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CONOR

TIME IN A BOTTLE - ROB LANE

“Do you want to take the ferry into Jersey, Kat? Do something different for our visit today?”

There was no logical reason for that blank look to make an appearance in Kat’s eyes at Star’s cheerful offer, but it slithered into being like a veil passing over her irises.

It wasn’t Exorcist -esque, but it was creepy nonetheless.

The second it happened, Star dropped Alessa a message in the group chat we shared, explaining why we wouldn’t be coming to West Orange today, then carefully hustled her into the living room, ensconcing her on the couch in a pile of blankets, where she put on a Disney movie.

Over the next couple hours, I worked in there with them both, wondering when my edgy interior design had been replaced with fluffy pink throws and myriad picture frames of a little girl I’d never known I’d be fathering in various stages of maturity—Kat beaming at me with a gap-toothed smile in one, her mid-flight as she practiced a somersault, her scowling at a teacher at an end-of-year recital…

I could say, hand on heart, I never thought I’d have kids. Too many trust issues. Too many issues, period. But watching the slow thaw as Kat returned to her usual bubbly self, the rightness of it all hit me.

Not that she was suffering, not that a simple question could trigger dissociation, but the parts of her adults had broken, maybe they were something I was uniquely placed to fix?

Hadn’t adults broken me?

Who else could understand her better?

“What happened, sweetheart?” Star asked her an hour later when Kat decided to do an impromptu midair somersault during some movie about a frog.

Gymnastics were clearly a coping mechanism, but they were also something Star was using as Kat’s baseline—the more chaos she was wreaking midair, the more Star thought Kat was back to her usual self.

Kat’s beaming grin dampened some. “What happened when, Star?”

“You went away.” She shot her a gentle smile which was bound to freak Kat out because Star wasn’t gentle often. If ever. That wasn’t her parenting style. “Here.” She motioned to her eyes.

“I did?” Kat swallowed.

“You did,” I agreed, gently popping into the conversation.

“I-I don’t know why.”

“Do you not like boats?” Star questioned.

Her head whipped to the side. “I don’t.”

“Do you know why? We’ve never been on a boat together so it must have happened… before.”

Kat blinked a couple times. “I just don’t like boats.”

“But you love swimming,” Star pointed out.

“Swimming is different. Swimming is in a pool.” She shuddered. “The ocean…”

“Technically, the Hudson is a river. If that helps any,” I remarked.

Star snorted. “He’s right.”

Kat giggled. “It’s not the same as a pool, Conor!”

“Don’t you want to see the Statue of Liberty, Kat?” I questioned carefully.

“I’ve seen her.”

“From a distance. On a boat, you can get up close and personal. Always so much to do on the water,” I peppered.

She shivered. “I don’t want to get wet.”

“That’s what a boat is for,” Star murmured. “So you won’t get wet. Do you feel like trying? It’s still light enough.”

Kat licked her lips. “You promise that I won’t get wet?”

“Nope.”

“We could take the Staten Island Ferry. The terminal’s two blocks away,” I said easily.

“It’s also free. Conor’s such a cheapskate, Kat,” Star teased.

I didn’t mind being poked fun at, not when it made Kat chuckle. When I started tickling her and she shrieked in joy, I declared, “I’m not a cheapskate! Say it, Kat, say it!”

“Conor’s a cheapskate, Star!” She cackled when I made a mock growl and dangled her by her calves.

Star, staring at the pair of us, shook her head. “If she’s sick, you get to clean it up.”

“I’m not going to be sick!” Kat screeched then whooped when I hovered her gently above the floor.

“You gonna do a handstand for us?”

She pressed her hands to the floor. “Okay, let go, Conor!”

When she walked a few paces on her hands then did some flip thing, Star and I shared a smile—she was back.

For the moment.

That was how I ended up on the Staten Island Ferry just so I could glance at the statue I’d seen almost every day I’d been alive up close and personal.

On the walk to the terminal, Kat was her usual bustling self, oversharing about school and her fellow classmates. She bitched about her math teacher and jabbered away in Italian when Star prompted her to, earning an impressed look from a hot dog vendor who stopped trying to sell us pretzels long enough to chatter with her.

When we approached the waterside, her conversation faded, however. She was quiet as we stepped on board the vessel, quieter still as we rode to Staten Island and back again because the return journey had the best views of the statue.

When we approached Lady Liberty, that was the first time she let out a shaky sigh. “She’s so pretty. She’s what you fought for, isn’t she, Star?”

“I can’t say that I had her in my mind when I was in the sandbox, kiddo, but what she stands for? Sure. Liberty. Been fighting for that and justice my whole life.”

