Lorraine giggles, scooping Penelope up and cradling her against her chest. The kitten immediately starts purring, nuzzling its wet nose against Lorraine’s chin. “Can we take her home today? Please, Molly?”
Molly sighs, looking entirely defeated by the combined force of her sister’s pleading eyes and the kitten’s cuteness. “We have to ask Mom first, or she’ll kill me. But... we can tell her you picked one out.”
“Yes!” Lorraine cheers, doing a little victory dance.
“We’ll hold onto her for you until you get the green light,” I assure Lorraine.
“You better,” she warns me, narrowing her eyes in a way that was eerily similar to her older sister. “She’s mine now.”
JJ stands up, brushing cat hair off his jeans. “Well, this calls for a celebration. Who wants crisps? I brought prawn cocktail.”
“Ew,” Lorraine wrinkles her nose. “Cheese and onion is better.”
“You wound me, tiny dancer,” JJ gasps, clutching his chest. “But fine. We’ll raid Niall’s cupboards. Come on.”
He holds out a hand, and Lorraine takes it without hesitation, the two of them marching toward the kitchen to pillage my mother’s pantry.
Molly and I are left alone in the sitting room again. The afternoon sun was beginning to dip lower, casting long, golden shadows across the carpet through the window. Shannon, Penelope and Atticus are now all curled up together in the basket, exhausted from the onslaught of attention.
“She really likes him,” Molly says, watching the empty doorway to the kitchen.
“Kids always do,” I reply, shoving my hands back into my pockets. “He’s basically a giant toddler.”
Molly laughs, a genuine, beautiful sound that made my chest ache in a completely different way than the memories on the photo wall did. She looks at me, her eyes soft and unguarded.
I swallow hard, holding her gaze. The urge to close the distance between us is so strong it was almost physical pain. But my knee doesn’t throb, and my head doesn’t spin. Everything is still.
Just do it. Take the jump.
The ghost of my father watches from the hallway. The water from my nightmares waits for me in the dark, waiting to catch me when I fall.
“C’mon,” Molly beckons, breaking me out of my trance. “Let’s go find a snack.”
24
Fight or Flight
Molly
October, 2007
LORRAINE WON’T STOPtalking the whole way home. Seriously. I don’t even know how she’s breathing.
“And I think Penelope needs a collar—probably a purple one. And it needs to have sparkles, obviously.” She’s leaning forward as far as her seatbelt will allow, even though I’ve told her over five times to sit back in her seat. “Do you think Penelope likes purple, Niall? Or is she more of a green girl?”
I see Niall’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror, a sweet smile on his face. “She’s definitely a purple girl, Ray.”
“Ray? I like that. Should I give you a special nickname?”
Niall laughs, pulling onto Strand Street. “Sure. Let me know what you come up with.”
Lorraine falls back into her seat, presumably to brainstorm on her own. I let my head rest against the cool window, feeling a chill down to my bones even with the heater blasting. It was the thought of going from Niall’s warm house to my quiet one.
It wasn't that Jamie or Mom haven’t been trying to get me tocome out of my shell—as I heard Mom say to Dad on the phonethe other night—because they were. I just wasn't being very receptive to their efforts.
And I’m not in a shell. For the record. Although it certainly felt like I’ve been put in a straightjacket, having to watch life as I knew warp in front of me.
It doesn’t seem fair. That Mom thinks we can be best-friend mother and daughter even after she decided five years ago she wanted to move out and travel the world. Unfair, that Jamie can show up out of the blue with no explanation—not that I was letting her give me one. Nope. Any effort she’d made to talk to me, I would brush her off and push it down.