Page 5 of Inflict

Connor liked the Priest’s version better than Sean’s, so he chose to believe his mother was now an angel. Because who knew where his father thought his mother belonged, when Connor wasn’t even allowed to keep a picture of her that he had found once?

Evelyn flashed him another one of her smiles, but it wasn’t as bright as before. “Tomorrow, right?”

Connor nodded. “Right, tomorrow.”

In a blink, Evelyn darted out of her hidden spot inside the tree line while her father’s back was turned. Connor had the distinct feeling it probably wasn’t the first time she had gone farther, or played beyond, than where she was supposed to.

With her dirty notebook in one hand, and her newly sharpened pencil in the other, Evelyn skipped toward her father, the tulle of her skirt swishing back and forth with each step. Connor couldn’t see her face, and while he knew it was probably time for him to go, he couldn’t move. He stayed in his own hidden spot, watching from the shadows as the man turned around and saw Evelyn coming his way.

Connor didn’t think he had ever seen a man smile so big.

“There you are!” He was on one knee before Evelyn had reached his spot, his arms opened to her. He didn’t seem to mind the wet ground, or that it was probably dirtying his nice black slacks. Once he had Evelyn in his embrace, he picked her up from the ground and stood, his one arm holding around the backs of her legs so she was almost sitting in his arms. “You’re all dirty, sunshine.”

“I fell,” Evelyn replied.

“Or you played in mud and wiped your hands clean on your dress.”

Evelyn laughed. “Did not, did not.”

“I think so, wee one.”

She held out her notebook. “A picture for you.”

Connor was once again stuck in a sense of awe as he spied on the father-daughter duo. His father would never have held him, never hugged him, and he would not have been smiling about Connor making a mess of himself and his clothes.

The scene in front of him was … abnormal.

Nice, but strange.

It left him feeling a bit empty.

He wondered what that felt like—to be loved and wanted?

He didn’t know.

“You worried me,” the man said. “I called and you didn’t come, Evelyn.”

Connor decided then that it was time to go. His father was probably wondering where he was, and he was getting hungry. He didn’t want to go back to the scene he had run from, but he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

But even as he turned away to head back to the path, Connor could still hear the conversation between Evelyn and her father.

“It hurts when I worry for you,” he said, his voice growing faint the further Connor walked. “You were so longed for, Evelyn. Such a wished for child, pretty girl, our miracle in the night. I don’t know what I would do if I lost you, don’t you understand?”

“I’ll come quicker next time you call.”

“But do you understand, Evelyn?”

“I understand.”

Connor didn’t.

• • •

There were more cars parked in the driveway when Connor arrived home than there had been when he left earlier. He recognized a couple, men who occasionally showed up at his house for a pint of Guinness or a glass of whiskey with his father. Sometimes, they’d sneaked him a sip from their glass, laughing until their faces reddened when he coughed and choked from the harsh liquors.

All of them were Irish, like him, some with thicker dialects than others, and some who spoke of home as being the countryside they’d left in Ireland years ago. He liked those stories the best, when one of them were drunk enough to talk, but not so drunk that he couldn’t understand what they were saying.

His father rarely spoke of Ireland, saying only that America was their home, and that his old country betrayed him. And because of that, Connor had been given the American spelling of his name, instead of the Irish one. Connor believed there was more to the story, more that his father didn’t say, because even the men who came around didn’t talk about Ireland when Sean was in the same room.