Just turn around and walk away.
Just fucking leave.
And go where?
Home?
Molloy’s?
You have nowhere else to go.
You have nothing, asshole.
You are nothing.
With my head bowed in resignation, I walked inside.
PART FOUR
MOTHER KNOWS BEST
AOIFE
I skipped the following few days of school and called in sick for all of my shifts; too miserable and frazzled to concentrate on anything other than the shit storm that had become my life.
Everything felt like it was slipping away from me, and, in the middle of the madness, the only good decision I seemed to have made was confiding in my mother.
Since telling her about the pregnancy, Mam had been amazing.
When I felt like I was at my most vulnerable, and truly free-falling off the edge, she waded in and caught ahold of my hand. She gave me someone to lean on, and someone to show me the way. I knew she was disappointed in me – for me, as she had so delicately put it – but having her by my side made the thought of my unknown future almost bearable.
Enabling my temporary withdrawal from life by screening calls from my principal and boss, not to mention intercepting unprompted house visits from Katie and Casey. Mam had stuck her neck out for me and held out a hand to warn the world off while I tried to come to terms with the path my life had taken. Including accompanying me to that dreaded appointment with our family GP, where I had to sit in front of a doctor who’d known me since childhood and tell him that I’d made the age-old mistake of getting knocked up in secondary school.
He confirmed what I already knew, did my bloodwork, and gave me an estimated due date of September 20th. He then sent me on my way with a handful of pamphlets on teenage pregnancy and young mothers, and the knowledge that I would soon receive an appointment in the post for a dating scan at the public maternity hospital.
I had been so shaken up afterwards, that my mother had whipped out the emergency credit card that Dad thought she didn’t know about and had taken me shopping. Blowing an ornate amount of money in our regular hair salon and beauty bar, not to mention refurbishing my entire wardrobe with clothes that I wouldn’t be able to wear for much longer, Mam had somehow managed to make light and normal of a situation that felt anything but.
Buttering me up with mugs of hot chocolates and plates of freshly baked pastries, she traipsed us around Cork City until I couldn’t bear to look at another sale rail or rummage around in another bargain bin. Physically wearing me out from doing what I loved most was an impressive feat, and one I quickly learned was my mother’s way of luring me into a state of exhausted pliancy.
Sitting across from me in matching leather armchairs, in a coffee shop on Patrick’s Street, with a small round table and a dozen or so shopping bags separating us, Mam raised her foamy latte to her lips and took a small sip. Looking like such a lady, with her legs crossed at the ankles, and her beautiful blonde hair twisted back in a loose bun up-style, I felt that familiar swell of annoyance. My mother was beautiful, inside and out. She was clever and witty, and loyal. She kept herself well, had a lovely shape about her, and worked hard for her family. But none of that seemed to matter to my father when he continued to repeat the same mistakes over and over. It wasn’t a matter of Mam having let herself go and Dad shifting his attention to someone better, because there was no one better.
“So, about Joey,” Mam finally broached the topic that I had been carefully dodging all day. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I replied, reaching for my mug of hot chocolate.
I hadn’t seen or heard from Joey since the night he climbed out of my bedroom window. He hadn’t come back, and I didn’t know if he had tried to call or text, because I had unintentionally left my phone at his place that night. I had been so desperate to get out of that house and away from his father, that I had left it along with my charger, makeup, overnight bag, and most important of all, my necklace; the one he’d given me for my eighteenth birthday.
I’d taken my jewelry off before using his shower, and had forgotten to put them back on. It was still on his nightstand, along with my Claddagh ring, and earrings. I could survive without everything else that I left behind, but not having my phone was a disaster, and my neck felt so bare without that necklace. I found myself constantly reaching up to rub the locket, something that had become almost like a comfort blanket, only to feel a swell of unease when I remembered it was gone.
I was desperate to see him, to speak to him, to make up, but it had been radio silence on the Lynch front.
“Nothing?” Mam cocked a brow. “I haven’t seen him in a few days.”
Neither have I. “He’s got a lot going on.”
According to Kev, who had heard it from Mack, who heard it from Alec, Joey was on the missing list.
No one had seen or heard from him since the weekend.
Not at school, or training, the GAA grounds, or the pub.
I knew that wasn’t entirely true, because, while nobody at school had heard from my boyfriend, he had reached out to my father.
Dad had mentioned to Mam that Joey had called him to ask for time off, something that Mam had later relayed to me.
Apparently, his mother had a late second-trimester miscarriage and he was needed at home to help out with the kids for a week or two until she was back on her feet.
I’d thrown up violently when I heard the news, quickly putting two and two together, and realizing that when he told me that something had come up that day, he wasn’t feeding me a line.
He meant it.
And I had hurt him that night.
Badly.
My words had devastated him, and I had regretted them the minute they came out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant any of it, but at the time I had been in such a state that I couldn’t think clearly. Never in my life had I felt the level of fear and degradation as I had in that kitchen.
The assault, at the hands of Joey’s father, had lasted no longer than ninety seconds at the most, but those ninety seconds had been the most terrifying of my life. Teddy Lynch was the scariest man I had ever encountered, and the desperate need I had to protect myself from ever encountering him again, had resulted in me pushing away the one person who knew what it felt like to fear that man. It gave me a glimpse into the fear that Joey and his siblings had been carrying around for their entire lives, and my heart broke for them.
“You need to have that conversation with him soon,” Mam told me. “And your father and I will need to sit down with his parents and have a conversation of our own.”
“No, you don’t,” I argued, heart fluttering wildly at the thought of my mother going anywhere near that house. She didn’t know what happened to me. If she had, there would be a very different conversation occurring. One between her and the officer that arrested her for murder. “I know that me and Joey have to talk, and we will. But you and Dad don’t need to have a conversation about anything with his parents, Mam. His mother is a wreck, and his father is a complete—"
“Asshole?”
Nodding, I exhaled a shaky breath. “A huge one.”
“You don’t need to tell me about Teddy Lynch, pet,” she replied. “I spent six years of secondary school tolerating the insufferable bastard.”