“Granda?” I frowned in confusion. “Left what for me?”
“The letter inside explains everything,” she whispered, pressing a finger to her lips to silence me. “Not a word to the others, ya hear?”
I nodded cluelessly.
She smiled. “Now, be a good boy and enjoy your homecoming.”
“Enough hoarding,” Edel ordered, pushing her way into the action. “I’m sorry, Nanny, but I have to steal your grandson for a moment. Joey, I have a little present for you.”
“We,” John called over from where he was helping Gibsie untangle himself from the net of a goal post. “We have a present for him.”
“Don’t mind him,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It was my idea.”
“Actually, it was both of our —”
“Stop stealing my thunder, John,” Edel huffed. “Come on, Joey, let me show you.”
“It’s so cool,” Ollie chimed in, catching ahold of one of my hands, while Sean took hold of the other. “Dellie let us help.”
“And you were the best little helper,” she crooned, leading us around the side of the house to the back. “I couldn’t have done it without you, my sweet boy.”
“I’m super helpful,” he agreed, blowing his own trumpet. “Sure I am, Dellie?”
“Yes, you are, pet,” she mollified him by saying, as she led us through the back yard towards what looked like a recently renovated outbuilding. “Now, let’s show Joey the annex.”
“The annex?” I frowned. “What’s that?”
“That,” she teased, stopping at the door of a freshly painted outbuilding. “Is your abode.” Reaching into her pocket, she retrieved a set of keys and dangled them in front of my face. “I figured as soon as you got home, you’d be on the hunt for somewhere for your little family to live, so I went out on a limb and made a preemptive strike.” Grinning, she dropped the keys into my hand. “Like I said, welcome home, Joey Lynch.”
“Huh?” I stood there, with the keys in my hand, and my brain on empty. “I mean…what?”
Laughing, she pushed the door inwards and stepped inside, followed swiftly by Ollie who barreled into the annex after her. “Follow us.”
“Well, Seany?” I muttered, hoisting him into my arms before stepping inside. “I guess we’re doing this, aren’t we?”
“The second bedroom is a little cozy,” Edel explained, as she walked me around what looked I could only describe as a high-end duplex. “But the master is a decent size, with an ensuite attached.”
“Wow,” Sean whispered in my ear, voicing my thoughts aloud, as I followed Edel and Ollie back down the staircase to an open plan kitchen-living area.
“Yeah, kid,” I whispered back. “Wow.”
“Of course, if you would prefer to stay in the main house, that is absolutely fine by me, Joey love. I’m not trying to push you out in any shape or form. I’m just trying to be sensitive to your little family’s needs.”
This woman.
Not only had she taken on my brothers and sister, but she was providing shelter for my little family.
My little family.
Fuck.
“Jesus, Edel,” was all I could muster. “I don’t know what to say to you.”
My gut reaction was to refuse her offer.
To tell her no thank you.
To run for the hills from this woman.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t.
Because time in therapy had helped me to come to terms with the fact that I couldn’t do this on my own.
That it was okay to ask for help.
More importantly, it was okay to accept it.
“I…” I shook my head, feeling at a complete loss. “One day, I will pay you back for everything.”
“Joey love.” Closing the space between us, she pressed her hand to my cheek and smiled up at me. “You being here is all the payment I need.”
“Where’s Tadhg?” I asked John later that evening, when we were alone in the kitchen of the main house. Darren and Alex had left to drop Nanny back to Alice’s house in Beara, but the kids and Gussie were still in full-swing party mode outside.
It didn’t settle well with me that Tadhg hadn’t shown up.
I knew why, of course.
I’d hurt him the most.
His reaction to my leaving felt remarkably like my reaction to Darren leaving all those years ago.
“I suspect he’s down the back field in the treehouse,” John replied, as he cut the crusts off a chocolate spread sandwich for Sean before using a cookie cutter to make dinosaur shaped sandwiches. “He’s thrilled you’re home, Joey. He’s just… Well, you know Tadhg better than anyone.”
“He’s pissed as hell is what you mean to say,” I offered up, resting a hip against the counter, as I watched this hotshot barrister take great care in preparing snacks for my baby brother. “I get it, John. I don’t blame him one bit. I checked out on him. He’s going to hold onto that in his head.” It’s what I taught him to do.
“He has a couple of spare hurleys and sliotars stashed in the utility room,” John told me. “Somehow, I have a feeling that he would enjoy a puck about a lot more with his brother than a bunch of rugby players.”
My heart skipped a beat. “He’s still hurling?”
“Like a demon,” John replied with a smile. “He’s hell bent on following in his big brother’s footsteps.”
“Jesus, that’s a worrying concept,” I muttered, rubbing my jaw, as I moved for the utility room to grab a couple of hurls.
“Good luck,” John called over his shoulder. “Good luck and watch out for the cannon.”
My brows furrowed in confusion. “The cannon?”
The cannon turned out to be Tadhg, perched on a stool on top of an impressive looking treehouse, with a hurley in hand, and an unlimited supply of sliotars at his disposal.
“I told ya before, fatty,” he called out, lacing a sliotar full force in my direction. “Try and take over my fort again and I’ll take the head clean off ya!”
“Jesus Christ,” I hissed, narrowly avoiding a ball to the face.
“I can do this all night,” my brother called out, letting another sliotar fly, clearly too busy taking fire to realize who he was firing at. “Pussy!”
“Little shit,” I grunted when he got me in the nuts. “I’ll give you pussy.” Tossing down the hurley I’d brought with me for him, I quickly hooked up a rogue sliotar with the one I’d claimed as my own and fired back at him.
Clearly, my ability to puck a sliotar hadn’t diminished one bit since my departure. In fact, it was a little too accurate. When the sliotar I pucked hit my brother square between the eyes, and he fell headfirst out of the tree, my heart stopped beating for a solid five seconds.
“Oh, shit,” I choked out, tossing the hurley away, as I raced towards him. “Tadhg? Are ya dead?”
“No,” he growled, scrambling onto his feet and lunging for me. “But you’re about to be.”
The guilt I was feeling for the steady stream of blood trickling from his nose was enough to make me stand there and take my beating.