Free The Wild Sight by Loucinda McGary

on the screen, followed by “U DONT NO.”
    Shaken with memories, Donovan felt his own face heating up. “Just because you never told me doesn’t mean I don’t know.” He bent down nose to nose with his father and uttered what he’d never dared before.
     “People whispered for years that she ran off with another man.”
    “Nuh!” Dermot cried, rearing backward in his chair, his mouth twitching with fury. “Eee-jit!” he finally managed to fling
     out, then another string of nonsense syllables.
    “Donovan!”
    He jerked around at the sound of his name, wiping his father’s spittle from the side of his face. He’d forgotten all about
     Rylie, who had witnessed the whole unpleasant scene. She took a step toward him, her gray eyes wide in her tense face.
    “Boh!” Dermot shouted at him, and took a swipe at his arm. “WHO?” demanded the screen, then “OUT.”
    Close enough to read the angry demands on the communication device, Rylie extended an unsteady hand toward the old man. “I’m
     Rylie, Jennifer’s daughter . . . ”
    “Ow!” Dermot shouted, a vein throbbing in his forehead.
    Before anyone could react, the door of the room flew open and a stout, middle-aged nurse bustled inside.
    “What’s all this then?” she demanded, her eyes raking over the three of them. She stepped between Donovan and Dermot and laid
     a firm hand on the old man’s left arm. “Calm yourself now, Dermot.” She cast a stern glance at Donovan. “Mr. O’Shea, I’ll
     not have you upsetting your father, so I must ask you to leave.”
    Dermot shook off the nurse’s hand and launched out a string of unintelligible sounds. His father’s verbal abuse was nothing
     new, and Donovan had more than a fair guess at what he was saying. Old anger thrummed inside him.
    “There’ll be a sight more than me here disturbing him,” he retorted, hands clenched tightly at his sides.
    “Not today, there won’t,” the nurse declared. “Now out with the pair of you.”
    “Please, ma’am,” Rylie’s voice squeaked like a small child’s. “May I have just a minute with Mr. O’Shea—Dermot O’Shea?”
    The nurse gave her a skeptical look. “Are you a relation?”
    Rylie drew in a deep breath and her chin jutted out in defiance. “I’m his daughter.”
    “Nuh!” shouted Dermot while the nurse’s eyes went round with surprise. “Nuh! Nuh! Nuh!”
    “Is this true, Mr. O’Shea?” the nurse gasped at Donovan, ignoring Dermot’s protests.
    “So she claims,” Donovan’s tone sounded harsh to his own ears. “Though I can’t imagine why.” His father never failed to push
     his buttons, make him lose his hard fought control, lash back. He couldn’t stop from adding, “But why don’t you ask him? He
     ought to know his own flesh and blood.”
    More half-comprehensible invectives came from Dermot.
    “That will be enough!” The nurse had evidently reached her own boiling point and shook her finger first at her patient, then
     his son. “Come back tomorrow, if you can behave better than a pair of snarling beasts.” She herded Donovan and Rylie to the door and bellowed, “Tommy! Put
     Mr. O’Shea back in bed whilst I get him a sedative.”
    Awash in guilt and self-loathing, Donovan stumbled down the hall and out to the car. Behind him, Rylie fumbled with the keys
     and dropped them on the ground. Instinctively, he bent to retrieve them, and so did she. As they both reached, he saw that
     her hand still trembled. Looking up, he saw her eyes brimming with tears, and felt even more despicable.
    “I’ll drive,” he said, pulling the keys from her grasp.
    She didn’t protest, just shuffled to the passenger door and got in. He slid into the driver’s seat.
    “I’m sorry,” he muttered.
    He was truly sorry he’d let her come along. Sorry she’d heard those ugly family secrets. Sorry she’d seen him provoked and
     losing control.
    But he wasn’t about to try and tell her any of that, so he just repeated,