Soaring (Magdalene #2)(24)

Seeing it, I wondered if, when she went, she left it just to remind them she’d been there and now she was gone.

I didn’t know what to make of this, except to think that if she left it on purpose, it was a cruelty, plain and simple. Conrad had left us in our home and when he’d gone, he’d taken every vestige of himself with him. Yes, including the pictures off the walls and out of frames on shelves and tables.

And when he went, this caused me profound grief that only dug the pit of his departure deeper.

Now I saw it as something else entirely.

As a kindness.

Staring at the candle, I also wondered why Mickey kept it.

Perhaps, as a man, he didn’t even see it. It had been lit, but it was far from burned low and he didn’t strike me as a man who lit candles to provide a relaxing atmosphere.

Perhaps he wanted a reminder of his wife, the family they shared, the hopes he’d had, these being things he wasn’t ready to let go.

I would get no answers to these questions and not only because I’d never ask them.

No, it was because Mickey called, “Hey, babe.”

I stopped staring at the candle and turned his way.

Cillian was up on a barstool opposite Mickey, who was wearing another unfairly attractive shirt, this in lightweight cotton the color of mocha, sleeves again rolled up over muscular forearms, doing something beyond the elevated portion of counter where the tall barstools sat.

Both pairs of blue eyes were on me.

“I’m completely unable to come to a home for a meal without bringing something,” I blurted, lifting up my empty hands. “I feel weird. Like I’m going to get a Good Guest Demerit or something.”

Mickey grinned and Cillian asked, “What’s a demerit?”

“A bad mark, son,” Mickey explained to his boy then looked to me. “Come in. Take a seat. Want a beer?”

I didn’t often drink beer; it wasn’t a beverage of preference. I drank wine and if I had a cocktail it could vary, but it usually had vodka in it.

However, I keenly remembered Mickey saying his children’s mother had a wineglass soldered to her hand so I nodded.

“Beer sounds good,” I replied, moving further into the room in the direction of the bar.

I arrived, took my own barstool and noted that Mickey had a plethora of stuff all over the counter and appeared to be creating a smorgasbord of salads ranging from spinach to Asian noodle to macaroni. There were bowls, small packets of slivered almonds, used packs of ramen noodles, bottles of mayonnaise and mustard, cutting boards covered in residue and the waste parts of pickles, carrots, tomatoes, onions.

It struck me how long it’d been since my countertop looked like that and when it struck me, that feeling fell down the hollow well left after my family disintegrated, and it kept falling, that pit a bottomless pit of agony.

“Get Miz Hathaway a beer, boy,” Mickey ordered, thankfully taking me out of my thoughts, and Cillian jumped off his stool and raced to the fridge.

I failed to note the first time I met Cillian that he seemed to have an overabundance of energy.

I did not fail to note this same thing the day before when he stuck to his father’s, or Jake’s, or Junior’s sides like glue, helping with anything that needed help with, dashing around getting packing materials, dragging boxes, but most specifically manly things, like lifting and carrying.

Even if what he was lifting and carrying was too big, which sent him grunting and making hilarious faces at which I would never laugh because he was so serious in doing whatever he was doing, and I didn’t want him to see me and hurt his feelings.

I saw then, although getting a beer was not an onerous task, this was his nature for he didn’t delay and delivered the fastest drink I’d ever received.

“Thanks, honey,” I murmured when he put it on the bar in front of me.

“No probs,” he replied, moving around me then pulling himself back into his barstool, still talking, albeit briefly. And this was to demand of me, “Get this.”

I swiveled my stool his way to look at him.

“What?” I asked on a grin.

“I just figured out today that when I’m a fighter pilot for the Air Force, they don’t have to give me a call sign,” he declared and finished excitedly, “They can call me Kill since Kill is an awesome call sign but it’s also my name!”

He was clearly ecstatic about this.

But I stared at him in utter fear.

“You want to be a fighter pilot?” I asked.

“Totally,” he answered.

“Top Gun,” Mickey stated and I turned concerned eyes to him. “Cill caught it on cable a few years back. Made me buy him the DVD. He’s seen it a million times.”

“Two million,” Cillian contradicted proudly, and I turned my attention back to him. “It flipping rocks!”

I couldn’t agree or disagree. I’d seen it several times myself, including when it came out. Back then it was the best thing going.

However, I wasn’t certain it had aged well.

“The pilots in that movie fly for the Navy,” I informed him.

“Yeah, I know, but who wants to land a jet on a boat?” Cillian asked but didn’t allow me to answer. He shared his opinion immediately, “Not me. Plus, there are no babes on boats.”

“About a year after Cill saw Top Gun,” Mickey started and my eyes went to him, “he became aware there were girls in this world.”