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“It’s okay,” I called back as I carted my mother out of the garden, kicking and lashing out. “It’s not your fault.”

“Johnny…” Her voice broke off and she cried hard. “I–I’m…sorry.”

Not stopping until I was at the driver’s side of the Rover, I yanked the door open and bundled my mother inside. “Stop!” I barked, breathing hard from exertion. “Jesus Christ, Ma, settle down!”

Chest heaving, Mam slumped into the driver’s seat, shaking from head to toe. “Alright.” Nodding stiffly, she sat up in the driver’s seat and reached for her seat belt. “Okay.”

“Okay,” I confirmed with a sigh. Slamming the door shut, I rounded the Rover, hobbling every step of the way as pain scorched its way through my body.

“Don’t come back here!” Mrs. Lynch called out in a shaky voice from where she was still standing in the garden, watching me. “Or there will be trouble.”

Shaking my head, I swallowed down a millionfuck-you’sand turned to look at Shannon who was hugging Joey. “Shannon Lynch?” I called out, ignoring the rest of her fucked-up family. “I love you back.”

Sniffling, she lifted her chin from Joey’s chest and looked at me all red-eyed and blotchy. “S-still?”

“Still.” I nodded in confirmation. “Like, a crazy fucking amount.”

And then I turned around and climbed into the SUV before my mother decided to take another leave of her senses.

23

Dirty Laundry

Shannon

I felt like I was standing waist deep in the debris from the storm that had just blown through my world and was clueless as to how to proceed. Reeling, I tried to make sense of the events of the last sixteen years of my life, but kept honing in on the last twenty-four hours.

Mam, Darren, Joey, Johnny, Gibsie, Claire, Mrs. Kavanagh…my father.

Always my father.

It had been the most uncomfortable cup of tea I’d ever slurped my way through in Mrs. Kavanagh’s kitchen earlier, with Joey looking like something hell had thrown up sitting beside me, staring in confusion at the scone and clotted cream on his side plate. I had no idea what to say to Johnny’s mother, and it was made worse by the sobbing fits that took her over every time she looked at me and Joey.

The drive back to our house was equally uncomfortable, made marginally better by the feel of Johnny’s hand on mine and the sound of the light flow of conversation between Mrs. Kavanagh and my brother. I think Joey was so startled by Mrs. Kavanagh fussing over him, so completely caught off guard by her kindness, that when she told him to climb into the front seat of her Range Rover he complied without a fuss.

I had no idea how she had the ability to get words out of Joey, but whenever she asked him a question, he dutifully answered her. She kept the tone light, never once asking either of us a thing about our father, choosing safer topics to discuss—like school, hurling, and his girlfriend, and Joey had responded with genuine, unsnappy answers that were completely un-Joey-like.

However, my elation over having my brother come home with me was overthrown by conflict the minute we pulled up outside my house. What I presumed would be a civilized conversation between two mothers had gone to hell the moment my mother made a derogatory suggestion that Johnny had somehow taken advantage of me.

I’d never seen a woman lose her cool as quickly as Mrs. Kavanagh had. All it took was those two words and Johnny’s mother blew a head gasket. It was shocking to watch a usually mild-mannered woman morph into full-blown mama-bear mode and attack. I’d never seen a woman defend her child as fiercely as she had.

None of us had…

Not even Darren, who seemed to have a knack for calming a situation, could settle our mothers down as all hell had broken out right there and then in our front garden, in full view of my little brothers, with Johnny having to physically carry his mother out of the garden before the mothers came to blows.

Terrible things had been said, our dirty laundry had been aired loudly, and the entire time Joey had leaned against the garden wall with his arms folded across his chest, silently taking it all in and never once moving to intercede in the drama.

The rage swelling up inside of my body, even now hours later, was both a foreign emotion and a dominant one. Never in my life had I felt sofurious.

Statutory rape.Two words that were swirling around in my head, making it hard for me to function. How could she say that? How could my mother eventhinkthat? I was so embarrassed, so completely taken apart by it all.

“Shannon Lynch? I love you back…”

My heart slammed wildly against my rib cage and I snapped.

“How could you do that to me?” I demanded for the millionth time, glaring at my mother who was now sitting at the kitchen table with her mandatory cigarette balancing between her bony fingers.

She didn’t answer me.

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