Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
I take the long way, looping up past the river where the ice is already banded in dirty stripes, then cut through Northeast, letting the city’s neon blur the edges off the night. Stella doesn’t look up once. At some point, she starts to shake, just a tremor at first, then a full-body quake that rattles the seat. I want to say something. I want to stop the car, drag her out onto the median, and shake her until the feeling comes back to her face. But I don’t. Instead, I crank the heat, tune the radio to static, and drive.
We end up at O’Toole’s place—a squat, brutalist block of a building a couple blocks away from the church itself. The parking lot is empty except for a fleet of abandoned Camrys and a half-dead pickup with a busted taillight. I kill the engine, and we sit there, none of us moving, the tick of the cooling engine the only sound.
“Honestly, I have no idea what the fuck just happened,” I say. “Someone better clue me in.”
But Lachlan shoots me a warning look.
“Inside first.”
He gets out, circling to open Stella’s door. She lets him take her by the elbow, lets him steer her into the building and up the cinderblock stairs, never once pulling away or talking back. I follow, close enough to catch her if she folds, but not touching, not yet.
The apartment is a bachelor’s space: small, spare, clean with just a minimum of furnishings. One lamp in the corner throws a weak yellow triangle onto the threadbare carpet. There’s the crucifix on the wall above the sagging couch, the cheap bookshelf loaded with theology and the kind of literary fiction that impresses book group types, and a battered kitchen table covered in unopened mail and a single mug of cold coffee. It smells like lemon cleaner, with a shadow of something darker—maybe incense, maybe the rot of old despair.
Stella stands in the center of the room, arms wrapped around herself, and spins once, taking it all in. She laughs—a dry, choked sound, more cough than giggle—and then she collapses onto the couch, body folding up so tight she looks fetal. O’Toole stands in the kitchenette, hands braced on the counter, staring at the floor. I close the door behind us, leaning against it like a bouncer at a bar that’s just seen its last call.
The silence is fucking nuclear.
I’m the first to break. “You want water? Coffee? Anything?”
Stella shakes her head, hair curtaining her face. Her voice is so thin it almost doesn’t make it across the room. “I want to wake up and have none of this be real.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”
O’Toole walks over, drags a chair out from the table, and sits. He angles himself toward Stella, but not too close. “Stella,” he starts, and the accent is deeper now, something rural or ancient pressing up through the vowels. “I need you to listen to me, and I need you to believe me.”
She doesn’t move.
He waits, hands clasped in front of him. “I didn’t know. I swear to God—I had no idea you were my niece. Not until tonight. If I had known—” He stops, jaw working. “No, that’s a lie. I would have still wanted you. I’d have just been smarter about it.”
The words hang there, ugly and perfect.
I guffaw a bit.
“She’s your niece too? What the fuck? I mean, I saw Brenda across the way, but how the fuck did you end up being Stella’s uncle?”
Lachlan shoots me a poisonous look.
“It’s a long story. My dad was married to Brenda’s mom. He passed. Irma packed me off to boarding school, and then I went into the military and divinity school, so out of sight, out of mind. But via marriage, yes, I’m Stella’s step-uncle.”
“Holy fuck,” I mutter. “Jesus Christ.”
Stella lifts her head, just enough to glare at me. “Stop with taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
I throw up my hands.
“This is a holy clusterfuck! I’m going to swear up and down all night if I want.”
Stella shakes her head, exasperated. Then she turns to Lachlan. “You’re a man of God,” she says, but there’s no heat in it. “You’re supposed to be better than this.”
O’Toole barks a laugh, sharp as a slap. “I had no idea, Stella. Same as you. I was in the dark about the job, your dad getting me the job, everything.” He shakes his head, then looks her dead in the eye. “But I know this: I love you, Stella. Doesn’t matter how wrong it is. Doesn’t matter what label you want to put on it. I adore the ground you walk on, and this time that we’ve been together,” he says, including me, “has been the best of my life, and I haven’t had a lot of good times in my life.” His voice is steady as a freight train, and for a second I wonder if he’s ever said those words out loud before. Maybe not even to himself.