Page 10 of Not Another Yesterday
Ronan frowns, his jaw rigid. “What do you want from me?”
She flinches, just barely. “Would it be okay if we sat?”
Frank turns his attention to Ronan. “Ran? Are you okay with her being here?” It’s not about politeness. It’s about Ronan. Only Ronan.
“I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is you want from me,” Ronan says, his eyes locked on his grandmother. I can feel how tightlywound his muscles are, see his jaw flexing as he holds my hand firmly in his. “Why are you here?”
Mrs. Donahue takes a deep breath, working to maintain her composure. But the fidgeting of her fingers tells me she’s frazzled by Ronan’s reception. She lifts her chin. “I’m here to apologize,” she says with a sigh, a look of defeat in her blue eyes.
Ronan’s eyebrows dip, but he doesn’t otherwise speak. His silence is louder than words.
“Ronan, I… Could we please sit?” she asks again, quieter now.
Ronan sighs. “Fine.”
Frank nods and leads the way into the living room.
“I love you,” I whisper to Ronan. He only squeezes my hand.
We take our seats—Frank and Penny on the loveseat, Steve, Ronan, and me on the couch. Mrs. Donahue sits alone in the armchair across from us. It’s a stark contrast.
Mrs. Donahue crosses her ankles and clears her throat. “I think you need to understand the cards you were dealt, Ronan.”
His muscles coil beside me. He’s so tense, I wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up sore tomorrow.
“I know you had a hard life growing up,” Mrs. Donahue says, clasping her hands in her lap. “It didn’t have to be this way. I very much blame myself. I don’t know if you know anything about what Brian did to Rica and my son, Cormac.”
“Yeah, I do,” Ronan says simply.
She nods. “Brian was strict when Rica and Cormac were growing up. He very much believed in corporal punishment. Brian himself grew up with a father who regularly hit him, and his father him, and so on, from what I understand. If I tried to come to my children’s aid, Brian would… well, he made sure we all understood who the head of the household was,” she says, sitting up straight, her hand moving to a small scar on her left cheekbone.
My heart aches.
“Honestly, he wasn’t like that before we married, but once we were and had moved to Westchester he… I think it was his work, maybe. He was under a lot of stress,” she says, sinking briefly into herself.
She collects herself, plastering a proud look onto her perfectly made-up face.
“Anyways, I wanted you to understand that your mother did what she was taught, what she grew up with. She perpetuated a painful, vicious, violent cycle that had been passed down through the Donahue family tree for generations. It was always very much about respect and obeying. A failure to obey was synonymous with disrespect, which was not tolerated by any of the Donahue men,” she says like she’s reciting an undeniable truth.
Anger ignites within me. Mrs. Donahue’s words resonate with what I learned during the trial in April, when I listened to Ronan testify—lay himself bare before strangers—for hours, and saw the surveillance video in which Rica repeatedly accused Ronan of disrespecting her, of disobeying her rules, before she viciously beat him.
Ronan’s profile is unreadable, his silence suffocating.
“I should’ve left Brian the first time he hit me. At the very least I should have left him when he began laying his hands on our children,” she says, her voice cracking. “I wasn’t strong enough.”
She directs her gaze to her hands in her lap, and suddenly she reminds me of myself, how I made excuses for Adam’s violence, how I didn’t recognize what he was doing to me as abuse, how it took Ronan’s words to finally make me understand that nothing that had happened to me was my fault. She takes a few steadying breaths before she squares her shoulders, replacing the expression of sadness with a stoic determination. I’m impressed and simultaneously appalled by how well she maintains her proud composure.
“I had nothing; Brian had always provided for me. I had no job experience, no real education. I married into money, and Brian wasgood at reminding me that I was nothing without him. What was I supposed to do?”
She raises her thin blonde eyebrows at us as if daring us to contradict her.
“My children and I would have been homeless. I couldn’t possibly tell my parents, my friends. On the outside, my family was picture-perfect. My children went to private Catholic schools, they were well-dressed, we drove the nice cars, lived in a beautiful home,” she says, the words rushing from her mouth.
I wonder if this is the first time she’s ever said these things out loud to anyone.
“I had no right to complain. Brian worked so hard, climbed the military ranks quickly. He was disciplined, and all he ever asked of me and his children was to obey and respect him. In fact, those words were in our wedding vows,” Mrs. Donahue says with a nod. “He expected Rica and Cormac to do as he told them. Do well in school, don’t slack, be disciplined like their dad, don’t complain. He provided for us. It was great, except when he became physical. Cormac left as soon as he turned eighteen. I don’t know where he went; he just disappeared. I haven’t spoken to him in over twenty years. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.” I note the pain in her voice as her composure slips. “I pray he was able to build a beautiful family for himself, that he was able to find peace. But those Donahue genes… I worry…”
Her words taper off, and the room falls still. Ronan’s eyes are unfocused, his lips pressed together. I wonder what he’s thinking.
