Page 34 of Unreasonably Yours

I nod again, the urgency in his voice silencing any questions.

“Say it.”

“I promise.” That seems to soothe something in him.

He takes a deep breath, nodding. “Good.”

We switch positions, and he guides me just a few streets down to his cousin's house.

Everything seems normal. Just a standard small single-family home. Empty driveway. Nothing amiss.

Cillian pulls the pendant he always wears from under his sweater, pressing it to his lips before letting it fall against his chest.

“Cillian?” I lay my hand on his shoulder, unsure what to say .

“He's probably fine. Just on a bender.” Something in his tone tells me he doesn't believe that.

He looks at me, a storm of his own raging in his green eyes. It makes my heart ache, longing to somehow make this easier, knowing I can’t do anything beyond what he’s already asked of me. Cillian pulls me to him, pressing a kiss to my forehead before letting go.

“Stay in the car,” he commands as he gets out.

“Be careful,” I say after him.

“It'll be fine,” he says, trying to force something like a reassuring smile but falling short.

When I was a kid, I’d always get this ‘calm before the storm’ feeling right before things would get bad at home—usually meaning my dad had gotten fired again or was going to come home drunk.

It was like some survival mechanism gained from growing up in a war zone.

As an adult, it never went away, and the last time I felt it was the night David proposed.

And now, sitting in Cillian’s car, watching him knock and wait before using a spare key to let himself in, that feeling creeps over me again.

A storm was coming. I just didn't know what kind.

I keep my eyes on the house, scanning from the windows to the garage to the front door and back again. Every muscle humming with tension.

In the side mirror, I see a car pulling up along the curb.

A petite woman with Ginelle's blonde hair leaps from the passenger side, while a tall woman with honey brown hair rushes after her from the driver's seat. My heart falls into my stomach.

Cillian hadn’t said there was danger. Not explicitly. But I had read his order to stay in the relative safety of the car as a warning all the same. A warning that his mom and aunt hadn’t received.

I don’t hesitate to get out of the car, figuring a broken promise is better than a potentially worse outcome. Before the two women manage to cross the postage stamp of a lawn, I intercept them.

“Hi!” I say, attempting something like a smile. “Cillian went in a few minutes ago. I think he wants to check things out first. Just give him?—”

“Who the fuck are you?” The petite woman asks, trying to push past me.

“Toni, I'm Cillian's friend.” I move to block her as her sister lays her hands on her shoulders.

“Tina, why don’t we give Cillian a minute? No one wants their family barging in?—”

“Get off me!” She tries to shrug Kitty off but whirls on her instead. She flings a finger back at the house, barely missing my face in the process. “If it was Cillian?—”

“I know,” Kitty says, grabbing for her sister's hand. Her tone is even and soothing, “If it were, you'd be telling me the same thing. Give them a minute and then we’ll go in and?—”

Behind me, the door opens, drawing our attention to Cillian as he steps out onto the small porch.

His face is white, his expression stoic.

“Cillian...” Tina's voice is crystalline, sharp, and strangely delicate. She pulls from her sister's grip, shouldering past me, moving toward him. “Is...Is Joey home?”

His mouth opens, then closes, eyes moving from his aunt to his mom, looking for a moment like a lost boy.

Kitty sucks in a breath, her hand flying to her mouth.

The storm I’d felt in the car makes landfall.

“I . . . I'm sorry.” He shakes his head. “Tina, I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” Tina asks. She sounds confused, as if she doesn't understand, or refuses to understand, what Cillian’s words imply.

“Get out of my way.” She makes a shooing motion, trying to move past him.

He grabs her arm, drawing her short. “ Excuse—Don’t you fucking touch—” She tries to pull free. “Joseph! Get your ass out here! Joey!”

“Tina, honey...” Kitty says, taking a step toward her sister.

Tina throws her a wild glare. Her eyes are wide and shining with fear, fury, and something deeper. She jerks her arm painfully hard, but Cillian doesn't budge.

“I can’t let you go in there, Tina,” he says, his voice rough. She looks up at him. Cillian shakes his head. “He’s not...He's gone. I’m sorry.”

“No,” she says so quietly, I almost miss it. “No,” she declares louder. “No. He's...” She looks over at me and Kitty, frozen in place on the lawn. “He can't. No.” The word feels heavy.

Tina takes a step back, away from the house, and Cillian releases his hold on her. Taking advantage of the moment, she tries to bolt for the door, but Cillian catches her once more, wrapping her tightly in his arms as she fights until her back is pressed against his chest.

“I'm sorry,” Cillian says again.

