CHAPTER 9
AISLING
“He is gone!” Mother burst through my bedroom door, looking like a demon right out of a horror flick—a second before it crawled its way out of a pond. “His things are gone. Suits. Clothes. Laptops. Briefcase. The only thing he left is his wedding band, the bastard!”
I sat upright in my bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The world blurred into focus slowly. It was a Thursday. A few days after the charity ball. Da hadn’t been back in the house since. He stayed with Cillian and Persephone until things cooled down. Or so we thought until three seconds ago.
“Mother, I—”
“I didn’t do it!” she howled, pounding a fist against her chest. “You believe me, don’t you? It wasn’t me. I swear. Not the poisoning. Not the cufflinks. I mean, heavens, Aisling, we both know how obsessed he is with those cufflinks. I would never!”
“I believe you,” I said and meant it. I got out of the bed, still dizzy, and walked over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder and rubbing slowly. “But I’m going to need some time to get to the bottom of all this. Okay?”
“You must help me, Aisling. You must.” She dropped down to her knees, hugging my midsection. I stared at her in disbelief mixed with annoyance. I’d never seen her so desperate in my life. I was growing more and more suspicious, especially after the cufflinks, that whoever was doing this wanted to hurt my father specifically, not my parents as a unit. But in their quest to ruin my father’s life, they also terrorized my mother, who was beyond frail and brittle and already had her own demons to battle.
Just a few weeks ago, I found fresh cuts above her wrists.
“Get up, Mother.” I patted her head awkwardly, glancing around to ensure we didn’t have an audience. She folded into two, doubling down by collapsing on the floor.
“I can’t,” she wailed. “Oh, Aisling, this is such a nightmare. I need something for my nerves.” She clutched my bare toes, and I felt her tears wetting them. My stomach turned and twisted. I wanted to run away.
“I’m not prescribing you anything, Mother. I’m not a psychiatrist. You need to see a professional who will assess you. Besides, you should adopt some coping mechanisms. Bad things happen to everyone. Life is about rising to the occasion, any occasion. Think of life as a garden. You don’t choose where to be planted, but you can only choose whether to bloom or wither.”
“Oh but, Ash, it is hard to bloom in the storm. All I need is a little pick-me-up. I even have a list of things that might help. It’s right here.” She messed with the pocket of her nightgown, producing a wrinkled paper and handing it to me.
I scanned the list, my blood turning cold.
“That’s a lot of pills. Some of them are strong. Zoloft. Prozac … you cannot mix them together, and you definitely can’t consume alcohol if you take any of them.”
Then something had occurred to me. Something that made me want to throw up. It was perfectly possible she had already taken them. Because all those things were prescribed to so many of her bored, housewife friends, and they all loved to exchange pills like it was some sort of a hobby. If she asked for them, it might be because she wanted more of them.
“You haven’t taken any, have you?”
She sniffed but didn’t say anything. I stepped back, shaking her off of my feet.
“For goodness’ sake, Mother!”
“Just get me the medicines and get to the bottom of this.” Jane threw herself over the carpet pathetically, very intentionally wiping her snot over it.
For one brief moment I forgave myself.
Forgave myself for being so weak when it came to Sam Brennan, for going to the schools my parents chose for me, and for never quite standing up for myself. Not with my friends, not with my brothers, and not with my family.
It was obvious my role model at home wasn’t exactly Marie Curie. Secretly, I wondered what I would have been like if I were raised by anyone else. By someone strong. A woman like Sparrow, who was terrifyingly direct and always made her opinion known publicly about every matter.
I redirected my thoughts quickly when I felt anger flaring in my chest. There was no time for that.
Hurrying toward the closet, I jammed my feet into the scrubs I didn’t need, for a job that was a lie to please my parents.
For the first time, I wondered what it would feel like to live in my own place. An apartment where I could get precious sleeping time between shifts at work without drawing my mother baths and listening to her complain about my father. Where she wouldn’t threaten to cut herself to get back at me for not giving her enough attention.
“I need to get to work. Please get yourself in the shower and brush your hair. Maybe go on a walk or see friends. You need to start taking care of yourself, Mother. I won’t live here forever.” I began buttoning my pea coat over my scrubs.
“No one has asked you to!” She shot me a hostile look from the floor, pouting. “And go, why don’t you. Go when I need you. Just don’t come crying at my grave when you lose me.”
This old tune again.
Do this and this and that or else I will take my own life.
She needs help, mon cheri, and maybe you are not the place she should get it from.
“I’m calling your psychiatrist as soon as I get to work,” I announced to her. She never agreed to see him. Said he never prescribed her the drugs she wanted.
“You can be mean, you know?” She stared at my ceiling numbly, zoning out. “Just like your father.”
“I’m not mean.” I sighed, grabbing my backpack. “But I am tired.”
She said something else, but I didn’t hear her. I walked away before she could convince me to stay. To tend to her. To give myself up for her.
On my way to the clinic, I called one of our trusted housekeepers and asked her to keep an eye on Mother, knowing I was paying lip service for my conscience.
