Made With Love

Chapter 5

The first thing I see when I open the door to my apartment is an arc of backward flung plaid shirts and holey Levi’s. Then I see Brad, hair cropped ultra short, jeans a tad too skinny. For a split second, I wonder if the new do is in some way about me—Brad’s metro attempt at getting over Julie Quinn—but Miss Thang (et al.) has very likely got that base covered. I freeze midstep in the hall, one half of my brain saying ‘Turn around: Springer episode is not what you need right now’, the other one yowling, ‘Bullshit! This is my apartment!’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I growl at Brad. He flinches upright and slams his head on the inside of the wardrobe.

‘Jesus, Julie. For God’s sake,’ he says, rubbing at the back of his head.

‘Get out.’

‘I’m just getting my things. Just…’ His eyes dart from me to the stack of ratty boxes on the floor. ‘I’ll only be a second.’

‘GET OUT!’ I screech at him.

‘Look, I didn’t know you’d be home,’ he huffs.

‘Yeah? That’s twice,’ I snipe at him.

‘What was I supposed to do? You never called me back.’

‘Take the hint.’

I can feel my limbs going numb, but I shore myself up against the wall and stare him down impassively.

‘Come on, Julie. This is stupid, right? I said I was sorry. And I am. Can’t we at least talk to each other?’

‘I have nothing to say to you,’ I wince. He takes a step toward me, and I step aside, my back flush against the kitchen door. The smell of his skin is at once maddening and enthralling.

He hefts up the two boxes. ‘I’m going,’ he says, but he doesn’t move. ‘Listen, Jules...’ I look away and suck in a sharp breath. ‘I know I’m the last person you want to hear this from right now, but I love you. I want you to be happy. What I did, it wasn’t fair on you. I know that. But it’s you I want, Jules. It’s always been you.’

Even if I did believe him, there’s no way my pride’s caving on this one.

I jut a hand out. ‘The key?’

‘Right.’ Brad dumps the boxes on the floor and digs the key out of his pocket. He sets it on the sideboard beside the photograph of Mum and Dad and pauses. I can feel him looking me over and brace myself.

Here it comes—hated final thought of the boy who ‘loved you.’

Brad breathes out through his nose and shifts his weight onto his back leg. ‘What happened to your folks,’ he says, ‘that was awful. And now, I don’t know, it’s like you’re hell bent on playing it safe. But you can’t control everything. And you can’t go on living life from the inside out.’

I can feel my gaze soften a touch and, as much as it grates me to admit (even to myself), I know that Brad’s right. He kicks the boxes aside and tries to reach out to me, and I sidestep him. Just because he’s right doesn’t unmake the gaping hole in his moral logic. It’s only cheating if I catch you? Well, you done been caught.

‘Don’t talk about my parents,’ I whisper.

Brad puts a hand up as if in surrender. He kicks at one of the boxes and stares at the toe of his boot.

‘My best friend at St. Vincent’s,’ he began, ‘one day some woman told him not to come into her shop anymore. He was trash and so was his family. I was standing right there and didn’t make much of it. I would’ve said something, but I couldn’t have known.’

Don’t want to hear it. Don’t care. Not at all.

I can feel the tears building in the back of my throat, and I curse Brad and myself silently.

‘He went home and got his dad’s pistol down out of crawl space. Walked down to the river so his mom wouldn’t come on him first. He was fifteen, sixteen.’

‘Why would you tell me that?’ I ask, a single hot tear staining my cheek. Brad tries to smile but can’t.

‘Good things, bad things, they’re going to happen,’ he says. ‘That white-knuckle grip you’ve got on your life? Doesn’t make one bit of difference.’

I sniff back the tear and fold my arms across my chest. ‘So I should just “let go”? Is that it?’

Brad nods yes.

‘No deadlines, no ambitions,’ I count off, ‘and not one consideration for anyone else.’ I swing open the door. ‘Grow up, Brad.’

He blinks at me, his eyes mirroring the pain in my gut, and shoulders the boxes. I watch as he retreats down the hall, his entire self somewhat diminished. I am sorry for his trouble, but that’s all I am. I don’t call out to him as he waits with tense shoulders for the elevator to come. I close the door and lock it tight behind me before he’s disappeared.

The bedroom’s a mess—drawers riffled, a pile of dirty clothes kicked out of the hamper. One of Brad’s undershirts peeps out from under the bed. I toe it out of sight and slam the drawers shut, sucking it up, willing myself not to break down and ball up on the bed.

Think about the future. Think about Quinn and Foster! I tell myself and march into the sitting room. I click on my laptop and draw up a spreadsheet of all the things Kate and I will need day one at the firm. It’s a long list, a lot longer than I’d thought it would be. I scale it against our projected budget. The numbers are less than encouraging. We’d have to nix those ergonomic chairs, maybe the printer/copier.

I click onto Craigslist and scroll through a list of second-hand office furniture. All rubbish. The letter from the Irish solicitor glares up at me from the desktop. A cash inheritance would sort out a lot of things... My hands waver over the keyboard. It wouldn’t hurt to look, would it? I google the ‘Aran Islands’ and a flood of pastoral images, squat stone cottages, craggy shorelines and green, sheep studded fields fills the screen.

‘Inishmore,’ I read. ‘Largest of the Aran Islands... stronghold of Irish culture. Population 900.’ Oh dear God.

I slide the plane ticket out of the envelope and tap it on the desktop. It’d only be a few days. I’d be back at the weekend. The photograph of Mum and Dad winks at me from the hall. I grab my phone and text Kate: ‘Have to take a rain check on lunch Wednesday. I’ll be in Ireland.’ I hit send and smile to myself.

Before I lose my nerve, I bolt out of the chair and pull a fusty suitcase from the wardrobe. What the hell do you pack for a non-holiday on a rock in the middle of the North Atlantic? I frown at the row of high heels on the bottom shelf, the silk shirts and pencil skirts. The phone buzzes in my pocket.

‘Bring me back a brogue! (Or a man with one)!’ Kate texts.

Eyeballing the men folk—that’ll be the last thing I do. ‘You snag the keys to that office!’ I ping her back.

A thumbs-up icon bleeps onto the screen.

Very carefully, I slip Mum and Dad’s photo out of the smashed frame and tuck it into my wallet. I dig my passport out of the desk drawer and flick it open. My God, look at that hair! I glance at the mirror, then back at the photograph. I can see my mother around my eyes, in the soft fall of my cheeks. Would Aunt Clare know me to see me? Would she, by some miraculous turn of heart, welcome me into her life? Or would she stand back, tight-lipped and brooding, and let me come and go a stranger?

A shudder of dread runs the length of my spine and settles in the pit of my stomach. What would I say to her? What could I say? Clare is the one person on the planet whose blood I share, the only true link I have with my past, yet I’ve never been in the same room with her. I’ve never heard her voice, and now I’m trekking halfway around the world! For what? A handout from my dead grandmother? No. I don’t need anything from the Tullys. Not one thing except an answer.