“I didn’t see you do anything ta’ discourage it,” he returned. “So you’re just as much at fault as me.”
“Go n-ithe an cat thu is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat!” Felicity snarled.
“Excuse me?” Ben’s face was washed over with abject confusion as he cast his questioning glance from me to my wife and then back again. “What the hell was that?”
“It’s Gaelic,” I told him, having heard the Celtic epithet from her before. “She just said something on the order of ‘May the cat eat you, and may the cat be eaten by the devil.’”
“Do what?”
I glanced at my wife and she was still seething, so I continued with the explanation. “It’s a traditional Irish curse. One that she’s particularly fond of using when she’s angry.”
“Fuckin’ great,” he huffed. “Now I got a curse on me?”
“Not exactly…” I answered. “Besides, it was pretty mild. You don’t really need to worry until she starts tossing in the Gaelic profanity.”
“Damnu, I told you to stay out of it then!” she ordered, shooting her glare my way as she rejoined the conversation.
“Like now,” I said to Ben before casting my own stern look at Felicity and adding, “And I told you, I don’t think so. I’m not some little kid who can’t make decisions for himself you know.”
“Aye, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Look what you’ve done to yourself so far.”
“You know as well as I do that I haven’t got any control over this.”
“Damn your eyes, but you do!” she snapped. “You didn’t have to run off chasing a maniac in the middle of the night!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“But it’s what I’m talking about, then! If I let Ben drag you into this you’ll just do something stupid again.”
“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell ya, Felicity,” Ben interjected. “I’m not gonna let it get that far.”
“Like you think you can stop it, then?” she chided before mumbling, “ Ta tu glan as do mheabhair.”
“What?”
“You’re crazy,” my wife spat the general translation.
“Maybe so, but what makes ya’ think I can’t stop it?” he shook his head. “Look, Felicity, I wish it wasn’t this…”
“Don’t you ‘look Felicity’ me!” She cut him off. “We had an agreement!”
“I know,” he pleaded. “But…”
“But what?!” she demanded. “It wasn’t convenient for you, then? Fekking breugadair.”
“Jeezus, speak English will’ya’… And, no, it’s just that…”
“Aye, what then? Your career is suddenly more important than your best friend’s sanity?”
“Now dammit, you know better’n that.”
“I’m not so sure I do.”
“Oh come on, Felicity…” I tried to wedge myself back into the dispute.
“No, Rowan.” Ben held up his hand and sharply cut me off. “Stay out of it. This is between me and her.”
“Excuse me?!” I rejoined. “Hello? Do you hear what you’re saying? What the hell has gotten into you two? You’re arguing about me here, so I think I have a right to voice my opinion.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. With each word, their voices had grown louder and even more strained. Ben’s heretofore-defensive posture was starting to lean further and further toward the offensive. I could tell by the look on his face that there was next to nothing holding him back. My wife’s hammering staccato of interruptions were taking a toll on his patience as the escalation of tempers progressed.
“So just what the hell are ya’ tryin’ ta’ say here, Felicity?” Ben demanded.
“What is it you think I’m sayin’, then?” she spat.
I desperately wanted to defuse the situation, but I had no real clue how I was going to do it. My temper was flaring just as much as theirs were, and that wasn’t going to do any good. Thus far, every time I opened my mouth I only seemed to stoke the fire burning beneath them, and that blaze was starting to grow rapidly. In a very short time they’d reached a level where I wasn’t entirely sure that they were even acknowledging my presence in the room any longer.
It had now become plain to see that the issue was one that was most definitely between the two of them. It was also clear that it had festered for several months, and recent events were simply bringing it to a head.
“Goddammit, dontcha’ think I have enough guilt over what happened on that bridge?”
“Well if you do, then maybe you should think about all this a bit harder then!”
The sharpness in their voices had intensified several-fold. I had no choice but to resign myself to the fact that we wouldn’t get anywhere until this was played out to conclusion. Since they had drawn a bead on one another, for all intents and purposes ignoring me, I could only watch.
“What? Ya’ think I haven’t?!”
“You’re askin’ to bring him into another investigation, aren’t you?!”
As angry as I was at being treated like a fifth wheel, I fought to stifle it. “Fine,” I finally muttered, though I sincerely doubted either of them heard me. “Go ahead and kill each other. Give me a call when you’re finished.”
With that, I pushed my chair back from the table, placing some small, symbolic amount of distance between them and me. Hard as it was to stay out of it, I made a half-hearted attempt to distract myself by leafing through a cookbook that had been holding down a sheaf of papers on one corner of the table. However, just as I was afraid it would, the growing conflagration won out over recipes for such things as Beef Wellington and Broccoli-Onion-Cheese Casserole. Like a horrific train wreck that you just can’t stop staring at, I again returned my attention to the duel between my best friend and my soul mate.
“Felicity, will you…”
“Will I what?! Stand by quietly and let you get my husband killed?!”
“C’mon,” he shot back. “You know that’s not gonna happen!”
“Aye, do I?!” She widened her eyes and shook her head. “And just what have we been discussing for the past several months then?”
“I know exactly what we’ve been talkin’ about, and ya’ know I’m not gonna let anything happen to ‘im.”
“Just like you didn’t let anything happen to him the last time?!”
“Dammit, you know I already blame myself for that!”
“As well you should!”
“Screw you!”
“Like I’d give you the pleasure!”
A brief lull insinuated itself into the argument, brought on I can only assume by the intensely personal level of the attacks. But though it slipped suddenly in like the eye of a hurricane, its tenure was far shorter.
“Felicity, come on,” Ben pleaded, once again making an attempt at reasoning with her. “Rowan is my best friend.”
She wasn’t having any of it. “You’ve an odd way of showin’ it.”
“Listen, do you really think…”
“What I really think is that you’ve lost your mind!”
“You know as well as I do…”
“What?! What do I know as well as you do?!”
“I’m tryin’ to tell you…”
“Come on, then! Tell me! What is it?!”
Her relentless attacks finally brought the roiling argument beyond the red zone it had consistently occupied. What had started as a simmer, then progressed into a rapid boil, now erupted like steam from a burst pipe.
“JEEZUS FUCKIN’ CHRIST, FELICITY!” Ben shouted in exasperation. “Will’ya’ just shut up for a minute and lemme finish?!”
At that moment, for lack of a better description, my wife “pulled her face off.” Her tight frown and locked jaw opened wide into what could be metaphorically pictured as a fanged maw, allowing her own anger to explode outward.
“FINISH WHAT?! FINISH KILLING MY HUSBAND?!” she screamed as she physically rose from her chair. “DAMMIT, BEN, YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULDN’T DO THIS!”
“SO I BROKE THE FUCKIN’ PROMISE! DEAL WITH IT!” he returned in the same demonstrative tone, rising from his seat as well.
Even with the table between them, he towered over my petite wife. They locked spiteful gazes with one another and a tense silence slid smoothly in as if to underscore their words.
A period of time that felt to be the greater portion of a quarter hour, but that in reality was surely less than a single minute, oozed by as I watched them. Even with the quiet permeating the room, I didn’t know if the conflict was fully over. I wasn’t entirely sure that it would be to my advantage to make another try at interjecting my opinion-or if it would even be heard if I did.