Chapter 10
10
Taylor
C iaron stopped in front of a wooden door of a brown brick building. The building was two-storey, just like the one next to it and the one after that. It was the same all the way down the street. And every door was right on the footpath. There was no yard. I stood behind him, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans. He swung the door open and faced me.
“Ready?”
“Yep.” I smiled as much as my nerves would allow.
He stepped through the door. I followed. Shoes were scattered in the small entry. He kicked them out of the way.
“Sorry. It got a bit messy in the three days I’ve been away.”
The three days we’d spent together since we’d met.
Was it his job to tidy up after everyone? Maybe that was one of his many responsibilities. At home, Mum cooked, I did the dishes. We shared the cleaning.
A young boy with red hair and freckles ran into the hallway, followed by an older one. “Give it back to me, you fucking little shit.”
“Will you stop fighting?” a female voice called from further in the house. “I’m sick of hearing it.”
The two boys stopped in front of Ciaron, who held out his hand. The younger one passed over a remote. That’s when he noticed me. Ciaron rested his hand on my back.
“Tommy, Seamus, this is Taylor.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Mam, Ciaron’s home,” the older boy yelled. Seamus. He had the same wavy hair as Ciaron, but his features were different. His nose was straighter and his chin more angular.
Footsteps rushed towards us. “About time. Where have you been?”
I took the time to study Ciaron’s mam. She was tall and slim with dyed blonde hair. Her cheeks were flushed. She continued to talk as she made her way down the hall. “Tommy needs help with his homework, and Ronan needs to be picked up from practice. I can’t do everything.”
My jaw clenched. It was her job to look after her children, not Ciaron’s. I held my tongue. It was hard. This was Ciaron’s mam and no matter what I thought of her, I needed to respect that, even if I couldn’t respect her.
Ciaron’s hand stiffened. His whole body stiffened. In three days, I’d never seen him so tense, even with my father. I squeezed his hand, and he relaxed.
His mother stopped short when she saw me. A hint of alcohol wafted in the air. She smoothed down her black top and then widened her eyes at Ciaron.
“Mam, this is Taylor. Taylor, my mam, Mary.”
“Nice to meet you, Mary.”
“Is that where you’ve been for three days?” Mary said, staring pointedly at me. “What about work?”
I moved closer to Ciaron. Obviously, Mary didn’t think it was nice to meet me.
“I spoke to work. I had some time owing to me.”
She grunted. “You spoke to work, but you couldn’t manage to speak to me.”
“The phone has been disconnected,” Ciaron said. “I’m not sure why since I gave you money last week for it.”
She scowled “Don’t f?—”
“Ciaron wanted me to meet you before I left,” I said, interrupting her. “We’ll be getting married in Australia.”
We hadn’t really spoken about when we were going to get married. It all depended on how long it took to get a passport and sell his car so he could buy a one-way plane ticket.
Ciaron smiled down at me. Giddiness spread through me. He was like my own personal hit of dopamine.
“Married?” Mary asked.
I sidled up to Ciaron and put my arm around his waist. I wanted to say, ‘so he can get away from you’ but instead said, “Yes.”
“That’s cause for celebration, I suppose,” she said. She gazed up at him and stroked his hair, not caring that her arm was in my face. Ciaron’s brothers stared at her before screwing their faces up. As she turned to walk down the hallway, she looked back over her shoulder and gave me a smile. It felt like I’d been slapped in the face with slime.
We followed her into the kitchen/dining room. There was a table squished into the corner. Dishes were piled in the sink. Ciaron directed me to a seat as his mother got some glasses out, poured Guinness into them and put them on the table. Ciaron went to sit in the seat next to me, but Mary shoved Tommy into it. She pulled Ciaron away to the other end of the table to sit next to her and kept her focus on him while he kept his focus on me.
“Where’s Australia?” Tommy asked, his big blue eyes focused on me.
“It’s overseas. A long plane flight away,” I said.
“Do kids go to school there?” he asked.
“They ride kangaroos to school,” Seamus said.
“Do you really? How do you stay on with all the bouncing?”
Mary sat there, tight-lipped and rigid.
I shook my head. “They’re too hard to train.”
“Do you have a pet kangaroo?”
“No, I have horses.”
“Horses? Do you ride them to school?” Tommy pulled his chair closer to mine. He was nearly sitting in my lap.
“It’s too far to ride. When I went to school, I caught a bus.”
“Wow. We walk to school.”
“Taylor lives in the country, not in a city like us,” Ciaron said.
“Will you work at a pub there?” Seamus asked.
“No. I will work on Taylor’s farm with her and her mam.”
“We breed horses,” I said. The boys looked at me, dumbfounded. “We look after the mother horses while they’re pregnant and then help them have their babies. We teach those babies different things. Then they get sold to become racehorses.”
“Doesn’t sound like work,” Mary said.
“It sounds like fun,” Tommy said.
The questions kept coming from the boys for the next thirty minutes. Billy and Ronan joined us as well. They’d walked home from football practice together. All the boys sat around me, and Ciaron and Mary sat at the other end of the table. I’m not sure if the younger two completely grasped the fact that Ciaron would be leaving them. They thought it sounded like a great adventure.
“How big is your farm?” Ronan asked.
“Two thousand acres.”
Tommy turned to face Ciaron. “How big is that?”
