JOEY

WHEN I REACHED the end of my road and my eyes landed on the orange flames swelling from my house the heavy weight of disgust and self- loathing that had been pressing heavily on my shoulders was quickly replaced with sheer fucking terror

The fire engines.

The ambulances.

The squad cars.

The sirens.

It was for my house. My family.

“Joey!” Fran, our next-door neighbor cried out, hurrying towards me as

hordes of our neighbors began to gather on the road. “I don’t know what happened. Your father showed up a couple of hours ago, and then all of a sudden, the entire house just went up in flames. I phoned the Gards as soon as I heard the bang, but they…I overheard them talking about accelerants.”

“My father?” Trembling violently, I looked from her face to the house. “He was here?”

“He’s still in there, love.”

“Where’s my mam?” I demanded, feeling my body grow limp, as a horrendous feeling of cold dread washed over me. “Where are the kids?”

“I don’t know, love.” She shook her head, eyes filled with tears. “I think they might be still inside. I didn’t see anyone leave.”

Jesus Christ!

With my heart gunning in my chest, I sprang into action, my body automatically shifting into fight mode, as I ran towards the flames.

“Joey, no!”

“You can’t go in there, pet.” “It’s not safe!”

Ignoring Fran and every other one of my neighbors trying to get in my way, I darted under the tape cordoning off my house from the rest of the street, narrowly avoiding two firemen in the process. However, the second I touched the door handle, a sudden blast of blistering heat shot through my flesh.

It was burning.

Fuck.

“Shannon!” I roared, voice rising with my panic, as I pulled my sleeve

over my hand and persevered, needing to get inside that house more than I needed air. “Tadhg!”

Choking and spluttering when the sudden wave of black clouded smoke greeted me in the hallway where I’d witnessed both Sean and Ollie take their first steps, I covered my nose and mouth with my arm and staggered through the doorway, only to be swallowed up by the smoke. Momentarily taken

aback by the unbearable heat that attacked my flesh, I felt around in the darkness, trying to familiarize myself with my surroundings and locate the staircase.

“Ols?” A fit of coughing enveloped me and I gasped and clutched at my throat in the darkness. “Seany-boo?”

Blinded and suffocating from smoke, I managed to find the staircase and made it about three steps up when I was roughly dragged backwards.

“Get the fuck off me,” I spluttered and coughed, fighting against the fireman’s hold, as he carted me outside. “I need to—”

“Stand back!” he commanded, pushing me roughly aside, as three of his coworkers rushed forward with a hose. “There’s nothing left.”

Nothing left? Nothing fucking left?

I moved to run forwards but ended up staggering backwards and falling on my ass in a heap when someone tackled me.

“We have one.”

“Move aside, move aside.” “Child or adult?”

“Adult female in the kitchen doorway.”

“And?”

“I think we’re too late.” “Paramedic! Now!”

“Oh fuck—” Everything inside of my stomach came rushing back up

when I watched a fireman place my mother on a gurney.

Her face.

Her hair.

Her burned and blistered hand.

Heaving, I watched in horror as they started to cut her clothes.

“Mam!” I cried out, feeling my tears dampen my cheeks. “Save her!” Oh, Jesus.

There wasn’t an inch of her that wasn’t burned and blistered.

The fire had ravaged her.

“Mam!” Twisting onto my hands and knees, I scrambled towards her, only to be pulled back. “Is she alive? Is my mother alive?”

“Don’t look, lad,” someone was saying in my ear as they draped a blanket over my shoulders and hauled me away from the scene. “Just close your eyes.”

I couldn’t close my eyes.

I couldn’t take the medics working on my mother. My mother.

That was my mother.

With the flesh peeling from her hands.

I wanted to scream at them to look at her hand, but the words wouldn’t come out.

“Mam,” I whispered, body shaking violently. “Mam…” “We have another one.”

“Adult male.”

“In the sitting room.”

“He appears to have been trying to escape through the window.” “Deceased.”

“The damage is contained,” I heard someone shout out moments before another body was carried from the house. “The upstairs is clear.”

No, no, no!

The upstairs was not clear. I had kids up there.

I’d fucking left them up there, dammit!

“My brothers and sister!” I strangled out, scrambling to my feet as I fought against the hold the man with his arms around my shoulders had on me. “Let me the fuck in!”

“There’s no one else inside.”

