True to form, Lisa and Denis phoned and both gushed into Billy’s earpiece. Meanwhile, Tricia and the others fielded messages and posts on their phones. “You’ve like a thousand new Twitter followers,” Anna said.
Tricia’s hand covered Billy’s on the gear stick. “You did great,” she said, softly. Euphoric, he gripped her fingers in his. Was it possible? Was she finally on his side? She pulled her hand free and reached into her bag for nicotine gum. He shifted on his broken seat, fighting the plunge of disappointment. He’d wanted the spark between them to have flared for much longer.
They traveled for miles. Anna, and then Ivor, fell asleep. Only the radio filled the silence. Tricia stared out the passenger window, chomping on nicotine gum and making wet, smacking sounds. Billy glanced at her profile every so often, trying to gauge her expression. She seemed far away, unreadable. He tried to recapture the surge from her hand on his earlier. Behind her, John hitched his elbow on the thin window ledge, his hand under his chin. Like Tricia, he was staring into the darkness, a look of concentration on his face, as if trying to make out something amid the blur of passing shadows.
As they turned into the village, a familiar car drove toward them. Billy strained to see, to be sure, wondering what had brought Patrick Keogh out this far. Keogh tapped his car horn in a salute. At least he was being civil this time around.
At home, when they entered the kitchen, John spoke up. “If it’s okay, I’d like to sleep in Michael’s bed tonight, from now on, actually.”
Billy and Tricia exchanged a look of surprise. “Up to your dad,” she said.
Billy nodded. “Yeah, of course, son, no problem.” Maybe he only imagined a look of relief cross Tricia’s face.
The five moved up the hallway, Tricia steering Anna by the shoulders and Billy steering Ivor, both children still half asleep. As they neared the stairs, Tricia spotted the brown envelope on the carpet beneath the letter flap.
Billy brought the envelope to the dim light of the hall lamp. On its front, in thin, small black handwriting, For To Save Lives. He counted the money inside. Three hundred euro.
“Who’s it from?” Tricia asked.
Billy blinked back tears. There was no note or name, but he knew. “Patrick Keogh.”
“God love them,” Tricia said. Three hundred euro was big money for the Keoghs.
Billy eased the folded envelope into the breast pocket of his army jacket, next to tiny Michael.
Upstairs, as John climbed into Michael’s bed, Billy kissed the top of Ivor’s head. “Night, night.” He crossed the room and turned off the light. “Night, John.”
“Night, Dad.”
Billy moved into the hall. It had been a long time since John had called him Dad and now he’d said it twice in one night. Tricia was putting Anna to bed and he called good night through the door.
Minutes later, Tricia entered their room. Billy tensed on the bed, hoping he had understood her correctly and that she hadn’t expected him to sleep in John’s bunk. She moved in front of the wardrobe mirror and fiddled at her right ear. He realized with surprise, and then a needle of irritation, that she was removing her earrings. Since when could she bear to touch her lobes? She must have asked one of the children to put the earrings in earlier, demoting him ever further.
“Who put those in?” he asked, trying to sound casual, annoyed with himself for needing to know.
“I did.”
“You did?”
She shrugged. “It was stupid all these years. I think I got it into my little-girl head that my getting my ears pierced against my parents’ wishes and my mother dying the very next day was somehow connected, like my being bad was to blame, and then I could never let the holes close up, even though they made me feel sick.” She shrugged again. “Maybe I wanted to keep punishing myself.”
Of late, she’d confided in him more than she ever had. “Fair play to you,” he said, even while wishing she hadn’t taken the intimacy away from him. “On giving up the cigarettes, too.” He hadn’t made nearly enough of her beating the killers, either. Hard to, given her reaction to all his changes. It hit him again the cost, to her mind, of his changes coming so late.
“Me?” she said with a rasp. “Look at all you’ve done.” She turned off the light. While he tried not to watch, she undressed, and pulled her nightdress over her head. She slipped between the sheets. He tried to suck himself in, hoping to make himself ever smaller and less objectionable. They lay together in the dark in silence.
Just as he was about to give in and say good night—she never said good night first—she spoke. “You did great tonight, really.”
“Thanks.” He was afraid to say any more, in case he ruined something.
“Where did all those ideas come from, to sell the seconds and make a whole new line of toys?”
“All mine. Actually, Tony wants me to head up the entire project.”
“Are you going to?”
He hesitated, unsure where this was going. “Yeah, I am.”
“You’re full of surprises these days,” she said kindly.