Chapter Five
The fast-food place he likes is weirdly empty.
It means we have no problem getting a booth. I get Tiernan a kid’s meal, but he seems more interested in playing with the ketchup than eating his chicken nuggets. I let him. Glad just to be able to sit down.
We get a few looks, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Me, drenched with my arm in a sling. A giant teddy bear in the chair beside us.
“You’re not deprived, are you?” I ask as he plants one whole hand in a ketchup blob. “You’d tell me if you were deprived.”
He looks at me. Licks his hand.
“I mean, we do okay. You get all your check-ups. You’re hitting all your milestones.
Everyone likes you. It means you’ll probably be a little brat at thirteen, but who knows what the world will be like then.
Robots for teachers and all that.” I squirt out more ketchup for him.
“Who’s your favorite person in the world? ”
His answer is instant. “Bunny.”
“Bunny is a teddy bear Megan made for you,” I remind him. “Who else?”
“Megan.”
“Okay, well, that’s not fair because she buys your love.”
He eats a chicken nugget.
I sit back, watching him. I do my best. We go to museums and play in the park. We read before bedtime. We occasionally try a green vegetable when we’re in a good mood.
So why do I still feel like I’m not good enough? And why does it feel like everyone else thinks that too?
“Rain’s stopped,” I tell him, and he gazes solemnly back at me as he licks the ketchup off his fingers. “You want to go see the animals in the manger?”
He smiles so bright my heart hurts.
I take him to the Mansion House on Dawson Street. The square white building is all lit up with giant falling snowflakes projected onto the walls. In front of it sits the live nativity scene where staff members are showing the last of the visitors out.
Mam used to bring Molly and me every year. It was originally set up to let the poor, deprived city children see a real-life animal and it looks exactly the same as I remember. A small wooden arcade that’s a little bit crap and yet completely magical.
“Closing up,” the security guard calls, but he takes one look at Tiernan and my bedraggled state and sighs. “Be quick.”
“Donkey,” Tiernan says, pointing at the first stall where the sleeping creature lies peacefully.
“Correct.” I look up at the guard. “My child is a genius.”
He doesn’t respond.
We spend a few minutes saying hello to the goats and sheep, and Tiernan doesn’t seem to mind that they’re all fast asleep and otherwise pretty boring.
I take some pictures to send to my parents and try to come up with a reason when he asks why there weren’t any dinosaurs at Jesus’s birthday because he doesn’t like to be reminded that all the dinosaurs are dead.
In the end, I just say they didn’t fit inside the stable.
When we come out the other side, a girl in another elf costume puts down her phone and holds out a lollipop to him before glancing at me.
“You want one too?”
Obviously. The pink indicates it’s strawberry flavored.
It just tastes like sugar to me. I push us onwards, heading down the road toward the bus stop.
Each pub and restaurant I pass is packed with people, and the crowds mean many are standing outside, talking and laughing, and not paying attention to the woman with a pram trying to get by.
Eventually, I just start wheeling into their toes, which earns me some glares but otherwise gets them to move.
I’m tired and I’m cold and those fries I had are not sitting well in my stomach.
All I want to do is go home, but Tiernan leans forward in his pram and points curiously at a tall church nearby.
Some sort of choral service is on judging by the music, and people trickle in and out as the stained-glass windows above them glow with golden light.
A young priest stands at the door with a collection bucket for the local children’s hospital in his hands.
“I don’t have any cash,” I say as we approach him.
“We accept Apple Pay.”
“Of course you do.” I tap my phone against the machine and nod at the door. “Can we go in?”
“Please do.” He smiles in welcome, but I pause.
“We’re not religious. I mean, I was baptized because, you know, Ireland, but he isn’t, so he’s not going to burst into flames or anything, will he?”
The priest shrugs. “So long as you keep him away from the holy water.”
An excellent tip.
It’s nice and warm inside. Both in temperature and in vibes and I immediately relax, sitting at the back in the nearest empty seat as the organ starts playing ‘O Holy Night’.
“This is my favorite song,” I whisper to Tiernan, who has miraculously gone quiet. When I look down, I find him halfway to sleep, curled up against me. I suppose that’s one good thing about tantrums. Really wears them out.
“Hello there.”
I glance to my right to see a bleary-eyed, unshaven man sitting a little further down the pew. He’s wearing a crumpled suit and half a Santa costume.
“You all right, love?” he drawls, peering at my sling. “Who did that to you?”
“The 7A.”
“Bastard.”
I nod.
“Must have had a good day to be fast asleep like that,” he says, nodding at Tiernan.
“I wouldn’t know. I just found him over there.”
“Well, finders keepers. You sure you’re all right?”
I look back to the choir. Tiernan doesn’t stir. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” he says in that sage way drunk people seem to get. “Always hard this time of year.”
I nod, but this time, there’s a weird pressure in my chest that I don’t like. One that moves up my throat and behind my eyes. I blink rapidly, trying to focus on the music. On anything but myself.
“Do you think I’m stubborn?” I ask.
“I don’t even know your name, pet. We met ten seconds ago.”
“Right.” The choir keeps singing, but all the thoughts I’ve been trying to push to the back of my mind, all the worries that I pretend not to feel, they all come rushing out of me.
I’m too exhausted to stop them. “People think I’m stubborn,” I say, staring bleakly ahead.
“And I think they might be right. I think they think something’s wrong with me and that’s what’s made me so …
” I frown, trying to make sense of it. “They still look at me like I’m lacking something.
Like I need something else, and I don’t.
And that makes me want to push them away.
To prove that I can do it by myself. But I can’t.
Not anymore.” I glance down at Tiernan. “All I want to do every day is give him the best life possible, but I’m running myself into the ground trying. ”
“You look like you’re doing just fine to me.”
“But I won’t always. And it’s only going to get harder.
And I’m scared I won’t be able to ask for help when I need it.
And I know I’m not alone and I know I’m surrounded by family and friends who love me, but there must be something wrong with me if the only person I can tell this to is a drunk guy in a Santa costume. ”
The man glances down at himself like he forgot he was even wearing it. “Not too surprising,” he says with a shrug. “It’s much easier talking to strangers than to the people who know us.”
“You think?”
“Sure, look at where we are. Why do you think people go to confession?”
“Catholic guilt and fear of eternal damnation.”
“There’s that too,” he agrees. “But some people also just want to talk. Same way others ask for help. But there’s no use crying over something that hasn’t happened yet. Not at Christmas. As far as I can see, you’ve got a healthy child and a good life. You can’t ask for much more these days.”
“I guess not,” I mumble.
“You’ve had a bad day,” he tells me. “But you could have a good one tomorrow. You’ll be okay.”
“Thanks.” I mean it. It’s the first time anyone’s said that to me in a long time. “Have you got somewhere to stay tonight?”
“Ah, I’ll be just fine. Made it this far along. But here.” He delves a hand into his pocket and draws out a small purple bauble. “For your tree.”
“I don’t have a tree.”
“For him then,” he says, handing it to me. “I stole it from one of those branch things by the altar.”
Wonderful.
“Thank you,” I say again, but hesitate when he does. “What?”
He glances around, looking uncomfortable. “Look, love, I know you’re not in a good place right now, and I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but …” He trails off with a grimace, and I brace myself. “You smell terrible.”
The cheese.
He pats my arm before I can say anything. “You might want to see someone about that.”
I only nod, offering him a forced smile as the choir finishes up. Tiernan barely stirs when I tuck him back into the pram.
“Have a good Christmas,” I tell the stranger, and he waves as I leave the church. I hand the bauble to the priest on my way out.