“You’re wrong!” I vehemently argued with the man I now realized was a Garda. “My brothers and sister are upstairs!” I knew they were. Worse, if they were aware that our father was in the house, then there was a huge change they had barricaded themselves into their rooms and were in hiding. “Fuck. They’re inside that house. You have to let me get them.” Wheezing out a pained cry, I fought against his unbreakable hold. “I left them! I left them in there with her!”

“The entire house was checked,” he tried to placate. He fucking lied to my face. “There’s nobody inside.”

Bullshit.

Lunging away from him, I managed to break free and make it a couple of feet towards the house before he dragged me backwards once more. “Get your hands off me you dirty fucking pig!”

In the middle of my world falling down around me, Johnny Kavanagh’s face came into view.

“Joe,” he called out, slipping under the tape. “It’s okay.”

“Kav!” Breaking away from the asshole trying to hold me down, I moved for Shannon’s boyfriend. “You have to help me get them out!” Feeling frantic, I rushed at him, knowing that if anyone in this world would want to save my sister, it would be this guy. “I walked out. I got pissed and left. But I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t leave them, so I came back, but the house was…my mother!” The image of my mother caused my stomach to heave, and I choked out a sob. “Fuck! Shannon. Tadhg… Nobody’s listening to me –”

“I have them, Joey.” Four words that shook the foundations I was standing on, followed swiftly by four more. “I got them out.”

“You have them?” Dizziness engulfed me as I tried to comprehend what the fuck he was saying. He had them? My kids? He had them? “You got them out?”

He nodded vigorously as his arms came around my body. “Ollie, Tadhg, Sean, and Shannon.”

Ollie.

Tadhg.

Sean.

Shannon.

Johnny Kavanagh had them?

What the fuck?

If this was a trick, it was the cruelest kind.

“Shit,” I choked out, suddenly remembering, “Darren!” I dove for the burning house once more. “My brother’s still in there.”

“No, he’s at my house, too,” he said in my ear, as he heaved my back against his chest and dragged me away from the flames lapping at us. “They’re all there. I swear to God, lad, all of your brothers and Shannon are at my place right now.” He tightened his hold on me, and I was fairly sure he was taking the weight for both of us when he whispered in my ear, “They’re safe.”

They’re safe. They’re safe. They’re safe.

“You both need to get out of here,” someone commanded. “It’s not safe.” “We’re going,” Kav replied, carting me away from the house. “Come on,

lad.”

His words broke off when two body bags were wheeled onto the back of an ambulance.

Mam.

She didn’t make it.

Flinching, Kav spun us around, but it was too late for me. I’d already seen it.

I’d seen them.

Him and her.

My parents.

Laying side by side. Even in death.

“This is my fault.”

“No.” Hauling us both under the tape that was cordoning off my childhood home, Kav pulled me along towards a familiar Mercedes. “This is his fault, Joey. His.”

“I was high,” I confessed, feeling like my mind was slipping on me, as I struggled to take everything in. As I checked the fuck out. “I lost my head and walked out on them.”

“And if you’d stayed, you’d have been passed out in your bed. Darren wouldn’t have been out looking for you, Shannon wouldn’t have been awake to call me, and you all would have burned to death in your sleep.”

He was saying the words, but they weren’t helping. Nothing was helping.

“Jesus Christ.” Another horrific visual of her hand flashed in my eyes. “My mother.”

“This is not on you. So, don’t you dare let that bastard get in your head,” he commanded, as he pushed me into what I thought might be the back of a car.

I couldn’t tell anymore.

“You didn’t do this,” I heard my sister’s boyfriend say from somewhere nearby. “He did this.”

Everything was slipping on me.

It was as if my mind had reached its limit and decided to shut down. Was it self-preservation?

Was it a mental breakdown?

Had I jumped off the bridge? Was I in hell now?

It felt like I was in hell.

I was trapped in a nightmare.

Wake up.

Wake up, Joey.

“Joey, you’re coming home with us now, okay?” a familiar voice said, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. My heart was pounding so hard that it blurred my vision. Or maybe it was the tears? “We’re going to take care of you, and that’s not a request, son. That’s an order.”

You jumped.

Don’t worry, you jumped. None of this is real.

It’s not happening.

“I should have been here,” I heard myself say—to whom, I wasn’t sure. But I said it. “It’s my job to keep them safe.”

“They are safe.” Someone was holding me. An arm was around my shoulder, and a big hand covered mine. “And so are you.”

Was it God?

Was it the devil?

Where the hell was I?

“No,” I mumbled drowsily, feeling the last strand of my sanity snap. “It was my job to keep her safe.”