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“I’m so fucking sorry, Shan,” my brother choked out, dropping his head in his hands. “I should have been here.”
Joey had gone to the cinema with Aoife last night and I was glad. Had he been here, I knew in my heart that someone would have left this house in a body bag.
“It’s not your fault,” I told him sharply. “None of what happened last night was your fault. You’re entitled to have a life, Joey.”
“Did you manage to get Sean to go to sleep?” Aoife asked, smiling sadly at me as she thankfully changed the subject.
“Finally.” I sighed heavily. “Tadhg and Ollie are out for the count. But Sean…god, he’s in an awful way over Mam.” I tucked my frazzled hair behind my ears and leaned against the kitchen counter. “He was sobbing his heart out for hours. He ended up crying himself to sleep.”
“Fucking cunts,” Joey muttered beneath his breath.
“Joey,” Aoife coaxed. “Don’t say that.”
“Say what, babe?” he countered hotly. “The truth? Because that’s what they are. A pack of fucking cunts.”
“She’s still your mother,” Aoife replied sadly.
“And she’s worse than him,” my brother shot back. “Leaving those kids here on their own.” He ran a hand through his blond hair and growled. “She could pick up the phone and talk to the boys, but no, like always, she runs and buries her head in the sand.”
Unlike Aoife, I didn’t flinch at my brother’s words. They might be hard to hear, but they held nothing but the truth.
Joey’s girlfriend was absolutely stunning, with an envious figure, long blond hair, and a beautiful face, but tonight she looked shook.
Aoife was in love with my brother, so I guessed that explained the horrified look on her face and the way she constantly stroked her fingers over the back of his hand.
“Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” Joey said with a sigh.
Reaching into his jeans pocket, he pulled out his wallet, tossed it on the table, and then went back for the loose change rattling around in his jeans.
“I don’t get paid again until next Thursday,” he muttered more to himself than us as he tipped the contents of his wallet onto the table and began to count. “Which leaves us with exactly—” He paused to stack a few coins. “Eighty-seven euro and thirty cents for the next six days.”
“That’s good, right?” Aoife offered with forced optimism.
Joey nodded cautiously. “It should work.”
“You know I’d help if I could,” I croaked out, feeling like deadweight around my brother’s neck. “But he won’t let me get a job—”
“Stop,” Joey commanded. “Don’t even think about taking on blame for this, Shan.”
But I did. I felt incredibly guilty. There was something about me that caused all this pain.
If I wasn’t in this house, I was fairly sure my family wouldn’t have half the problems they did.
Mam took a beating from my father because of me. Because he hated me.
I was the problem.
Joey exhaled heavily. “Check the fridge for me.”
Reluctantly, I did as I was told. Yanking the fridge open, I held the door out for Joey to see for himself.
“Fucking cunts,” he growled once more, taking in the sight of the almost bare shelves inside the fridge.
“The cupboards are the same,” I decided to fill in before he asked me to open those, too. “Mam usually does the shopping on a Saturday.”
“Usually,” Joey tossed out bitterly.
“She wouldn’t leave like this, Joe,” I whispered. “She’d never leave us without the shopping.”
