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Fuck.
Guilt swarmed me.
I’d been so busy with life that I’d pretty much checked out on my great-grandparents for the last few years.
Sure, I still saw Nanny regularly when she handed off the smaller boys, but I’d be a liar if I said that I had spent any decent chunk of free-time with either one of them since first year.
Since Darren left.
I just…put them on the backburner, thinking they would always be there.
You’re a prick, Joey.
“What’s wrong with him?” Panic gnawed at my gut. “Where’s Nanny? Is she okay?”
“I just told ya, boy. Are ya hard of hearing now, as well as thick stupid? He’s fucking dying,” Dad snapped. “The man’s nearly ninety. It can’t be that much of a surprise to ya,” he continued. “Your mother was trying to ring ya about it. If you want to see him, you’d want to go now before he kicks the bucket.”
Stunned, I just stood there, unblinking, as I tried to digest the words coming out of his mouth.
The man who took on the role of raising my mother and aunt when his own daughter died, only to then have to take on the role of sheltering my mother’s children from the raging storm that was our father.
He was the first man whose touch I didn’t fear.
He was the man who taught me how to ride a bike.
He was the man who took me to the cinema for the first time.
He was the man who was never supposed to go anywhere because we needed him to stay right here and not fucking leave!
“Where is he?” I strangled out, feeling my heart thud so hard in my chest, I thought it might burst. “Is he at their house?”
“He’s at the hospital,” Dad replied. “And I’ll give ya a spin over now, if you sub me a tenner until I get paid at the post office.”
I stared blankly at him. “My grandfather’s dying, and you want me to give you money to take me to see him?” I shook my head in disgust. “I’d rather slit my wrists than feed your drinking habit, old man.”
“Nah, because you’re too busy feeding your own habit, aren’t ya, boy?” Dad sneered. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’d do well to remember that.” Stalking past me, he yanked the door of our car open and hissed, “Keep your fucking money – and find your own way to the hospital while you're at it!”
“Are you alright, Joey, lad?” Tony asked me when my father had driven away. “Do you want a spin to the hospital?”
“I, ah…” Shaking my head, I ran a hand through my hair and exhaled a ragged breath. “No, I should get to work.” I looked around aimlessly. “I’m supposed to work, and I’m already late…”
“None of that matters right now,” Tony said, steering me to his parked van. “Hop in and I’ll take you to see your grandfather.”
“Ah, right, Tony, cheers,” I mumbled, feeling shook to my core, as I climbed into the passenger seat of his white transit. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, son.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Anytime.”
* * *
Granda had contracted pneumonia,Nanny Murphy explained, when I found her in the hospital corridor a little while later.
Apparently, he’d been sick for a few weeks, and they never told us. Instead, she continued to help me with the boys, even though her husband’s health had taken such a massive decline and had to be going through the mill herself.
My mother wasn’t present at the hospital due to a rift in the family a few years back, caused by my father, but her sister Alice was, and so was Shannon.
I didn’t want to go inside the room that my great-grandfather was dying inside.
“Go in and see him, pet,” Nanny begged, squeezing my hands in hers. “He’s been asking for his little Joe.”
