twenty-nine

Megan sat in Tommy’s Pub, one block down from the home she grew up in. Her father and the owner, Mr. Wilson, shared many a pint over the years. Megan inherited her father’s respect from people on the job but also from the locals, Mr. Wilson being one of them, and she adored him.

He didn’t utter a word when she first walked in. She sat at the end of the bar and he had the waitress bring over a shot and a beer, all the while he was viewing a sports channel. Irish culture is many things, but intrusive isn’t one of them—at least not until the third shot.

Mr. Wilson was one of the kindest men of her father’s friends Megan could think of, other than Uncle Mike, of course.

Salt of the earth, Pat McGinn would say, and it was true.

“Sweet girl, how ya’ holding up?” Mr. Wilson clinked his glass with hers. “Beautiful funeral, and a lovely wake, he had.”

Megan nodded. “The one party you can never show up for.” Her laugh was as inappropriate as most endearing comments were in regards to unprepared deaths.

“I’ve been reading the papers.” He poured her another shot.

“Yeah.” She threw it back, ignoring his inquiry. “Well, I’m off to start sorting through Mom and Dad’s house tonight.” She smiled, they tapped shot glasses, and kicked back another.

“To you and yours, my luv.”

As Megan was leaving, she noticed that Mr. Wilson had attached a laminated copy of Pat McGinn’s obituary to the back of the bar wall, and that was that.

Done and dusted, as her father always said.

She cried walking the one block to the house.

Megan felt she was trespassing for some odd reason as she entered the house, maybe because it felt so empty, deserted, and, worst of all, lonely. She went into the kitchen for a glass of water and sat down at the kitchen table. She recounted the countless family dinners the table held for the McGinn family: everyone talking, no one listening, but continuous banter nonetheless. It made her smile, until the silence crept back in and the thoughts returned of a murderer intruding on her personal space. Her sanctuary.

Son of a bitch.

She set the glass in the sink and headed upstairs to her parents’ bedroom. She looked at her father’s closet. She wasn’t ready for his personal things, their memories. She decided to start with her mother’s closet, since Rose would have no use for those clothes any longer. Megan ran her hand across the row of dresses. The smell of her mother’s perfume was ever present. Megan pushed the rack to the back and was shocked to find the dress Rose wore the day she tried to kill herself hanging in the back, dried blood covering it.

“Momma. Why? Why would you keep this?” For years Megan could never recall what happened after she opened the bathroom door that day. She sat down on the bed holding the dress in her lap, unlocking the memory she worked so hard to bury.

She’d run to her mother on the bathroom floor screaming for her.

Rose was going in and out of consciousness. “It’s all just too much. It’s all just too much.”

Megan in her hysteria remembered her father was waiting on the phone. She ran over to the receiver screaming, “Daddy! Daddy! Momma’s cut herself! She’s cut herself!” She remembered how her voice was trembling, but nothing compared to the shaking of her hands. “Daddy, come home! Daddy, come home!”

Megan recalled hearing, “Oh God,” then Pat telling her to get towels and wrap them around the wounds. Clear as crystal Megan now remembered: Tight, honey, really tight.

“Okay, Daddy.” Megan had dropped the phone and ran into the bathroom, slipping on some of Rose’s blood. She got to her knees and did what her father instructed her to do; she tied the towels as tight as an almost-twelve-year-old could. Megan sat in the bathroom and started to hyperventilate, staring at her mother. Megan couldn’t remember how long it was, but the first one to arrive, she finally recalled, was Mr. Wilson. He grabbed her and put her on Pat and Rose’s bed. In a matter of minutes, flashing lights were outside of the house. Mrs. Wilson ran into the bedroom then, clutching Megan and rushing her down the stairs and out of the house. Megan saw her father running toward the front door.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Mrs. Wilson held her tight. “Everything’s going to be okay, Megan. Your dad’s checking on your mom. It was just an accident.”

It was just an accident.

Megan now rolled the dress into a ball and curled up on the bed, tears streaming down the side of her face. “An accident with a razor on both wrists. Yeah, right.”

As Mrs. Wilson hustled Megan out of the house, Megan remembered looking back at the bags of her birthday ornaments sitting on the dining room table, knowing they would never be used, not that year. And Megan never trusted another birthday to be celebrated ever again.

That day marked the moment Rose distanced herself from Megan. Maybe out of guilt, maybe out of shame. No matter the reason, theirs would never be the model of a close mother-daughter relationship, like Shannon and her mother shared.

Megan remembered when Rose came home from the hospital her first words were, “You better have been taking good care of your father, missy.”

It had been arm’s length love from that day on.

Megan’s cell rang in the silence, forcing her up. She wiped her face and cleared her throat. “Nappa, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to check on you, see that you’re okay.”

“Yeah, great.”

“Are you sure? You sound different.”

“No, just a little tired. So, what’s happening?”

“The cross on the McAllister’s sympathy card? Two drops of blood were found. Very small drops, and rare, AB negative.”

Megan transitioned from pained childhood mode to detective status. “You’re kidding. Did anything match up in the computers? The Red Cross keeps records of people who’ve donated blood, especially if they have a rare blood type. Have you checked with them?”

“In the process of checking with hospitals and the Red Cross—and that’s only if the unsub has donated.”

“Or had surgery somewhere.”

“Well, I just thought I’d let you know. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Nappa, I’m fine. Seriously. It’s just been a long day. I assume nothing was found in my apartment?”

Nappa paused. “Nothing.”

“I didn’t expect there to be.”

They hung up and within minutes Megan was fast asleep, hoping there wouldn’t be any nightmares like the one she’d lived through today, or like the horror she’d endured years ago with her mother.