Ciaron’s brow furrowed. “Think about a football field.”
Tommy nodded.
“Now think how big ten of them would be.” He paused. “And now one hundred.”
Tommy’s eyes widened.
“Now imagine one thousand football fields. That’s how big the farm is.”
That was smart relating it back to something they would understand.
Tommy’s mouth dropped open. “Wow, that’s huge.”
Mary rolled her eyes. I was glad that Tommy was facing me and didn’t see her expression. I didn’t want his enthusiasm to be diminished by her.
“There are bigger farms in Ireland,” she said.
I stopped my grunt in my throat. This wasn’t a pissing contest.
“Can we go see one?” Tommy asked.
“No.” Mary’s reply was as fast as a horse kick.
Ciaron smiled at him. “How about we go for a drive one day this week and we can have a look at one?”
Tommy nodded, a smile stretching across his face. Ciaron had said Tommy was smart, and I could see why. Ciaron didn’t allow his curiosity to be diluted.
Mary huffed. “Why are you in Ireland, Taylor?”
“I’ve been visiting my father.”
Her eyes narrowed as she stared at me. “Oh, is he Irish?”
I shifted in my seat. “Yes.”
She gave me a smarmy smile, just like the one earlier. “Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin.”
My Irish was not good enough to translate what she’d said. Ciaron’s lips tightened as he threw a sideways glance at Mary.
“The heart always returns home,” Mary said with triumph in her voice like she was spouting some kind of prophecy.
Heavy weight settled in my stomach. I was being stupid. Ciaron and I had already spoken about this. I trusted him, his words, his conviction. Mary’s words should have no effect on me; I wouldn’t allow them to.
I turned my gaze to Ciaron who was already watching me. I kissed my claddagh ring—friendship, loyalty love. His lazy smile had my heart racing.
“You are my home,” he mouthed.
My heart nearly burst out of my chest.
Mary’s expression turned to stone, leaving my heart triumphant. Take that, bitch. There were a lot of things I’d like to say to Mary about home and looking after one’s kin, but I chose to stay silent. When I left, Ciaron would still be here living with her, and I didn’t want to make it harder for him. I had no doubt she would try to convince Ciaron to change his mind right until he hopped on that flight.
After talking a little more about the boys and their interests, Ciaron stood up. “We need to head off. We’re going to visit Daid.”
Mary’s eyes narrowed. “You’re visiting him? How did you get permission to visit with such short notice?”
Ciaron came and stood by my side. “I was booked in to go anyway. I spoke to the governor about Taylor and explained the situation.”
She huffed. The boys came over to hug me. I wrapped my arms around them. They were so different to my stepsister and brother. I would make sure when Ciaron was with me in Australia that we stayed connected with them. They would be my brothers too.
* * *
Ciaron and I walked into a large room with grey chairs and tables bolted to the floor. He guided me to a table where a man sat on his own wearing a white t-shirt and blue pants. There were other prisoners in the room dressed the same. Three guards were standing near the walls, watching.
He looked up and smiled and it was like I was looking at an older Ciaron—same brown wavy hair with a decent amount of grey, cheeky green eyes but surrounded with wrinkles, lips that quirked the same way as Ciaron’s. He glanced between Ciaron and me, a smile emerging.
He stood and embraced him. “Son, so good to see you.”
His accent was one of the strongest I’d encountered. Before Ciaron had a chance to say anything, his dad pulled me into a hug and said over my shoulder, “And who is this beautiful cailín?”
“I’m Taylor. It’s nice to meet you, Mr Murphy.”
“Call me Patrick.”
So far, this was so much nicer than meeting Mary. Ciaron had warned me that even though it was a low security prison, visiting rules were tough. We weren’t supposed to have physical contact with the prisoners, but neither Patrick nor the guards seemed to care.
He let me go and cocked his head. “Where are you from then?”
“Australia.”
“Sit. Sit. Tell me everything. Tell me about the lady who is about to steal my son away.”
I considered him. How did he know that?
He grinned. “When you spend time inside these boring walls, you learn to notice things.”
Ciaron and I sat next to each other, holding hands.
“First, Ciaron has never brought a girl here before.”
Ciaron’s grip firmed.
“Second, Ciaron has a new tattoo, a Claddagh, with your name in it.”
Ciaron glanced at his wrist.
“Serious stuff, a Claddagh. Next, you are not only beautiful, but brave. You weren’t scared of my arms around you.”
“Ciaron wouldn’t ask me to meet you if it wasn’t safe.”
“Aye.” He pointed to my hand, which was wearing a Claddagh ring. “Serious stuff.”
We spoke about how we met, and Patrick hung onto every word. The pride on his face when I told him about how Ciaron responded to my father, warmed my heart. This man was nothing like Mary. He even asked about Ciaron’s brothers even though they weren’t his own children. Ciaron worried about Mary liking him. It was clear to me this man loved him. We may have been there, having the conversation in a prison because he was a petty criminal, but I had more respect for him than I did many others. Ciaron’s heart was a reflection of his own.
“When are you leaving, son?”
“As soon as I can.”
Patrick nodded, his eyes solemn. “Does your mother know?”
“Aye.”
He kept eye contact with Ciaron. “This cailín is your future boy. Do not let your mother take this from you.”
“I won’t, Daid.”