He increased the volume and turned to find Julia standing next to Nick, Declan and Elise trailing after her. Elise’s expression was a mixture of grogginess and curiosity, but Julia was alert, her eyes shining through the room, lit only by the TV.
“What’s going on?” Julia asked.
Ronan looked at her. “You were right. It’s happening.”
32
The sun had broken on a cold clear day as Julia drove north in one of the extra Rovers owned by MIS. It had been three days since the story about Yael Dohan had broken, and she was giddy with freedom. Ronan still looked worried every time she left the house, but he’d stopped going with her on every errand, and when she’d said she was going to visit her mom, he’d seemed to understand it was something she wanted to do alone. His only caveats were a promise that she would keep him posted about her whereabouts and that she would take the Rover instead of her old Prius.
After weeks of being under guard, they were both small tradeoffs.
She cracked her window as she left the city behind. The cold air infiltrated the warmth of the car, but instead of being uncomfortable she felt awake for the first time since her gramps’ death.
They weren’t out of the woods. Yael Dohan hadn’t yet been arrested, but Braden and Nora were confident the Feds would find enough in the documents recovered from Dohan’s home in New York City that they would be able to charge him — and possibly many others — soon.
In the meantime, there was too much press on Dohan for him to come after MIS or anyone affiliated with it.
For now, at least.
It felt like the rope that had been coiled around her neck since Elise’s disappearance was finally loosening, and she’d spent the last twenty-four hours trying to figure out how to tell Ronan that she was pregnant, how to tell him she was scared.
Finally, she’d decided to talk to the one person who knew more about the challenges of motherhood, about what it felt like not to meet those challenges, than anyone else in her life.
She entered the suburbs and got off the highway. The houses were more uniform in style and size than they were in the city, the landscape dominated by shopping malls, chain restaurants, and gas stations.
It had been ages since she’d visited her mom, but the route came back to her like no time had passed, and she found herself turning into the older neighborhood where her mom had been renting for the past ten years, the houses small, the trees thick and towering.
She pulled into the driveway, torn between relief and disappointment when she saw her mom’s car in the driveway. She hadn’t called ahead and she’d half-expected to find the house empty, her mom at work or on an errand, anything that would give Julia more time to figure out how to say what she needed to say, how to ask what she needed to ask.
She turned off the Rover and took a deep breath, her eyes on the tiny house. It was more well maintained than it had been the last time Julia visited. Then the flowerbeds had been overgrown, the lawn brown and in need of cutting. Now the flowerbeds were weeded, rose bushes cut back for winter, mulch covering the ground under various plants that Julia didn’t recognize.
Had her mom gotten into gardening?
The grass was dry in preparation for winter, but it had obviously been cut and maintained over the summer, the edges trimmed along the driveway and the walkway that led to the porch, which looked freshly painted. There was even a fall-themed wreath on the door and a cute little scarecrow propped up on a bale of hay.
Huh.
She got out of the car, wondering if her mother had moved without telling anyone, if someone else lived in the house now. Someone who spent her Saturdays planting flowers, painting the porch, and making trips to the craft store instead of partying.
Her question was answered when she was halfway up the steps and the door opened to reveal her mom, wearing loose pajama pants and a baggy T-shirt, her hair piled on top of her head.
Julia had a flash of her gramps, who had always met her on the porch before she had a chance to knock. Like he was so excited that he couldn’t wait to see her.
“Julia.” Her mom smiled. “What a nice surprise.”
“Hi, Mom.” Julia stepped onto the porch. “Sorry to come without calling.”
“Don’t be silly, sweetheart. You never have to call.” Her mom stepped out onto the porch and pulled Julia into a hug. “The door is always open.”
Julia’s cringe was almost reflexive, but a moment later, she realized she didn’t want to get away from her mom after all, that it felt good to be in her mom’s arms again, to feel like someone’s child again.
Her mom pulled away to look at her, holding her hand against Julia’s cheek before tucking a piece of Julia’s hair behind her ear. “Come in. Let me get you a cup of coffee. It’s getting cold outside.”
Julia entered the house behind her mother and shut the door.
“Do you mind taking off your shoes?” her mom asked. “There are extra slippers by the door.”
“Sure.”
Her mom had never cared enough about any house or apartment they’d lived in to ask anyone to remove their shoes, but now Julia saw that there were two pairs of shoes and one pair of boots by the front door, along with three pairs of slippers in varying styles.
Julia kicked off her shoes and chose a pair of fluffy blue slippers, noting that her mom was wearing a matching pair in pink.
“Coffee’s still hot,” her mom said, leading the way through the living room. “Unless you’d rather have tea.”
“Tea would be nice if it’s not too much trouble.”
They walked into the kitchen and Julia’s mom set the kettle on to boil and pulled out a box of tea. “Is peppermint okay? It’s herbal.”
“Peppermint’s fine.”
They made small talk while her mother prepared tea, an undercurrent of tension in the air. Julia took the opportunity to observe her mother and her surroundings and found both to be changed.
