I narrowed my eyes and gave him a look that said as if.
He shrugged unapologetically.
“I’m sorry,” Joey surprised me by responding, giving the woman his full attention. “I was at work.”
The lack of bite or fire in his response gutted me because it just clarified what I already knew to be true: he had checked out.
Pain flickered in her brown eyes, and she cast a worried glance to her husband before shaking her head. “No, Joey, love, I wasn’t implying that you had done anything wrong.”
“Either way,” Joey replied with a shrug, as he rounded the passenger side of my car with his youngest brother in his arms and opened the door. “It won’t happen again.”
“You don’t have to leave right away, love,” Edel was quick to protest as she watched my boyfriend settle Sean in the backseat and fasten his seatbelt. “Stay for dinner. All of you. It would be our pleasure.”
“No, we’ve stayed long enough,” was all Joey replied, straightening back up and searching the grounds for the others. “Boys,” he called out, followed by a piercing whistle. “Let’s bounce.”
As loyal to their brother as these dogs were to Johnny’s mother, Ollie and Tadhg came thundering towards Joey, not stopping until they were standing beside him.
“Thank Johnny and his parents for holding on to ye today,” Joey instructed quietly.
“Thanks,” Tadhg parroted, more interested in saying goodbye to the dogs than the humans before climbing into the backseat with Sean.
“Thanks, Dellie,” Ollie chimed in, bolting back to the blonde woman and throwing his arms around her waist. “I had the bestest time.”
Clearly taken aback, she hugged him back tightly. “You come back to see me soon, love.”
“I will,” Ollie replied, taking a little too long to release her. When he finally did, he took a safe step back and eyed her husband warily before holding his small hand out. “Bye, John.”
“Bye, Ollie,” the big man replied in a soft voice, accepting his handshake. “Remember what I told you.”
“Uh-huh.” Ollie nodded brightly up at him and smiled. “I gots it, John. I won’t forget.”
“It’s got not gots,” little alpha piped up from the backseat. “Learn to speak, asshole.”
“Pack it in,” Joey warned, steering Ollie into the car to join his brothers. Only when they were all sitting down with their seatbelts fastened did Joey turn back to the Kavanaghs. “Thanks for everything. It won’t happen again.”
“And your mother?”
“She doesn’t need to know about it.”
Looking defeated, Joey climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door, leaving me standing alone with all three members of the Kavanagh family looking at me expectantly.
“It’ll be fine,” I mumbled. “They’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?” Edel asked, looking as convinced as I felt.
No.
Forcing myself not to cry, I offered her the brightest smile I could muster and nodded. “Uh-huh.”
There was a storm brewing in my boyfriend’s heart.
Silent and brooding the entire drive back to Elk’s terrace, Joey drummed his fingers on his knee. He glared out the passenger window, while the boys laughed and joked in the backseat, blissfully unaware of their older brother’s inner turmoil. The minute I parked up outside his house, though, Joey was out of the car and stalking into the house.
“Fuck, he’s raging,” Tadhg surmised, making eye contact with me in the rearview mirror.
“You’re not ‘posed to curse,” Ollie scolded as he worked on unfastening both his and Sean’s seatbelts. “It’s not good manners.”
Tadhg rolled his eyes. “Hey, Ollie, I don’t give a flying fu—”
“Okay,” I interjected before Tadhg schooled the minors on the more colorful side of the English language. “Let’s just go inside, lads.”
With Sean’s sticky little hand in mine, I followed the boys into the house, only to wince as the sound of shouting coming from somewhere upstairs filled my ears.
“Wow, you guys got a new television.”
“Darren gots it for us,” Ollie explained with a huff.
“Why don’t you put some cartoons on,” I suggested, ushering all three into the sitting room before moving for the stairs. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
“Fine, but I’m not watching shitty cartoons,” Tadhg called over his shoulder. “There’s a match on RTE.”
Leaving the boys to battle it out over the remote, I followed the sound of shouting and raced up the staircase, not stopping until I was standing in the doorway of their parents’ bedroom.
“How many fucking times do we have to do this?” Joey was demanding, as he ripped at the curtains to flood the once dark room in evening sunshine. “You can’t leave Sean on his on like that!”
With my heart racing wildly, I flicked my gaze to the woman curled up in a ball on the bed.
Marie.
“Just go away, Teddy,” she slurred, clutching her pillow, as sob after gut-wrenching sob escapade her. “I’m tired.”
“It’s Joey,” he choked out. “Christ, what have you taken?”
“Like you can judge me.”
“I’m not judging you. I’m telling you to get the fuck up and be a mother to your children!”
“I’m so tired.”
“And I’m not?” my boyfriend demanded, running his hands through his hair in obvious frustration. “You don’t get to do this, Mam. You don’t get to check the fuck out on them,” he spat. “You wanted to keep them. You wanted your family together. That was yours and Darren’s number one goal, right? To keep the boys here? To pull the wool over Patricia and every other social workers’ eyes. Well, you did it. Congratulations. Because those boys are downstairs. But they’re on their own, Mam. Without a mother or father to look out for them. So, stop feeling sorry for yourself and take some goddamn responsibility!”
“I said go away,” she screamed, throwing her pillow at him. “I don’t want you here.”
“You don’t want me here,” Joey roared, throwing his hands up. “Well, we have something in common because I don’t want to be here, either!”
“Joe.” Moving on instinct, I went to him. Like the habit of a lifetime. “It’s okay.”
“You see this?” he strangled out, trembling violently, as he pointed at his mother. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about this?”
Nothing.
Because he’d done enough for her and had it thrown back in his face.
All he needed to do now was look after himself, but he couldn’t hear me.
He was too far gone.
Just like his mam.
“Look at me…hey, hey, look at me.” Catching hold of his face between my hands, I forced him to make eye contact with me. “Just leave her, okay?”
“But I—”
“Shh, shh.” Pulling his face down to mine, I pressed a kiss to his brow and focused on his eyes once more. “It’s okay.”