31 | How Did You Know?
How Did You Know?
Niall
“HOW DID YOU... know?”
I regret the words before they’ve even cleared my teeth. But it’s too late to take them back now.
The school may have been lax with my punishment (since I knew it could have been much worse than a couple lousy suspensions), but my mother sure wasn’t. No car, no phone, no going out anywhere except to the bakery where she has been making me work during the hours I should be in school.
The only bright side is that my knee seems to have lightened up on me a little bit. Oh, and that Mam didn’t find out I was drinking. Nobody except Molly really did. If Coach had known (which I had a small feeling he did), he hadn’t said anything.
The only thing keeping me sane while working here was a quick nip every hour or so from the bottle of Jameson I’ve got tucked behind the industrial bags of sugar in the supply room.
I lied to Molly yesterday. I had to lie to Molly. If she thought I had a drinking problem, any chances of her giving me that “second chance” she mentioned were out the window. And I really wanted that second chance.
I think Ma enjoys me working here with her.
She’s been entertaining me with stories of growing up in Glen Alder with Auntie Roisin, and how she’d eventually fallen for my dad.
I knew the story—I’d heard it a million times, though she and dad always told it a little bit differently—though it was strange hearing about it while I was trying to come to terms with... whatever my feelings were for Molly.
My Da was a “Clover”—which was Mayville’s term for the people living in the council estate at the edge of town, Clover Row.
Da had been friends with lads on Alderbank (Patrick Fitzpatrick, Bobby Marshall, and Lottie Dempsey—who eventually became Lottie Marshall), and through both them and primary school, he knew my mother.
But Ma thought him to be something of a pest until late in secondary school.
“I thought he had eyes for Roisin or Lottie,” Ma recounts for the thousandth time. Da always says this part is not true at all, that he only ever had his eyes on Mam. “He’d tease me relentlessly, pulling my ribbons or putting bugs in my school bug. But, you know, we grew up and things...”
“Spare me those details, Ma. Please,” I shake my head, doing more leaning on the mop handle than I was mopping. I offered to close up with her today so Auntie Ro could go home and cook supper.
“I was only going to say we worked through our differences, Bubba,” she teases. “He admitted he always had a crush on me. And me, well, I was always too stubborn to see it.”
“Right, right,” I say, and that was when that stupid question slipped out: “How did you know?”
Ma’s silence made me antsy, so I blubber on. “I mean... how did you know he was the one, or whatever? How do you know when it’s not just... lust?”
“Is this about the American girl that’s always over? Molly?”
“No,” I lie. “It’s a general question. Theoretical.”
“Of course, well then, theoretically, you know when... when they’re suddenly everywhere, even when they’re not there, per se.
You can’t stop looking for them in a crowd, and when you’re not looking you’re thinking about them.
When you go out of your way to make them happier,” she sighs. “When you know, you know. Trust me.”
I’m afraid I might. “Well that’s disgustingly romantic.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Someday you’ll understand,” she grows quiet, wringing her own hands. “Someday you won’t know what to do when you don’t have it.”
I step closer, letting her wrap her arms around me; like I was just a little boy again and we’d just received the news. “He misses you too, Ma.”
She pulls back, sniffing and wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Well, enough of this sad talk. I’ll finish washing up the pans, you get this mopping done. Best get home before Claire and JJ run Auntie Ro up the wall.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“And Niall?”
I pause, turning back to her. “Yeah?”
“Love is a nice thing. Don’t be afraid to let yourself feel it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I pretend to scoff, though my throat has gone tight. “Get to the pans, woman.”
I go back to mopping, pretending to be super interested in getting the tiles shining, when really I’m letting my mind wander off.
Was I... in love with her?
The mere thought feels ridiculous. Love was for songs and movies and my Mam. I’m Niall Blue. I’m supposed to be thinking about scouts and my meniscus and how to not get expelled.
Taking love out of the question, I definitely know that I like her. And I’d like to think she likes me—she has to, right?
I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t.