Chapter 12 #2
Footsteps pounded, and I caught flickers of Ella and Niamh talking quickly to Sinéad and Sara.
Sinéad dropped to eye level on the floor, lips moving but I couldn’t hear anything.
I blinked at her a few times and eventually made out her telling me to breathe in through my nose, despite the roar of blood in my ears.
I did, and eventually, the sobs quietened as I caught my breath.
Even though it still felt like I was drowning.
I couldn’t wonder if my brother was okay or alive.
If I did, I’d fall apart. I shakily pushed off the floor and turned to the girls, who startled and spun to face me, their faces etched in concern.
“Ella, I need to go,” I wheezed.
“Niamh packed your bag and it’s in the car. We’ll leave now, girl.” Ella smiled sadly.
The drive was a blur, equal parts eternity and a blink. I didn’t speak, just kept repeating the mantra in my head: He’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay. I’d heard a lot about positive intentions and manifesting, and this was the only thing I wanted the universe to hear.
When I burst into the ICU and found my brother and Dad sitting in the waiting room for family members, I knew before anyone said a word. Dad looked like life had ended, and Fionn couldn’t look up from his lap, tears falling from his red-rimmed eyes.
“Where is he, Dad? Is he okay?” I asked shakily. Dad just stared and said nothing.
“One of you fucking answer me!” I shouted, still no reaction. I felt arms spin me around from behind.
Mam.
She smiled gently, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It was the saddest smile I’d ever seen.
“He’s gone, pet. He’s on life support, but he’s gone.” I shook my head, trying to back away, but she tightened her grip.
“No, no, he can’t be gone. He texted me this morning, said Sorcha was down this weekend and they had a surprise for me. My brother isn’t gone,” I screamed.
Mam pulled me into her chest, the sobs wracking me.
“Listen, my darling, you’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay.
Shea would want us together, to be there for each other now.
That’s what we’ll do. My baby boy is gone now,” she whispered, more to herself than me, tears trailing down her face.
Another set of arms wrapped around us as Fionn stood to hold us.
Dad stayed where he was, like a catatonic, stunned wreck.
“Can I see him?” I whispered, and she nodded through tears, leading me to his room.
There was a huge tube sticking out of his throat; his beautiful face looked flawless.
It didn’t make sense, he looked like he could be asleep.
Seeing him like that shook me, but I pushed down sobs and held his hand.
Mam stood on the other side, rubbing his face and whispering to him.
I wanted to scream and beg him not to leave us, that we loved him too much.
But I was scared to say it, scared he was ready to go and that speaking it aloud would make it harder for him.
Fionn came to my side and held me while he cried quietly. Dad finally entered, dazed and silent, looking lost. Mam kissed Shea’s head then turned to us.
“We waited for you, Róisín, but he was pronounced brain dead on arrival. There are tests before turning off life support and we need to wait for Sorcha. She’s on her way from Dublin.
They asked how Shea felt about organ donation.
” She looked around at us all, and I wondered how the hell she was holding it together.
When the worst thing imaginable was happening - losing one of her children - she kept it together to get us through. I saw the deadness behind her eyes.
“Shea would have donated everything,” I said bluntly. Fionn nodded.
“That’s what I thought,” Mam agreed, stroking his head.
We managed a few hours’ sleep around Shea’s bed, people coming and going, bringing food and fresh clothes.
Everyone except Mam. She didn’t sleep or leave, stroking Shea’s face and whispering to him.
Fionn and I talked to him on and off, Dad stared, and Mam gave us smiles that never reached her eyes.
When the time came to say goodbye, I clung to Fionn while he sobbed into my neck.
I’d had my chance to break already, with the girls.
My safe space where no one needed me, but I couldn’t do it again now.
Sorcha had arrived and watching her face was like looking into the void of grief we were all teetering on the edge of.
Her eyes were crazed as she screamed and pushed nurses away when it was time to turn off the machine.
“You can’t have him! He’s mine! I can’t live without him!” It was Dad’s strong arms that pulled her back as Mam just kept her gaze trained on Shea’s perfect face, as if she was speaking a thousand words with the agony shining in her eyes.
“Sorcha, he’s already gone, love. You have to let him go.
Tell him it’s okay,” Dad soothed. It was the first thing Dad had said in two days, his words choked as he restrained Sorcha.
Her wild eyes found his, and she collapsed in his arms. She kept her hand on Shea’s face as his chest stopped moving.
Silent tears trailed from her closed eyes.
I knew then nothing would ever feel okay again.
We’d lost our steady, reliable North Star. The best of us.
Watching Mam and Dad hold each other as Sorcha silently sobbed over Shea’s chest, Fionn clung to me.
And I wanted to run. Run so far I’d never feel pain again.
I wanted to leave them to their grief and forget I was ever part of it.
Because if I could do that, I hadn’t lost Shea.
I wouldn’t feel like a piece of my soul died.
But I stayed rooted because they needed me.
I had to shove the tsunami of agony behind my fortress walls to be strong for them.
Mam had done it already, giving us robotic smiles. If she could do that, so could I.
But I promised myself one thing: once they were okay, once our family found happiness again, I’d let myself feel it. Then I’d run as far away as I could from this place where one of the few lights in my world had died.
Later, I found out Shea had offered to help Lynch plough some of his fields while he was busy with calving.
It was typical Shea behaviour, getting up before dawn to offer a hand to someone in need.
But he’d been alone in that field when Lynch’s old piece of shit tractor turned over and crushed Shea beneath it.
It had been nearly an hour until John Lynch had found him, barely breathing, and called the ambulance.
He killed my brother. Him and his cheapskate ways, allowing Shea into that death trap alone because he was too tight to hire proper help on the farm and upgrade to machinery that wasn’t a fucking death trap.
I didn’t care it was an accident, or that he was wracked with remorse himself.
Let him live with that guilt for the rest of his useless life.
Me and my family would have to live with the grief.