Chapter 6

I can see it now…if I were standing in front of you, you'd have your hands around my neck, screaming "Murphy MacManus why haven't I heard a word out of you in a year and half?!" Well, truthfully I've been avoiding this for a long time. Don't ask why, I have my reasons and to you they're probably not very good. Connor says I'm just being a coward. Maybe he's right (just don't tell him that, he doesn't need an ego boost at the moment).

Just that there's been a lot of heavy shit going on lately and I needed time for that to pass. I don't want to get into the details of it so all you really need to know is that we had to relive our past there in Boston, we had to be the Saints on the home front. They deserved what they had coming and I'm just glad it's over.

Our guns, rosaries, everything that screamed 'The Saints' or 'Boston' are in a box that we plan on burying somewhere, perhaps the barn. I want peace, even if it means burying part of you with it. I'll give it another six months or so, if I don't hear from you then I guess this'll be my last letter. I can't keep hanging on to something that I know is either slowly dying or dead altogether. I get that you were pissed at us for leaving that day but you can't stay mad at us forever. Connor says he's going to hang on for as long as it takes for you to write us back but I can't keep doing this.

If you haven't already, I hope that one day you can forgive us for that night. We never meant for you to feel abandoned when we closed the door; we had always planned on coming back that night. Connor's plan was for us to go to New York after that night. On the ride to Papa Joe's I had finally convinced Connor and Rocco that it was the worth risk to take you with us. We were going to clean up the streets of New York for a little bit then move on to another city that could use a bit of cleaning up, perhaps Philadelphia or D.C.

You're probably thinking that we would've only brought you along for sex and patch work, and you'd be right. At least partially right anyway. The three of us all had needs that would've needed to be taken care of but what you told me is still ringing in my ears. I know you probably don't remember it…you were so damn drunk that night you completely lost any filter you may have had on. Even Doc was a little taken aback with what you were saying. When the bulk of the crowd had left, when it was just you, me, Doc, and Connor, you turned to me and in not so many words said that one of the primary needs of being human was procreation; ensuring that the human race survives. That everyone, every now and then, needs a good fuck. And if someone happened to get knocked up then oh well.

I had a long visit with Ma last week and told her what you said. Naturally she thought you were full of shit and if it weren't for the fact that you were drunk off your ass, she probably would've slapped you silly. Ma just had her birthday a few weeks ago; even though she has her moments, she's still one of the wisest women I've known. She says that you only have it part right that people are "wired," if you will for procreation.

There's more to it than just sex.

Remember when we had that talk about kids, marriage, and dare I even use the "l" word? Fuck it. If this is my last letter to you then I may as well say it.

Love.

There I said it…wrote it.

At one time I did love you, but as time goes by, as the years drag on, I don't know anymore. I always thought I'd have more time. More time with you, making sure the nightmares that haunted you stayed away. More time to learn your quirks, to learn what made you tick, to learn all the ways to make you scream my name. Maybe if we never left in the first place I'd have grown a pair to say it to your face.

Ma said that when Da left us, after she'd put me and Connor to bed for the night, she'd stay up long enough for a cup of tea and would pull out the photo albums. She was so mad at him for leaving but then, looking through all the pictures, she'd remember why she loved him. I asked her last week when I saw her if she still loves him.

Know what she told me?

She said that she still does but she's just not able to live under the same roof with him. They'd been apart for too long that it just didn't feel right to her to have him in the house again. He goes over there for a visit every now and then, even stays for dinner on occasion but too much time has passed between them that Ma just can't let him stay the night.

She thinks that I've fallen into the same rut she has; she doesn't think that I've grown bitter towards you, rather that since it's been so long since I've seen you that I can't love you the same way I did before if you walked through the door right now.

Ma says she fell in love with Da mainly because of his sense of humor, though I don't remember if I've ever heard the man laugh. The other thing she fell in love with was the way he protected her. Before we were born, before they got married, Da always made sure Ma was safe. When they'd go out, he would walk her to the door and waited on the porch until she was inside and the door was locked tight. After we were born, before he left, Ma says that he would never let the three of us out of his sight. Most days he would stay at home and help Ma take care of us. You know, diaper changes, bottle feedings, bath time, shit like that. When he had to leave Uncle Sibeal would stay with us until he got back.

Ma never understood why he left us the last time, quite honestly neither do I. I do know that he wouldn't have done it unless he had too. I'd like to think that he did it to protect us from something that would result in our collective demise.

Who really knows though, right?

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that I don't know if I can keep this up anymore. I'm hurt that you won't even write us back, even after all this time but at the same time I can't give you up. I found a few scarce pictures of you that someone had taken at your Christmas party and I've come across the ones Connor had taken on Valentine's night. I see these pictures of you and everything just kind of melts away. I remember why I fell for you in the first place and that little flame starts to flicker back to life again.

I'm to the point where I'm ready to pick up the phone and call Smecker, demanding him for your address and just risk it all to go back there. I'm sick of not knowing if you're dead or alive, I'm sick of the silence!

Saoirse wants me to stay patient, she says that you'll come around (eventually). I think Connor told you in one of his letters that she was pregnant; well Saoirse has herself a bouncing baby girl and thanks in part to Ma, has developed some wisdom. After listening to my drunken ramblings one night she came to the conclusion that it is possible that you are trying to write to us but Smecker's not doing his part in forwarding those letters to us for whatever reason. Even if that were the case, and we confronted Smecker about it, he'd probably deny it anyway.

The last time we actually spoke with him on the phone was almost three months ago. He said that he's got cases piled up to the ceiling with copycats trying to be like us and another stack of cases on Yakavetta's associates. You know, the ones we didn't get. When Connor tried to bring your name up, Smecker said that he's been sending our letters to you and also that he's got an agent that's been keeping an eye on you. He said that his agent hasn't reported anything bad so he could only assume that you were alive and well.

I asked him what he thought about you not writing us back. Naturally he thinks you're fucking stubborn as hell but he said if he still hadn't heard a peep out of you in a couple of weeks that he was going to make a house call and check up on you. All I can say is that it's about fucking time he's done that. It's only been what? Two or three years since he's last seen you? Been closer to four the last time Connor and I saw you.

It's funny how Ma and Saoirse don't want us to give up on you but Da is the complete opposite. He says that if you were married to either of us that he could understand us not wanting to let you go yet. Since that's not the case and since we haven't heard a peep out of you in four years he thinks we should just write you off. Of course that set Connor off; in all our years together I have never seen my brother that angry. If it wasn't for the fact that the man is our Da I would not have put it past Connor to hit him.

This is so fucking confusing. I get where Ma's coming from and I get where Da's coming from. I'm forcing myself to give you up and it doesn't feel right at all. I know that you can hold a grudge, hell you wouldn't talk to us for months after we learned about what you do in the bath when you need to relax.

Please, just write us a line back. I don't want this to be my last letter to you.

Murphy