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Saoirse

 

 

 

It had been days since my da revealed to me the extent of his “work” and made me a job offer. Inside me, all the parts of me warred. Confusion pulled me this way and that. The only person I wanted to talk to was the last person I should be talking to about this.

Still, I messaged Diarmuid asking to meet. Perhaps I did it because I knew what he would tell me. I knew the faith he had in my future, and it had nothing to do with cooking drugs. I just needed a little bit of his belief that I was something more than a criminal’s daughter. I needed him.

Diarmuid’s message came back hours later. It was not what I wanted to hear.

 

Diarmuid: I’m not sure meeting is a good idea.

 

Strings of annoyance twanged in me again. I stabbed back a reply.

 

Me: I just want to talk, nothing else.

 

What does that say about me that the only one who truly understood me was a man over a decade older than me, who just thought of me as a girl. There was a long pause before his reply came back.

 

Diarmuid: I can’t be trusted around you.

 

Me: What the hell?

 

Diarmuid: I think it’s best if you ask to be reassigned.

 

Reassigned.

That was it. Diarmuid wanted me out of his life. Rejection flooded through my veins like boiling water over glass.

Not again. Dear God, not this again.

I shouldn’t have touched myself in front of him. I shouldn’t have been easy.

Did he think I was a slut? Like my mother? Is that why he was rejecting me now? I knew he wanted me. That much was clear when he pressed up against me. Did I disgust him? Was that why he was telling me to leave him alone?

And by text message. He didn’t even have the balls to say this my face. Anger made my fingers shake.

 

Me: You are a coward.

 

Diarmuid: I’m sorry. It’s for the best.

 

Me: Fuck you.

 

I threw my phone across the room and flung myself on my pillow, my tears already soaking the cotton. That’s where I lay for a long, long time.

 

 

 

I only dragged myself out of bed when I had to go to work the next morning. I stepped into the café and knew instantly something was wrong. Lisa and Claddagh, two other waitresses who were friendly enough, stopped talking and stared at me from behind the counter.

I frowned as I passed them, heading towards the staff room at the back.

“What’s the craic?” I asked.

They exchanged a look, then Lisa came jogging over to me. “Saoirse, you never told us your da was Liam Byrne.”

I hadn’t lied to anyone here, I’d just been evasive when they asked about my family. Thank God that my ma and da never married and that I was given my ma’s last name. I’d had enough of the bullying and teasing at school when people eventually found out I shared DNA with an infamous criminal.

“What does it matter who my father is?”

“Not to me, but—”

“Saoirse,” my boss, Ed, called from the staff room entrance. “Come have a chat with me, will ye?”

Lisa gave me an apologetic look, patted my arm, and mouthed, sorry.

My stomach sank. I knew already what he was going to say.

Sure enough, Ed went on a rant about how I’d lied, how he couldn’t be associated with a criminal family, how he spoke to a friend of his at the Garda and they’d told him that I’d already been arrested twice.

I burned at his judgement. Not just his but everyone who had come before him. Before I knew what I was doing I was shoving him back, raising my voice, cussing at him as I got in his face. I heard the footsteps of the other staff coming through the door to their boss’s rescue. I felt their hands on me, pulling me off him, telling me to calm down. My anger sizzled like water on coals.

Ed straightened and pointed a shaky finger towards the exit, his face slightly pale. “Get out before I call the Gards. Don’t ever come back.”

I yanked my arms out of their grasp. I felt their accusing eyes on me, worry, fear, vindication. See, she’s just like her father.

I wanted to scream at them all. I’m not like him. I’m better than that.

What good would it have done? They already thought they knew me. They’d already laid down their judgement. And I’d already done the damage by attacking Ed.

So I said nothing. I ate up all my anger, turned and walked out of the café, tears blurring my sight and numbness swallowing me.

Because at the end of the day Ed was right—they were all right. I was a criminal’s daughter. I had bad blood flowing through my veins. I guess I couldn’t run from what I was.

They’d already made up their minds about me. Why bother fighting the box they’d put me in? Why not just embrace it?

I wiped my eyes and my vision cleared a little. Rebellious resolution turned my blood to granite.

I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and dialed Diarmuid’s number. I just needed him to tell me that everything would be okay. I just needed to know that there was one person—one person—on this planet who thought more of me.

He didn’t answer. I stabbed out a text.

 

Me: Please. I need to talk to you.

 

Please Diarmuid. Just one word from you and my faith would be restored.

I waited for a response.

And waited.

He never replied. The silence cut me like the sharpest knife. The shackles of my parents’ sins closed around me, making it hard to breathe. When nobody believes in you, why keep fighting against it? Why keep trying to prove them wrong?

I called the one person who I could truly count on, the only person I should have trusted from the beginning.

“Yeah?” he answered when he picked up the phone.

“You remember the job offer you made me?” I said in a low whisper.

“Yeah…?”

“I’m in.”

I could almost hear the grin widening across my da’s face. “That’s my girl.”

 

 

 

My da took me back to his farmhouse. This time we went inside the lab.

Its setup was surprisingly professional. Rows of stainless steel tables, cupboards of beakers and trays, all brand new. And shiny machines.

It was unlike the school lab where I’d spent so much time, cheap laminated tables with burn marks and graffiti on them, chipped or broken equipment, low inventory of chemicals and ingredients.

A small rush filled my insides, even as it was tainted with this feeling of…wrongness.

I was getting my very own lab.

My own lab.

“Well, baby girl, this is where you’ll be working. You like it?”

I nodded. I did like it, the space at least.

Chemistry was like cooking. You just needed a recipe and to understand the process of change that the molecules went through when you combined them or treated them in a particular way in a particular order. It was precise. It was still science.

I could ignore what I was making. Right?

“I’ll need some things,” I said. “Ingredients…”

Acetone, anhydrous ammonia, ether, red phosphorus, lithium... There were thirty-two ingredients needed. I’d looked up the process earlier.

I glanced up to the ceiling. “And I’ll need better ventilation installed. Industrial-sized exhaust fans. The fumes can be toxic.”

My da grinned, pride glowing on his face and warming up my skin like the summer sun. “Whatever you need, baby girl.”