“Why so glum?” my mom asked as we sat down in the fanciest restaurant in Ballyshannon. I hated that they’d taken me there. It was more for show than anything else. They wanted to see and be seen; the doting parents who took their daughter out for an expensive dinner for her birthday. It was disgusting.

“No reason.” I smiled at the waiter as he left, then fiddled with my silverware.

“Well, cheer up! You’re eighteen! Doesn’t every girl wait impatiently for the day she turns eighteen?”

I smiled thinly in an effort to make her stop talking. Her voice was loud and obnoxious in the quiet room, the American accent she’d so painstakingly developed causing people to glance at our table. Exactly the reason she’d done it.

“A legal adult now, huh?” my dad asked in a voice appropriate for the restaurant we were sitting in. “How does that feel?”

“Pretty much the same as yesterday.”

It didn’t take long for the waiter to come back for our order, and soon after we were eating our meals silently, the requisite question and answer session over. It wasn’t as if they ignored me, they just didn’t have anything else to say. When you have little interest in the person across the table from you, it makes small talk virtually impossible.

It wasn’t until dessert had been served that my father once again began to talk, and the ground seemed as if it was falling out beneath me.

Chapter 12

Patrick

“I made a mistake,” Robbie told us, sitting heavily in Amy’s vacated chair. “I’m not sure it happened, but de lads…”

“What de hell did ye do, Da?” My stomach was churning at the sight of my father’s hunched shoulders. I’d never seen him less than completely confident, no matter the situation—even the day my mum had kicked him out after she’d found out he’d been spending time with the O’Halloran brothers. He’d argued then, sure in his path even as she’d packed his suitcase.

He could have stayed. I’d seen it on his face that he knew he could get Mum to change her mind, but he hadn’t. His respect for her and a goodly dose of pride had forced him to leave the house that day, and I’d only seen him sporadically through my childhood. It wasn’t until I’d began at Uni that I began to see him more often, our paths crossing in a way that I knew hadn’t been by chance.

I was now regretting ever laying eyes on him again.

“I had a job, it was simple, eh? Go in, do it and get out. But it didn’t happen dat way. Got out, alright. But fuck if dose slimy bastards hadn’t made me look like a fool.” He rested his elbows on the table, clenching and unclenching his fists as he glared at them. When his eyes rose to meet Mum’s, I knew that it was even worse than I’d imagined. “I’m no longer trusted,” he whispered.

Mum made a mournful noise in her throat and raised shaky fingers to rest against her forehead. My body suddenly felt as if the muscles would burst, my skin too tight for my body.

“What does dat mean?” I asked, slamming my fist on the table. “What have ye brought down on us?”

“I’ve not brought anyt’in’ to de two of ye,” he replied calmly, raising his hand to my mum, who’d begun to cry. “I’m not certain what will happen now. I’ve got to find a way to make me way back in. If I don’t… well, I wanted to see me wife.”

Mum sniffled and rounded the table, letting my Da pull her onto his lap. As she continued to cry, she pulled his head to her breasts and his whole body seemed to wilt into hers. I couldn’t watch it.

I stood from the table quietly and they didn’t notice as I left the house.

I thought about my Da’s words as I nursed a Guinness in a pub near my house. I’d been there a while, just having finished my exams with what I was sure were barely passing marks. How a lad was supposed to focus on coursework when so many other things were happening around him was a mystery to me, but I’d continued on until the term was finished. I’d not have to take the classes over, at least that was something.

I should have been celebrating, but fuck if I could celebrate anything at that point. I’d seen my Da a few times since the day in my mum’s kitchen, but we’d barely said a word to each other. Mostly we just passed each other in the street near the university. He didn’t belong anywhere near there, but I never mentioned it. I knew he was making himself visible to assure me that things had not changed. He was still alive. For how long? That was anyone’s guess.

I didn’t want to know what was happening. I was glad, of course, that he was still alive, but I didn’t want to be pulled into his life and the shadow that loomed above him. I was a scholar, for Christ’s sake. I believed in a unified Ireland, aye, but fighting amongst ourselves was getting us nowhere. I believed things would change when we began to use our words instead of our fists, an ideal my mum had ironically beat into me when I’d fought with Kevie as a child. Brute force could change a man’s mind, of course it could, but when two opponents were so clearly matched and unwilling to give up? It made for a long, bloody and unnecessary battle. One I wanted no part of.

My body felt languid as I tipped the last of my drink against my lips and I was relaxed for the first time in months until three men entered the pub. My back straightened at their arrival and every muscle bunched in preparation. I knew of them. The smallest of the three was the leader, higher in the ranks than my Da, but not at the top. His two followers were larger, muscled and stupid looking, and as I peered closer I realized the blonde one was from Ballyshannon. Kevie’s older brother.