Chain of Vengeance: Chapter Seven - Part Twenty

Molly turned over onto her back in her sleep, the covers down around her waist. Fingers that weren’t her own touched her wrist and her eyes flicked open.

Jennifer, her mother, was standing beside the bed, dressed for sleep herself but with a white bathrobe resting on her shoulders. “Molly,” she whispered.

“What is it?”

Jennifer sat down beside her on the bed. The mattress shifted and stretched from the extra weight. She was smiling, her eyes very sad, blond hair held in place by a black band but dropping down still to her shoulders.

“It’s okay darling. I’m sorry to wake you. You have a visitor and I just wanted to talk for a second.”

Molly raised herself up to sitting, her shoulders against the soft cushioned headboard. “Who is it? Who’s here? What time is it?”

“It’s after midnight,” replied Jennifer, “and Jack Catholic is at the door.”

“Jack?”

“Yes.”

Jennifer raised her arm and gently ran the back of her fingers down Molly’s cheek. A quiet laugh came to her lips. “He’s very like your father.” She glanced toward the window and the tree beyond. The curtains were never closed in Molly’s bedroom and the tree was always enormously present, summer or winter. “Not in his looks so much as in his way, but he’s very handsome too.”

Molly didn’t nod but she agreed. “What did you want to say to me mother?”

Jennifer’s brow furrowed and then relaxed. She looked straight into Molly’s eyes and then away again as though she couldn’t hold the gaze. “I wanted to say sorry Molly. From your father, not from me. I wanted to apologise for him… because he never got the chance.”

“Mom?”

“He did love you darling. I know he did. Like I do. He loved you... and I know he was sorry at the end. I know he wanted to close the space between you as much as he wanted to close it between him and me.”

She smiled. There were tears in her eyes, and then Molly was weeping too. They closed their arms around one another and held tight. Then very quietly and soberly, Jennifer pushed Molly away and said, “Now Jack’s waiting for you downstairs. You’d better go and see him.”