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Pressing a hand to my chest, I leaned against the banister and allowed myself to sit with my anxiety for a moment, reeling in the potential problems she might encounter and a million what-ifs, until I felt I might explode.
Only then did I turn around and jog back up the stairs, calling out, “Tadhg, Ols? Let’s go, lads. It’s time for school,” as I shifted into daddy mode and got the rest of my brood sorted.
15
I Need Him Like Water
AOIFE
My relationship was back on track, my hair was on point, it wasn’t raining, and I didn’t have work tonight. All in all, I considered this to be a successful first day back at school.
All was right in the world of Aoife again, and I was basking in the cold January afternoon, taking in the sight of thirty or so boys, kitted out in the school colors of both BCS and neighboring town St. Colum’s, as they knocked the living shite out of each other with hurleys.
Sighing in contentment, I leaned against the school wall at my back, balancing my ass on my schoolbag as I watched Joey own the pitch and everyone on it. Gifted was the only word to describe the level of talent he displayed. He literally oozed skill and flair by the bucketful, without even having to try. He played center back on the team and wore the number six jersey, but in all fairness, he could play in any position on the team and excel.
At best, he was putting a mere sixty percent effort into this match, and still managed to outclass every other lad on the pitch, coming up trumps with three goals and six points for our school. The speed with which he could break free of his opposition number and whiz down the pitch on a solo run, weaving and twisting through St. Colum’s defense, was second to none.
The fact that several of Teddy Lynch’s school team pictures, ranging from 1976 to 1981, still hung proudly on the walls of our school was something that I hated for Joe, but not nearly as much as I hated the comparisons that he had to endure. For six years in the late seventies and early eighties, his father had commanded BCS’s hurling team, earning him a lifelong tenure of adoration from both past and present members of the school faculty.
For years, I witnessed the bullshit. It never mattered what Joey achieved, or how many championships, titles, and medals he won for our school, because his father had achieved it all first, and boy was everyone and their mother just waiting in the wings to remind him of it.
Said comparisons were made to Joey both often and loudly, and every time that occurred, his mental health took another irreparable blow, because the voice of paranoia that he lived with on a daily basis, the one that assured Joey that he was just like his father, pushed him back toward a place he had spent his youth residing in.
Addiction was a consequence of being raised by street thugs and dealers, where the only substitute available for a mother’s love came in the form of a line of cocaine or, worse, a needle in the arm. Joey had somehow managed to survive his childhood and early teens by replacing the lack of his mother’s affection with the warm, enveloping embrace of ecstasy, and his father’s constant stream of mental gaslighting and physical abuse with the mind-numbing dexterity of opioids.
It wasn’t right—the complete opposite—but I could understand it. I could understand him.
From the tender age of nine or ten, Joey Lynch had been knocking on Shane Holland’s door, treating him like his own personal doctor, seeking help and finding it in the worst form. And, like a black-market pharmacist, Shane had been more than willing to take advantage of a vulnerable child from a broken home.
The fact that Joey was even attempting to break free from the hold drugs had on him, from the blanket of security that they provided him, only further proved to me that he was worth every sleepless night and tear I had shed over him.
“Would you look at the speed of him,” Casey said, joining me.
“I know,” I mused, eyes locked on Joe. “He’s a bullet, isn’t he?”
“He’s something alright.” Dropping her schoolbag on the ground beside me, Casey sank down on it and stretched her legs out. “I bet he fucks as fast as he runs,” she teased, nudging my shoulder with hers. “Better still, as hard as he plays.”
“Too far, Case.” I sighed, shaking my head. “And too much.”
“Really?” She laughed. “That’s too bad because I originally planned to go with ‘Does he last a solid sixty minutes under the sheets like he does on the pitch?’ but decided to tone it down.”
“You’re a lot of personality for one tiny person.”
“True,” she agreed with a chuckle. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how mad are you at me for my epic jump to the wrong conclusion on Friday night?”
“Me?” I offered. “A lukewarm one and a half, but I’m not the one you slapped across the face.”
“Yeah.” She smiled sheepishly. “How mad do you think he still is at me?”
“Oh, you mean after you assaulted him and accused him of sleeping with a girl the same age as his baby sister?”
She nodded.
“It’s been three days, so I reckon he’s come down to a stony seven.”
She scrunched her nose up. “I went a tad too far, huh?”
“Just a smidgen,” I replied with a smile. “You were over the top and out of line, but I love you for having my back.”
