FEBRUARY 25TH 2000
JOEY
MY YOUNGEST MEMORIES began around the time of my third birthday. I couldn’t say for sure if the events that occurred before that day had been particularly good because all I seemed to remember was the bad.
And right now, at ten o clock on a Friday night, after breaking up another shitstorm between my parents, all I could remember was the bad.
Aching in places I didn’t know existed, I couldn’t stop my brain from rehashing some of the more disturbing memories from my childhood…
‘You can cry, Joey,’ Mam whispered, fingers curling around my skinny arm. Her touch was soft and warm and the feel of her made something twist inside of my stomach. ‘It’s okay to feel, baby.’
Nope.
She was wrong.
Again.
Furious with her and the whole fucking world, I swallowed my pain, pushed my feelings to the back of my mind, and concentrated on my job – a job I was fairly certain no other boy in my school was doing for their mam.
Rocking baby Ollie in my arms, I held the bottle to his lips, watching carefully for any sign of wind just like Mam showed me to do.
She couldn’t do it herself.
Nope, of course she couldn’t.
Postpartum hemorrhage my hole.
More like postpartum battery.
He beat her the other night because the baby wouldn’t stop crying.
It was the closest I’d seen her come to dying in a long time.
The image was still at the forefront of my mind.
The blood.
The wailing.
The feeling of hopelessness.
‘Where are the nappies?’ I asked when the cranky little shit was finally finished guzzling the four-ounce bottle I’d made for him. ‘He smells.’
‘I can do it,’ Mam started to say as she pulled herself into a sitting position.
‘Stay down,’ I ordered, shivering at the memory of what I’d seen come out of her body just a few short days ago. ‘I can look after him.’
Eyeing the nappy bag in the corner of her room, I balanced my baby brother in my arms and reached for it.
‘Come on, ya little fatty,’ I muttered, lowering him back onto her bed and gently pulling his wriggling body out of his onesie. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
He stared up at me, all big eyes and cuteness, and I frowned.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I warned. Like I can keep you safe. ‘And don’t piss on me either.’
‘You’ll make a great father in years to come,’ Mam said with a tremble in her voice.
‘I’d rather die,’ was all I replied…
‘Joey.’
I wished she would stop talking to me.
Her voice made it hurt.
All of it.
“Joey, please.”
Reluctantly, I forced myself to look at her, feeling my heart shrivel up and die in my chest when my gaze took in the sight of my mother.
She was ruined.
Again.
She usually hid it well, but not today. Like a fresh coat of paint on the wall, my father had layered her in a fresh coat of blueish-green bruises.
I’d never seen anything like it, and that wasn’t an understatement.
She looked like a corpse.
Guilt churned inside of me, and I honestly wanted to die.
What could I say to her?
How could I form the words to tell her just how sorry and mad I was all in the one breath?
I wanted to hold her and shake her all at once.
As my lungs expelled the air I’d been holding in, I let every harmful feeling and thought of tonight’s events seep inside my head, hoping that they could somehow spark the flame of self-preservation inside of me.
Hoping my thoughts could fuel my anger and my anger could help me flip the switch and not care anymore.
Because caring was killing me, and I honestly didn’t think I could hold on much longer.
“What do you want from me, Mam?” I heard myself ask, tone hoarse, heart cut to shreds.
Her blue eyes widened. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“I mean what do you want?” I snapped, running a hand through my hair. “You call me out of bed to fight him off you? I did. To barricade the door? I’ve done that, too. What do you want from me now, Mam? What do you want me to do?”
“He’s gone this time,” she whispered. “He won’t be back. I p-promise.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” I replied, too weary to fight with her. It had taken everything in me to go toe-to-toe with her asshole husband earlier. I had nothing left in the tank, not even my hatred to chug on. “He’ll be back, and he’ll be worse the next time.”
“Joey…”
“He’s going to kill you, Mam,” I choked out. “Don’t you get that? Can’t you hear me? You’re going to die in this house. If you don’t get away from him, you’re going to die here. I can feel it in my bones…“ my voice cracked, and I choked back a sob, unwilling to shed tears. “Don’t you love yourself? Don’t you love me?”
“Of course I do,” she sobbed softly, reaching across the table to place her small hand on my torn knuckles. “I love my children so much.”
