“Hey, Sunshine. How was your day?”
“Really good. I’ve been doing a couple of hours with Nikki, and she’s totally getting a hang of the module now,” she told me gleefully. My wife was a fucking genius when it came to math. Well, when it came to most things actually. I loved seeing that dreamy, spaced-out look she’d get when she was trying to work out some freaky-hard equations. How one girl could have the same look reading a romance novel as she did doing math baffled me. But I didn’t need to work out what made her tick, or understand any of the shit she was talking about when it came to her degree. I just loved her, and that was all that mattered. I didn’t give a shit that she was smarter than me; most people were. She was the brains and the beauty, and if I was the brawn in our little family, I was happy with that. As long as she was happy too, that’s all I cared about.
“You ready for tomorrow?” I asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be. They’ll be digging over all that shit in court soon anyway so I guess it’s better to go over it first with someone who’s on my side at least.” Tomorrow was her first rape counseling session, and Danny was ending training at five o’clock so I could take her. It still stuck in my gut that I couldn’t be with her in court and as much as I burned to fight Rico Temple again, I suspected that this was something else I’d have to learn to live with. I tilted her face up to look at me.
“We’re gonna get through this, baby. Whatever happens, whatever shit goes down, it’s me and you forever now.
Chapter 13
As I sat in the cheap plastic chair, I imagined that this was how families of patients in the hospital felt. My girl was next door crying over shit I didn’t think I could stand to hear and tearing open old wounds I had no way of healing. She’d had a nightmare last night, and it was fucking brutal. I felt like I was standing in the corner of the room as Frank raped her. Fucking unable to do anything other than to listen to her endure it. If there was anything more emasculating than experiencing that, I didn’t want to know what it was.
The counselor was one set up by the Crown Prosecution Service. Apparently they weren’t just there to help Em deal with what had happened, but to support her through the trial. Given the brutality of what Frank had done, they’d offered her the option of giving evidence by video. I wished desperately that she’d chosen that option, but I should have known better. As terrified as she was, my girl was too strong for that. She’d read somewhere that juries were more supportive of a victim when evidence was given in person. Something about seeing and hearing their emotional responses humanized them.
Everything that was going down now terrified me and pissed me off in equal measure. Here in this plastic chair I might as well have been back in the changing room at the fight, unable to process any of this shit. The only thing inside stronger than hate and rage was my love for Em and the overwhelming and fundamental need to protect her. So instead of beating the crap out of someone, I sat here in this shitty plastic chair watching the clock tick by painfully slowly. Waiting for my wife. I ran through everything Father Pat had told me about how to control my temper. The things he taught me didn’t change who I was or what I felt but they helped me pretend to be a better man, so by the time the door in front of me opened, I was ready to deal with whatever condition I found Em in on the other side. Her face was a mess, and it looked like she’d spent the whole hour crying. She blew her nose loudly into her tissue as she walked out followed by her counselor. The second I saw her, she was in my arms, her face buried in my chest.
“You must be Cormac. I’m Nora,” she said to me smiling warmly. She was an older lady, maybe me ma’s age, only unlike me ma, she wore very little makeup and had a kindly look about her.
“Nice to meet you,” I told her without offering her my hand. They were wrapped firmly around my girl and weren’t going anywhere.
“Will you be bringing her back on Wednesday?”
“As long as she wants to come, I’ll be here,” I told her.
“Well, I’ll see you both then. Have a safe journey home.”
“Thank you, for everything,” Em told her, twisting in my arms.
“You’re welcome,” she said with a smile.
“See you soon.” I tucked Em into my side and held her tightly all the way down the stairs.
“How was it?” I asked.