He sat there alone with his snack. He wasn’t hungry, but he hadn’t eaten much that day. In silence, he finished it quickly. Cillian moved back to the bed, clutched at a pillow, and closed his eyes.
* * * *
Jack encouraged him to rip up the letter, so that’s what he did. Cillian thought it might be appropriate to reply, but his husband warned against that. “You’d just be encouraging him. He wants a response. Don’t give him what he wants.”
Three more letters came. He destroyed them without reading. There was nothing Whalen could say that would change the situation. Apart from a declaration that he would leave Cillian alone, which he highly doubted would come. Since telling him off didn’t work, they took to ignoring him. As far as Cillian and Jack were concerned, Father Whalen didn’t exist
