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My intervention had been a futile one that ended in my mother – battered, bruised, bloodied and naked from the waist down on the kitchen floor – dismissing me from the room. Blaming me with her eyes for something I had no control over, but not before my father got a few good hits in on my prepubescent frame.
After I registered what rape meant, what it really and truly meant, my resolve to keep my mouth shut about what happened at home only strengthened further.
I knew Darren had been raped when we spent those six months of senior infants in foster care. I’d heard enough about it – had been made feel guilty enough about it – to know that it was bad enough to keep my mouth shut and keep our family’s private business to myself.
“Remember,Joey, remember that no matter how bad Dad gets, it will never be worse than that…”
“You think that’s bad?You don’t know how fucking lucky you have it…”
“You gotice-cream and cake with your foster family, I got ruined…”
“You havenothing to complain about, not compared to me. You had it easy, so stop feeling sorry for yourself…”
“Doyou know what happens in those care homes? Do you want Tadhg to end up like me? Do you want that for Shannon? Keep your mouth shut. Nothing is bad enough in this house to merit going back there. Nothing…”
Once I sawit for myself, I knew there was no way I would ever put my siblings in a position where that could happen to them.
I would rather die first and that wasn’t me being dramatic.
I meant it.
For years after that, I didn’t sleep at night. I didn’t dare. The noises – the fucking sound of her – was burned into my memory, repeating over and over on a loop of mental destruction.
And even when it was quiet, I was on edge. The silence unsettled me almost as much as her screams.
Because her screams meant she was still breathing.
Her silence meant that she was dead.
I could remember lying in my room, not unsimilar to tonight, body rigid, as I strained to hear every squeak in the mattress, every disgusting grunt and groan coming from the closed door at the other end of the landing.
Panic would consume me then and nine times out of ten, I would spring out of bed and stand guard outside my sister's bedroom, terrified that she possessed something an animal like our father would eventually come looking for.
At least when we were all together under the same roof, I could protect her, I could protect them all, take some of the pain for them, and let them have some semblance of a childhood.
If I told, we would be put into care. And if we were put into care, there was a good chance we would be separated. And if we were separated, then I couldn’t protect them from the predators that Darren warned me were everywhere.
“You thinkit won’t happen to you, but it does. It happens all the time…”
“Not everyone lucksout like you and Shannon did when you were placed with the same foster family…”
“I can still feelhim inside of my body, tearing me apart, ripping me open, and it makes me want to die…”
The very thoughtof something happening to Shannon, Ollie, or Tadhg made my skin crawl and my mouth clamp shut.
I could take the pressure.
I could take the blows.
I could handle his whiskey tantrums.
I could take it all if it meant thattheydidn’t have to.
Like a revered blood oath, I mentally reaffirmed the vow I had made to myself the night after Darren walked out, and that was to protect my brothers and sister with everything I had in me.
I would never allow them to be beaten like I had been, or be abused like our mother, or defiled like our brother.
With whatever I had inside of me, I would protect and defend them from harm.
