by Sienna Blake
“No, she is not,” said my ma. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
Jase ignored her. “Pack a bag, quick as ye can, girl. We gotta go.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, backing up into the house. Already deciding that I’d go with him. Wherever he was going, I didn’t care. I’d go anywhere. Anywhere from here. Here was a chance to move forward. To move on. Wherever he was taking me, it’d be better than this fucking hole I was stuck in.
He grinned. “To go pick up your pa. He gets out of prison today.”
My ma gasped behind me. “That fucker.”
Jase looked up to her and glared at her. “He don’t want to see you. Just her.”
My da was back.
He promised he’d come get me when he got out.
“Give me ten minutes,” I yelled out at Jase and ran into my room.
I grabbed my backpack, the one that Diarmuid bought me, still as sturdy as the day he bought it, and laid it open on the bed. I grabbed the most important thing first. My journal that I hid under the slip of my mattress, tucking it into a pocket carefully before grabbing clothes and throwing them in after it.
My da promised he’d come back. He kept his promise.
My stomach jumbled with nerves. Things would be different now. They’d be better.
My ma grabbed my arm. I hadn’t even heard her come in. Her mascara-smudged eyes were wide, anger making her nostrils flare.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I yanked my arm out of her grasp and zipped up my backpack. “You’ve never cared about me. Don’t start pretending you do now.”
Her mouth opened. “How dare you speak to me like that.”
With the backpack over one shoulder, I shoved past her towards Uncle Jase, who was standing just outside the open front door, smoking a cigarette. He was going to take me to my da. I couldn’t wait.
“If you go to that bastard you can never come back ’ere.”
“Thank fuck,” I yelled back.
I would walk out of here and never look back.
I stopped on the level down and told Jase I’d meet him at his car. I knocked on Moina’s apartment door. When she opened the door, her kind, ruddy-cheeked face softened by soft pale curls peering out, I explained that my da had finally come for me and that I was leaving.
“I knew this day would come, girl,” Moina said as she gave me a fierce hug. “I just didn’t think it’d be so soon.”
I squeezed her back just as hard. “I’ll miss you. Thank you for everything.”
It was about a two-hour drive from Dublin to Limerick. I sat in the passenger seat of Jase’s car, my stomach tumbling as the green Irish countryside rolled past once we got out of the outskirts of Dublin.
“So, girl,” Jase said, “what are you, twenty, twenty-one now?”
I glanced over to him. His eyes kept flicking to my legs stretched out in front of me, then to my chest, making me want to fold my arms across them. His reaction didn’t surprise me.
“I’m seventeen,” I said clearly.
His eyes widened. “Oh, yeah, right.” He looked back to the road. “You don’t look seventeen,” he mumbled.
Wasn’t that the truth. When I was thirteen I would have done anything to look older. Now that I was seventeen, I’d do anything just to look my age.
As we drove closer to Limerick, my guts began to knot up. I’d not seen my da in almost five years. My ma wouldn’t let me visit him in prison and we moved to Dublin pretty soon after he was put away. My ma wouldn’t even let me go to court with her when he was being tried for drug possession and distribution.
Five years. A lot had changed in five years. I had changed in five years. I imagined five years in prison would have changed him, too.
Limerick hadn’t changed, though. I eyed the familiar streets of my childhood as we rolled through town.
When I was younger, I’d lived with my ma in a council flat in an area south of Limerick. My da had been in and out, living mostly on a property in rural county Limerick, visiting us maybe once every two weeks or so. I’d looked forward to those visits as if they were Christmas. In a way, they had been. My da always brought something home for me, whether it was a new doll or sweets.
We pulled up in front of Limerick prison, an imposing grey stone building. Standing in front of the big green door was my da. Reddish-brown hair, wide jaw and beefy nose. In his mid-forties, he looked so much older than I remembered, wrinkles fanning out from his eyes as he smiled.
Jase pulled up and bounced out of the car, walking right over to him and giving him a quick hug and slaps on the back.
I was slower in unclipping my seatbelt and getting out of my seat, hanging back as the two men eyed each other up.
“Liam,” Jase said, calling my da by his first name, “how are ya, ye fucker?”
“Grand, yeah, now that I’m out of that fockin’ shitehole.”
“Jesus, you look good. Been workin’ out, yeah?”
“Nothin’ much else to do in there.”
“Ah, truth.”
My da looked up and spied me hanging around the car. He looked like the man of my memories—strong jaw, stubble, and a few more lines around his green eyes, the only physical characteristic I inherited from him. I looked like my ma, but my eyes I got from my da.
The smile from my childhood broke out across his face and my chest warmed. “Jesus Mary Joseph. Is that my little girl?” He took two strides up to me. “Look at ye. All grown up.”
“Hi, Da,” I said, my voice going all quiet.
“Why you gone all shy, huh? Give yer old man a hug.” He closed his arms around me and I was enveloped in familiar smells: tobacco and Old Spice.
I swallowed down the knot in my throat as I held onto him. I didn’t realise how much I had missed my da. He was the only man who’d ever kept his promise to me.
