Chapter 11
11
AGE 17
S ilence descends except for the steady beeping of the machine Ash is hooked up to. We both stare at her in numbed shock. All of this is still so surreal. I regret the day I befriended Cillian Doyle, wishing I had never brought him into our lives. Lifting Ash’s hand to my lips, I kiss her warm skin, so grateful the ambulance came fast and we got here in time. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like if we’d been too late. I honestly think I would’ve died too. I wouldn’t have survived if I’d lost her. My sister means the world to me.
Sometimes, I feel guilty that I love her with so much intensity. I mean, I love my brothers too and my parents, but it’s always been different with Ash. Us two have been joined at the hip from the time we were little. I feel sorry for Ro. Shane and Ciarán are close, and I have Ash. As the youngest, Ro tends to be on his own, and I often wonder if he feels left out.
I make a vow, then and there, to include him more. He’s been pestering me a lot lately to jam with us. He started drum lessons eighteen months ago, and while he uses the Toxic Gods outbuilding to practice every day when we’re not there, I haven’t let him play with us as I don’t want to piss Aaron off. It took us a while to gel as a band, and we get along for the most part. I don’t want Aaron to feel threatened if Ro starts jamming with us.
But maybe Jay and I can practice with him one day a week, and perhaps I can convince Shane to come see us play in Bray one Friday night so Ro can come too. Ma won’t let him go to the pub on his own, and Ash has been MIA for months now.
Ash doesn’t wake properly until the middle of the night, and I’m the only one in the room with her. Shane took Ma, Da, and Ro home earlier. Ciarán is asleep in one of the chairs in the waiting room. The psychiatrist didn’t get to see Ash today because of some emergency that held her up. She’s coming to see her first thing in the morning, and provided she’s happy, Ash can go home then.
They tried to kick all of us out at nine when visiting hours are officially over, but I refused to leave. We were lucky one of the nurses on night duty is the older sister of Ciarán’s new girlfriend, Susie. She fixed it so two of us could stay. Ma wanted to stay, but Da made her leave. She was exhausted and nodding off in the chair.
When Ash slowly blinks her eyes open, I stand and lean over her, careful not to crowd her even though every instinct demands I pull her into a tight hug and never let her go. “Hey you.” I clear my throat, overcome with emotion when her blue eyes meet mine. In brief panicked moments, I worried I’d never get to see them again.
“Dillon.” Her voice sounds scratched raw as she looks around the room with a small frown.
“You’re in St. Vincent’s ICU,” I explain, pulling the chair right up beside her and sitting back down. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit. My head hurts, and my throat and my stomach are sore.”
I take her hand in mine. “You’re going to be okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears.
“I know.” I pat her hand. “But if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll fucking follow you, Ash. I swear.” As much as I was worried, I’m mad at her too.
“I just wanted it to stop, Dil. I’m in so much pain, and I just wanted to silence all the screaming in my head. I didn’t stop to properly think about it. What it’d do to you, Ma, Da, and the others. I just needed the hurt to end.”
“Promise me you won’t do this again, Ash.”
“I promise.” Her solemn eyes meet mine. “I mean it.”
“You scared me,” I quietly say.
“I’m so sorry.” Silent tears stream down her face, and I lean in and hug her.
“Shush, it’s okay.” My fingers reach for hair that isn’t there. “Why did you do this?” I ask, feeling the ragged edges of her new pixie haircut.
“He was always playing with my hair, said he loved it. Every time I looked in the mirror, I would see him there, running his fingers through it.” She reaches up, touching the ends of her much shorter hair. “I’m not sorry I did it, though I probably should’ve waited to go to the hairdressers.”
I wasn’t sure what kind of mood Ash would be in when she woke, but I’m glad she seems more like herself. The sadness is still there. The hurt too, but there’s a resignation, an acceptance of sorts, that was missing before. Perhaps doing what she did was the wake-up call she needed though I would never have wanted it to come about like this.
I ease back and stare her straight in the eyes. “You can get it fixed, and you can fix your heart too, Ash.”
“I need time to mourn him and mourn all those stupid dreams I had.”
“They weren’t stupid. Only that prick was.”
She averts her eyes, looking to one side.
I gently cup her cheek. “You will get through this, Ash, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
She sniffles, nodding. “I’m thirsty.”
I pour her some water from the jug on her locker, elevate the bed, and help her to sit up a little. I hold the plastic cup while she takes a few sips, and that’s how the nurse finds us. She talks quietly to Ash, asking her a few things, before checking the machine and her vitals, and then she leaves again.