Sam was right. A twenty-seven-year-old woman had no business living with her parents if she could afford her own place.
It was time to spread my wings.
Even and especially because Jane Fitzpatrick kept them carefully clipped.
It was a quiet day at the clinic. Full of consultations, paperwork, and research. No major decisions were made, which was always good news.
I saw Mrs. Martinez again for a checkup and accepted a new patient, a sixty-eight-year-old man so fragile he had to be carried downstairs into the clinic in Dr. Doyle’s arms.
When it was time to close shop, Dr. Doyle—a tall, sixty-something man who bore an uncanny similarity to Pierce Brosnan—patted my shoulder.
“You know, Aisling, you’re a brilliant young doctor. You should find a residency and start next year. Tell your future employer you took a gap year to spend some time with your family or to do some traveling. This clinic is no place for someone as promising as you.”
“I like working here.” I closed Mrs. Martinez’s file after making vague notes. I couldn’t write anything too specific out of fear this place would be found. I tucked the document in the filing cabinet. “We’ve already been through this, Greg. You know why I’m doing this. This is my calling.”
“And I appreciate your life experience has brought you here. I can’t help but feel guilty, too…” he leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest “…such medical talent shouldn’t be wasted in some underground, illegal clinic. You are a Harvard graduate, Fitzpatrick. Top of the crop.”
“How long have you felt this way?” I frowned at him, clearing up the table.
“Long enough,” he grumbled.
I swallowed uncomfortably. I hated change, and if I didn’t work here, that would be one heck of a change.
“Please don’t shackle yourself in unearned guilt. You are much too pragmatic for that.” I stood up, patting his cheek with a smile on my way to the bathroom before going home. From my periphery, Dr. Doyle glanced at his wristwatch. I closed the door behind me in the bathroom.
“We’ll talk about it some other time,” he determined.
“Fine, but if you think you’re getting rid of me so easily, you have another thing coming, Greg,” I spoke in a singsong. “Close the place up?”
I needed to go check on my mother. As per usual, she gave me the silent treatment after what happened this morning and refused to take my calls.
“Actually, I have to run. A patient just paged me. Mind locking up before you leave?” he called out to me.
“Not at all!” I answered from the restroom. “Go ahead. It’s been a moon and a half since I closed shop.”
Five minutes later, I found myself scrubbing medical equipment clean and locking up cabinets.
I heard a knock on the clinic’s door.
Who on earth …?
For obvious reasons, we didn’t allow walk-ins.
Frowning, I walked over to the door and looked through the peephole.
Merde.
I quickly smoothed my scrubs over my body, rearranging my long ponytail.
Still, I didn’t open the door. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move.
Go away. Please. You are too much and not enough all at the same time.
“Too late, Nix. I know you’re in there. Your car is parked directly in front of the doorway.”
Double merde. I had no one but myself to blame for my lack of discretion.
Still, I didn’t move. I watched through the peephole as Sam braced one arm over the doorframe, sneering down at the floor like they were sharing a secret.
“We can do this the nice way or the not-so-nice way. But you should know, my not-so-nice ways include smashing doors down, rummaging through places, and doing very dangerous fucking things.”
“Go to hell.”
“Can’t. Satan has a restraining order against me. Now open the damn door.”
“I hate you,” I groaned, plastering my forehead to the door, closing my eyes.
“No, you don’t.”
“I should.”
“No fucking shit, Sherlock. Open up.”
Reluctantly, I did as I was told, stepping aside. There was no point blocking his way with all one hundred and twenty pounds of me.
We stared at each other, the threshold between us like an ocean neither of us was willing to cross. My heart beat wildly.
He did it again. He came to see me. Sought me out.
“You kill people,” he said softly.
I gasped, stumbling backward. He stepped forward, walking into the clinic, not bothering to close the door behind him.
“I finally figured it out. Even though it was in front of me all this time, in plain sight. You kill people. That’s what you do. Mercy killing. Euthanasia.”
My back bumped against the opposite wall, and I squeezed my eyes shut childishly. Maybe if I pretended he wasn’t there, he’d disappear. But no. His voice hovered around me, thickening the air, making it too hot to breathe.
“That’s why you limit yourself to very few patients. That’s why it’s an underground operation. That’s why you keep all the drugs you have in here. That’s why you treat them at their homes. It all makes sense. You’re not here to cure people, you’re here to kill them. The only question is why? Why are you, the sweet, caring Aisling Fitzpatrick, doing this? Your brothers always told me you wanted to be an OB-GYN or a pediatrician. Something with babies involved, they said. The exact opposite of what you turned out to be.”
My eyes fluttered open on their own accord, and I met his gaze. Images of my mother earlier this morning spread over my bedroom carpet, helplessly bawling, attacked my memory. I didn’t want to be her. Meek and weak and always hiding her real self from the world. I straightened my back, taking a deep breath.
But old habits die hard …
“You can’t prove it.”
“I don’t need to. You’ll tell me your truth.”
“While you’re keeping so many secrets from me?” I choked on my bitterness, spluttering, “Nice try. Why are you here, Sam?”
His jaw ticked, but he said nothing.