JOEY
LIKE A FLURRY of unrestrained blonde energy, Edel Kavanagh strutted into the room the morning after our phone call, reminding me of a glammed-up version of Sarah Connor from The Terminator.
Flanking her in his usual attire, which consisted of a top end, tailored suit, with an amused expression etched on his face, and a briefcase in hand, was John Sr.
“Joey,” Edel exclaimed when she spotted me leaning over the windowsill, thoroughly enjoying the cigarette I’d managed to snag from one the security guards I’d become friendly with after giving him a hand to change a flat, while trying not to set off the smoke alarm.
As soon as her eyes landed on me, the hard expression she’d been wearing melted away. “Oh love, would you look at you.” Shaking her head, she smiled widely, as she rushed towards me. “Look at him, John. Isn’t he only handsome?”
“Sweetheart, we’ve talked about this,” John tried to interject, but she was already up in my personal space with her arms wrapped tightly around me.
“I ah…” Feeling awkward, I quickly tossed the butt out the window patted her back, mentally counting down from five before escaping from her stranglehold. “When I said I could use your help, I didn’t mean you had to drive halfway across the country to see me.”
“Excuse me,” one of the porters rushed into my room, all red-faced and flushed. “All visitors need to report to reception. And like I told you already, lady, patients are forbidden to have guests in their room.“
“Ah, would you cool your jets, detective inspector,” Edel drawled sarcastically, dismissing him with a flick of her wrist. “Do I look like I’m smuggling contraband up my backside?”
“Edel,” John said wearily.
“Now.” Turning her attention back to me, she reached up and pushed my hair off my face and smiled. “Let’s go, love.”
“Go where?”
“To sort this mess out.”
“As you’re well aware, my husband and I have been awarded guardianship of the Lynch children,” Edel declared a little while later, as she paced the visitors’ room, while John looked on from his perch on the leather couch with his usual amused expression. Sitting beside him was a stressed looking Darren. “If Joey was under eighteen, then he would be legally under our care, too.” She turned to stare at Dr. B. “However, I consider age to be just a number, doctor. That boy belongs with us. He has a home with our family – his family – for the rest of his life. If you have concerns about his ability to cope after leaving treatment, then be rest assured that he will have the world of support at his fingertips.”
“His brother has voiced some concerns about the pressures he feels Joey will be exposed to upon discharge.”
“My brother’s a dick,” I sneered, glaring across the room at enemy number one.
Darren sighed heavily. “Joey.”
“What?” I shrugged unapologetically. “You are.”
“I’m not doing any of this to hurt you,” my brother was quick to defend. “I’m trying to protect your sobriety, Joe.”
“It’s not yours to protect,” I snapped. “It’s mine, Darren. Staying clean is my responsibility. Looking after myself is my goddamn responsibility, not yours, and no offense, but I’ve been doing it for long enough without ya.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw. “And look where being left to your own devices got you.”
I narrowed my eyes in disgust. “It’s a good thing I’m reformed, because that snide comment deserves a smack in the mouth.”
“Okay, everyone,” Dr. B interjected. “Let’s just take a breather, shall we?”
“If he wants to come home with us, then I really don’t see why you would want to stop him – or how, for that matter,” Edel interjected hotly.
Everyone started speaking over each other then.
The doctors.
The therapists.
The social workers.
The bulldozing blonde.
My brother.
“All I’m trying to do is protect him,” Darren exclaimed, throwing his hands up in defeat. “That’s it.”
“Nobody is questioning your intentions, Darren.”
“I am.” I held a hand up and waved it around. “I’m questioning his intentions.”
“Darren is concerned that without schooling or college to focus on, Joey will fall back into old patterns,” another member of my team offered, turning to the Kavanaghs. “He’s also worried that Aoife belongs to the same friendship circle where Joey was exposed to substance abuse in the first place.”
“Well, I don’t believe that for a second,” Edel was quick to defend. “And if you met the girl, you’d wholeheartedly agree with me.”
“She was never a part of the problem,” I repeated for what felt like the millionth time. “She was never a part of the drug scene. I’ve told you this.”
“Not to mention the pressure of a newborn baby,” Greg, my turncoat counsellor chimed in. “It’s a lot to put on his shoulders.”
