“I KNEW COMING HOME WAS A BAD IDEA, MIKE. I BLOODY KNEW WE WERE ASKING FOR trouble, and I was right!”
“Calm down, Catherine. You can’t let yourself get worked up like this. You’re in the middle of chemo, love. You need to take it easy.”
“How in the name of God am I supposed to calm down when that woman was in my house? I can’t breathe thinking about what could’ve happened today, Mike!”
Flushing the toilet, I climbed onto the booster step placed in front of the sink, the one that helped me reach the tap, and reached for the orange bar of soap.
“I tried to warn you in England, but you wouldn’t listen. You were hell-bent on doing things your way when I fucking begged you not to. Now, you’re getting a small glimpse into what life was like for me, what life is going to be for us.”
“Don’t think like that!”
“I can’t help it. I can see it coming down the tracks like a freight train, and we’re stuck.”
“It’s a small chance, Michael, not a guarantee. So don’t you dare throw it back in my face. How dare you resent me for doing the right thing!”
“The right thing for who?”
“For our family!”
“Maybe for you, but it was never the right thing for me.”
“How can you stand there and say that to me?”
“Because that’s how I feel, Catherine. That’s my truth. I didn’t get to have a say in any of this because you took my choices away from me!”
I turned on the water and giggled when the soap squished between my hands, like a slippery fish.
“We have to move, Michael. We can’t stay here anymore. She’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not moving again. This is my family home, Catherine. The house my parents raised me in. This is where I belong.”
“Well, I’m going back to Cork to my family home—where I belong, where that monster can’t find us!”
“Back to the back-ass of nowhere in Ballylaggin? And where do you expect me to work? Or do you expect me to pack up my family farm and take it with me?”
“You know I have money, Michael. That’s never been something we’ve had to worry about. For Christ’s sake, our children’s children won’t even have to worry. My father saw to that when he left me the family estate in his will.”
“I’m not living off your family’s generational fucking wealth, Catherine.”
“But it’s perfectly fine for us to live off the farm you inherited from your father?”
“Have you considered Caoimhe’s schooling? She’s halfway through sixth class and has switched primary schools three bloody times already, and that’s not even considering what another move will do to Elizabeth. You heard what her teacher said. She’s barely managing junior infants as it stands, and she has the other children terrified from her outbursts.”
“It’s called trauma, Michael, and you of all the people in the world should understand how she feels.”
“Don’t go there…”
“She’s an extremely bright girl, and you’d know that if you paid her a minute of your time. Do you remember even one of the many positive things our daughter’s teacher had to say about her? No, of course you don’t, because you only hear the negative when it comes to Lizzie.”
“Can you blame me?”
“How dare you! There is nothing wrong with our daughter, but there is something very wrong with her father. What a coward you are, letting your fear blind you from loving our little girl.”
“That’s rich coming from the woman who hasn’t walked in my shoes.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the one looking after Lizzie. I’m the one taking her to every appointment, not you.”
“I’ve paid every doctor you’ve taken her to, haven’t I?”
“And I’ve already told you that I have more than enough money to pay for them. There’s more to being a father than writing checks.”
Humming under my breath, I wrestled with the soap, trying to squish it between my hands. My eyes looked at me from the mirror and I frowned. I didn’t like to look at my eyes for too long. They scared me when they changed colors. They talked to me when they got dark. Inside my head. Whispers, whispers, whispers.
“And were you planning on leaving your cancer behind ya when you up and run again? Hmm? Because you’re halfway through your third round of chemo and in no fit state to leave the house, let alone the county!”
“They have hospitals in Cork, too, you know, and at least that horrible creature won’t find us in my hometown.”
“I’m not moving again, Catherine. I refuse to.”
“Fine, if you want to be stubborn and stay here to tend your farm, then go right ahead. But I’m going home, where it’s safe, and I’m taking our girls with me.”
“Look, can we just talk about this calmly before jumping the gun?”
“What’s to talk about? That monster found us, she took my child, and I’m leaving before she can do it again.”
“Yes, but she didn’t hurt her. She took her for a couple of hours and brought her back.”
“Without telling her mother she was taking her! Jesus Christ, Michael, the girls don’t even know the woman. Don’t you understand how dangerous this was? Anything could have happened to Lizzie!”
