I had always felt unsteady. For most of my life, I remained in a state of constant unease, trying and failing to predict the next bad move, the move that would bring pain and misery.
As I stood in the doorway of my childhood bedroom on Thursday afternoon, I felt more unnerved and doubtful than ever before, because I couldn’t predict the danger. I just knew it was lurking somewhere.
My body was on high-alert, the survival instinct inside of my head was screaming at me that I wasn’t safe. Feeling powerless, I took stock of my room and noted that it looked exactly the same as it always did; small, neat, and tidy.
‘I’ll get you some new stuff for in here,’ Darren announced as he stepped around me and placed my hospital bag on the foot of my single bed. ‘Some new paint and curtains. A new bedspread. Whatever you want, Shannon. Just tell me what colors you’d like and I’ll get it done.’
How about a new life? Or a new family? Or just some inner peace? ‘I’m fine,’ I replied, throat still raw and hoarse. ‘I don’t need you to buy me anything.’ Forcing my legs to move, something I was finding difficult since stepping through the front door earlier, I walked over to my bed and sat down.
My mind automatically shifted to the memory of Johnny sprawled out on my mattress, teaching me maths, and my lips tipped up. But then I made the mistake of glancing at the wall beside the door and my one good memory of this house obliterated into thin air, replaced with the memory of my father throwing me against the wall so hard, my head made a dent in the plaster. I was seven at the time and had refused to hand over my holy communion money. That had been a mistake. One I had paid for with both my money and my body.
‘Are you okay?’ Darren asked, dragging me from my dark thoughts. ‘Shannon?’
‘Where is everyone?’ I asked, forcing the memories back down.
‘The boys are over at Nanny’s,’ he explained. ‘I couldn’t take them with me to pick you up, and Mam’s at that class Patricia organized.’
Patricia, being the social worker assigned to our family, and the class, being a parenting skills group.
I almost rolled my eyes at the notion. What were they going to teach her there? Not to let her husband beat her children? Not to run off for days and leave her children without food? Not to take to the bed for weeks on end and leave us to fend for ourselves?
Common sense should have told her all that.
Of course, the social workers didn’t know all this. They were fed the ‘poor, battered wife trying desperately to keep her children safe’ line Darren had made us rehearse until we were blue in the face. I cringed at the thought of how he worded that spiel to the younger boys. They must be feeling so confused.
She’s as much of a victim as the rest of us, Darren had said. To a point, I agreed with him, or at least, I used to. But there came a time in life when I stopped making excuses for my mother, and that time came and went months ago.
‘Do you want to talk?’ Darren asked, hovering in the doorway now. ‘About Dad?’
I shook my head.
‘Are you sure?’
I gave him a blank stare. I wasn’t sure what he was expecting me to do. Confide in him? I didn’t think so. He was as much of a stranger to me as the countless authority figures I’d been forced to speak to. To lie to.
‘What about Joey?’ I asked the question that was most important to me. ‘Where is he?’
Darren sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, has he been home?’ I asked, my tone hardening with my outrage. ‘Has he slept here since you got back?’
He shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen him since the hospital.’
‘Did you call his girlfriend?’ I demanded, feeling my pulse flutter wildly. ‘Do you know if he’s with Aoife?’
‘Joey’s his own man,’ Darren replied. ‘He’s an adult. Over eighteen–’
‘Barely,’ I strangled out. It suited them for Joey to be gone. Without Joey, everything would fall back into place. Joey was a complication neither Mam or Darren seemed to want to deal with. ‘He turned eighteen at Christmas – and he’s still in school. That hardly makes him an adult.’
‘Shannon, if he wants to stay out, there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘He doesn’t want to stay out, Darren,’ I snapped. We were all a product of our environment. And Joey? Joey was angry. ‘He wants to not be in a house with her!’
‘Well, whether he likes it or not, she happens to be his mother,’ Darren snapped. ‘He has a room in this house if he wants it. The door is always open to him. It’s his choice if he wants to act out and not cooperate. I can’t make him stay.’
‘Act out? Not cooperate?’ I narrowed my eyes and forced down the urge to scream. ‘He’s doing this because he’s in pain and nobody is hearing him.’ And especially not you!
‘Then he needs to sit down and talk about how he’s feeling,’ Darren groaned. ‘Not run around banging his fists on his bloody chest.’ He ran a hand through his dark hair, clearly frustrated. ‘I want to help him, Shannon. I do. But I can’t do that if he won’t let me.’
I opened my mouth to respond, but just shook my head instead.
