“Watch your mouth, ya little fucker,” Dad warned, knotting his beefy hand in my t-shirt. “Don’t talk to your mother like that. Not in her condition.”
“Like what? Like you do?” I laughed, roughly shoving him away, quickly backpedaling once I registered what he said. “Wait, what do you mean in her condition…” I held up a hand, feeling like I was suddenly suffocating as the walls closed in around me. “Don’t say it.” Feeling lightheaded, I glanced between them before my eyes reluctantly settled on her stomach. “Don’t fucking say it.”
Mam placed her hand on the small swell of her stomach, and I wanted to die. “We’re having another baby, Joey.”
No.
“I’m due in November.”
No.
“The doctors reckon it’s another boy.”
Please God fucking no.
“It’ll be different this time, Joey,” Mam hurried to add, almost jumping out of her skin when Dad wrapped his arm around her. “You father is off the drink. For good, this time. We’re working through everything—“ her breath hitched, and she cleared her throat before whispering, “This baby is our fresh start.”
Liar.
Liar.
Liar.
Babies weren’t supposed to be made in order to plaster over cracks in marriages, but that’s what this one would be. That’s what each one of us were, temporary plasters to cover the cracks in our parents’ dysfunctional relationship.
Numb, I stared at my mother’s face, as a new level of devastation washed over me. “You planned this?”
Mam opened her mouth to reply, but he got there first.
“We both did,” Dad snapped. “Now, aren’t you going to say anything to your mother and me?”
“Congratulations,” I replied in a dead tone – a lot like how I felt in that moment. Shaking my head, I stepped around them and moved for the door, grabbing my training bag as I moved. “I’m working until half six, and I’ve a match after, so I’ll be late home.”
“It will be different this time, Joe,” Mam called after me, voice thick with emotion. “I promise.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, before closing the front door behind me. Because this time, I had no intention of remembering any of it.
Not a damn second.
SPECIAL_IMAGE-images/svgimg0003.svg-REPLACE_ME
By the time I had made the walk to work, my mood had darkened to the point where I honestly didn’t think I could handle another ounce of bullshit.
However, that’s exactly what I got the second I walked into the garage and locked eyes on none other than Molloy, hand in hand, with her lapdog of a boyfriend.
Wonderful.
Just fucking wonderful.
“Hey, Joe,” Molloy said with a beamer of a smile, noticing me the second I walked into the building.
I nodded stiffly. “Molloy.”
“Joey, lad,” Tony said with a warm smile. “How are you?”
“Grand, Tony. Sorry I’m late,” I muttered, stalking past them to store my hurley, helmet, and gear bag in the office.
I was in no mood to play a match tonight, but sometimes the matches I wasn’t in the form to play ended up being the best ones.
I was certainly riled up enough for it.
Returning to her conversation, Molloy laughed and chatted to her father, while Paul the prick stood alongside her like a, well, like a spare prick.
He blonde hair was loose today, flowing freely down the middle of her back, and I swear I'd never seen anything like her.
Like an angel with dirty wings, she batted her long lashes at her father, concealing that sharp tongue I knew she possessed, as she played the role of darling daughter and all-round good girl.
But she knew better.
So did I.
She reminded me of one of those beautiful, exotic caged birds you’d see in a backstreet pet shop; out of place and itching for freedom.
Somehow, I doubted she got that by walking around holding hands with a stiff like Paul fucking Rice.
In the beginning, I had assumed that Molloy was trying to get one up on me by going out with my teammate. My lack of attention had pissed her off, and she wasn’t the type of girl to lie down to anyone. I had been positive that their relationship was her way of goading me.
Problem was, fifteen months had passed since she agreed to go out with him, and while they were off more than they were on, and he treated her like shit, she always went back to him.
That unsettled me.
It fucking stung.
I knew I had no right to feel any type of way about it, but that didn’t stop me from feeling every type of way about it.
The hell was she doing with a fella like Paul Rice?
He was too boring for her and had a shit right hook.
She needed excitement and to be challenged.
It was written all over her face.
She waited for you, remember?
He wasn’t her first choice.
Pretending that it didn’t hurt me to see her with him was something that I had no choice but to master.
So, like I did every other time she came into the garage, flaunting her fantastic fucking boyfriend, I handled the knife in the gut sensation like a trooper, and went about my business.
Thrumming with tension, I quickly set to work, sorting through a pile of tires that needed their tread tested.
Ignoring the couple playing happy fucking families behind me, I let my thoughts wander to my mother.
Another baby.
Due to be born in November.
That meant, he or she would only be three when I turned eighteen.
I would be leaving a toddler behind when I got the fuck out of that house.
Jesus.
A shudder rolled through me, and I clenched my jaw so tight it hurt my teeth.
You see, I had made a deal with myself; I’d promised myself that I would see it out until I finished school. I’d be eighteen and a half by then. I would stay in the house and look after my brothers and sister until then. I could do it. I could hold on until then. But afterwards, once I finished my leaving cert, I was getting the hell out of there.
I had a whole plan thought up in my mind.
I would get a second job, something that was full-time and made good money, and with it I would put a deposit down on a cheap one-bedroom flat. Shannon would come with me. She could have the bedroom and I would take the couch. It would be small and basic, but it would be ours.
A few months would pass by and, as I made more money, we would upgrade to bigger place, where Ollie and Tadhg would join us. They would be eleven and thirteen by then, old enough to look after themselves.
Nowhere in the blueprint of my mind did I foresee having another sibling to care for, let alone a potential toddler.
I wouldn’t be able to do it.
I would have to work during the day, and maybe some nights, too.
I couldn’t look after the baby.
But I couldn’t leave them look after the baby, either.
For fuck’s sake.
.
THIRD YEAR
NEW BATHROOMS AND OLD MISTAKES
SEPTEMBER 1ST 2001
AOIFE
“Where’d you want me to toss the old one?”
Jerking awake at the sound of the familiar voice, I sprang up in my bed and craned my neck to hear better.
“Throw it out in the yard.” That was my dad’s voice. “I’ll load it into the van later and take it to the dump.”
“You sure?” My eyes widened in horror. “It’s a cast iron tub. Could be worth something if ya take it to Timmy Murphy over in Glenmore? He wheels and deals in scrap.”