Page 32 of Keeping 13

“You can’t fix this, Mam,” I replied, trembling. “It’s like that story about Humpty Dumpty. Nothing will put him back together again. Dad threw him off the wall, and you lost the pieces to put him back together.”

“Oh god.” She dropped her head in her hands and sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

“You should have seen him today,” I said, wincing when a jolt of pain shot through me. “He was completely shattered.”

“Shannon,” Mam sobbed.Weak, weak, fucking weak.“Just give me a chance to make this right, baby, please.”You can’t. You’ll never fix this.“I know I can turn this around for all of us.”

“See, you’re talking, you’re saying all the right things, but it’s just words.” Shaking my head, I lifted my gaze to hers. “It’s all words with you,” I croaked out bitterly. “All the same words I’ve heard a million times before, to go with all the same promises you’ve repeatedly broken.”

“So, what are you saying?” she cried, dabbing her cheeks with a crumpled-up tissue. “You don’t want to be with me anymore?”

“I’m saying that I’ll do what I need to for Ollie, Tadhg, and Sean,” I choked out, drowning in my feelings. “To keep them safe and out of care, I’ll give this plan of Darren’s a chance. And I hope you’re right, Mam. I really hope you are telling the truth this time, but I hope that for the boys’ sakes, not mine. Ipraythat you can turn this around for them and be the mother they deserve, but it’s too late to turn this around for us.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she sobbed. “I’m just so sorry, Shannon. I know I can’t fix this, but I… God, I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

“I know you’re not a bad person, Mam,” I whispered, snatching my traitorous hand back when it moved of its own accord to comfort her. “And I know he hurt you, too, in ways I don’t understand, and I amsorrythat happened to you. I know you were scared, and I am so sorry that you had to live in fear for all these years—” Furious with myself, I angrily swatted my tears away and exhaled slowly before continuing. “But that doesn’t mean you get a free pass from us.”

I sniffled and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “It doesn’t make it okay, because youknewwhat he was doing, yousawit, and you didnothing. You just left us, Mam. You were there, but you weren’t. Joey was right when he called you a ghost. And I don’t know, maybe it was your way of surviving, making it through each day in one piece, but you had more power than us. You were the grown-up. You were ourmother. And you just…” I shrugged helplessly. “Checked out on us.”

“Do you think, in time, you’ll forgive me?” she whispered, looking up at me with lonesome, tear-filled blue eyes. “Do you think you ever could?”

“Maybe?” I shrugged again. “But I know that I don’t forgive you today.”

8

Bulldozer

Johnny

“I need you to keep your head,” Dad instructed as he walked down the corridor of Cork University Hospital to Ward 1A with his hand clamped on the back of my arm. “No outbursts,” he added in a low tone. “And for the love of god, no accusations.”

“What’s there to accuse?” I growled, hobbling along with my crutches. “We both know what happened to her.” Like I told him. Like I toldeveryone. “Jesus, he put her in the fucking hospital, Da!”

“Johnny—” Pulling me to a stop in the middle of a bustling corridor, Dad pinched his nose and then turned to look at me. “You’re upset. I understand. I get it. I’m sorry for doubting you, okay? You were right and I was wrong, butthis”—he waved a hand around, gesturing to where we were standing—“is a sensitive situation, one you have zero experience with. This is a domestic violence issue, Jonathan. The Gardaí and social services will already be all over this. Do you understand? There will be a criminal investigation—one you cannot interfere with. Emotions will be running high, and the last thing you need to do is run in there all guns a-blazing. It might feel good and justifiable, but it won’t help Shannon in the long run. So if you want to see her, then I strongly suggest you keep your opinions and feelings to yourself and let me do the talking.”

I gaped at him. “I’mgoingto see her, there’s no ‘if’ about it.” My father gave me a look that saidnot likely. “I am going to see her, Da,” I repeated, furious.

“Then keep your head anddon’tbulldoze,” he replied before releasing my arm and walking on ahead of me.

Glaring at the back of his head, I adjusted my crutches and hurried to catch up. “I don’t bleeding bulldoze.”

I rounded the corner, hunting my father’s silhouette as he slipped through another set of double doors and out of sight.

Fuck my dick and these bleeding crutches.

He was clearly walking ahead of me on purpose. He wanted to get there before me so he could assess the situation in that cool, unfeeling, calculated way of his without his headstrong son there to make a hash of things.

When I finally caught sight of him again, standing at the nurses’ station at the far end of the long corridor, I upped my pace, using my upper-body strength to sling myself along on the metal sticks, peeking through the glass windows of each door as I went. I was passing the sixth door on the left when my body came to an abrupt halt and my heart jackknifed in my chest.

Shannon was lying on the bed with her eyes closed and her hands tucked under her cheek. She was facing the door, and at the sight of her, I had to stop and catch my breath.

A million and one emotions battered through me as my eyes took in the bruising dusting her face. She was black and blue to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Almost. I’d know that face anywhere.

I felt it now, the deep sense of guilt drowning me. The sadness on her face every time I dropped her back at that house. The fear in her eyes when I knocked on her door that first time—the second and third times, too. She was always so skittish, so demure and obliging. She asked permission for just about everything. She wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. She told me that once, said her folks were protective. But she went with me anyway.

“Can you save me?”

“Do you need me to save you?”

---