“I’m goin’ to sleep for a while longer,” she called back, her voice scratchy. “I’ll have somethin’ a little later.”

I sighed in defeat, but left her alone. Who was I to force her? She’d just lost the love of her life, and I had no idea how I’d react in that situation. Even the thought of Patrick dying made my stomach turn.

I made my way into the kitchen and began making one of the only breakfasts I could prepare without completely ruining. I was the first one up that morning, but I’d heard Patrick moving around after I’d slid out of bed. It wasn’t as if he’d been sleeping.

He came into the kitchen behind me, resting his hand on my hip as he kissed the back of my head.

“Smells good.”

He sat down at the table with a cup of coffee, and we didn’t say a word as I finished cooking. He didn’t say much anymore, and I was afraid if I opened my mouth I’d either burst into tears or start screaming. I took long, deep breaths to calm myself down.

“You have to go to work today.” I told Patrick as I brought his plate of fried eggs to the table.

“I will.”

“I have to go in tonight, too.” I tried to hold a conversation with him, keeping my voice level in an attempt to get back to some kind of normal, but his monotone answer was like hearing nails scratch across a blackboard. “You should come straight home, so someone is here with Peg.”

“I’ll come by de pub.”

“No, Peg needs someone here.”

“I said I’ll come by de pub.”

His voice still hadn’t lost the flat quality I’d come to expect, and I wanted to scream in frustration.

“No, you won’t!” I snapped, unable to keep the temper out of my voice. “You’ll come home and take care of your goddamn mother!”

Patrick’s jaw clenched and a red flush ran up his neck as he began to tap that stupid pattern on the tabletop with the tips of his fingers.

“Stop it!”

“Ye t’ink ye can dictate to me?” He asked incredulously, standing from the table. “I t’ink ye’ve forgotten where ye fit in dis house.”

“Fuck you.” I hated the words spilling out of his mouth, but got a small surge of satisfaction at the emotion I’d finally evoked. “I’m the only one doing anything around here. I get it, okay? I know you guys are hurting. But no one is telling me what’s going on, we no longer have a car, none of us have worked in over a week…”

“Ye want to know what’s goin’ on?” he asked, leaning over the table until he was inches from my face. “It was a warnin.’ Only no one has contacted me to tell me what de fuck dey were warnin’ us about. I’ve no idea where de next hit will come from. What will be next? Mum? Ye?”

I began to shake as a red flush of anger spread up his neck. I’d instinctively known that what happened to Robbie hadn’t been random, but hearing it spelled out turned my fear into a physical thing, a pressure on my chest that made it feel as if I couldn’t breathe.

“I’ll be at de pub tonight.” Patrick said, his voice calming. “Tell Casey dat ye’ll be a few minutes late because I’m walkin’ ye over.”

“You said we’d be okay,” I whispered back. “When I told you I was scared, you said you’d handle it.”

His eyes clouded over before they shut entirely, and his head dropped down in defeat. What the hell was going on in our lives? How was this normal?

I didn’t understand how people could live like that. I didn’t understand why a man would willingly choose a side in a war with no winner, putting himself and his family in danger. For what? What the fuck could be that important? I knew then with absolute clarity why Peg had kicked Robbie out all those years ago. She loved him, but sometimes you had to jump ship if you wanted to save yourself.

“I don’t want to do this,” I said quietly, standing from the table.

The words hit him like a blow and he reared back in surprise.

“Do what?”

“I don’t want this life. I don’t want to be worried every time I leave the house. I don’t want to bring children into this shit!”

He let me move around him, but followed me into the bedroom.

“So what? Yer goin’ to leave me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ye don’t know? Where de fuck would ye go? I’m yer goddamn husband.”

We were yelling, facing off inside that tiny bedroom. My mind was a jumbled mess of contradictions. I loved him, but I couldn’t see a way for him to ever get out of the mess he was in. I wanted to leave. I wanted to take Peg and Patrick and leave the country—go far away where no one would find us. But that wasn’t reality.

The reality was that I was married to a man whose time was limited. It didn’t matter if the IRA believed his loyalty and continued to use him. There would still come a time that the things he was doing would catch up to him, and he’d either go to jail or he’d go in the ground. It was heartbreakingly inevitable.

“I wish I hadn’t married you.”

His back hit the wall as he stared at me in horror. “Do not ever say dat again.”

I began rubbing at my hands as we stared at each other in the silent room. He looked like hell. His face was gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes and he hadn’t shaved his face in so long it had gone beyond a five o’clock shadow and had turned into a scruffy looking beard. His clothes were clean, but they seemed to hang off him oddly as if they no longer fit. He was unraveling before my eyes, and I didn’t know what to do.