“And what about her shoulders?” I demanded, glaring at him. “Aoife’s fucking shoulders? She’s the one at home having to deal with all of this on her own. Have you thought about that?”
“Our job is to consider your welfare.”
“And my job is to consider hers!”
“Aoife has her family to look after her, Joey,” I heard Darren say. “Why can’t you let yours look after you?”
“Because she is my family, Darren!” I roared, losing my cool. “How do you not get that? You’re a smart fella Christ, you have a fancy education and a shiny college degree under your belt, so how can you be so fucking dense?”
“Joe —”
“How can you not see that what you’re doing here is wrong?”
“Joey, please calm down.”
Like hell I was calming down.
“You know I’d be dead without her, right?” I declared hoarsely. “This entire conversation wouldn’t be happening because I wouldn’t be here to argue about if it wasn’t for Aoife Molloy.”
“Jesus.” My brother winced like my words caused him physical pain. “Don’t say that, Joe.”
“It’s the truth, Dar,” I retorted hoarsely. “I wouldn’t have made it to eighteen without her. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have made it to fifteen without her. You weren’t there. You didn’t see. I was a piece of shit. Sincerely. I was fucking terrible. To myself. To her. My behavior towards her was horrendous. I was the worst possible version of myself. And still, she stuck it out with me. She saw something worth saving in me, and she decided to love me anyway, and I am so fucking thankful that she did.” I shook my head. “You will never understand how much I owe that girl. How much I fucking worship the ground she walks on!”
“I know you love her,” he groaned, sounding pained. “I can see it, but it scares the hell out of me.”
“Why?”
“Because…” he stopped short and shook his head.
“Say it,” I pushed, already knowing what was on the tip of his tongue. “Tell them all how much I remind you of him. Just like I reminded Mam of him. You know, if you had said that to me three months ago, I would have crumbled,” I shot back. “But not anymore because I might not know who I am, Darren, but I sure as hell know who I’m not!”
“No, it’s not that,” he tried to coax. “It’s not you individually. It’s the two of you as a couple. When you get out of here, you don’t have a job, or school, or hurling anything to focus on except her. To me, that reeks of toxicity. It scares the damn hell out of me, Joey, because we’ve both seen what happens when teenagers who are obsessed with each other shack up and play house. We’ve lived through it, Joey, and I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you and Aoife becoming a second-generation version of them.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Look, maybe I’m projecting my own trauma on your relationship here, Joe, but I’m so fucking scared for you. I’m so afraid of sitting back and watching you follow in Mam and Dad’s footsteps. It’s the only reason Mam and I tried to put a stop to it.”
“Put a stop to our relationship?”
When he didn’t respond, my blood ran cold.
“The pregnancy.”
“It was at the start.” His face reddened. “Early on.”
Of course they did.
“You tried to put a stop to my baby?” I bit out through clenched teeth. “Is that what you’re saying? You and Mam tried to convince Aoife to get rid of my baby?”
“Okay, I think we should take a short break.”
“I think he should answer the fucking question,” I snapped, ignoring my social worker’s attempts to diffuse the situation. “What did you and Mam do to my girlfriend, Darren?”
“We didn’t do anything to your girlfriend,” he explained with a weary sigh. “I offered her an alternative.”
“Meaning you offered to foot the bill for an abortion?” When he didn’t reply, I choked out a humorless laugh. “I don’t fucking believe this.”
“Joey, please calm down.“
“And people wonder why I sank into addiction.” I shook my head and looked around the room. “Take a good fucking look, people. This right here is what I’ve been dealing with. My own mother and brother tried to do that to me!“
“I was trying to help you,” Darren tried to explain. “You’re too young to be a father.”
“I’ve always been a father!” I roared back, chest heaving. “And I’ve done a pretty fucking good job with the four I’ve raised. And yeah, I’m a mess, and yeah, I’m an addict, but I’m a good father! I’m a good fucking parent, Darren. I kept them alive. I kept them fed, and loved, and nurtured and goddamn educated. I did that. Not you. Not him. Not Mam. Me. So, call me a junkie and whatever the hell else you want to call me, but don’t say that I’m too young to be a father!”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he argued. “I meant that I didn’t want you saddled down with —”
“I want my baby, Darren!”