“Liz?” Caoimhe poked her head around the bathroom door and smiled. “There you are.”
I frowned when I saw her. She never smiled at me. She was always cross with me.
“Nothing happened. She brought her back without a mark on her.”
Caoimhe’s smile turned into a sad one. “Come on.” She held her hand out for me. “Come with me.”
“Why?” I asked, feeling confused.
“This time. What happens next time? What if she takes a turn and decides to…”
“Because I want to play with you,” she said, giving me a big smile. “Hurry up.”
Excited now, I tossed the slippery soap into the sink and turned off the tap before jumping down. Drying my hands on my pajamas, I followed my sister across the landing and into her room.
Caoimhe was almost twelve, which meant she had a big bed like our parents. I was four and still had to sleep in a small bed, but I didn’t mind because I still got to sleep with all my teddies.
“Are you okay?” she asked, waiting for me to come inside before closing the door behind us. “You weren’t listening to that, were you?”
“Mammy’s cross,” I replied, making a beeline for her giant bed. Caoimhe never let me go into her room anymore, not since I started junior infants and she was always cross with me, so I was excited to be here now. “Daddy’s cross, too.”
“Yeah, I know.” She walked over to her boom box and switched it on. When the familiar song drifted from the speakers, I smiled.
“This one’s my favorite,” I told her, sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed. Before I started big school, she used to let me hang out with her all the time. That’s how I knew about all the pop stars and singers.
“I know.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. “You remember the name of the band, don’t you?” Her tone was teasing now. “You better not have forgotten the name of the best band in the world.”
“Fleetwood Mac,” I said proudly before pointing at the stereo. “And that’s their album called Rumours.” She played it all the time and I knew the words of the songs better than the prayers I learned at school.
“Excellent,” she praised, turning up the volume when the shouting from downstairs got louder. “And who is our witchy queen?”
“Stevie.”
“And our guitar king?”
“Lindsey.”
Caoimhe’s smile grew bigger. “And what’s my favorite song?”
“‘Landslide.’”
“And Mam’s?”
“‘The Chain.’”
“And what’s yours?”
“‘Silver Springs.’”
“And who else do we love?” My sister pointed to the T-shirt she was wearing, the one with the smiley face on it. She was wearing a pair of baggy jeans with holes in the knees, too, and her wrists were covered with bangles and bracelets. She also had a silver, moon-shaped necklace pendant around her neck, and I wanted to look just like her when I was bigger. “I’ll give you a hint,” Caoimhe said, still pointing to her shirt. “It starts with Nir…”
“Nirvana!” I filled in, feeling excited because she looked so happy with me. I liked it when people were happy with me. It made me feel warm in my belly, not like the burning-hot feeling when I made them sad. Like Daddy. He was always sad when he looked at me, and that didn’t feel good. Not good at all.
“Am I bad, Caoimhe?”
“What?” My sister’s brows scrunched together, and she gave me a funny look. “Where did you hear that?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“No, Liz.” Caoimhe heaved out a big breath and climbed onto the bed with me. “You’re not bad.” Her hands were warm when they pulled me onto her lap, but her voice was sad. It made the burning feeling grow. The one that made me want to scream. The one that made me want to scratch my skin. “You’re just complicated.”
“How come you don’t want me in your school?” I turned in her lap to look at her. “Do you hate me?”
“No,” she whispered, sounding super sad. “I just get frustrated, that’s all.”
“Because of me?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, Liz, I’m sorry.” Her arms tightened around me, making me feel warm and happy. Making the burning, itchy pressure in my throat go away. “I need to have more patience with you.”
“Does Daddy hate me?”
“No.” She pulled me closer. “He’s just worried because of Grandad and Nell.”
“Who’s Nell?”
“Remember that weirdo who showed up to dinner today with the Christmas presents?” Settling me between her legs, she freed my hair from my ponytail. “The one Mam got upset with for taking you to the river?”
I thought about the lady that came to our house today and smiled. “We fed the ducks.”
“That’s Dad’s sister.” She continued to brush my hair out with her fingers. “Nell.”
“I didn’t know Daddy had a sister,” I replied. “She never came here before.”
“That’s because his sister is a rip-roaring lunatic,” Caoimhe explained, braiding my hair. “Just like her dad was before he died.”
“Her dad?”
“Grandad Young.”