‘I love my children’, not ‘I love you, Joey’.
Typical.
She might think that she loved all of her children, but she certainly didn’t, or couldn’t, love me.
Darren was her firstborn and favorite, Ollie was her sweet and affectionate baby, Tadhg was her mischievous rogue, and Shannon was her only daughter.
That left me.
The spare.
Blinking back the wet in my eyes, I glared at her small hand as she attempted to comfort me with minimal contact. ‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
Why don’t you love me?
Inclining my head, I nodded towards the wedding band on the fourth finger on her left hand, and asked instead, ‘Why do you keep wearing that thing?’
Jerking her hand back, Mam cradled it to her chest and whispered, ‘Because that’s what I’m supposed to do.’
Temper rising, I glowered back at her. “And he’s supposed to not kick the living shit out you, or did ye not have that particular promise in your wedding vows?”
“Don’t, Joey.”
“Don’t what?” I sneered. “Tell you the truth?”
“I’m too tired to fight with you.”
“And I’m too tired to clean up any more of your messes,” I hissed. “You keep us here in this fucking house of pain. It’s your choice, and you choose him every single time. Darren was right to get the fuck out of this place.”
Flinching as if I had struck her, Mam slowly rose from the table, looking like she was seconds away from collapsing.
Against my will, I felt myself rise, feet moving straight for her. “Here,” I said, gently reaching around her back. “I’ll help you upstairs…”
“Don’t!” Jerking away from my touch like it had burned her, she dragged in several shaky breaths. “Please d-don’t.”
Bewildered, I stood there with my palms up, unsure of what the fuck I had done to cause this kind of a reaction from my own mother.
“Mam,” I placated in as gentle tone as I could muster. “It’s me. Joey. I’m not going to hurt you. You know this.”
“I know exactly who you are,” she whispered, trembling.
“What does that mean?” I ran a hand through my hair, feeling my whole body vibrate with a fucked-up mixture of desperation and resentment. “Look,” I said, trying to soothe her. “I know I’m not as diplomatic as Darren was, okay. I know he was the one you could talk to about shit like that, and I’m sorry for throwing him leaving in your face, but I’m—”
“Don’t,” she choked out, tears falling freely down her cheeks. “Don’t talk about Darren. You are nothing like Darren!”
“Because I’m still here?” I hissed, feeling my resentment overtake my despair. “Newsflash, your precious fucking Darren is gone. The saint himself walked away. He left us. But I’m still here, Mam. I’m right fucking here.”
“I know you’re here,” she cried. “Shouting and ordering and laying down the law just like—” Clamping her mouth shut, she shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Just like what?” I pressed in confusion, watching as she slowly walked towards the kitchen door. “I’m just like what, Mam?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Tell me what you meant. I’m just like what, Mam?” Shaking from head to toe, I strangled out, “Him? Is that what you were going to say? I remind you of him?”
Please say no.
Please say no.
Please say no.
“Yes,” she confirmed with a pained expression on her face. “You remind me of your father.” Shuddering, she clenched her eyes shut as a tear fell from her cheek. “I know it’s not your fault, I know, okay, but you just remind me so much of him. More and more each day.”
“In what way?” I choked out, chest heaving. “In looks? Because if it’s in looks then that’s not my fault. I can’t help who I look like, but I am nothing like that man in any other way.”
“You are,” she said before leaving the room. “In every way.”
And with those words, my mother cut me deeper and more viciously than my father ever had.
Ever could.
And it was right there in that moment, that I knew deep in my bones, was the beginning of the end for me.
The switch I had been so desperate not to flip these past few years had finally tripped.
And I felt nothing.
With a trembling hand, I reached into the pocket of my sweats, and retrieved my phone.
Dialing the familiar number, the one I’d been trying to avoid, I pressed the call button and held the phone to my ear.
He answered on the third ring. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite little kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” I bit out, chest heaving. “I need something.”
Shane chuckled down the line. “I thought you were on the straight and narrow these days, kid. Isn’t that what you told me after the last time?”
Clenching my eyes shut, I ran a hand through my hand and exhaled. “Yeah, well, there’s been a change of plans.”
“Meet me at the green over at Casement Avenue in half an hour.”
I sagged in relief. “I’ll be there.”
“And kid?” he added in a warning tone. “No more freebies.”