You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Everything went eerily quiet.
Finally, Darren broke the silence when he said, “You do?”
“Damn straight I do,” I confirmed, furious. “How fucking dare you and Mam try to take that away from me.”
“I realize now that it wasn’t my place to get involved.”
“No, it wasn’t your place,” I sneered, beyond furious. “And you’re goddamn lucky Aoife didn’t fold under the pressure I have no doubt you put her under.” I shook my head in disgust. “Jesus Christ, Dar. I would never do that to you. Never. Every choice you’ve ever made, I’ve had your back. I’ve always supported you. Defended you.”
“I know you have.”
“Then why couldn’t you do the same for me?”
“I thought that’s what I was doing.”
“By hating on my girlfriend?” I spat. “Jesus, Darren. After all the shit we’ve been through, why would you do that to me? Why would you try to scare off the one good thing in my life?”
“I don’t hate Aoif, Joe. Christ, I don’t even know the girl. Not really. I’m just… I wanted a different life for you.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter what you want, Dar, because this right here is my life,” I shot back, shaking. “It’s mine to live, and I plan on living it side by side with her. Because newsflash, asshole, that girl is my life. Her and our baby. And if she wants a ring, she’ll get it. And a house, she’ll get that, too. And if the time comes where she wants more kids, then I’ll give them to her. Whatever she wants. Because we’re mirrors. Her and I. We’re aligned. That’s my future, Darren, and if you keep meddling in it, then you won’t be a part of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“I have never been more serious in my life.”
“This is a disaster,” Darren mumbled, dropping his head in his hands.
“On the contrary,” Dr. B said. “I think this conversation was long overdue.”
“Damn straight,” I agreed as six years of resentment and pain burst to the surface. “You left me, Darren. You fucking left me with them. I loved you most. I looked up to you. I worshipped the goddamn ground you walked on, and you just disappeared from my life.”
“I know,” he choked out. “Jesus, I know.”
“I was twelve.” My voice was strangled and my chest heaving, as I spilled my pain. “Twelve, Darren. When you were twelve, you had me. When I was twelve, I had nobody.”
“I’m so sorry, Joe.”
“Saying you’re sorry doesn’t fix it,” I choked out. “It’s a word. I know you mean it; I know you’re sorry, but it’s a fucking word, Darren. It doesn’t fix the hole you left in me.”
He flinched. “Joe.”
“What hurts the most isn’t the fact that you left,” I admitted, wiping a tear from my cheek. “I know you had to go. You were dying in that house. I get it. I understand that. What hurts the most is the fact that I stayed, and she still loved you more! And I’m jealous of that. I’m jealous and I’m resentful and I’m so fucking hurt that nothing I ever did was enough for her! And then you came back,” I quickly continued. “And it was as if everything I did for her, every sacrifice I made, every slap I took, was irrelevant. I was irrelevant because you were all she could see. I mean, let’s face it, Dar; you were all she ever saw, even when we were kids, but it never bothered me until you left. She put you on this pedestal, her precious, perfect first born, and nothing I did in the flesh could match her memory of you!”
“Yes,” Dr. B exclaimed, almost punching the air with excitement. “Fantastic, Joey.”
Darren and I both turned to gape at her. “Excuse me?”
“Verbalization,” she quickly explained. “Fantastic verbalization of your feelings. We have been working on this for months.” She smiled up at me like I was her favorite student and offered me a supportive thumb’s up, while every other member of my medical team looked on in horror.
“Listen, if I could interrupt for a moment,” John Sr. interjected in that cool, calm, and collected tone of voice, ready to steady the ship. “I may have a solution that could be of benefit to everyone.”
“Oh?” Edel sank down on the edge of the couch beside her husband and placed a hand on his knee. “Do tell, love?”
Cool as a breeze, John squeezed his wife’s hand affectionately before turning his attention to the many faces watching him. “You want to extend Joey’s treatment under the guise of uncertainty around his ability to cope under the pressures facing him when he returns home to Ballylaggin.” Turning to Darren, he added, “From what I’m gathering, one of your greatest concerns is your brother’s lack of prospects.”
