Taking the offered escape like a drowning victim would take a lifejacket, I made a beeline for the stairs, halting in my tracks when Dad blocked the doorway.
"I’m not done talking to her," he slurred.
"Well, she's done talking to you," Joey deadpanned, coming to stand behind me. "So, get out of her way, old man. Now."
There was a solid thirty second stare down between them before Dad finally stepped aside.
Bolting out of the kitchen, I ran up the staircase at top speed, not stopping until I was safely holed up in my bedroom with the door closed and the lock turned.
Barely taking time to catch a breath, I tossed the biscuits on my bedside locker, stripped out of my uniform as fast as humanly possible, and threw on my pajamas before diving onto my bed.
Scrambling under the covers, I reached for the portable discman under my pillow and pulled the covers up to my chin.
I had one earplug in when the screaming started.
Seconds later, the sound of furniture crashing filled my ears.
My stomach churned and I quickly rammed the other earplug in before firing up the old, discolored discman.
Fumbling with the buttons, I pressed play and turned the volume up to maximum level, praying the batteries had enough juice left in them to block out the hell that was my home.
Clicking onto the loudest, hardest metal track on the CD, I laid back on my pillow and remained perfectly still, body rigid and coiled tight with tension.
Four songs in and my heartbeat returned to normal rhythm.
Three more songs and the ability to form coherent thoughts returned.
It wasn’t always like this.
Weeknights were mostly okay, with the exception of Thursdays, when Dad got his social welfare money at the post office.
The weekends could be sketchy, but I was fantastic at avoiding confrontation with my father.
If he was drinking on a week day, I always made it my business to be home from school, dinner eaten, and locked in my bedroom by six o’clock.
If he was drinking at the weekends, I didn’t come out of my room at all.
However, the events of today had thrown me and I had made a fatal mistake.
Johnny had thrown me.
I let down my guard.
I forgot.
The album played to the end and I flicked it back on, repeating it on a loop.
It was only when I heard the sound of the bedroom door next to mine slamming over the music in my ears that I unlocked my coiled muscles.
He was okay.
Exhaling a shuddering breath, I lowered the volume and listened carefully.
Silence.
Pulling out my earbuds, I threw the covers off and climbed out of bed.
Tiptoeing over to my bedroom door, I turned the lock and crept into the empty landing.
Feeling my way over to Joey's door in the dark, I grabbed the door handle and slipped inside.
"Joe?" I whispered when my eyes landed on him. He was sitting on the edge of his bed in his boxer shorts, holding a wad of toilet paper to his mouth. "You okay?"
"I'm grand, Shan," he bit out, tone sharp, as he dabbed the tissue against his bottom lip. "You should go to bed."
"You're bleeding," I strangled out, eyes locked on the stream of blood stained tissue.
"It's just a busted lip," he shot back, sounding a little irritated. "Just go back to your room."
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
I must have hovered at his door for a long time because when Joey looked up at me, his expression was resigned. Sighing heavily, he ran a hand through his hair and then patted the mattress beside him. "Come on."
Bolting over to him, I collapsed down on the bed and wrapped my arms around my brother's neck, clinging to him like he was the only thing holding my world together.
Sometimes I thought that might be true.
"It's okay, Shan," he whispered, comforting me.
"I'm sorry," I choked out, tightening my hold on his neck. Tears spilled over my cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Joe."
"It's not your fault, Shan."
"But I made him mad –"
"Not your fault," my brother repeated, tone stern.
"I don’t want to be here anymore, Joe."
"Me either."
"I'm sick of feeling scared all the time."
"I know." He patted my back and then stood. "One of these days, everything will be better. I promise."
Walking over to his wardrobe, he pulled open the doors and dragged out the familiar sleeping bag and spare pillows.
I didn’t have to ask what he was doing; not when I already knew and it made my heart squeeze tight.
When Joey was finished setting up the makeshift bed on the floor, he dropped onto it.
Folding his arms behind his head, he released a heavy sigh. "Turn off the light, will ya, Shan?"
Complying, I leaned over the bed and flicked off his lamp before climbing into his empty bed.
"Thanks Joey," I sniffled, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, as I settled under the covers.
"No problem."
Turning onto my side, I looked down at him lying on his bedroom floor.
His curtains were closed, but the streetlamps on the footpath outside the house cloaked the room in a dull hue of faded color, illuminating the shadows on my brother's face.
"Hey, Joe?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you do me a favor?"
He tipped his chin up, letting me know he was listening.
"Please don’t do to me what Darren did to us." Folding my hands under my cheek, I whispered, "Don’t leave me."
"I won't," my brother vowed, tone laced with grit and sincerity. "I won't ever leave you here with him."
I breathed out a shaky breath. "Mam is never going to leave him –"
"Mam can do whatever the fuck she wants," Joey interrupted, tone hardening. "She made her bed when she took him back last time. She can keep popping out his offspring and put up with his bullshit for the rest of her goddamn life for all I care. But you and me? We stick together." He turned his face to me and said, "When I get out of this shithole, and I will get out, I'm taking you with me."
Chewing on my lip, I asked, "What about the boys?"
Joey exhaled heavily but didn’t respond.
Nanny Murphy, our maternal great-grandmother, picked our younger brothers up from school every day and dropped them home, fed and watered and dressed for bed around 8pm.
Nanny had done the same for Darren, Joey, and me up until we moved on to secondary school.
It was a strange arrangement considering she and my parents barely spoke, and one I had asked Nanny about. I wanted to know why at the age of 81 she continued to help my parents when they clearly didn’t appreciate her.
She had raised my mother and her sister, Alice, when their parents passed away when they were children, but you'd swear Nanny was a stranger the way our mother treated her.
Nanny told me that she didn’t do it for them.
She did it for us.
Because she loved us.
And we were not to suffer for our parents' poor decisions.
She had toilet trained every one of us when our mother was working all the hours god gave her and our father wasn’t interested.
Nanny Murphy had stepped in when our mother and father stepped out.
Nanny made it clear that she would love and nurture every child born out of their fucked-up union because we were her great-grandbabies.
Tadhg, Ollie, and Sean were relatively protected from the tornado that was our father because we were lucky enough to have a great-grandmother who loved us.
The problem was, Nanny was pushing on in life, and she couldn’t do this forever.
She couldn’t keep wading in and saving the day.
Her health was fading, old age was setting in, and money was as tight for her as it was for us. Nanny didn’t have the money to feed us on top of our three younger brothers, and every time we ran to her with another problem, another wrinkle appeared on her face, and another doctor's appointment accrued.
It was for those and many more reasons why Joey and I had scaled back on our visits.
"They're our brothers," I whispered, dragging myself from my thoughts.
"I'm not their father," Joey croaked out. "And who knows, maybe Mam will come to her senses before they completely fuck them up like they did us and Darren. Either way, there's nothing I can do about it. I can't take care of them, Shannon. I can't afford it and I don’t have the time. I'm getting us out of here. That's the best I can do."