“What’s a lunatic?”
“Someone who’s crazy and hears voices.” Caoimhe sighed. “That’s why Grandad drowned in the river when Dad was a kid. The voices told him to jump in.”
“But I hear voices.” My eyes widened. “I can hear your voice right now.”
“Not real voices,” Caoimhe chuckled, still working on my hair. “Pretend voices.” She poked my temple with her finger. “Inside your head.”
“But the lady wasn’t rip-roaring at me,” I replied, scrunching my brows up. “She wasn’t talking to any voices when we were feeding the ducks.”
“Probably because she was too busy thinking about a way to feed you to the ducks,” she replied, sounding worried now. “You’re lucky she didn’t throw you in.”
“But I can’t swim yet.”
“I know.” Her voice was sad again. “That’s why Mam is so upset. She thought you weren’t coming back today.”
“Because the lady took me to feed the ducks?”
“Because she took you to the river.” Caoimhe shivered. “You must never be alone with her.”
“Never?”
“Never ever, and if she ever comes back and tries to take you away, then you have to run, Liz.”
“Run?”
“Run.” Finishing with my braid, she turned me around to face her. “As fast as you can.”
“How did the voices get into Grandad and the lady?” I asked, shuffling closer to my sister.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I think they were just born with it.”
“Can they get better?” Nestling into her chest, I reached up and touched her cheek; my favorite way to snuggle. “Can the doctors take the voices away?”
“Well, Grandad’s up in heaven with holy God now, so he’s not suffering anymore.”
“Suffering?”
“I mean the voices are gone and he’s all better.”
“Holy God fixed Grandad?”
“Yep,” she replied. “Because when you go to heaven, all of your pain goes away.”
I smiled to myself.
That was a nice thought.
“Does Daddy hear the voices, too? Is that why he gets so cross with me?”
“No, Dad’s fine.” She sighed heavily. “And he’s not cross with you, I promise. He’s paranoid of history repeating itself. He’s just scared, that’s all.”
“Of me?”
“No, Liz, he’s not scared of you. Dad’s just… It’s really complicated, and you’re too little to understand any of this.” Sighing heavily, she stroked my cheek with her thumb and smiled again, but this time she looked even sadder. “When you’re a grown-up, I’ll explain everything to you.”
“But I want to know now.”
“Trust me, you don’t.”
“But you’re not a grown-up,” I pointed out. “So how come you get to know?”
“Because I learned about it the hard way.” She sounded sad again. “I wish I didn’t have to know any of this crap.”
“What about the lady?” I asked then. “Does she want to go to heaven so holy God can make the voices go away? Like her daddy?”
“No, because when Nell was in the hospital, the doctors found a way to keep the voices out.”
“How?”
“By giving her special medicine.”
“So she’s better?”
“No, Liz, she’s not,” Caoimhe muttered. “Because she doesn’t take it.”
I thought about the medicine in the bathroom cabinet, the bottle with the name Elizabeth Young on it, and how Mammy took one out every day and gave it to me. “Am I sick like the lady?” The hot feeling grew inside of me, gobbling up the earlier excitement. “There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?”
I knew there was.
I heard the voices, too.
They whispered in my ear when I was alone in my bed at night.
“No.” Caoimhe’s voice was hard now. She sounded cross. Like Daddy. “Those tablets are for growing pains, silly.”
“No.” I shook my head. I knew what the growing pains tablets looked like. “The growing pains tablets are pink.”
My sister was lying.
I didn’t like it.
It made me feel dizzy.
“Liz.”
“I hear them, too, Caoimhe.” I sprang up to look at her, feeling itchy all over. “I see things, too. When I’m sleeping. The monster comes to take me. It keeps pushing me down with its sharp nails—”
“Lizzie, you need to stop talking,” she warned, covering my mouth with her hand. “Don’t ever say that out loud again.” She looked down at me with angry eyes. “You are fine. There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t hear voices. You aren’t sick. It skipped over you, just like it skipped over me and Dad. You’re just a regular kid, and all these weird, little quirks will fade away.”
I shook my head, feeling confused and hot all over.
My skin was itching.
My fingers were scratchy.
I could feel the hot screams in my throat.
“There is nothing wrong with you,” my sister repeated, keeping her hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming. “So you better start acting like it or you’ll end up where she did.”