“He doesn’t have any qualifications,” Darren replied with a grateful nod. “He hasn’t even finished school. He doesn’t have a trade. He doesn’t have a well-paying job. Hurling is out of the question for him. They won’t have him back. I’ve tried. Neither will BCS. They’re standing firm on their decision. There isn’t a school in the area who will consider taking him in.”
“Like I give a fuck,” I snorted.
“You should,” Darren growled. “You’ve got a baby to look after – something you’ve been extremely vocal about telling everyone. How do you propose to do that on a minimum wage job. Because let’s face it, Joe, you with your record, you would be lucky to get a job stacking shelves.”
“I’m a good worker.”
“I never said you weren’t,” my brother argued. “But you have a record as long as your arm stacked up against you.”
“What if there was an alternative?” John suggested calmly. “What if I could guarantee Joey a place in sixth year at the same school his siblings attend. Would that appease everyone’s concerns?”
“The fuck?” I frowned. “What are you…?”
“Tommen?” Darren’s eyes widened. “They won’t have him, John. Especially not after the spectacle back in May. Do you think I haven’t tried? He was removed from the school by the Gards for physically assaulting pupils from Tommen.”
“It’s already done,” John replied calmly, this time turning to me. “You have a place at Tommen College to complete your studies, Joey. It’s yours for the taking.” Shrugging, he added, “If you’ll take it.”
“Tommen.” I stared blankly at him. “You want me to go to Tommen?”
“I want you to consider it.”
“Are you serious?” Excitement filled my brother’s voice. “How in God’s name did you manage to pull that off?”
“How do you think, Darren?” I deadpanned. “Money.”
“He’ll take it,” my brother answered for me.
“He won’t,” I was quick to argue, turning back to John. “I’m not going back to secondary school, John. I need to find work that brings home a steady paycheck at the end of the week.”
“No, no, no, it makes sense,” Edel hurried to say, turning to face me. “The new school term resumes on September 1st, Joey love. If you were to be enrolled at Tommen, then you would need to be discharged before…”
“Before the baby comes,” I filled in, as my brain churned into gear.
“It would be a wonderful foundation to build your future on, Joey,” Dr. B offered up her two cents. “Stability and friendship, and a solid education.”
“I’ll send you money,” Darren blurted out. “Every week. Straight into your bank account. Whatever it takes.”
“Pocket money?” I stared blankly. “Do you think I’m a little kid?”
“No, I think you’re one of the smartest people I know, and the prospect of you having an actual shot at this – at an education – is too important to turn your nose up. I want this for you, Joe. Think about the job opportunities. Think about college. Your future, brother.”
“I’m not going to college,” I argued, feeling overwhelmed. “It’s not on the cards for me.”
“It wasn’t on the cards for you before, but it can be now,” he argued thickly. “Why shouldn’t you have the same opportunities as the rest of us? You deserve this just as much as Shannon and Tadhg. He’s starting first year there too, you know. At Tommen. You would be there to look out for him. To show him the way. Think about it, Joe. This could be life changing for you.”
“Are you alright, Joey love?”
“No, Edel, I’m not,” I admitted, knees bopping restlessly, as I sat opposite her and John at one of the picnic tables in the communal gardens after the meeting.
“You can thank Gerard for those,” she said, pointing disapprovingly to the cigarette in my hand. “He smuggled three packets into the bags I packed for you today.”
Good man, Gussie.
Taking a deep drag of my cigarette, I looked around the garden, feeling beyond agitated.
“I planted those,” I decided to tell them, pointing to a bed of Black-Eyed Susans, standing alone amongst a flurry of pink Dahlias and Hydrangeas. “Those ones are mine.”
“You’ve spent time working in the garden?”
“It’s a part of the treatment,” I explained, waving a hand around aimlessly. “We talk, we sit around in circles during group therapy and cry, we plant flowers, we paint shit.” I took another drag of my smoke before saying, “It’s all very woe-is-me around here. Just one big competition to see whose life is the most fucked-up really.”
John smirked. “Well then, I’m sure you’re in the lead by a country mile.”
I snorted. “You know it.”
“Joey love,” Edel began, tapping her perfectly manicured nails on the table. “About Tommen. I know your first instinct is to say no, but please don’t do that. Just give yourself some time to mull it over before deciding.”
“Okay,” I replied, feeling overwhelmed at the prospect. “I’ll think about it.”