The kitchen was as tidy as the porch, the sink empty, the counters scrubbed clean. It was hard to remember it as the house where dirty dishes used to pile in the sink, spreading out onto the counters until Julia washed them.
Her mom looked healthy, her skin clear and plump, the lines around her eyes and mouth less pronounced than Julia remembered them. She’d gained a little weight too, weight she’d needed to gain. She’d always been thin like Elise, but back when her diet had been mostly cigarettes and vodka it had been a kind of gaunt thinness that spoke of too much vice and too little food.
A new realization dawned in the wake of the memory and Julia looked at her mother as she poured the hot water. “Did you quit smoking?”
“Six months ago.” Her mom laughed. “I could break it down to the minute and second if you want.”
“Hard, huh?” Julia asked.
“One of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and life has been full of hard things this past year, so that’s saying something.”
“That’s awesome,” Julia said. “Congrats.”
“Thanks.”
“What about work?” Julia asked, embarrassed that she didn’t know where her mom was employed these days. She’d never gone to college, had never had a career, and her job history was long and varied.
“Working at the nursery in town. It’s not glamorous, but I like being outside. The owner’s talking about making me Assistant Manager. I’ll never make a mint, but it pays the bills and it’s not too stressful.”
“That’s great.” Julia could actually see it: her mom outside, surrounded by flowers, hands plunged into dark, cool soil.
Her mom handed her the mug of tea. “Want to go to the living room?”
“Sure.”
They got settled on the couch Julia remembered from her adolescence. It was worn and faded and with a few new holes, but it felt comfortingly familiar. She hadn’t been back to her gramp’s house since the shooting, and she hadn’t realized how much she’d needed a touchstone from her childhood.
“
I’m so glad you’ve come, but I have a feeling this isn’t a casual visit.”
Julia nodded, staring at her tea. “I’m pregnant.”
She’d imagined starting the conversation with her mom a thousand different ways, but this hadn’t been one of them. The words spilled from her mouth, exploding into the vacuum of everything else that wasn’t being said.
Her mom didn’t seem surprised.
“Are you… happy about it?” she asked gently.
“I think so.” Julia nodded. “Yeah, I am. I’m just…”
“Terrified? Confused?”
“Is that how you felt?” Julia asked. “When you found out about me?”
Her mom laughed. “I was too dumb to be scared. I was just looking for something to fill all the empty places I’d been carrying around most of my life.” She hesitated, her expression suddenly serious. “You know my own mother left when I was four years old.”
The knowledge came back to Julia all at once. Of course, she’d known. But she’d been so focused on the details of her own childhood that her mother’s had faded into the background.
“I remember Gramps saying something about it,” Julia said.
“I didn’t realize until I went into therapy how much it had messed with me.” She took a drink of her coffee. “How much it had cost me.”
“In what way?” Julia asked.
Her mom drew in a breath. “Knowing she’d left, that she’d just… walked away, made me feel so unworthy. Because if your own mother doesn’t love you, then what? Everything I did as soon as I was old enough to make my own decisions was about filling the hole she left in my psyche.”
Julia tried not to show her surprise. She’d never imagined a day when her mom would use the word “psyche.”
“But it didn’t work,” Julia said softly.
Her mom barked out a laugh. “That’s an understatement.” She shook her head, but she was smiling, her face surprisingly at peace. “It didn’t work and it hurt a lot of other people along the way, you and Elise most of all. I’ll never not be sorry for that, but I finally had to forgive myself if I wanted to live. And believe me when I say there came a time when I was actually surprised to find that I did.”
Sadness was a weight on Julia’s chest. She hadn’t been the only one who’d suffered. Elise had covered up her pain by being a party girl. Her mom looked for relief in every new man. Her gramps dealt with his sorrow and disappointment by pouring himself into his granddaughters, maybe even by trying to rectify mistakes he’d made with his own daughter — Julia’s mother — when he’d been left alone to care for her.
“I’m glad you did,” Julia said.
Her mom smiled. “I’m glad too.”
Julia chewed her lip, trying to think of a kind way to ask the question she needed to ask. “What if I’m not a good mother? What if I’m…”
“Like me?”
“I don’t mean — ”
“It’s a fair question.” She smiled, and Julia realized her mother had smiled and laughed more during the short, heavy conversation they were having than she had in the last ten years. “I was a terrible mother — but you’re not me.”
“I feel so… closed off sometimes. So afraid to feel anything. What if I can’t love her — or him — enough?”
“Oh, love is never the problem. I hope that’s not what you think! I loved you and your sister from the moment they set you in my arms. You love Ronan — I could see it in your face when we had dinner — and you will love the child you made together.”
“If love isn’t the problem, then what is?” Julia asked.
“Being human.”
“It seems like a lame excuse,” Julia said.
“Do you want me to tell you you’re going to be perfect? That you’re not going to make mistakes?” Her mom shook her head. “I can’t tell you those things. You won’t be perfect. You’ll make mistakes. But because you love your child, you’ll do your best, and judging from the way you’ve taken care of your sister all these years, the way you risked your life to find her, the way you’ve always taken care of everyone around you, your best will be just fine. And you know what I’ve finally figured out?” Her mom reached out to take her hand, and for once, Julia didn’t feel the urge to escape. “What?”
