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“Nah.” I shook my head and tossed him the keys. “Can you do something for me?”
“Name it.”
“Stay with me tonight.”
He sighed heavily. “Molloy.”
“Don’t say no.” Sinking into the passenger seat, I tossed my schoolbag over my shoulder into the back seat before turning my attention to Joey, who was cranking the engine. “Say yes.”
“What about the kids?”
“What about you?” I shot back, flicking on the car stereo and nodding my approval when No Doubt’s “Underneath It All” drifted from the speakers. “This one’s you, Joe.”
“Give it a rest with the songs,” he muttered. “And I’m grand.”
“Your face tells a different story.”
“Aoife.”
“Joey.” I reached across the console and covered the hand he was resting on the gear stick with mine. “Please.”
He didn’t answer me until he had pulled away from the school and was on the main road. Only then did he release a sigh and turn his hand over.
“You win, Molloy.” He entwined his fingers with mine. “Again.”
“Yay.”
“So, are you ready for this?” he asked, attention flicking between my face and the road ahead of us. “To see the baby?”
“No,” I admitted quietly. “Are you?”
“No.” He squeezed my hand. “But we’ve got this, Molloy.”
65
Maybe We Should Have Changed Our Clothes?
JOEY
“Joe, it’s me, Shannon. I’m on the way to Dublin with the school. I won’t be back until late tonight. Can you tell Mam? He has my phone so don’t call it, okay? You won’t be able to get ahold of me, but I’m okay, Joe. Don’t worry about—”
I replayed the voicemail my sister left me for the third time and contemplated how the hell I was going to smooth this over at home. Deleting the message from my phone, I slid my phone back into my pocket and ran a hand through my hair in frustration. Mam was going to hit the roof. The old man would blow a fuse if he found out.
“Maybe we should have changed our clothes,” Molloy whisper-hissed, drawing my attention back to the present.
We were sitting in an overcrowded waiting room at the maternity hospital, surrounded by heavily pregnant women and their husbands—any number of which could have been mistaken for our parents.
“It’s grand,” I replied, resting my hand on her bouncing knee. “I’ve got you, Molloy.”
“Yeah, Joe, that’s the point,” she mumbled. “Everyone here knows just how well you got me.”
I laughed because in all honesty what else could I do in this moment? She wasn’t wrong.
We were sitting in our BCS uniforms and attracting an array of different looks from the people around us.
Pity. Disgust. Sympathy. Surprise.
The list went on.
