“Trish, we’ve the bathroom just about done, love. I’m off to the dump with that old bath before they close,” my father called from the front hall. “I won’t be long.”
“I’ll see ya, Trish. Thanks for the sandwich.”
“You’re welcome, Joey, love.”
Resisting the urge to rush out into the hallway and take one last look at Joey Lynch before he left with my dad, I held firm, and took another sip of orange juice instead.
“Make sure you take that old Lino with you, Tony,” Mam called back, not bothering to look up from her ironing board. “And there’s a few bags of rubbish at the side of the house that could do with being cleared out.”
“Already taken care of.”
“Good man yourself.”
“A little heads up that Joey was coming over would’ve been nice,” I said once as the front door closed behind them.
“Ah, he’s a lovely boy, isn’t he? Such a hard little worker,” Mam gushed, smiling into her ironing. “I thought you’d be delighted to see him. The two of you are great little friends at school, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah, we’re buds,” I agreed, suppressing a laugh. “A head’s up would’ve been nice, though.”
“It’s a shame that he and your brother don’t seem to gel,” Mam added with a sigh.
“That’s not on Joey, Mam. Kev doesn’t gel with anyone,” I snorted, resting my hip against the counter. “He’s too stuck-up.”
“Aoife.”
“What?” I threw a hand up. “It’s true.”
“It would do your brother no harm to get off that computer and spend some time at the garage. I’m sure if he gave it a chance, they’d find some common ground.”
“Common ground with who? Dad or Joey? Because, no offense, Mam, but your darling baby boy thinks he’s above the both of them. Kev doesn’t have any intention of getting his hands dirty. He has too high of an opinion of himself to slum it with us normal folk.”
“He does not,” she scolded. “Don’t be mean.”
“So, what’s the story with the new bathroom?” I decided to change the subject by asking, unwilling to give my dope of a brother another second of airtime.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Mam.”
“Nothing, love.” My mother, who looked a lot like what I presumed the forty-something-year-old version of me would look like, smiled brightly. Too brightly. “It was just time for a change.”
“Mam,” I sighed, reaching over to stroke her leg with my foot. “Are you okay?”
I knew she wasn’t.
Her heart had been broken by my father for what had to be the fourth time in a matter of years – that I was aware of.
“I will be,” she replied, tone forcefully cheerful, as she tucked a blonde wisp of hair behind her ear. “I’m looking forward to a nice hot shower tonight.”
“So, who was it this time?” I asked then, poking the bear. I didn’t really want to know, or at least, I shouldn’t want to know, but I asked her anyway because I was a glutton for punishment. Reaching into her pile of neatly folded ironing that was stacked on the kitchen table, I retrieved a t-shirt and pulled it on. “Was it a one-off, or was it going on for a while?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Aoife,” Mam replied quietly. “And I don’t want you to think badly of him, either. He’s a good man, deep down, and a wonderful father.”
“Yeah, he is a good father,” I agreed, setting my empty glass in the sink. “But he’s a shitty husband, Mam.”
She, on the other hand, was a good wife, and a great mam, but that didn’t change the fact that her constant stream of forgiveness looked an awful lot like weakness in my eyes.
Sure, they seemed to have a decent relationship – when Dad wasn’t letting his wandering eye get in the way. In a weird way, they were pretty stable, and never seemed to let any discourse in their marriage interfere with mine or Kev’s lives.
“He makes a lot of mistakes,” Mam agreed, handing me the denim shorts she had just finished ironing.
“Too many mistakes,” I offered, stepping into my shorts and dragging them up my hips. “Too many times.”
“I know you have your own thoughts and opinions on how I should react to this,” she said evenly. “But it’s a lot easier to know what to do when it’s another person’s life you’re judging.”
“It seems pretty black and white to me.”
“That’s because you’re young.” She smiled. “The whole world isn’t black and white, Aoife. There’s a whole lot of grey in the middle.”
“I don’t understand,” I admitted with a frustrated sigh. “I don’t get how you can stay with him when he’s proven that he can’t be trusted.” I shook my head and pointed to her. “Look at how ridey you are, Mam.”
“Ridey?”
“It means desirable,” I explained. “Beautiful, gorgeous, fuckable —“
“Okay,” Mam laughed softly. “Thank you for compliment, but that’s enough of the bad language.”
“Well, it’s true. You are stunning, Mam,” I pushed. “Kev thinks his weirdo buddies are coming downstairs to see me, when half of the time it’s to sneak a peek at you.”
“Aoife,” she chuckled.
Sighing, I asked, “Why do you put up with it, Mam?”
“I love him,” she replied. “I have invested more than twenty years of my life into the man and had my children with him. And believe it or not, he loves me, too.”
“Then maybe he needs to love you better,” I told her. “Because his words and his actions aren’t exactly aligning, Mam.”
“No marriage is perfect.”
“No,” I agreed. “But not all wives are cheated on, either.”
“What about Paul?” Mam asked, steering the conversation towards me, tone defensive. “You love him, don’t you? Imagine having spent most of your life raising a family together and then having to—”
“No.”
Mam blinked in surprise. “No?”
“No,” I confirmed, with a shake of my head. “I don’t love Paul, and I have no plans on that status changing.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have no intention of giving a boy that kind of power over me,” I replied simply. “From my viewpoint, men let you down – even the good ones like dad can’t be trusted. So, why would I ever expose myself to that kind of pain? It would be emotional suicide.”
Mam looked flabbergasted as she let out a small laugh. “Aoife, if you don’t have feelings for the poor boy, then why in God’s name have you been going out with him for the past year and a half?”
“Because I choose to,” I explained. “Not because I need to.”
“And what about Paul?” she demanded. “Have you spared a thought for his feelings?”
“I never said I didn’t care about him, Mam, of course I care.” Shrugging, I added, “I’m fond of him – obviously. I just don’t have those crazy deep feelings that cloud common sense.”
She arched a brow. “Fond?”
I shrugged. “What’s wrong with fond?”
“Fond isn’t a word a girl normally uses to describe her feelings towards her boyfriend.”
“Well, that’s all I have, Mam.”
“But —“
“And if you think that Paul Rice is in love with me, then you’re wrong,” I was quick to point out. “His feelings are as replaceable to him as I am. If we broke up in the morning, I could guarantee you that it wouldn’t take him more than a week, two tops, to move on to someone else.”
“Aoife,” Mam gasped.