6.6.3
They go to the beach. Fi doesn't want to spend another
minute indoors, and Michael's too far inside his own grief to have much in the
way of plans.
There's a six pack of beer, nine yogurts, and two half-dead
boxes of Chinese take-out in the fridge.
She grabs some yogurt, two spoons, and a blanket. It wasn't the first
meal home she was dreaming of, but it will do.
They get to the beach and eat quietly. When they finish they
lay back, watch the sky, and listen to the waves.
"What did you do after Claire died?"
She tells him. Tells him about how the IRA was happy to get
its hands on her. Fifteen-year-old Catholic school girls don't get searched all
that carefully and can easily go places men who look like IRA members can't.
She tells him about how much she loved it. Loved learning new skills, loved the
power, loved the revenge.
She never told her mother, not specifically, what she was
doing. But each time one of the men who killed Claire died, she handed her
mother an obituary. Each time, her mother smiled a little more often, joked a
little more loudly. Each time, she bought a brush of happiness to her mother at
the cost of a man's life.
To this day, she doesn't regret that. She doesn't think
she ever will.
And to this day, she'd have happily given it all up if she
could have just not had that argument with Claire.
She kisses him when she says that, absolutely sure he's
feeling the exact same way. Sure that he'd rather have Anson alive and her
still in prison, if it meant Nate would be home and breathing.
And she doesn't disagree with that. Her freedom wasn't worth
Nate's life.
This should have been the happiest night of their lives.
Tonight should have been celebrations, dancing 'til dawn, with the whole family
there. Tonight should have been joy, and love, and relief.
Instead they're lying on a blanket, seeing the lights of
Miami reflected off the clouds, with the occasional glow of the moon visible
when the clouds are blown thin.
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