Not A Chance In Hell

‘I begged Grandpa to give me two days,’ Conor said. ‘We stayed at a hotel. On Monday, I went back to the house. There was no letter in the mailbox. So I thought you said yes. I left with Grandpa, bereft, but determined. I’d return to Lisbern one day. I’d get my revenge. And I’d get my girl.’ ‘I didn’t know.’ I stared at the floor. ‘I had no idea.’ No idea that he felt that way about me. No idea that so much had happened in that fateful summer. Conor exhaled, went up to his desk, shook out a cigarette from a pack, lit up. For a long while, neither of us spoke as we tried to process the information, the revelations. ‘Brennan took the letter,’ Conor said firmly. ‘You don’t know that for sure.’ Instinctively, I defended my adoptive father. ‘Maybe the letter fell out of the bag. Maybe he didn’t see it and packed it away with my books.’ ‘He took it,’ Conor repeated. ‘You are only speaking up for him because you don’t know him like I do. You don’t know the true Brennan Finnegan behind the mas