“If you make a mistake, you can always learn, Julia. You can always change.”
33
Ronan tapped the steering wheel of the Audi as he drove toward the office. For once it was sunny, and even the cold couldn’t dampen the warmth in his chest, the slight weight of his mother’s wedding ring in the pocket of his jacket.
It had only been three days since the Yael Dohan story had broken, but Ronan had a feeling things were on the upswing. The names of other possible Manifest members had begun to leak onto social media, just like Julia had said they would. Ronan could imagine them behind the scenes, shredding documents, scrambling for cover, engaging in heated and tearful conversations with family members who’d had no idea what monsters they were, trying to act like their kingdom wasn’t crumbling before their eyes.
The press was everywhere. There was no way for Dohan to stage an attack on MIS, Julia, or Elise, and while Ronan hadn’t been totally at ease knowing Julia would be on her own this morning, for the first time in a long time he hadn’t spent every second checking his phone, counting the minutes until she would be returned safe and sound.
The timing was as good as it was going to get to propose unless he was willing to wait the years it would take for every Manifest case to be tried in a court of law.
And he wasn’t. He wanted to make Julia his wife, wanted to start their life together as soon as possible.
He’d considered a million ways to propose — take her to a fancy restaurant and put the ring at the bottom of a glass of champagne, charter a boat and pack a picnic at sunset, get down on one knee at their beach, the beach where they’d walked and talked and confided.
He’d even considered tying it to Chief’s collar and letting her figure it out that way. God knows Chief adored her, although Ronan still maintained it was because of all the bacon Julia fed her.
In the end, none of it had seemed right, and he’d decided they would go to dinner at the diner where they’d gotten coffee after their first run-in. After that they’d take a walk until they ended up in the alley where they’d first crashed into each other.
Where she’d crashed into his life, changing it forever.
He’d second-guessed himself at first. Did he want the next chapter of their lives to begin in a place they’d found themselves because of something terrible?
The answer had been yes. He didn’t want to reinvent their story, didn’t want to wash it clean of all the hard and scary parts. He wanted to celebrate how far they’d come, wanted to remind her that they’d come through the darkness together.
That they could do anything together.
He’d parked the car in the parking structure across from the office and crossed the street. He navigated the crosswalk and stepped onto the sidewalk, MIS’s office looming between him and the water.
It wasn’t until he rounded the corner of the building that he got the first indication that something was wrong.
There was a throng of people in front of the door, some of them with cameras, others holding microphones. A glance back at the street confirmed several news vans with satellite dishes on their roofs aimed at the heavens.
He should have stopped then, should have gone back to the car before anyone spotted him, should have figured out what the fuck was going on.
But it was too late. Someone in the crowd spotted him.
“There he is!”
He heard his name roll through the crowd, the mob turning toward him all at once. For a split second, he was frozen to the ground. He’d faced down a lot of things — extremists, bullets, skydiving, stormy seas, landmines, RPGs — but nothing terrified him like the crowd rushing toward him.
He turned back the way he came and sprinted for
the parking garage.
He was back in his car and making his way out of the concrete structure by the time the first of the press reached him. He inched through the congregation, not wanting to hurt anyone even though they thumped against his car, and careened into the street at full speed.
His heart was racing when he felt clear enough to pull into a grocery store parking lot. He removed his phone, pulling up a search engine and typing in his name and MIS.
Local headlines screamed at him from the screen.
LOCAL INVESTIGATIVE FIRM A FRONT FOR CRIME?
SECRETIVE FIRM LINKED TO CRIMINAL VIGILANTISM
BOSTON FIRM HIRED BY RICH TO EXACT JUSTICE?
What the fuck…?
He dialed Julia’s number, put the car in drive, and sped toward home.
34
“They can’t enter the courtyard. It’s private property,” Nick said.
“Technically, but you know how the press is,” Julia said.
She closed the shades on the French doors leading to the patio. Chief paced the floor at her feet, the dog’s training alerting her to the fact that something was wrong, and Julia reached down to stroke the dog’s fur, murmuring softly to her until she lay down on the floor next to the sofa.
“The alarm is armed,” Ronan said. “And even if the alarm failed, Chief wouldn’t. No one’s getting in here without us knowing.”
“I don’t get it,” Declan said.
Ronan’s laugh was bitter. “It’s pretty obvious.”
Declan’s eyes flashed as he looked at Ronan. “Then please enlighten me.”
“This is Dohan’s doing. Dohan and Manifest,” Ronan said. He shook his head. “All this time we were bracing for a traditional attack, assuming we were safe because Dohan wouldn’t back an operation that would send guns blazing at us when there was so much heat on him.”
Julia’s stomach flipped over and she fought back a wave of nausea, wondering if it was the start of the infamous morning sickness or if it was the fact that the father of her child might go to prison — and her too for that matter.
Murphy’s Love: Murphy’s Law Book Three Page 13