Kat swallowed. “The bad people who hurt you, they’ve gone away, haven’t they?”

“They’re in the process of going away,” she corrected.

Kat fell silent, her eyes big and round as she peered at the statue. A hat was tugged over her forehead and her scarf covered her from the nose down, so they were all that was visible. Then, she whispered, “My daddy’s name was Bogdan, wasn’t it?”

I stilled. It wasn’t exactly quiet on board, but the whisper had been so faint I could have misheard.

“You remembered that?” Star questioned, twisting on the faux-wood bench to study Kat.

She swallowed. “I did.”

Floating a theory, I asked, “You know when you go away, Kat, is that when you remember something?”

The little girl bit her bottom lip. “Yes.”

“Is that what you remembered today? Your dad’s name?”

She nodded.

“What else have you remembered?”

“My daddy used to make my mommy cry.” Her voice was so small, so fucking small that it made me want to break something. “He used to hurt her. Why did he do that, Conor?”

Christ.

“Because some men are very weak, Kat. They think it makes them ‘strong’ to scare someone, to hurt them, but it just makes them smaller.” Those big eyes of hers peered at me and I knew what she was asking. “I’ll never hurt Star, sweetheart. Or you. I promise.”

Slowly, she nodded, and her gloved hand reached for mine. As she knotted our fingers together, I didn’t think I’d ever been shown such a sign of faith, of trust, than I had at that moment.

I stared at Star over Kat’s head and saw the gratitude and the love beaming back at me and returned it with a smile.

Though it was a total tourist move, I let Star take a picture of us with NYC’s most famous lady in the background, mostly because I knew that shot would end up on my desk…

The rest of the journey took place in silence, most of us just staring out onto the river, each of us processing what we’d learned.

We picked up burgers for dinner, watched a movie, and headed to bed. Star fell asleep quickly, which didn’t surprise me, to be honest, because the day had been an emotional pit of stress, but by contrast, I couldn’t sleep .

I ended up heading to our office.

Running some programs, I started a search on child shrinks because I figured that it was time we went with some professional help if Kat was remembering her father ‘hurting’ her mother.

Considering the bastard had ended up murdering her, the last thing we needed was Kat remembering that in a dissociative state without having some outside help close by.

Around two AM, I heard Kat scream from a nightmare.

I always woke before Star did when that happened, which spoke of how bad my sleep was, but today was different. Tonight was a new night.

Kat remembered a father who hurt her mother. I needed to replace that memory, needed to do something to make that better.

So I didn’t go and wake Star up. Instead, I cautiously opened Kat’s bedroom door and from the doorway, called, “Katina, you can wake up now. You’re safe.”

She didn’t stir, just kept on crying, and those tears fucking broke me. They wrecked something inside me that had never been touched before, and I knew this was the moment where I had to step up—no longer was I just the man dating her foster mom, I was more than that.

Because I wasn’t simply dating Star—I was engaged to her.

Star was my forever. My fucking everything. And that meant Kat was too.

Feeling awkward about entering her bedroom, I shuffled over to the bed and cleared my throat.

That didn’t work.

I reached down and gently cupped her shoulder which was trembling. Ren meowed at me, but I ignored the kitten to whisper, “Kat. You’re safe, sweetheart. You need to wake up because you’re dreaming. Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real. It’s just a dream.”

I crooned the words to her, hoping she’d hear them, but if she did, she merged from sleeping to waking in increments.

Taking a seat at her bedside, I gently stroked her hair, doing what I guessed I wished Ma had done to me when I’d had nightmares.

When Da had stopped her from comforting me because I needed to man up.

The thought had a frown puckering my mouth as I did what I could to soothe her until, out of nowhere, her arms were sliding around my waist and she was sobbing, “Why won’t they stop, Conor? Why won’t they stop?”

My throat felt thick with emotions I didn’t know how to express, probably couldn’t express because I’d been stunted in that sense when I was her age.

“I wish I knew why, sweetheart. I wish I knew.” I sucked in a breath. “What did you dream of? Do you want to talk about it?”

“He was hurting her again.”

“Is this the first time you remembered?”

“No,” she whispered as if it were a secret.

“You remembered before but didn’t tell Star?”

“I didn’t want to upset her.” She sniffled. “She’s worried about me.”

“I am too,” I reassured.

“I know but you’re different.”

“I am?”

She hitched a shoulder. “I don’t know why, but you are.”

Deciding to take that as a positive if it meant she’d open up to someone, I said, “I used to have bad dreams when I was your age.”

“What did you dream of?”

“A man who used to hurt me.”

“Why did he hurt you?”

