She didn’t respond.
“Mam?”
Nothing.
“What did you do with the money I gave you?”
“Your father owed some money,” she finally admitted, voice barely more than a broken whisper. “It couldn’t wait.”
“Jesus Christ, that was two hundred euro!” Blowing out a breath, I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. “It was for you and the kids, not his gambling debts and bar ticks! Do you have any idea how long that took me to save up?” I gaped at her. “Mam, that was a week’s wage to me. I won’t be paid again until the new year – and neither will you.”
“I know,” she whispered, sniffling. “I’m sorry.”
“And if the electric goes in the meantime?” I demanded, feeling panicked. “Or we run out of coal for the fire before either one of us gets paid next? What then?”
“Joey.“
“How are we going to heat them, Mam?” I choked out, heart thumping violently in my chest. “How are we going to keep them warm?”
“I’ll get paid my children’s allowance money next week,” she strangled out. “We’ll cope until then.”
“Your children’s allowance money?” I glared at her in disbelief. “You’re depending on an income that he has always blown on drink to get us by?”
“Your father is off the drink,” she was quick to defend. “He swears it this time.”
“Just stop.“ Holding a hand up, I turned and walked out of the kitchen before I lost it. “I can’t hear another word.”
“Joey, wait!”
“How long are we going to keep living like this, Mam?” I tossed over my shoulder. “Because I’m really running on empty here.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that maybe those kids would be better off in care.”
Moving for the staircase, I ignored my mother’s pleading tone as she begged me to come back and talk to her and hurried up to my room.
“He didn’t leave them under the tree. The silly Billy hid our presents in your wardrobe, Joe,” Ollie exclaimed, clutching the weird-ass Gizmo-looking creature he had begged Santa for – the one Molloy and I had queued up for hours in the pissing rain to secure. “See?” He held up the creepy doll creature for all to see. “Santa’s the best.”
“Mind him,” I warned. Fucker cost me a half a week’s wages.
“Yeah.” Setting his new hurley down on my bed, Tadhg walked over to where I was standing in the doorway and wrapped his arms around my waist, hugging me tightly. “He really is the best.”
“O-ee, O-ee.” Pulling on the leg of my jeans, Sean grappled for my attention. “O-ee?” Reaching down, he grabbed his Elmo and held it up for me. “E-mo.”
“Good job,” I praised, sinking down to his level. “And see this fella?” I held the red teddy up to him. “He uses the potty just like Seany.”
“Happy birthday, Joe,” Shannon said from behind me, and I swung around just in time to see her produce a homemade cake from behind her back. “I know you’re eighteen today,” she added with a blush. “But I could only find four candles.”
“Make a wish, Joe,” Ollie cheered. “And don’t tell us what it is, or it won’t come true.”
“You made me a cake?”
Blushing a deeper shade of pink, my little sister nodded.
I cocked a brow. “An edible cake?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” she laughed. “I’ve been cooking your dinner for years and I haven’t poisoned you yet, have I?”
“Not yet.” Standing up, I ruffled her hair. “Thanks, Shan. Did you get the CD Santa left on your nightstand?”
“Yes.” She beamed up at me. “He was most generous.”
“Come on, Joe,” Ollie groaned. “Make a wish and blow out the cangles. I want some cake.”
Tadhg sighed. “It’s candles, not cangles.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Jesus, don’t start this shit already.” Leaning in, I quickly blew out the candles before looking to my sister and saying, “You didn’t have to do this for me.”
“I would do so much more if I could,” she replied, leaning in for a half-hug, while she batted several small hands away from the cake. “I love you, Joe.”
“O-ee,” Seany crooned, clutching my leg. “O-ee.”
“We all do,” Tadhg begrudgingly agreed. “Love you, that is.”
“Uh-huh,” Ollie added. “So much.”
“Yeah.” I blew out a pained breath and took stock of the small humans circling me. “Right back at ye.”
I was officially eighteen years old.
I could walk right out the front door, and nobody could stop me.
I could leave.
I could be free.
But the four small faces staring expectantly up at me were so defenseless, so utterly dependent on my ability to provide for and protect them, that I knew in my heart that I would never leave this house until I could take them with me.
Whether it was love or duty that kept me shackled here, the lines were too blurred to differentiate, but one thing I was sure of was that I would never become to them what Darren had become to me.
I would never abandon them.
If I could do nothing else, then I would spare them that pain.
THE AFTERMATH
DECEMBER 27TH 2004
AOIFE
The radio was blasting in the kitchen downstairs, tormenting me with the sound of Mary Black’s Only a Woman’s Heart as her voice drifted up the staircase.
Her melancholy lyrics wrapped around my already breaking heart.
Numb, I curled up on my bed in the smallest ball I could, with my knees pressed to my chest, and fought to calm the hysteria drowning me.
Pain encompassed every inch of my body, both internally and externally.
I felt like I was hemorrhaging tears.
They wouldn’t stop falling.
How I managed to survive Christmas dinner with my family without falling apart at the table, I would never know.
I could only assume that it had a lot to do with the shock and adrenalin that had been thrashing through my veins, but that had long since deserted me.
I knew my parents were worried about me. Aside from leaving the house to fulfil my shift at work this morning, I had spent the past forty-eight hours holed up in my room, which was a huge red flag. Considering the previous night was the biggest night out of the year – and I never missed a St. Stephen’s night out on the tiles.
Hell, even Kev had come knocking on my bedroom door, but I couldn’t talk to him about it.
If I talked about it, if I verbalized it out loud, then it would be real.
And I was desperately clinging to the hope that I would somehow wake up from my nightmare and have everything go back to the way it was before.
My breath was coming in short, achy gasps that clawed at my throat in protest because my heart didn’t want me to breathe.
My heart wanted me to slip into the deepest sleep of my life and wake up when it was over.
The thought only made me cry harder.