weight on her. She loved his smell. The way he felt as he entered her body. She had waited her entire life to feel like this. She wished she could have had this sooner. It took going through great pain for her to experience this kind of love. But she wouldn’t take any of it back. It was all worth it.
* * *
Cullen woke up the next morning with Wyn at his side. Her face was relaxed in sleep, her body curled into his. He never thought he would enjoy having someone so close to him. He thought he would feel trapped, clung onto. But none of those thoughts came into his mind when she was with him. She loved him. She told him she did. She told him more than once. Part of him didn’t believe it. Part of him wished she hadn’t said it, because he wasn’t sure, despite what she said, that he was enough to keep her happy.
It troubled him because he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to give her up. He would be stuck on her. Forever. But he didn’t want to think about that. No thoughts of the future, or the past, or why they were here. He didn’t want to think. He just wanted to be. He kissed the side of her face, not wanting to wake her up, but wanting to feel her skin beneath his lips.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“Good morning, love.”
“I love you,” she said in return. “Stop looking surprised when I say it.”
“I’m not used to hearing that. You should have never told me.”
“Why not?” She seemed hurt.
“Because I won’t ever be able to get over you.”
“Good.” She smiled again, and he thought how perfect it was waking up to a smiling woman. “How are you feeling today?”
“Like I don’t want to think about anything.”
“Is that possible?”
“I don’t think so.” He sat up. “We didn’t eat last night. Let me take you out for a big breakfast. We could drive a little bit out of the city to the countryside. I could show you where my mum grew up. She used to take us there when I was a boy.”
“So you don’t have all bad memories of this place?”
“No. Not all bad. I have some very good ones. I want to share them with you.”
“I would like that.”
“I wish it were summer,” he said. “It’s the most beautiful in the summer.”
“We can always come back.”
“I don’t need to come back. This is it for me. This is my last time. This is my good-bye.”
His cell phone rang just then. He reached for it, seeing it was his sister. “Hello, Maeve.”
“Cull . . . Pop passed away last night.”
It wasn’t a surprise. He had known it was coming. He could see death in the man’s eyes when he first looked at him yesterday. But still he didn’t know what to say. He had wished him dead a thousand times, but now that it happened he had no words. “I’m sorry, love.”
“For heaven’s sake, Cull! Why are you apologizing to me?”
“I don’t know what to say. He was your father.”
“He was our father . . . I didn’t know how bad it was. I didn’t know he did that to you.” He heard the emotion choke her.
Wyn came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle and resting her lips against his scars. “I’m fine now,” he said, not just to comfort her, but because it was true. He was fine. There were moments of happiness. Big moments. He wasn’t alone. He had a family that seemed to be growing as the years went on.
“He said to tell you he was sorry,” she said and then was silent for a long time. “They were his last words. He was sorry, Cullen. I don’t know if you want to forgive him, or even if you can, but he said what he said.”
He didn’t know how he felt about that. He never expected an apology from him. He didn’t want one and now he was finding that he didn’t need one. It didn’t make a difference. He wasn’t angry anymore. The rage had faded away; the repressive numbness was gone too and he was left feeling sore. But it was a soreness that would go away in time.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Liam already made the arrangements. No service. Pop didn’t want one, anyway. Liam will have the ashes sent to him.”
“Okay. Let me know when you are ready to go home and we’ll send you. We won’t be going back right away. I’m going to take Wyn on a little trip.”
He disconnected from his sister, sitting on the bed for a long time, not moving. Wyn said nothing. Her arm was still wrapped around him, her lips still on his skin, reminding him that he wasn’t alone.
“How are you, Cull? I wish I knew the right thing to say to you.”
He turned around and pushed her body down on the bed, his body covering hers. “I’m glad you are here,” he said. He could see the concern in her eyes. She loved him. He was trying to doubt it, but he couldn’t because her looks couldn’t lie. “I think I feel free.”
“He has no hold over you anymore.”
“I think I started to feel free yesterday when I showed him my scars. I hid them for years. I didn’t like for anyone to touch them.”
“They’re a part of who you are as a man.”
He nodded and kissed the side of her neck. “Let’s get dressed. Our time here is over.”
* * *
They had been gone from St. Thomas for almost two weeks. Cullen had taken her to the countryside to show her where his grandparents h
ad lived and then they went to France, to that little seaside village that he had spoken about. It had been beautiful, but Cullen hadn’t been content to stay there. He said he wanted to show her more. Show her places that he had been while he served his country, places that he had good memories of. He took her to France’s wine country and they spent their days making love in a little villa that overlooked the vineyard. Wyn had been happy to be there, to experience it all with the man she loved.
They were happy and went back to St. Thomas. She wished she could have said she could have stayed there forever, but the selfish part of her crept up.
She had a life she left behind. A career. A home. The rest of her life couldn’t be spent on vacation. The scandal was dying down. She quietly checked the American headlines every day they were gone. She couldn’t continue hiding. But she knew she couldn’t go back to the way it was, because she had changed along the way. Her relationship with Cullen had changed. He was still on her father’s payroll. He was still supposed to be protecting her. They needed to have a conversation, but she didn’t feel right bringing it up now. Not so soon after his father’s death.
He seemed fine. He told her he had felt free. But she wasn’t sure how true that was.
How soon could a person snap back from that?
He was sitting outside in the back of their little cottage. His eyes were closed. His face turned up toward the sun. She walked outside and sat beside him, slipping her fingers into his. She could remember the first time she had done that, and how he had flinched. He didn’t flinch now. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
“What do you want to do today, love? We could go to the other side of the island. You haven’t been there yet.”
“That would be nice.”
“You don’t sound too thrilled about it. We don’t have to go. Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll make it happen.”
She took a breath, unsure if she should bring up what was on her mind. “I want to talk to you.”
“You can talk to me anytime, Wyn.” Concern crept into his eyes.