There was no point in continuing with this conversation. Darren didn’t get it. He either couldn’t or wouldn’t see this from Joey’s perspective, and I wasn’t wasting any more of my energy trying to make him.
‘You’re failing him,’ I whispered, unable to stop the words from pouring out, ‘Just like they did.’
‘Shannon.’ Darren flinched like I had physically hit him, and I guess I had – with the truth. ‘I’m here for all of you,’ he choked out. ‘For whatever you need. Day or night.’
Yeah, all of us except for Joey.
‘Then can I use your phone?’ I asked, already knowing the answer before asking. Narrowing my eyes, I added, ‘You said you’d be there for whatever I need. Well, right now I need to make a phone call.’
My brother stiffened. ‘If it’s to call him, then no. You heard Mam.’
I didn’t need him to elaborate on who he was referring to. We both knew he meant Johnny. ‘Then can I get a phone of my own?’
Darren let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Shannon, we need to focus on the family right now. We have social workers breathing down our necks and the Gardaí up our asses. We don’t need any more hassle. I know you think we’re being unfair, but it has to be this way for now.’
‘Then I don’t need anything from you,’ I replied coldly. ‘Except to close the door behind you.’
‘Shannon–’
‘She’s wrong about him,’ I hissed, having heard it all before. It had been three days since I’d seen Johnny. Three days since he’d arrived at the hospital to see me. And three days since my family had decided he was a bad idea. Mam never liked Johnny and now I knew why. He made her nervous. He knew too much and it scared her. It should. ‘And you’re listening to it.’
‘I’m not listening to anything,’ he replied, tone weary. ‘I don’t even know the lad.’
‘Exactly,’ I hissed. ‘You don’t know him.’
‘I do know that Mam is right about you being in a vulnerable state of mind right now,’ he interjected. ‘It’s not healthy to attach yourself to him.’
‘Oh my god.’ I closed my eyes and fought back the urge to reach out and break something. ‘You’re both disgusting.’ Snapping my eyes open, I glared at my brother. ‘He’s my friend, Darren. I’m allowed to have friends, you know!’
‘A friend that you were caught straddling, with your skirt around your waist, in some changing room by your teacher?’
I flushed beetroot red. Damn you, Mr. Mulcahy. ‘We were kissing,’ I choked out. ‘That’s it.’
‘I’m not judging you, Shannon, I’m questioning your judgment. There’s a difference,’ he was quick to say. ‘It would be very easy for someone in your position, who’s been through severe trauma and neglect, to dive head first into something you’re not emotionally ready for because you’ve had a taste of affection. And…’ he added cautiously, ‘it would be very easy for someone to take advantage of a person in that state of mind, too.’
‘You are so wrong about him–’
‘Just hear me out on this, okay?’ he interrupted again. ‘I’m not saying this to hurt you. I’m just trying to make you aware.’ His tone of voice was soft and gentle but his words were patronizing and made me feel sick. ‘You’re sixteen,’ he continued. ‘You’ve been through hell, and suddenly there’s a young-fella knocking around, saying all the right things, making you feel wanted and alive. I get that, Shannon, I do. We’ve all been there. But you need to take a step back, think about what you’re doing, and why you’re feeling the way you are before you jump over a ledge you can’t come back from. I don’t want you doing anything that you’re going to regret later on.’
‘You don’t get it,’ I whispered.
‘I get it. Everyone in the history of the world gets it. You think you’re in love. You’re convinced this boy will be the boy that saves you. But it’s not real. It’s all hormones and growing pains.’ Darren sighed wearily. ‘Your emotions are heightened when you’re a teenager, and yours are especially because of what you’ve been through.’
‘I can’t believe these words are actually coming out of your mouth,’ I hissed, feeling like I was being attacked. ‘You of all people.’
‘It’s trauma bonding,’ he continued. ‘Maybe not completely, but you’re definitely attaching yourself to him.’
‘Because I love him,’ I snapped, losing my cool. Blinking wildly when I realized what I had said, I debated taking it back before steeling my resolve. ‘I love him,’ I repeated, firmer this time. ‘And that has nothing to do with trauma or my family and everything to do with him!’
‘You’re a baby, Shannon,’ Darren sighed, belittling me once more. ‘You don’t even know what love means yet.’
‘Are you finished?’ I deadpanned, feeling the hot sting of tears. ‘Because you can go now.’
Darren stood in the doorway for a solid minute longer, looking at me like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. Eventually, he shook his head and turned to leave. ‘I’ll be downstairs if you need me.’
