“The kids aren’t even Catholic. Neither are you,” I pronounce in stunned confusion.
“They begin their studies Monday,” Bergman continues as if I hadn’t spoken.
“Monday?” I question. The shock is so heavy I don’t sound like myself. Today is already Friday.
“My flight leaves this evening. I’m picking the children up from school and taking them with me,” Miranda clarifies, sinking the knife in deeper.
“What?” It’s a word released on a punch to the gut, a pained gasp of breath.
Miranda looks at Bergman, who nods, and then returns her gaze to me. “Don’t fight me on this, Seamus.” That was a threat, bold and immoral.
“Why not?” I challenge.
She picks up her cell from the table and looks at it thoughtfully. “It’s hard to parent, even on your limited holiday schedule, from prison.”
“What?” The pounding in my head is all-encompassing, it’s trying to blot out reality, to dampen her words out of existence.
She raises her eyebrows. “There’s enough marijuana in your bottom dresser drawer to put you away for twenty years, my dear. All I need to do is make a call, and the police will have your apartment searched before you can limp out to your piece of shit car.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You set me up?”
She smiles. It’s broad and bright and toothy, and all I see are rows of shark teeth gleaming razor sharp and deadly back at me.
Anger is rising in me, pure and irrationally dangerous. I picture myself leaning across the table and strangling her with my hands. Delighting in the sensation of life draining out of her beneath my grip. My body is vibrating with an undeniable need to exact retribution. And when the anger is so strong that it’s erased ethics everything goes quiet. Everything goes black.
I wake lying crumpled on the floor like a balled up, discarded piece of trash. Bergman and Miranda are standing over me like royals ruling over a peasant.
“Mr. McIntyre?” Bergman asks.
I side-eye him in response and have the urge to punch them both in the ankles.
“Are you all right, Mr. McIntyre? You passed out. Do you need me to call paramedics?” The amplification of his words hints toward genuine concern.
I heave my body into a sitting position and test out my failing faculties. Everything’s in order though I feel like throwing up again. “Get her out of my sight,” I grind out through gritted teeth.
Miranda leaves the room.
I sign the papers under duress blinking back tears and gather them up into a neat pile. I hold them in my hand and look at Bergman standing across the table from me. “You just handed three precious lives over to the devil herself. I hope your conscience eats you from the inside out, you bastard. This isn’t the last you’ve heard from me. I’ll get them back or die trying.” I throw the papers up into the air and watch them flutter down in a flurry. I look him hard in the eye. “Oh, I almost forgot. One more thing. Fuck you.”
I march out stabbing at the ground with my cane.
I drive straight to the kids’ school and park in the lot in a visitor’s space near the front doors. School doesn’t get out for another forty-five minutes, but I’ll be standing here waiting for them.
When they exit, Miranda is standing twenty feet behind me with her arms crossed. It feels like she’s hovering over me. I pull my kids aside and explain to them that they’re going to have to go live with their mother for a while. I break it to them as gently as I can and try to put a positive spin on it despite the words burning like acid on their way out. It kills me to watch their reactions. Kai goes stone-faced. Unblinking. He’s shut down and crawled into his cave where he mulls over things that kids his age shouldn’t have to contemplate. Internalizing them until they’re a cancer on his soul. Rory pins Miranda with a stare that’s contempt. He’s already blaming her with his eyes for an unwelcome future and then he yells, “No!” That’s all he says. And my little girl, she cries. She cries like I’ve never seen her cry.
And my heart shatters for the second time today. It’s blown apart into so many pieces, the shrapnel spread so far and wide, I know what remains will never fit back together again. Puzzles don’t work when you only have half of the pieces. Same goes for hearts.
I hug all three of them at once because I can’t fathom excluding any of them while I hug their sibling alone. I hug them. I kiss them. I tell them all I love them more than anything else in the world, and that’s when my eyes fill up. I’m trying with everything in me to hold back the tears because they’re already scared and sad, and I don’t want to stir up any more heavy emotion in them. But I can’t help it, I feel like Miranda took an ax to the top of my head and split me in two. You would think everything inside me would feel dead, but it’s the opposite. Everything inside me is exposed nerves, all raw, tingling, unmistakable pain and agony. It’s emotional torture.