“Where’s everyone?”
I fill my sister in on all that she missed, and gradually, her eyelids droop shut. “Sleep,” I say, helping her to lie down flat and pulling the covers up over her. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
The next couple months are difficult for my sister, but she is finally starting to turn a corner. She decided to defer sitting her exams because she has missed too much time, and she’ll re-sit sixth year. It means we will be together for our final year, and we’ll both be doing the Leaving at the same time next year. I like that, and I like that this takes the pressure off Ash so she can concentrate on getting better.
I drive her to therapy every week, and when I’m not at school, working, or with the band, I spend every spare moment with my sister. Gradually, she is healing and the old Ash is starting to resurface. We are all so relieved.
I don’t know what Shane did or said, but the week after Ash returned home from the hospital, Cillian and Kelly packed up and moved to Cork to stay with his grandparents. I assume they transferred to a school there, but I really couldn’t give a flying fuck as long as they stay away from my sister. I’d be happy if they never came back to Kilcoole.
During the summer holidays, Toxic Gods books a second regular gig at a pub-slash-nightclub in Wicklow on Saturday nights. Ciarán has graduated UCG, started a job with Microsoft, and he’s living in a flat in Greystones with Susie now. They have come to see us play in Bray and Wicklow a couple of times, letting Ro tag along as Ash still hasn’t ventured back onto the social scene.
Ro is champing at the bit to play with us and pestering me nonstop to get rid of Aaron and bring him on board instead. He’s such a clown. My little bro is nowhere near ready to fill Aaron’s shoes, and even if he was, I wouldn’t boot the guy out just to accommodate Ro. That would be a seriously shitty thing to do. Ma would also string me up. Unlike me, Ro does well in school, and she doesn’t want the band distracting him from his studies.
Shane and Fiona had a little girl, Chloe, and she has us all wrapped around her tiny finger.
A few nights a week I work behind the bar at a local pub for extra cash. I’m saving every spare penny I earn towards my motorbike and leaving home. The band has already decided we’ll be moving into the city center after we finish school next year. We’re going to try to get a few gigs around town and start making a name for ourselves on the indie rock scene in Dublin.
It’s late one Thursday night in early July when my world turns upside down.
I’m the last patron to leave Bray Boxing Club, and I wave at Pete as he locks up and heads towards his car while I stop to have a smoke. The bus isn’t for another twenty minutes, and I have plenty of time to walk to the bus stop.
I’m leaning back against the wall at the side of the club when a new model BMW 8 Series pulls up to the curb. I puff away, feigning disinterest, as an older man, wearing a sharp fitted black suit gets out of the back seat. His blue eyes narrow on me as he approaches, and all the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. Not a single dark hair is out of place on the man’s head, and his clean-shaven jaw and smooth tanned skin make it hard to put an exact age on him. He projects arrogant confidence as he heads straight towards me.
I straighten up, throwing my ciggie on the ground and stamping it out under my boot, instantly on high alert. Clutching the straps of my bag tighter, I study him as he comes near. I don’t know the man. I’m one hundred percent certain I’ve never set eyes on him before, yet somehow, he’s familiar. His silver watch glints under the streetlamp, and it looks like an expensive one. In fact, his whole demeanor screams wealth.
I level a glare at the rich prick when he stops directly in front of me. If he wants trouble, he’s come to the right place. I won’t hesitate to take this dick down if necessary. “What do you want?” I say in a cold unwelcoming voice. I’m a few inches taller than him and broader in the shoulders, and I enjoy looking down at him.
His eyes roam over me with a calculated stare. “You’re Dillon O’Donoghue.” His American accent is unmistakable, and my breath falters as the realization instantly hits like someone just plunged a dagger straight through my heart.
No.
I clutch the wall behind me for support when my legs feel like they might go out from under me.
This cannot be happening.
But it can’t be a coincidence. Why else would a stranger come looking for me at ten o’clock at night when he’s clearly far from home?
After a lot of soul searching, I reached out to Auntie Eileen’s friend at the adoption agency a few weeks ago. I told her I’d like to receive a copy of my original birth cert. She said she’d fill in the paperwork and get things moving, but it wouldn’t be released to me until I was eighteen. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I was going to do with it, but now it looks like that decision has been taken out of my hands.
I push off the wall a little and straighten up. It’s a miracle my voice rings out loud and clear when I’m shaking on the inside. “Who are you?” I ask though I suspect I already know.
“My name is Simon Lancaster. I’m your father.”