"This is the second time I've woken up to you sitting in the dark in my room, uninvited," I said. "It's kind of creepy. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
He stood and came over to me, sitting on the edge of the bed. "No, Lydia. I don't want to do a thing to hurt ya. Not ever again." He sighed, tossing something on my bedside table.
I looked over, seeing what was a dark yellow folder, dirty and tattered, notes written all over it in what appeared to be Gaelic. I looked back at him. "What's that?"
"It's nothin' now. What it was, though, was the thing that kept me goin' when I had nothin' else."
I sat up higher, propping myself on the pillows behind my back, bringing my legs up so I was sitting Indian style, and reached over and clicked on the small reading lamp on my bedside table. It illuminated the room with a soft glow, allowing me to see Brogan gazing at me with those soft blue eyes, his expression grim.
"What do you mean?"
He ran a hand through his short, dark hair. "When we left your estate that day . . ." he paused as if just the very mention of that day still brought a deep ache with it, "we traveled to the Bronx. We had actually started out there before my dad applied for the job with your family. We'd heard there was a big Irish population, knew a few folks who knew folks. Anyway, that's where we returned. We found a small fleabag apartment to rent, and my dad, he," he inhaled and let it out slowly, "he pawned my mam's wedding ring just to come up with the security deposit and first month's rent."
"Brogan," I whispered.
He shook his head as if I shouldn't stop him now. "In the beginnin' I did anythin' I could to earn some money—just to feed us. I got in with some other guys—Russian lads—in similar positions who knew how to make some quick cash. We, ya know, scalped tickets, acted as lookouts, delivered messages, stuff like that. I knew I was workin' for mobsters, but I didn't care. It was feedin' my family when I had no other way to." His expression was defensive for a hint of a moment, but it slipped quickly into shame before he averted his gaze.
"Of course," I said. "I admire you for doing whatever you had to do to survive. It was very brave."
He paused for a brief moment as his eyes met mine. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly before he looked away again, continuing. "My dad, he looked for work and claimed he couldn't find any, but it's hard to find work when you're drunk nine hours a day."
Even in profile, I could see that another look of despair crossed his face and a lump formed in my throat. Oh Brogan, if I had known . . . I would have done anything to help you. Guilt surged through me once again at my own teenage naïveté. I hadn't even considered Brogan's family was experiencing that type of poverty, had no real knowledge of struggle, desperation. And I was so ashamed of my own ignorance.
"I met Fionn who was in a desperate situation, too, and we became friends." He gave me the first glimmer of a smile. "Of course, it doesn't take long for Fionn to grow on ya. But it was more than that. I trusted him when it was hard to trust anyone. And it made it so it wasn't so lonely, ya know? The scrapin' and scroungin', with Fionn it almost became . . . fun—he made a game of it. His own survival tactic, I suppose, but it helped me, too. Helped . . . balance me, I guess. And he's never let me down. Not once. Even when I deserved it. Even when I asked him to do things that went against his own morals. Which makes me a shite friend."
I leaned forward and placed my hand on top of his where they sat in his lap. I was still uncertain about us, but I cared about him and couldn't ignore his pain. "You'd do anything for him, too. I can see that and I know he does as well."
He took a deep breath. "Yeah. I would. Anythin'." He paused before continuing. "Anyway, we did any job we were asked to do. Through different jobs, they found I was good with numbers and started givin' me tasks that were more administrative in nature. Eventually, I was helpin' to do their books, accountin', stuff like that. Some of the guys I worked with were real arseholes. I saw them do things to others that turned my stomach, and I did nothin'. Not a feckin' thing, though it went against everythin' in me." He paused, the expression on his face so bleak my breath caught.
"If you had, they might have fired you, or worse. You needed that money. It was smart to keep quiet. Look where it got you in the end." I lifted my chin, asserting my point, defending him . . . to himself.
"Lydia . . ." he said quietly but didn't look at me. Again the small head shake as if he couldn't accept my statement. "I started keepin' some records, names, took things with me I shouldn't have, told myself I'd get them back for the way they preyed on others who were helpless for no other reason than because they could. Someday when I had the power, I told myself."
"And it helped," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "It helped knowin' that though I couldn't do anythin' then, I could and would do somethin' later. I put the files in that folder, and I took it out and looked at it whenever I didn't think I could do it anymore. But . . . the job, it paid better than any of the more menial jobs, and I was also grateful because Eileen was gettin' some of the treatments she needed. I’d been savin' up for her surgery—the plates she needed in her legs to straighten them permanently. I got us out of the slum we were livin' in, moved us to a nicer place in the Bronx—the building I work from now. His lips tipped up slightly, and he took a deep breath. "And it meant I could quit the thing I hated the most."