I shrug. “You haven’t mentioned her. But you’re close enough that she was your best, er, person at our wedding…”
“We aren’t close.”
“Does she live in DC?”
“We aren’t close,” he repeats, and that’s another topic of conversation locked away for good.
The man is my feckin’ husband. There must be a way to break through the wall he’s built around himself. Some way to know him beyond the toys in the dungeon. I try one more time. “How about pets? Did you have any when you were growing up?”
His fingers tighten around his coffee cup. “No.”
Fuck the shitehawk. I’m done with questions. I stare out the window, trying to make out the title of the textbook some guy is studying beneath one of the rain-spotted umbrellas outside.
“What about you?” Wolf asks after a too-long pause. “Didyouhave any pets?”
I think about lying: No. About giving him one word: Yes.About telling him to go to feckin’ hell, because conversation is a two-way street, or it’s supposed to be, anyway, and he’s offered too little, too late.
But I’m determined to be better at this than he is. So I say, “I had a cat named Dubh. Granny gave him to Breagha and me for Christmas. But Breagha thought his food smelled bad, and she refused to clean his litter box, so he really became mine. One night, Da’s Clan Chief left the front door open, and Dubh got outside. I never saw him again.”
Wolf’s face tightens for a moment, just a flash, but I wonder what he’s thinking. Whathelost, sometime in the past. His voice is calm, though, as he asks, “You and Breagha are close?”
I have a sudden flash of holding my sister’s hand in the dark, of her falling asleep with her head in my lap, of my stroking her hair when she started to cry in her sleep.
I take a sip of coffee, but now it tastes foul across the back of my throat. Setting down the cup, I say, “Yeah.”
“You don’t seem to have a lot in common.”
Mam’s said the same, more times than I can count. She means Breagha’s beautiful and I’m not. Breagha’s sweet, and I have a tongue like a razor. Breagha’s an asset for the Canton Crew, and I’m a feckin’ liability.
I do my best to strangle my coffee cup. “That’s a shite thing to say. My sister and I have a lot in common.”
Wolf shrugs. “So Breagha codes too?”
Breagha doesn’t know computers can be used for anything other than texting all her friends. “Not exactly.”
“She has a mouth like a sailor?”
I’m fairly certain Breagha doesn’t know how to spellfuck. “No.”
“She breaks rules, as easy as breathing?”
I catch a sharp laugh at the back of my throat. “Not my sister. No.” And then it’s my turn to shrug. “That’s why she’s always been Mam and Da’s favorite.”
“Just as you’ve been your grandmother’s favorite.”
I open my mouth to tell him he’s full of shite. Close it.
Granny tookmeto Ireland. I’m the one she showed around County Donegal. The one she saw got into Trinity College in Dublin, even though my transcript was dotted with moreincompletesthan any uni tolerates. The Lynch name still opens doors in the old country.
“Yeah,” I say softly.
“Say it,” he urges. And then he adds, “My dear.” The words should sound like he’s mocking me. They don’t.
I shake my head. Telling the story his way feels like weakness. Admitting the truth is hard.
His fingers close over mine, and I realize I’ve made a fist against the counter. “Go on, Kate. Say the words out loud.”
He’s like a dog with a feckin’ bone. He won’t give up unless I yield on this. “Fine,” I say, like I’m reciting in front of a class. “I’m Granny’s favorite.”