The room began to sway and his voice became a tinny, far-off whisper. Siobhan sat at next to Agnes, listening to the rant about Anthony Balfiglio. Collin wasn’t sure, but he heard in Agnes’s Eleanor Roosevelt vibrato an accusation he’d never thought anyone would make – but the damned boy had confided in his niece after all. He pushed his chair back and rose to his feet, circled the table, and looked at each of them around the table.
Norman Balmoral, the heretic Protestant who’d nailed Agnes and got her pregnant. Then made her leave the Church to marry him. He sat at the head of the table, his velvet hypocrisy smirking its way toward Collin. Patrick, the nephew who’d always looked up to him, every statement he was making sounding like a question. He sat across from Agnes, looking at her, looking up at Collin, the tone of voice clearly in his eyes, What is she really saying, Uncle Collin. He’d be ruined if he knew the truth.
Next to Patrick, his own Siobhan. She couldn’t fathom the concept of what had transpired between him and the Balfiglio hellion. His sister wouldn’t understand the needs of men – she’d been a widow eighteen years, after all, and had never had a man other than Martin Limerick – and the importance of punishment for bad little Catholic boys. He looked at Siobhan, and then at Agnes – a younger version of her mother. He looked from one to the other, and he chose. He chose his sister over his niece.
“Siobhan, we’re leaving now. Patrick, you too. Not another word to this woman. From this moment she is dead to us.”
They rose to leave and Siobhan cried as they left the room. “My daughter is lost to me, Collin. Lost.” The moan from the base of Siobhan’s voice pierced his heart.
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