AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jesus.
“It’s fucking gone, and that’s that,” Dad snapped. “No point in getting worked up over something we can’t change.”
I didn’t know what I wanted him to say, but calling the baby “it” made me feel physically sick.
“Your mother’s in a bad way here,” he continued to say. “They’re discharging her, but she won’t leave the hospital.” He exhaled a frustrated breath before adding, “She won’t leave it.”
Stop calling him “it,” I wanted to scream, but my current company caused me to refrain. “What the fuck do you want me to say?”
“Well, first things first, you can get rid of that sorrowful tone of voice,” he snapped. “Why would you be sad? It’s not like you were happy about it.”
“Why would I be sad?” I shook my head in disgust. Was he serious?
“You didn’t want her to have another baby, and now there isn’t one,” he bit out, tone accusing. “This suits you down to the ground, boy, so you might as well be honest about it.”
Yeah, I didn’t want them to have another child, but that didn’t mean that I wanted my mother to lose her baby.
I didn’t want my baby brother to die.
I would never want that.
But I couldn’t stop myself from hissing the words, “It’s a goddamn relief, is what it is,” down the line—and I meant it, but not for the reasons he thought.
The baby would be spared the pain of ever being carried through the threshold of hell that was our home. The baby would never feel the sting of our father’s slap or the pain of our mother’s lack of emotion. There would be one less sibling to protect, to worry about, to feed, to nurture, and I would be a liar if I pretended otherwise.
As resentful as I had been about the pregnancy, that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have loved him just the same as I loved the rest of them. My heart would have expanded, and my arms would have stretched that little bit further to fit him in.
“I need you to come over here and talk some sense into your mother,” Dad continued. “You know what she’s like. How her mind drifts away under pressure. You’ve always been able to bring her back when she checks out like this.”
“Fine,” I replied, tone tight.
“We’re at St. Finbarr’s in the city,” he added. “You know where that is, don’t ya?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Grand,” he said with a relieved sigh. “Because I don’t know what to do with her. She’s just crying and rocking, and I can’t be fucking handling her when she’s in one of these moods.”
“I just said I’d be there, didn’t I?” I snapped, repressing the urge to roar when I found Kavanagh watching me like a hawk. “I’ll be there.”
“When?” Dad pushed. “How soon can ya be here? Because I’m not fucking around, boy, I’m close to losing my patience with her. I want to get home and have a shave and a shower. I can’t be sitting here, watching her crying into a box.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Good lad,” he said, tone approving. “Be quick about it—”
Numb, I hung up and slid my phone back in my pocket and looked at Kavanagh. “I need to take off.”
“Take off?” he demanded. “Where?”
“I have somewhere I need to be,” I mumbled, completely fucking reeling.
“Hold the fuck up,” he warned, blocking the doorway. “Your sister is upstairs in my shower.”
“Yeah.” I shook my head and blew out a pained breath. “I’m going to need you to hold on to her for me.”
“Hold on to her?” He looked at me like I’d just lost my mind. “You just want me to hold on to your sister?”
“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”