“Let me go!” she howls. “Let me see my son.” The final word is anguished.

“He wouldn't want you to see him like this. I can’t?—”

“You don't know!” she cries, fighting like a trapped animal.

“I do,” Cillian's voice cracks, his eyes finding his own mother. The implication makes me shiver. “I do.”

Something about this breaks Tina’s fight. She goes limp in Cillian's arms, and he guides them both to their knees in the grass, finally letting her go.

Kitty unfreezes, moving with almost shocking speed toward her sister and son. She lays a hand on her sister’s back while cupping her son’s cheek, trying to be what they both need, pulled in two impossible directions .

Tina howls a sob, a guttural, near-primal sound that vibrates somewhere in my bones. The unnatural sound of a parent mourning their child.

It's the worst thing I've ever heard.

Cillian shuts his eyes against the sound. His mother's hand delicately stroking his cheek.

I can't imagine what she must feel. Her boy, still here while her sister’s is gone. Her boy, who clearly got close enough to know what he would and wouldn't want his mother to see.

Kitty looks over at me, and I produce my phone. “Should I?”

She nods.

I feel guilty wanting both to be helpful and utterly desperate for an excuse to step away from the heartbreaking scene before me.

I've barely hung up the phone with 911 when a car I recognize squeals onto the street. Ginelle barely parks before getting out and freezing, the sound of her mother's sobbing carrying down the yard to where I face her on the curb.

“Toni?” she asks, breathless, eyes begging me to lie to her.

All I can manage is to echo Cillian. “I'm so sorry.”

She reaches behind her, fumbling for the car, anything to lean against. I step forward, reaching out to steady her. Ginelle falls into me, accepting the support, her body shaking but not quite crying.

“Baby?” Tina’s ragged voice pulls our attention back.

“Mom . . .” Ginelle’s voice breaks.

The woman rushes to her daughter. Ginelle meets her halfway and they embrace, sinking to the grass, holding one another tight.

Across the lawn, I meet Cillian's eyes, finding them surprisingly cold.

Kitty remains at his side, arm wrapped around his.

Seeing mother and son together completes something in my understanding of Cillian.

While he has his dad’s coloring—the dark salt-and-pepper hair, the green eyes—everything else is Kitty.

She stands only a few inches shorter than her son; her features are defined, with full lips.

For a woman who has to be in her 60s, she’s incredibly striking.

“You ok?” He asks as I walk up to them.

“Relatively.”

He nods. “I need a smoke.” He pulls away from Kitty's hold on his arm and walks to the car.

We both watch him, our shared worry humming between us like static.

“Toni,” Kitty says, and I turn my attention to her. “Kitty.” She holds out a well-manicured hand. “Sure, you figured that out by now, but still.”

“Good to finally meet you.” I give her hand a squeeze.

“Wish it was in better circumstances.” She looks over to the tangled pile of her niece and sister.

“Me, too...” I chew my lip. “I'm so sorry for your loss.” The words feel grossly inadequate.

She purses her full lips, swallowing hard. “Thank you.” Her fingers curl around a crucifix hanging over her sweater, eyes moving to her son, his back to us, a curl of smoke rising from his cigarette. “It's a mother's worst fear.” Her voice is distant. “That she'll bury her babies.”

Before she can say more, the cries of sirens cut through the air.

Everything becomes a blur, punctuated only by the moment when they bring Joey out, a man whose name I'd heard but whose face I'd never seen.

Tina's howl of grief redoubles, the impact rattling through everyone in range.

Unable to watch, I keep my attention on Cillian. His eyes remain fixed on some distant point miles away, even as he holds Ginelle tight, keeping her on her feet; his mother presses a hand to his lower back as she soothes her niece as best she can.

I feel like an interloper. But with nowhere else to go, I'm trapped hovering at the edges, trying to remain close enough to help if needed but not so close that I’m intruding.

When the responders finally clear out, the silence they leave is suffocating.

“Ginelle, sweetheart,” Kitty coaxes Ginelle to look at her. “Why don't you leave your car here and ride with your mom and me?” She wipes a quiet tear from Gin's pale cheek.

She shakes her head. “I can drive.”

“Gin, I could drive your car back if—” I begin to offer.

“I...” She sniffs hard, looking over at her mom, who is sitting on the steps of the porch, eyes fixed on her hands. “I think I need the time alone. Before...before we go tell the kids.” Her jaw clenches as she visibly tries to contain a sob.

“Gigi,” Cillian says softly, a name I'd never heard anyone use for Ginelle before. “I can handle that.”

“You've done enough. You don't have to do this.”