“Where’s Patrick’s gift?”

“Me gift?”

“Yes,” I groaned playfully, making Mum snicker. “She insisted on buying all of our Christmas presents before she couldn’t see anymore. The only problem with that is she has absolutely no patience, so she won’t wait until Christmas to give them out.”

“No patience? Ha! No time, more like,” Mum commented, making Patrick take in a sharp breath.

“Oh, none of that,” Mum scolded, squeezing Patrick’s hand in her frail one. “We both know that I’ll be gone soon, no use pretendin’ otherwise.”

“You don’t have to be so blunt about it,” I scolded, standing from my chair angrily.

I hated when she acted like dying was no big deal, absolutely hated it. It was the cause of all of our fights for the past five years. How could she act as if we’d all just go on without her? How could she act as if I could just go on without her? She was my best friend, my confidant, occasionally my co-parent and always the mother I’d never had.

There would be no moving on from her death. Not for me.

I was stopped short on my way to the door, as Patrick wrapped one hand around my waist and pulled me into his chest. His light kiss on my forehead had my whole body relaxing once again, and I took a few moments to get my emotions under control.

With that one gesture, he’d cautioned me that this was not the time to be angry. He’d assured me that he knew exactly how I felt. He reminded me that I wasn’t alone in my grief.

“I’ll go get Patrick’s present,” I said calmly to Mum.

“Thank ye,” she replied, all evidence of her cantankerous mood gone.

Patrick and Mum were talking quietly as I came back in with the wrapped gift, but both went silent as I got close enough to hear them.

“Here you go, prodigal son,” I said drolly, tossing him the package I’d wrapped two weeks before.

“Did ye just throw his gift?” Peg asked indignantly.

“No, Mum,” Patrick and I said at the same time, making all three of us burst into laughter.

“Eejits,” she grumbled.

Patrick tore the paper slowly, and a small smile lifted his lips as he realized what he was holding.

“T’anks, Mum,” he said softly, leaning over to kiss her on the lips. “Dis is a wonderful gift.”

“For my wonderful boy,” she said back, patting his cheeks. They both had tears in their eyes as she rubbed her fingers over his cheek and down his nose, moving them up again to smooth his eyebrows and run softly over his lashes and the wetness there. “Read to me?”

“Sure.”

He sat back in his chair, and I stood to give them some time alone.

“Amy, lie with me for a bit, my girl,” Peg called out before I could leave the room. “Let’s listen to my boy remind me of home.”

I crawled in bed with her and laid my head on her shoulder, wrapping my arm around her tiny waist as she ran her fingers over my forearm.

“I ya gae up to yon hill-tap, ye’ll there see a bonie Peggy—” Patrick began, stopping as Mum spoke.

“I love Robert Burns,” Peg said, relaxing into me as the movement on my arm stopped.

“You just like your name in there,” I teased, making her smile.

I heard Patrick clear his throat, then he started again from the beginning,

“I ya gae up to yon hill-tap,

ye’ll there see a bonie Peggy;

she kens her father is a laird,

and she forsooth’s a leddy…”

He finished the poem and started on another as Peg drifted off to sleep, and I listened to his clear voice as his accent grew thicker with each word. It wasn’t the one I remembered from our youth; it was Peg’s, and my throat grew tight with tears the longer he went on.

“She’s asleep, Patrick,” I said quietly.

He just shook his head, and continued without pausing. He kept reading as the men he’d called showed up and took Kevie away, as I got up to get him a bottle of water when his throat grew hoarse, as I climbed back in bed with Mum, and as the sun began to set in the sky. He didn’t stop, not for one moment.

***

“Patrick?” I called fearfully, meeting his tear-filled eyes after the sun had completely fallen. “I don’t think she’s breathing.”

“Come here, me love,” he ordered gently in a scratchy voice. I leaned up to follow his instructions, then froze as Mum’s chest rose one more time.

“Come to me,” he said again.

He raised his hand for me to take and I slid off the bed, walking numbly toward him, my eyes never leaving Peg’s chest. When I’d reached him, he pulled me into his lap, settling me across his thighs as he wrapped one arm around me and I pressed my forehead to his throat.

We were close enough that I reached out and grasped Mum’s hand in mine, running my fingers over the back of her fragile bones.

I could feel the vibration as Patrick began to read again, and I watched in agony, with tears dripping down my face, as Peg continued to struggle for breath, not once waking up.

We stayed that way long into the night, until finally, without fanfare and with her son reading her to sleep, Margaret Gallagher left us forever.

Chapter 46

Patrick

I crawled into Amy’s bed as the sun finally began to rise, curling my body around her sleeping form. It had been the longest night of my life.

Amy had been practically comatose after Mum had passed, unable to do the smallest thing to help me. I’d found the phone number to hospice and the funeral home on the refrigerator and by the time they’d arrived, I’d had to pry her out of the room so they could take Mum’s body away for burial.