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“Oh my god.” My heart seized in my chest. “You never told me that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not something I go around talking about. Besides, I was only six at the time,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “Shan was three. Mam placed us in voluntary care—said she was too sick to care for us at the time.” His tone was dripping with disgust as he spoke. “Dropped us off and walked the fuck away. Shannon and I got lucky. We were placed together with a nice family. Darren was eleven at the time and wasn’t so lucky.”
“Joe, please don’t,” I heard his sister say, pleading with him to block me out of their world.
“He was sent to a care home where things happened to him,” Joey continued, giving me his truth. “Things that aren’t supposed to happen to children.”
“Are you saying he was…”
He nodded.
I felt my hand shoot up to cover my mouth, a knee-jerk reaction to hearing something so incomprehensible. “Oh—”
“Don’t,” he warned, holding a shaky hand up. “It didn’t happen to me.”
“I know,” I choked out, reaching for his hand. “I just… It’s awful.”
“Anyway, when Mam’s health improved, she went to court and managed to get us back,” he explained, brushing my sympathy aside. “It all came out in court about what had happened in that care home to my brother, and because she’d voluntarily given us up, because of health problems, she was somehow re-awarded custody.”
“Oh my god.”
Joey shrugged. “Darren was never the same again, and neither was our father.” Brow furrowing, he scratched his chin before adding, “He actually wasn’t too bad of a guy before that. But after it all came out about Darren, the old man lost his fucking mind. He couldn’t get over it and turned to the drink worse than ever. Got this ridiculous fucking notion into his head that what happened to Darren had somehow turned him.” Joey shook his head. “Had he paid an ounce of attention to us growing up, he would have known better.”
Reeling.
I was completely reeling.
It all made sense now.
Jesus.
“I don’t know what to say,” I confessed.
“It’s not right what happens in this house,” Joey said, clearing his throat and drumming his fingers on the table. “But it’s better than what’s out there in some of those care homes. There’s no fucking way I’m letting my sister and brothers go into care. No goddamn way. At least when they’re here, they’re all in one place and I can keep them somewhat safe.”
The irrational fear he had about the authorities finding out the truth wasn’t so irrational after all. Because the Lynch children had been let down by both the state and their parents in all of the worst possible ways.
“Do you guys have someone you can call?” I heard myself ask. “A relative or family member?”
“Nanny is eighty-one,” Shannon explained. “She’s too old and fragile to—”
“Myself and Shannon have each other.” Joey cut her off, tone flat. “That’s it.”
“Not anymore,” I replied, squeezing his hand. “You have me.” I looked at his baby sister and smiled sadly. “All of you.”
They were both quiet for a long moment before Joey snatched my hand up. “Christ,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. “I love you.”
This was the first time that Joey had ever openly admitted his feelings in front of another person, and I felt the gravity of his admission in the deepest part of my heart.
“Okay.” Standing up before I collapsed in a heap and cried in sadness for them, I clapped my hands together and smiled brightly. “I am starving, and I know you both must be, too. So, I’m going to make a food run to the chipper and it will be my treat.”
“Aoife,” Joey began to say. “I told you—”
“My treat,” I warned, cutting him off and casting him a warning glare. He could fight with me about everything else, but not this. “Now, are you coming with me?”
“Yeah, I’ll come,” he muttered, rising to his feet. “You’re not driving around town in the middle of the night by yourself.”
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