I’ll come back for ya, baby girl. Promise.
“Jase told me about the state of the place he found you in.” My da pulled back to look at me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there for ye while I was in jail. But I’m here now, you hear me?”
He clasped his beefy hand around my neck. I nodded, my throat constricting.
He grinned. “Good. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Jase drove up to a small two-level terraced house in Dooradoyle, an area of Limerick. It had a grey and white façade, a small patch of garden at the front growing wild and tall with dandelions and weeds.
We pulled up into the short driveway beside a black motorbike. A figure moved out from the alcove of the front entrance. A man, looking to be in his early twenties, ambled over to the car with his hands thrust in his pockets, a grin on his face. He had dirty blonde hair styled in a mess, a lean body in dark skinny jeans and a black leather jacket, a cheeky grin spread across stubble.
My da and Jase got out of the car. I clambered out of the back, grabbing my backpack, all my worldly possessions.
“Malachi, lad,” my da said. “Jesus, you’ve bloody grown, too. How’s your old man?”
They clasped hands and did that one-shouldered man-hug. I spotted Malachi whispering something to my da. Da nodded and jerked his head towards Jase. Something unspoken seemed to pass between them.
“Malachi,” I heard my da say, “here are the keys. Show my daughter to her room.”
“Yes, sir.” Malachi looked over to me and our eyes met, interest flaring in them. He grinned as he walked around the car to me.
“Hey.” He nodded to me as he came to stand near me, a little too near for someone I just met, in my opinion. “I’m Malachi.”
“Saoirse.”
His grin widened. “I know.”
“Malachi,” my da called. He looked over to us and grinned, a stark contrast to the words that next came out of his mouth. “Touch her and I’ll fockin’ kill ya.”
Malachi raised up his hands as if in surrender, but he, too, was smiling.
Men are strange.
He took me through the house. It was a little rundown, the old carpet had lost most of its pile and the air was a tad musty from being shut up, but it was cosy: a living room, kitchen and toilet downstairs, three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Malachi showed me to one of the bedrooms, holding the door open for me so that I had to brush past him to get in. He smelled like cigarette smoke and a sharp, spicy cologne.
He handed me my backpack and I unzipped it on the bed, feeling his eyes on me.
“So,” Malachi said as he leaned against the doorway all casual like. “You got a boyfriend or something?”
For some stupid reason Diarmuid’s face flashed across my mind. “Nope.”
“Good.”
Good? I raised an eyebrow at him. He grinned back without any self-consciousness.
I folded a jumper in the drawer, making a note to buy some mothballs the next time we were in town. I didn’t have a car but would definitely need one if I were to stay here. Dooradoyle was at least a fifteen-minute drive from the city centre. I wondered if my da would let me use his car. If I was going to get work in town, then I’d have to have a car.
A twinge of sadness went through me when I thought of not getting to study this year.
College was technically “free” in Ireland, our fees only three grand per year. But those fees weren’t going to pay themselves. Neither would the textbooks and a secondhand computer I’d need to do my coursework. And I still needed to “live”. I’d not be able to work and save as much if I was studying. Although maybe now that my da was here, he’d help support me.
I let out a sigh. Anyways it was too late for college this year. The application deadline was well past. I couldn’t apply until next year.
“That was a big sigh.”
I almost forgot that Malachi was still here, watching me from the doorway.
I shrugged. “Just stuff on my mind.”
“Like what? What could such a pretty girl like you have to be worried about?”
“University.”
He let out a snort. “Don’t think you’ll be needing that shite.”
“If I want a good job—”
“I thought you were going to work with your da.”
I blinked at Malachi. My da wanted me to work with him?
Malachi’s mouth dropped open. “Oh shite. He hasn’t spoken to ye about it?”
I shook my head.
Malachi gave me a sheepish look. “Well, act surprised when he does.”
“Malachi,” a voice called up to us from somewhere in the house.
Malachi looked over his shoulder. “I’m going to head down. See what they want. I’ll see you soon, yeah? Maybe I can show you round on my bike.”
“You have a bike?” That must be his bike out front. Maybe a bike licence would be easier than a car licence. A bike would be cheaper to buy and to run.
He grinned, looking a tad smug. “Yeah.”
I nodded. “That’d be grand, yeah, thanks.”
He shot me a wink before he left. I turned back to my unpacking in peace, feeling a rush of relief at being alone again.
It took me only a minute to unpack my meager clothes into a chest of drawers. And stick my toiletries into a shared bathroom.
I threw myself across my new double bed. A double bed all to myself. How luxurious. I’d only ever slept on a single bed. And damn this mattress was soft. I couldn’t feel the springs in my back.
Maybe this was my new start. My new beginning. I could throw off the young, naïve Saoirse that I’d been and start as a new woman. I could get a job here. Earn some money. Save. Apply to study next year.
Maybe, for once life was giving me a break.
I allowed myself a smile and a small rush of hope and possibilities.
8
____________
Diarmuid
Then—Dublin, Ireland
I let Saoirse into the Sidewalk Café, my favourite local since it opened up a few years ago.
