Page 77 of Faithless Vows

There are a handful of them now, hidden in the bottom drawer of my dresser along with the broken half of his wedding band. I tell myself I should leave them there, unread and untouched, but on the nights I can’t sleep, I take them out and sit on the floor with my back against the bed, tucked out of sight from the door, reading his words again and again.

There’s no begging in them. No grand declarations. He doesn’t ask me to come home. Some are harder to read than others, especially the ones where he tells me the truth about the other women he was with while we were together. Those rip my heart out every time. He never offers excuses. He only tells me the truth, and then he tells me he’s sorry. Sorry for lying. Sorry for hurting me. Sorry for ruining us.

Mostly, though, he writes about ordinary things. The house we bought that he’s been living in without me. Work. Little bits about my parents when he sees them. Things we might have once talked about over dinner, or during a drive through the city. Sometimes he tells me he misses me, and he always signs them,Love, Ronin.

And I don’t know what to do with any of it. The letters. The feelings that come with them. The way reading them leaves me angry and aching and missing him all at once. Eachtime I take them out, I tell myself it will be the last time. Then a few nights go by, and I’m back on the floor, reading them all over again, full of what-ifs I try not to look at too closely.

Like what if Grandda hadn’t put a gun to Ronin’s head in the shed and demanded he sign papers to annul our marriage, papers I hadn’t even known existed before then? What if Ronin hadn’t looked at me and said he wouldn’t sign them unless I asked him to, insisting he wouldn’t take that choice from me? But what kind of choice was that? Ask him to sign, or stand there and watch Grandda put a bullet in his head? And I knew he would. I could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t making an empty threat. He would have pulled the trigger, and I couldn’t let Ronin die for trying to give me a choice I never truly had.

So I did what I felt I had to do. I asked him to sign. Then I told him to go home.

And later, when Grandda came back from the shed, he called me to the kitchen, where the papers were already waiting for me on the table with a pen laid on top. He showed me where to sign, then assured me I didn’t have to worry. He would take care of everything for his Alannah girl, and with his connections, soon enough it would be as though my marriage to Ronin had never happened at all. Then he kissed the top of my head, collected the papers, and left me sitting there.

But all I could think was that ithadhappened, and I didn’t want it to be like it never had. Because even though I hadn’t chosen the match between Ronin and me, I had chosen him. I had wanted to marry him. And I had looked forward to spending my life with him. And I was having a hard time not feeling bitter over the fact that my grandda had chosen how my marriage would end, just as surely as my da had chosen that it would happen in the first place.

So I tried instead to think about how my grandparents had given me somewhere safe to comehome to when everything fell apart in Boston, reminding myself that they had taken care of me, that they loved me, and that they only wanted what was best for me.

A soft knock at my door pulls me from my thoughts, and then it opens. Grandmam stands in the doorway, one hand still on the handle. “I saw your coat on the hook downstairs,” she says. “I wondered if you felt up to coming down and helping me get dinner ready.”

I manage a small smile and push myself to my feet. “Aye, Grandmam,” I say. “I’ll come help.” She nods and leaves the door open behind her. I follow her downstairs, but I keep seeing those papers waiting on the kitchen table, the pen Grandda had already laid on top. I try to think of it as one more way he was taking care of me. He had made sure all I had to do was sign.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Ronin

I pull up outside my parents’ house on Easter Sunday and park behind the O’Connells’ car at the curb. For a moment, I just sit there, staring at it through the windscreen. I don’t think I’ll ever have the kind of relationship I used to have with Alannah’s parents again, but the few times I’ve seen them since I came home from Ireland have been less strained than I expected. Things are still tense. They probably always will be. But at least there hasn’t been any shouting or anyone demanding I leave. I know it isn’t much, but it’s something.

I reach over for the two bouquets on the passenger seat, one for my mam and one for Siobhán, then get out and shut the car door behind me. By the time I make it to the front step, my da is already opening the door.

“Ronin,” he says, stepping aside to let me in before clapping me on the back. “Good to see you, son.”

“Good to see you too, Da.”

He glances at the flowers in my hand and smiles. “Come on,” he says. “Everyone’s in the sitting room. We were just having a drink before dinner.”

I follow my da into the sitting room, where my mam and the O’Connells are already sitting and talking. When we come in, they all get to their feet. I cross the room to my mam first. “Happy Easter, Mam,” I say, kissing her cheek before handing her one of the bouquets. “Thanks for inviting me.”

She smiles as she takes the flowers, her eyes softening. “You’re always welcome here, love.” She looks down at the bouquet. “These are beautiful.”

I turn to Seamus and shake his hand, then offer the second bouquet to Siobhán. “Happy Easter,” I say.

She takes it from me with a warm smile. “Thank you, Ronin. They’re lovely.”

My mam comes up beside Siobhán, still holding her own bouquet, and links her arm through hers. “Come on, Siobhán. Let’s find some vases and get these into water before they start to droop.”

The two women head toward the kitchen, their footsteps fading down the hall, and I take one of the empty chairs while my da moves to the small bar in the corner and pours three whiskeys. He hands one to Seamus and one to me before taking his own seat. I lean back, swirling the amber liquid slowly in my glass.

Seamus clears his throat. “Ronin, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, and I thought it better to wait until Siobhán was out of earshot.” He holds my gaze. “When you were in Ireland, did Alannah mention anything about the letters her mother and I sent?”

The question catches me off guard. I lift my glass and take a drink, buying myself time to think. I haven’t really told anyone much of what happened in Ireland, but my da and Seamus were there when I got home. They saw how beat to hell I was. “No,” I finally say. “It didn’t come up.”

As soon as I say it, Seamus’s face falls, and his shoulders slump forward. “Right,” he says quietly. “Of course it didn’t.”

I watch him, a sick feeling spreading through my chest. I’d been so selfish. So wrapped up in my own anger and embarrassment that night that I never once stopped to think about what I was leaving behind when I walked out. I didn’t think about my parents standing there, trying to smooth everything over. I sure as hell didn’t think about Alannah’s parents expecting her to sit through the rest of the reception and pretend I hadn’t just humiliated her in front of everyone. And I didn’t think about the rest of that room either, all those people watching it happen and then going right back to drinking and celebrating like it was nothing.

The longer I look at Seamus, the worse I feel. He looks exhausted, worn down by months of guilt and worry. I hateknowing I’m part of the reason for both. I search for something I can give him, some small piece of comfort from Ireland, but what am I supposed to say? That I went there and made everything worse? That I hurt his daughter all over again and still tried to force her home with me?

Before I can decide if I should even try to say anything, my mam appears in the doorway with Siobhán beside her. “Dinner’s ready,” she says.