“Because he could.” My throat bobbed. “Did your father hurt you, Kat?”

“No.” She had no idea how goddamn relieved I was. “He used to hurt Leo though. His daddy didn’t protect him. He said he needed to make him into a man but he was only little. How could he make him into a man by hurting him, Conor?”

Leo.

Her cousin.

“My da used to think like that, Kat. When I was your age and I had nightmares, my ma wasn’t allowed to come and help me get back to sleep.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It is,” I agreed. “My brothers used to try to help but if they didn’t hear me then how could they?”

“They couldn’t. Which brother?”

“The older ones. Declan, when he understood, used to crawl into bed with me.” I swallowed.

“Did your da stop the man who used to hurt you?”

“No. My brothers did.”

“Which ones?”

“Aidan and Finn. They stopped him.”

I could still remember that day as if it had happened last week.

They’d burst into the church like superheroes to save me. Aidan and Finn, until my dying day, would know my endless gratitude and loyalty for doing what they did.

“How did they stop him?”

“They hurt him,” I said simply, “until he could never hurt me again.” It hit me what I’d said too late. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that?—”

“The Sinners used to think I wasn’t listening but I did. I know they used to hurt people, that they used to kill them,” she whispered, turning onto her side in her PJs that were covered in flying pigs, with her wispy blonde hair floating around her face, both of which were visible because of a nightlight she needed to sleep.

Christ, she was too young to know this shit.

Furious with myself, I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “You shouldn’t have listened, Kat. If you ever hear anything like that, you should walk away and keep your ears closed.”

“How do you close your ears?”

“You hum to cover up the other people’s conversation.”

“Wouldn’t they know I was listening then?”

“They would.” Unless… “Were you eavesdropping?”

“No one tells me anything,” she grumbled with a pout.

“And what you learned, does it feed your bad dreams?”

She tucked her chin into her chest. “Maybe.”

I sighed. “That’s why you shouldn’t listen into conversations that are for adults, Kat. Stay a kid for as long as you can. Being a grown-up sucks.”

“Conor?”

“Yes, Kat.”

“Didn’t your da know about the man who hurt you?”

“Not until recently.”

“Why didn’t you want him to know?”

Christ, that was the real question, wasn’t it?

I cleared my throat. “My answer isn’t a nice one, Kat.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “Pinkie swear.”

Her pinkie made an appearance in front of me—so close that it almost went up my nose. I lowered it a little, hiding a smile, then curled mine around hers.

“I didn’t think he’d believe me.” I hesitated. “No, that’s not true. I knew he wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because the man who hurt me was a man he trusted implicitly.”

“What does implicitly mean?”

“In this instance, it means Da trusted him one hundred percent.”

“He was wrong to, wasn’t he?”

I choked out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, he was.”

Ren, supremely unconcerned by our distress, started washing himself on her pillow.

“Conor?”

“Yes, Kat.”

“I’m glad your brothers hurt the man,” she whispered in a rush, petting Stimpy when she jumped onto her bed and snuggled into her side.

“Me too.”

“I like them more than the others now.”

That had me snorting. “You can have favorite uncles, but you can’t make them your favorite because of something they did for me. It should be because of something they did for you.”

“You’re my family now, aren’t you? And if they’d do that for you, then maybe if anyone hurt me too, they’d do the same for me.”

“That isn’t a question you need to ask yourself, Kat. If anyone dared hurt you, and trust me, they won’t because you’re an O’Donnelly now, every single one of us would make that person wish they’d never been born.”

She shivered. “I like knowing that.”

“Good. When you have bad dreams, you should remember that. You have a family that even the boogeyman is frightened of.”

“I do?”

“You do,” I confirmed, leaning over to brush a kiss on the crown of her head. “Are you ready to get some sleep?”

“Conor?”

Unexpectedly ragged from this conversation, I sighed. “Yes, Kat.”

“I want to call Star ‘Mom.’ Do you think she’d let me?”

“I don’t see why she wouldn’t love that.”

“If she’s my mom, does that mean, eventually, you’ll be my dad?”

My eyes flared in surprise but with an ease I wasn’t feeling, I said, “It does.”

She hummed happily. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to call you that, okay?”

“You do that, kiddo. Get some good sleep and remember that no one is allowed to hurt you. Not even your dreams.”

Her smile was sleepy but content, and it filled me with a contentment of my own knowing that I’d given her that ease.

My parents had never done that for me so it put me in the perfect position of understanding what Kat needed and when.

There could be some good from them letting me down. My family would never know what it was to feel isolated and afraid.

That was what being called a father meant.

I’d earn the title of ‘Dad’ if it was the last thing I ever did.