“Hey, Betsy,” I called out to the owner/waitress, a short, voluptuous redhead, her curly hair piled into a glorious mess on her head. “Breakfast for two, please.”
I directed Saoirse to slide into one of the booths near the window. I slid in opposite her, the hard green leather crackling underneath my bulk.
Betsy strutted up to us with two menus, slipping them in front of Saoirse and me.
“How are you now, Diarmuid?” she asked.
“Grand, yeah, thanks.”
Betsy turned her eyes to Saoirse. “Is this your niece or something? You’ve never bought her in before.”
Saoirse scowled. “We’re not related.”
“She’s just a friend I’m hanging out with.” I shot Betsy a smile. Betsy knew what I did, so I’m sure she suspected that the teens I sometimes brought in here with me were for work, but I never mentioned it out loud. “I’ll have a white coffee, please.”
“Me, too,” Saoirse said.
I turned to her, frowning. “Do you drink coffee, do you?”
Saoirse rolled her eyes. “Don’t you tell me I’m too young to drink coffee.”
I snorted and closed my menu. “Two white coffees and two full Irish breakfasts, thanks, Betsy.”
Betsy took the menus and went off to fulfil the order, leaving me alone with Saoirse.
Saoirse leaned back in the booth, head tilted, arms crossed and a defiant glare on her face. She looked so adorable, I almost laughed. I didn’t. I didn’t think that would go down very well.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Well,” I said slowly, “breakfast is a start.”
She shook her head, her golden hair swishing about her sweetheart face. “I mean, what you want from me? Why you being so damn nice?”
Her words stung with the realisation that this girl had probably never had anyone do anything nice for her without wanting something in return. I clenched my hands into fists under the table so as not to scare her. It was all I could do not to throw the table aside and roar in anger. No child should be this young and this cynical already. So weary of the world.
I tempered my voice when I spoke. “I want for you what I want for all my kids—the possibility of a better life. I want you to get through these next twelve months without reoffending. But right now, I want to get to know you a little over breakfast.”
She held my gaze for another second, and I willed for her to see the truth in my face. She glanced away and looked out the window, her chin stubbornly set.
Betsy came with our coffees and breakfast. My mouth watered as I smelled the delicious full Irish breakfast: two eggs, grilled tomato, hash browns, fried mushrooms and blood sausage. For a few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of cutlery scratching on plates and chewing, a Lisa Hannigan song playing in the background.
I started out with a simple question. “Your breakfast good?”
Saoirse nodded before stuffing her mouth full of food. The way she was attacking her plate, you’d think she hadn’t eaten in a week. Shit. It was likely she hadn’t. Pity coiled on the base of my stomach, making it difficult to swallow my next bite.
“What grade are you in at school?”
“Seven,” she mumbled through a mouthful of fried egg.
I repressed the urge to chastise her for talking with her mouth full. That wasn’t my job. My job was to become her friend. Not her substitute parent.
“Do you like your school?”
“S’okay.”
“You have a best friend?”
She gave me a one-shouldered shrug, eyes on her blood sausage.
God give me strength, I sent a prayer inward. She wasn’t giving me anything.
“You have a favourite subject?”
“Chemistry,” she said without hesitation.
I raised an eyebrow at her. I expected… Well, I didn’t know what I’d expected her to say, but it definitely wasn’t ch
emistry. I looked at the small, unassuming girl before me. She had practically demolished her entire plate when I thought she would struggle getting through half of it. Shows how much I knew about her.
“Chemistry?” I repeated.
She nodded once solemnly.
“Of all the subjects, why chemistry?”
For the first time during the entire breakfast, Saoirse placed down her cutlery, grabbed a napkin and wiped her mouth. “Are you actually serious?”
“Seriously want to know why you love chemistry so much? Yes.”
Her eyes widened and she placed her hands on her chest, inhaling loudly in an overly dramatic fashion.
“Diarmuid Brennan!” She spoke my name with such astonishment and admonishment I almost laughed. She leaned in, resting her fingers on the edge of the table. In a hushed voice, as if she was spilling the secrets of the universe, she said, “Chemistry. Is. Life.”
Then, as if she had said nothing of importance, she gathered up her knife and fork and began to tackle her last pieces of food.
I blinked at her. She was pulling my leg. Chemistry? Who the hell loved chemistry?
I cleared my throat. “Tell me more about chemistry, then. Maybe they’re teaching it differently from when I went to school.”
“You mean a hundred years ago?” she said with a glint in her eye.
“Hey,” I protested. “I only graduated five years ago.”
“Which makes you around twenty-four.” Her eyes did a once-over of me. For some strange reason I felt I was being assessed and somehow came up lacking. “You look older than twenty-four,” she finally said, assessment done.
I let out a breath, unaware why I’d been holding it. “You act older than thirteen.”
She shrugged. “You and I both know that you can’t judge people based on what they look like,” she said, using my own words back at me.
I smiled as I thought about how we both looked sitting in this booth to the outside world. Me with the ink covering my arms, the gruff brutish way I appeared, and her with her doll-like stature. We were like oil and water. Like cotton and leather. Light and dark. At least from the outside.
