The Callaghan Estate - Dining Hall
Rosalie pushed the peas around her plate. She wasn't all together surprised at the lack of information the man had parted with. His 'organisation' was in flux, the child would only be returned when the dust had settled, and when he'd removed those who'd lost their way. He was apologetic to her plight, but he assured her that the child was safe, and well-cared for, and stopped short of recalling a tale of what can happen when our hearts cloud our heads.
Eoghan's words were churning around and around in her mind, like a siren going off, as she sat through his monologue. It's not my fight, she thought, this has shit-all to do with me and my daughter. This hasn't been my country since the night that Jenna took me away. This is not my fight.
"I hear you're getting pally with our Eoghan again. He's a good lad." Malcolm stated, shattering the lengthy silence between them, "You two were thick as thieves when you were wee."
The siren blaring off in her ears changed its tune sharply from 'this is not my fight', to 'this is not my family'; the way he spoke to her really grated, like he knew her, like he had any authority or history or claim on the person she'd turned out to be.
"He was the only other kid here, right?" Rosalie rasped, "It was either that or...hang out with your hit men?"
Malcolm raised a brow, and asked her, "Were you this steely with Filip?"
Rosalie thought for a moment, stabbed a pea, and then shook her head once. She rasped, quite honestly, "In the beginning."
"So, there's hope for us yet." He said, with a smirk.
Rosalie's gaze snapped up from her plate, to meet his. She hummed and said, "Must be my default setting for long-lost family members I knew nothing about."
"Keep them at arm's length, until they prove themselves worthy?" He posed.
"Worthy? Not a total asshole will do." Rosalie said, "Up until about a year ago, I had one relative, so the bar is admittedly, pretty low."
"Is that how Teller made it through?" He asked her, continuing to munch away on his dinner, as if that wasn't a tad on the rude side.
Rosalie glared at the man, and uttered tersely, "You don't know him."
"Oh. But, I do." Malcolm said, with a darker chortle, and reached for his napkin, dabbing the corners of his mouth. He explained, "I knew his daddy, and from what I hear, he's a carbon copy, with a little bit of Clay sprinkled on top."
"Where is my mom buried?" Rosalie asked him, abruptly.
Malcolm folded his napkin, neatly. She enjoyed the flicker of a waver in composure. He cleared his throat and gestured around. He said, "Here. Her home."
"You've got half of Ireland fenced in here." Rosalie remarked, and asked him, "Where, exactly?"
"I'll take you there, once you're finished, if you like." He offered.
"I'm done." She uttered.
The Callaghan Estate - Grounds
Rosalie stood next to her grandfather, on a blustery hill, over looking the pond below. Darkness had settled across the Estate, but she was certain the four headstones would enjoy a charming view below them come morning. She surveyed the inscriptions of all four: her mother, and her grandmother had a date of death. Malcolm and Jenna's were of course, open-ended. She wasn't sure how to feel. She felt unease, and quite certain Jenna would have grunted 'quite literally over my dead body' were she standing beside her now. She wondered if she knew about this.
Elizabeth Jane Callaghan (June 16th 1969 - June 10th 1993)
Beloved Mother, Daughter, and Sister.
Goodnight, and joy be with you all.
"She say that a lot or something?" Rosalie asked, "Really wanted a Santa quote as her epitaph?"
A huff of laughter escaped from Malcolm, and he turned to her to say, "Eh, you're thinking Merry Christmas, and to all a goodnight. That's a line from The Parting Glass. Lizzie had a good set of lungs on her, she wanted to be a singer, ever since she was yay-high. She was a regular in the city centre, different nights at different pubs."
"You've talked a lot about Jenna since I've been here." Rosalie said, "Not a whole lot about her."
"What is it you want to know? She was almost 24 when she died, she was barely starting to become her own person." Malcolm stated, "She was sweet. Kind. Mature. Independent. Jenna was always the one getting into scrapes, breaking hearts, running her mouth; Jenna commanded a room, and stole everyone's attention, every opportunity she got. Lizzie was steadfast, she was easy. She did her own thing, and I never worried about her, not once...no, not 'til she started getting into boys. I haven't talked about her in a very long time. I want to. But...my granddaughter has now outlived her mother's years on this Earth. It's not right."
Rosalie listened to the old man's tired tone, his pauses, his hesitation, how he held back from articulating anything resembling a true fatherly feeling. All of Lizzie Callaghan's troubles began when she started getting into boys, eh? Well, she didn't have enough time on this Earth to get into boys plural, Rosalie thought to herself. There was one boy, and then there was a baby girl.
Helena Jane Callaghan (May 14th 1940 - December 3rd 1995)
Rosalie read the inscription on her grandmother's headstone, and noted, "Your wife died young."
Malcolm nodded, ever so slightly, and then said, without missing a beat, "Of a broken heart. It's getting chilly. I reckon we should head back.""
Rosalie's gaze slid up from the headstone to her grandfather's face. He was surveying the still grounds around them; she then realised he hadn't once looked down at the headstones, his eyes were on her, or the view. He'd gone to such lengths to ensure their final resting spot was gorgeous and scenic, but she figured he'd rarely, if ever, come here.
She'd liked it so much better when she'd pegged him as some delusional old man, but the more they spoke the more she saw herself conversing with a bullshit merchant; he had to know the pain and the anguish he'd inflicted on his family, and to see no sign of remorse, the blame pushed elsewhere, it broke the last small piece of hope she held in her heart. She'd quietly apologised to her mother before she'd said her final piece that night, uncertain whether she'd take it with fire, with pride, or with understanding.
