“Yer Da has a doctor?”

“Close enough.”

I stood frozen as everyone broke into action around me, until Vera pinched my side hard. “Put it away. Swallow it all up until we know what we’re dealing with.”

I nodded vaguely, still watching as Patrick tried to soothe the hysterical woman.

“Now Amy,” Vera ordered as she moved past me to get to Patrick.

“We need to lay her down somewhere until we know what’s wrong,” Vera told Patrick calmly over the sound of the woman’s crying and Charlie talking to his dad on the phone in the kitchen.

Patrick nodded as Peg came rushing out of her bedroom. She must have heard the commotion, there’s no way she wouldn’t have. The woman was fucking loud.

“What’s going on?” she asked me, her voice full of worry.

“I don’t know.” It all seemed like it was happening somewhere else, like I wasn’t even present.

I watched as Patrick gently lifted the woman into his arms and moved around me and Peg. He paused at the couch for a moment, and his face looked pained as he glanced at me for a split second before carrying the woman into our bedroom.

It snapped me out of the stupor we were in, and I raced to the kitchen to wet a rag. Maybe if we cleaned up a little of the blood, it wouldn’t seem so bad. Head wounds always bled a lot, and the split lips and the scratch on her cheek hadn’t even scabbed over yet. I followed Vera and Peg, who had burst into action once she’d gotten a good look at the woman, but when I reached the doorway I couldn’t go any farther. The room wasn’t built to hold so many people, and it seemed even smaller than normal as I watched detachedly as Patrick sat next to the woman on the bed, brushing her hair carefully out of her face.

I took a small step, scooting around Vera so I could hand the woman the wet towel in my hand, but froze the minute she began to speak.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she told Patrick hoarsely, her voice ruined from the wailing she’d been doing. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Shhh. Yer alright now,” he soothed her.

“Michael found out. I tried to hide it.” More tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. “But I got too big and he finally noticed.”

I watched Patrick swallow hard, never looking away from the woman’s face.

“I tried not to tell dem it was ye. I swear it.” Her eyes implored him as I began to feel lightheaded. “But I just couldn’t take anymore.”

I gripped the doorframe hard, willing myself to stay upright. This was wrong. All of it was wrong. Patrick was going to speak up at any moment, and everything would become clearer.

“We need to strip her down and see what we’re looking at. Out, Patrick,” Peg said sharply, refusing to even look in his direction.

“Mum—” his voice cracked. That small break in his words destroyed everything I’d thought, believed and known about my relationship with my husband. It took less than a second.

“Out,” Peg ordered again, ignoring the shame in his voice.

As Patrick hushed the woman again, speaking quietly while attempting to pull away from her, I wrenched myself away from the room. I couldn’t watch it any longer. I needed to get away from him.

I sped through the house, only to be caught around the waist by Charlie. “You need to wait and hear him out, girl. Don’t be stupid and leave when we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

I ripped his arm off me and changed direction, stepping through the doorway of the bathroom just as Patrick came out of our room. I didn’t stop. I didn’t even turn my head in his direction.

I couldn’t even look at him.

“Amy—”

His words were cut off as I quietly shut the bathroom door and turned the flimsy lock. My legs gave beneath me, and I slid to the floor without even turning on the light. I didn’t mind the darkness.

It was quiet in there—a step away from the insanity that had taken over my home. Why had I been so giddy that Patrick had brought everything into clear focus again? Why had I let them pull me in, why had I let myself be pulled? Why couldn’t I have just continued on in the life I’d been living? There were no highs or lows in that life. I’d been comfortable there, before Peg and Patrick. I’d been numb.

I pretended for a split second that everything was back to normal again.

Robbie was watching television while Peg fixed dinner, and any moment Patrick would be home from work. Then the fantasy was shattered as the door vibrated against my back.

“Amy, let me in.” Patrick began knocking and trying to turn the doorknob. “Please, me love. Please, let me in.”

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have anything to say. Nothing. There was not one word in the entire dictionary, not one word in any language that seemed appropriate at that moment.

He’d slept with that woman. He’d slept with her and gotten her pregnant. The pain in my chest was too excruciating to bear. I couldn’t even cry. I just sat there staring into the darkness.

“Let me explain, me love. It’s not what yer t’inkin’, I swear it. Please, please, please let me in. Let me hold ye. I need ye, Amy. Please, open de door.”

Patrick continued to knock on the door, at one point threatening to break it down, but he didn’t get in. He just stood outside, begging and pleading and threatening and cajoling me to speak with him.

As if I had anything to say.