Your Son is my Sun Lizzie
YOUR SON IS MY SUN
Lizzie
OCTOBER 3, 1998
T HE MONSTER WAS FURIOUS TONIGHT . I WAS GLAD I WAS DREAMING BECAUSE I DIDN’T think I could survive the pain if it were real. He kept snarling and hissing at me, blaming me for revealing his secrets .
I hadn’t .
All I did was fall asleep tonight and meet him in my dreams .
Someone had made him angry, though .
Cruel enough to choke and punch me .
Rough enough to break me from the inside out .
“I didn’t say anything, I swear,” I tried to plead, but it was no use. The monster wasn’t listening to me .
“What did he tell her?” he continued to demand, scratching and tearing at my clothes. “You know something, don’t you?”
“I don’t, I swear,” I strangled out, not bothering to fight back .
It didn’t matter because it wasn’t real .
I would be okay .
Everything would be better when the sun came up .
In the darkness, the monster pinned me down and hissed all his commands in my ears…
“On your knees.”
“Bend over.”
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Quiet, or I’ll snap your fucking neck.”
Over and over again .
Until I wanted to die .
“What’s wrong?” Caoimhe asked from the driver’s seat of Dad’s Jeep on our way to Avoca Greystones. “You’re doing that weird, spaced-out thing again.”
“I’m grand,” I lied, clearing my throat.
I wasn’t grand.
I was the opposite.
I had an anxious energy building up inside of me and felt like I was two seconds away from snapping.
But I would never tell Caoimhe that.
Not when she was our father’s eyes and ears.
“What time are you supposed to be at Sinead’s house?” I asked instead, steering the conversation to safer waters.
“Ten minutes ago,” she muttered under her breath, weaving through the country roads. “I don’t know what happened this morning. I never usually oversleep.” Groaning, she shifted gears and tightened her grip on the wheel. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a lorry.”
Welcome to my world , I thought but decided to keep to myself. “There’s a bad bend up here,” I warned, gesturing to the winding part of road ahead of us. “Take it handy.”
“I know how to drive, Lizzie!”
Maybe, but she wasn’t very good at it. Since getting her license back in April, my sister had racked up an impressive number of scratches and dents on our father’s Range Rover.
“Ugh!” She complained loudly again. “Why do I feel like I’m doped off my head?”
“Were you drinking last night?” I knew she drank alcohol with her friends on the weekends. She smoked, too. Not in front of our parents, of course, but I often spied her in the stables with a cigarette in her mouth. “Maybe you’re just tired from a hangover or something.”
“I was home all night,” she replied, sounding frustrated. “We had a takeaway and watched movies in my room.”
We .
Meaning her and Mark .
“Oh.” Clasping my hands together tightly, I stared out the window. “Then I don’t know.”
Caoimhe continued to complain all the way to Sinead’s, while my anxiety continued to intensify. When we finally pulled up outside the familiar house, I bolted up the driveway and into the house without giving my sister a backwards glance.
I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to.
Because I was about to burst.
Moving on instinct, I barreled up the staircase, not stopping until I reached his bedroom door.
“Jesus Christ, Liz!” Hugh exclaimed when I practically blew his bedroom door off its hinges in my rush to get to him. “What’s wrong?” His tone was panicked. “What happened?”
I didn’t answer him.
Because I couldn’t .
Instead, I walked straight to him, not stopping until I had clambered over the books strewn across his bed and was nestled on his lap.
The tears I had managed to hold in all the way over here had reached their breaking point and my emotions exploded out of me in a flurry of heaving sobs.
Hugh tossed the book he was holding aside and quickly wrapped me up in that familiar cocoon of safety and warmth. “It’s okay,” he coaxed, tightening his arms around me. “I’m right here.” He smoothed my hair over my shoulder and rocked gently. “Shh, Liz, I’m right here with you.”
Hearing his voice only made me cry harder and cling tighter. “It happened again.”
“You had another nightmare?”
“It felt so real this time.” Nodding, I trembled violently. “Please don’t leave me.”
A tremor racked through his big body, and I slowly felt him relax on my mattress. “I’m not leaving, Liz.” His arm came around me, and then his lips were on my ear. “I’m staying.”
Two words that meant more coming from him than any declarations of love or promises of forever.
Just to stay —that’s all I needed.
And he was giving it to me.
I was making so much of a racket that Claire barreled into the room, demanding to know what was wrong, but Hugh didn’t have the answers, and I couldn’t tell.
Eventually she gave up and left, only to return with her mother and my sister.
“Oh my God,” I heard Caoimhe groan from somewhere behind me. “I am so sorry about her, Sinead. I’ll call my dad to come pick her up.”
“No!” That was Hugh. “She can stay, can’t she, Mam?”
“Of course she can,” I heard Sinead reply. “Lizzie, sweetheart, what’s upsetting you?”
I couldn’t explain it.
Because it wasn’t real.
Because Sinead would think I was crazy.
Just like everyone else .
“Why don’t you come and have a little chat with me before I leave for work. Hmm?” She gently squeezed my shoulder, and her touch felt like Hugh’s. “Would you like that?”
I shook my head, unable to release my hold on her son.
Because her son was my sun .
“I just want Hugh,” I strangled out, voice shaking almost as much as my body. “Just…just Hugh, okay?”