"It wasn't some freak accident that took my mother's life, and near took mine." Rosalie stated, coldly, "It was you. You broke your wife's heart. I'm not frosty with you because you're a stranger to me. I know you. You're the villain in my story, the massive scar down my side, the ghosts of people I can't remember, all the lost years, everything that I never had, or never should have happened. It's all you. So...whatever you think is going to happen here, don't hold your breath."
Teller Morrow Automotive Repairs - Charming, California
The Sons discussed their abysmal financial situation, ahead of their very expensive excursion to Belfast. Serg's tracker was in the wind, and not overly keen on refunding the ten grand that had been wired his way. Opie paced around at the news, throwing his glass in frustration; his gesture of selling his beloved pan-head, was all for nothing. The money earned from selling steroids was stolen by the Mexicans that had jumped Juice. Jackson instantly shot down Clay's idea to press Tara to move the last of the prescription medications through the clinics. The Sons were tapped.
"Excuse me, boys." Chibs drawled out, as he caught sight of the woman with flaming red hair who had just pulled up into their lot.
He had left a message on her answering machine, looking for Rosalie to call him back, he hadn't heard from her in a while, and neither had Jax. He was trying to walk the line between granting her the space she needed and seeking the reassurance that he needed, as her father. Jenna turning up in person, only incensed his concerns.
"Everything okay?" Chibs asked her.
"You packed on a bit, since I last saw you." Jenna said, coolly.
"Let's skip the pleasantries, Jen, what the fuck are you doing here?" Chibs asked, and glanced back at Jenna's empty car, "What's the matter? Where is she?"
"Ah." Jenna hummed, and noted, "So, you did notice that your daughter wasn't around, but not that she wasn't in the country."
Chibs squinted in confusion, and scorned, "She said she was coming to you!"
Jenna chuckled darkly, and with a tickled expression informed him, "I haven't seen her months, not since she started playing house with her biker boy. She lied, you pillock. I know you skipped right past the bratty teen phase, and went straight to the end product, but your darling angel can spin a yarn as good as any, as good as the stock she came from."
"Where the fuck is she?" Chibs scorned back.
"Ireland." Jenna said, simply. She waited for the drop in his expression before she confirmed his racing fears, "A little outside Belfast to be exact. Charming estate, remember it? You snuck in once or twice in your youth."
"Mack." Chibs seethed, and rubbed his face with his hands. He groaned, "'Sake. When the fuck was this? She alright?"
"Oh, aye. She's grand. He invited her. She came willingly." Jenna informed him, and stepped into him to hiss, "Hurts to hear, doesn't it? Her desperate wee quest for something resembling a family, sends her across the pond, back to the place she was fucking rescued from."
"She's after her baby, Jenna, no a fucking tea party with grandpa." Chibs scorned back, "Mack didn't mention that? Cammy Fucking Hayes took her five day old kid for the death of his boy." Jenna turned away from him, mid-sentence, and started for her car, unwilling to engage with the man a second longer; she clearly hadn't known that. Chibs barked at her back, "Where the fuck are you going?"
"Did my part. Said my piece." Jenna said, with a shrug, and kept on towards her car.
"And now you're pissing off? That all you know how to do, love?!" Chibs asked, incredulously, "No gonna lend a hand?"
"With what?" Jenna asked, harshly, turning sharply back to face him, "She's grand. Mack will be delighted to have his Mini Lizzie back home. And I sure as shit ain't having anything to do with the man. They got cellphones in Ireland, Filip. You'd know if she wanted daddy's help."
"Why the fuck is he phoning you?" Chibs snarled, "Heh? Got nothing to do with the man? My arse!"
"Anything happens to her!" Jenna growled back, her sharp bellow of a tone cutting his snark right off, "Filip, I swear to Christ, I'm not raising the next one."
Chibs didn't say anything else; he stuffed down all of the fire and grit that she'd pulled out of him, in mere seconds, and stored it away for a deserving target. He watched her pull out of the forecourt, and drive off. She'd managed to ground their contentious relationship, albeit without grace, back to that one overarching idea that would always ring true: she had raised that little girl, not him, and she loved Rosalie as though she were her own.
The Callaghan Estate - Stables
Progress had stagnated. Rosalie saw less and less of her grandfather, to the point where she briefly entertained the idea that he'd gone senile and forgotten that she was still here, rattling around the sprawling mansion house; it might have had something to do with the savage verbal take-down she'd delivered a few nights ago. She focused on a new plan: get a message out to her dad. She had seen the name Padraic Telford flash up on Eoghan's phone, and she decided to take a chance on her flimsy recollection of that name.
"You alright?" Eoghan asked her, after catching one or two deep exhales, and the subtle patting of her cool hands on the back of her neck.
"Yeah. I just feel a little light-headed." Rosalie said, and accepted the offer of his help climbing down from the horse she was perched upon.
He lead the horse back inside its box, and asked her, "You eating anything today? You know they're not gonna off you with a toastie? It's not their style."
"I'm real familiar with their style." Rosalie replied, tersely, and then checked herself, and said, "I just have a lot on my mind."
"Alright, pretty sure I got a can of juice or something in my car." Eoghan suggested.
"That would be great. Thanks." Rosalie said, with a flicker of a smile for him.
Rosalie waited for him to disappear from the stable before instantly dropping her weary act, and scarpering over to his jacket. She scrambled for his phone, entered his rather rudimentary pass-code, 1985, and hurried to compose a text message to Padraic Telford: Tell da ok. Don't reply. Ro. She hurriedly deleted the text message from his outbox, and frantically returned the phone back to it's pocket.