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Saoirse

 

 

 

I ran until I was exhausted and collapsed, scraping my knees on the ground. I had no idea where I was, lying on the sidewalk, gravel biting at my skin.

I felt a strong pair of arms lifting me, then carrying me like a baby. Diarmuid’s scent covered me like a blanket. I wanted to melt into him and yet I wanted to shove him away. I had energy for neither.

He must have been following me in his truck as I ran myself to exhaustion. The bastard. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?

And yet, a deep part of me sagged with relief at the safety I felt in his arms.

He placed me gently into the passenger seat of his truck, and he buckled me in with care. I slumped in my seat, no energy left, as he drove me back to my house.

At my house, he tucked me into bed and kissed my forehead. “I’m not leaving.”

“Well you’re not sleeping in my bed,” I hissed.

He flinched and nodded. “I’ll take the couch.”

He turned the light off and paused at the door, looking like he wanted to say something. He closed the door behind him and my soul cried for him to return, the spot beside me feeling cold and empty.

I didn’t think I’d ever get to sleep. But somehow, I did.

The next morning the house was searched thoroughly by a team of Garda. I sat wrapped in my blanket in the living room, Diarmuid standing by watching me like a bodyguard. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to him. I couldn’t even look at him.

I found out that my father had been charged with drug possession, manufacturing with intent to distribute.

I expected to be arrested with every breath. But it never happened.

The Garda didn’t find anything incriminating at the house. As I knew they wouldn’t. My da made sure he never brought anything back here.

“What happens now?” I asked one of the Gards, a middle-aged woman with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. Out of all the guards she was the only woman, and for some reason I felt she mightn’t be as bad as the others.

“Well, you’re eighteen so you can stay here for now without a guardian. Your father’s lawyer should be by soon to advise you of your rights to the property.”

“Is this my house?”

“For all intents and purposes…yes.”

I pointed to Diarmuid, still standing silently in the corner. “Then get him the fuck out of here. I don’t want him here.”

Diarmuid straightened, took a step towards me. “Saoirse.”

“Don’t fucking let him near me,” I screamed, my voice and body shaking. “Traitor. Betrayer.”

The lady Garda placed a firm hand on Diarmuid’s shoulder. Diarmuid didn’t argue anymore as he left with them.

And I was left alone.

Over the next few days, Diarmuid came by several times a day, knocking on my door, begging me to open it, asking if I’d eaten. If I was warm enough.

I refused to let him in. I refused even to talk back.

I was a jumble of conflicting pieces, of warring sides, of clashing loyalties.

The man I loved had let my father get arrested. Now my da was going away for a long time.

If your father hadn’t been doing the wrong thing…another voice argued.

Still, logic seems like a distant island when you’re drowning in a sea of pain.

Today the knock on my door came again as I sat wrapped in that same blanket on the couch, staring at the fireplace.

Again, I ignored it. It usually took about twenty minutes for Diarmuid to give up.

“Saoirse?” a male voice called through the door. It wasn’t Diarmuid’s voice. “Open up, honey.”

I sat up. “Who is it?”

“Brian O’Leary.”

Diarmuid’s old JLO officer. I walked slowly to the door, frowning. Did Diarmuid bring Brian this time to help convince me to open up?

“Diarmuid’s not with me,” Brian said as if he’d read my mind.

I opened the door. Indeed, it was only Brian who stood on my front step.

“If you are here to try to convince me—”

“I’m just here to see how you are,” Brian said, lifting his palms up as if in surrender. “I’m not here for Diarmuid. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

I eyed Brian suspiciously for a second before I stepped aside and let him in.

Out of instinct, because it has been bred into every single Irish person, I went straight to the kitchen and put on the kettle to make us tea. I placed the Barry’s teabags in the cups, a timeworn tradition, and poured in the water just off the boil, letting it brew before throwing away the bags.

I carried a small tray holding our cups, a small pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar to the living room because everybody was fussy about how they took their tea.

Brian and I sat opposite each other. I spooned two lumps of sugar into my tea and stirred before pouring in half a finger of milk. I liked my tea sweet and milky.

“So…” I said.

Brian took a sip of his tea, a dash of milk with no sugar. “So, how are you?”

“Grand, yeah.”

Brian nodded slowly. “How are you really?”

My shoulders sagged. “I’m angry. I can’t believe he would screw over my father like that.”

“Your father was doing some illegal things, wasn’t he?”

I didn’t answer, reality a knot in my throat that I couldn’t swallow.

“From what I hear the drug squad was moving in on his operation anyway. His arrest would have come sooner or later.”

I fidgeted with my hands on my lap.

Sooner or later, the devil catches up with you.

I thought about my mum and my da, and realised how true this was.

I owed the devil, too.

“I keep waiting for the Garda to knock down my door, to arrest me for my part in my father’s business,” I said. “I know I deserve it. I just feel like such an idiot.”

Brian’s eyes widened. “You don’t know, do you, girl?”

“Know what?”

Brian set down his tea and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Diarmuid made a deal for you. All of your involvement has been wiped from the record in exchange for him handing over your father. No one is gonna to come and arrest you. You have full immunity. A second chance.”

A second chance.

I squeezed my eyes shut as they began to burn with tears. This was what Diarmuid was talking about when he said a second chance. He was trying to tell me what he had done for me. Instead I had been too angry to listen to him. Too certain that he had betrayed me when in fact he had saved me. My father was going down, that much was certain. But Diarmuid made sure that I wasn’t pulled down with him.

When I opened my eyes Brian was watching me, concern on his face.

“Oh, Brian, I’ve been so cruel to him. I shut him out.”

Brian shot me a small smile. “You have, but it’s fixable.”

“What if it’s too late?”

He shook his head. “I would have been furious at Diarmuid for getting involved with you if I hadn’t seen you two together. If I didn’t see the way you two looked at each other, so real and…pure. He loves you as much as a man could love a woman. He’d forgive you almost anything. If you’d just ask.”

That’s when I realised that Diarmuid was the only one who ever loved me truly. He put my needs, my wants over his own.

Something my father never did.