Chapter 19 Chapter 17 So So Far Away Youth

There was a message from Jackie on the recorder asking me to call back. "It's nothing serious, it's just—well, you know, bye." I've never heard her voice sound so old and weak.I wasn't much better myself, and the result of not answering Kevin's call still left me with lingering fears, and I was really worried that I shouldn't call back the next day.But now in the middle of the night, the time was inappropriate, and calling would only give her and Gavin a heart attack. I decided to go to bed.I took off the jumper, and I could still smell Nora's hair at the collar.

The next day was Wednesday, and I didn't wake up until late, around ten o'clock, but I woke up more tired than the night before.This kind of severe pain has been going on for several years. I have forgotten how tormenting it is both mentally and physically.I washed off my dizziness with cold water and black coffee and called Jackie. "Hey, all right, Franco." Her voice was still gloomy, even heavier.While I had the time and energy to amuse Holly with her, I wasn't in the mood to do so. "Okay honey, I just heard your message." "Oh...yes. I thought about it later, it didn't seem right...I didn't want to scare you into thinking something was wrong again. I just...I don't know, just wanted to see how you were doing."

I said, "I know I left early on Monday night and I should have rocked a little more." "Maybe, well, it's all over anyway. There was nothing exciting after that, everyone had a few more drinks, sang a few more songs, and then went home." There was a lot of noise on the other end of the line: chatter, Girls Choking, and the blower.I said, "Are you at work?" "Oh, yeah, of course. Gavin can't take another day off, and I don't want to be home alone... and, if you and Shay are right, Ireland is going to die, and I'd better hang on to my old customers, right? ?” She tried to make a joke, but it lost its effect because of listlessness.

"Don't push yourself too hard, my dear. If you're tired, go home and rest. I'm sure regular customers don't fall in love with others, and don't run away for money." "Who knows, huh? Oh, don't worry, I'm all right, everybody's been nice to me. They know what's going on, either from the papers, or because I wasn't here yesterday. They buy me tea and let If I want to smoke, I go out to smoke, it is better for me to be here. Where are you? Didn't go to work today?" "I took a few days off." "That's fine, Franco, you're working too hard. Be kind to yourself and take Holly somewhere."

I said, "Honestly, I have a little time now, and I really want to talk to my mother, talk to her in private, without my father present. Which time is more likely? For example, he will go shopping or go to the bar. ?" "He goes out almost every day, that's right, but..." I could hear her trying to pay attention. She said: "He had a bad back yesterday and I guess today, he could hardly get out of bed. Whenever he has a back problem, he usually sleeps at home." Translation: The doctor prescribes good medicine, and Dad flavored it with vodka hidden under the floorboards. He must have been in a coma for a long time.

"Mommy will be home all day, waiting for Shay to come back, in case Daddy needs anything. You can call her, she must be very happy to see you." I said, "I'll call, you tell Gavin to take care of you, okay?" "He's fine, really, I don't know what I'd do without him... Come on, would you like to come over to my house and have dinner with us tonight?" Fish and chips with sympathy sounds delicious. "I have something else to do," I said, "but thanks anyway, dear, maybe another day. You'd better get back to work before the client's highlights turn green."

Jackie tried to force a laugh, but it was dry. "That's right, I'm about to go. Be careful yourself, Franco, and say hello to Mom for me." She left after speaking, disappearing among the noisy hair dryer, chatting and sweet tea. Jackie was right, I rang the doorbell, and it was my mother who came downstairs and opened the door.She is also full of tiredness, and she has lost weight since last Saturday, at least her stomach is gone. She glared at me, thinking about how to deal with it, and then said angrily: "Your father is sleeping, go to the kitchen, and don't make any noise." She turned and strode upstairs, looking very painful.Her hair should be tidied up.

The room smelled of alcohol, air cleaner, and silver polish.Kevin's shrine looked worse during the day than at night, the flowers were dying, the condolence cards were down, and the electric candles started flickering and dimming.A faint contented snore came from the crack of the bedroom door. Mom had all her silverware on the kitchen table, knives, brooches, picture frames, and what looked like a decorative pony figurine, apparently a passing gift that had long been passed down to our house.I think of Tsuri, her eyes full of tears, frantically wiping down the dollhouse furniture. "Come on," I said, picking up the silver rag, "I'll help you."

"No, your clumsy hands will only help you." "Let me try it. If I make a mistake, you can correct me at any time." Mom gave me a suspicious look, but she couldn't resist my kindness. "Maybe you are really useful, and you need a cup of tea." This is not a question.While my mother was rummaging through the cabinets, I pulled a chair and sat down, and began to wipe the knives.The conversation I'm looking forward to is the kind of whisper between mother and daughter. Although I can't become a woman, at least I can do a little housework like that.Even if I don't clean the silverware, I will find something to wash and clean.

Mom fired: "You ran away on Monday night without a word." "I have to go first, how are you doing?" "What else? You should stay if you want to know." "I don't know how you deal with all this," I said, although it was a small talk, but it could also be sincere. "Is there anything I can do for you?" She tossed the tea bag in the pot and said, "We're fine, thank you." The neighbors were wonderful and brought enough dinner for us for two weeks, and Mary Doyle kindly let me put the food in her house freezer.We've all lived without you for so long, it's okay to last a while longer.

"I know, Mom. But if you think of something, just tell me, okay? Anything you need." My mother turned around and pointed at me with a teapot and said, "I'll tell you what to do. You can go to your friend, that guy whose name is 2.58 million, and ask him to take your brother home. I didn't Gotta make arrangements with the funeral home, talk to Father Vincent about the memorial mass, can't even tell people when my son will be buried, just because the poker-faced guy won't tell me when he'll be able to bring the body back Come on, that's what he said, that bastard, like Kevin was his property." "I know," I said, "I promise you I'll do my best. But he's not trying to mess with you, he's just playing by the rules, and as fast as he can." "It's his family's business that he has rules, and it has nothing to do with me. If he makes us wait any longer, Xiaoneng will be able to open the coffin and bury him, have you thought about it?" Of course I can answer that sealing the coffin seems to be inevitable, but we have already strayed too far from the topic.I said, "I heard you met Holly." Most women definitely have shame on their faces, at least fleetingly, but my mother is not, on the contrary.He raised his chin and said, "It's almost time to meet! Otherwise, when you bring it, maybe she is already married and even gave birth to my great-grandson. Do you want to wait until I die before letting us meet?" I really thought about it. "She likes you very much," I said, "What do you think of her?" "Same as her mother, beautiful, the two of them are worthy of you, a toad." "Have you met Olivia?" I mentally tipped my hat to Lil for being so petty that she wouldn't let me know. "I've only met twice, with Li and Jackie at our house. Why, you look down on girls in the free zone, don't you?" "Mom, you know, I just love swan meat." "What do you think of the result? Are you two divorced or just separated?" "It's been two years since the divorce." "Hmph," my mother squeezed her lips hard, "I will never divorce your father." No matter from which angle, I don't know how to answer. "That's true," I said. "You can never take communion again." I know there's no need to get angry, but sometimes family members are just that annoying. "Mom, I don't want to take Holy Communion. Even if I want to, divorce is not a problem. As long as I don't sleep with a woman that Olivia doesn't expect, even if the divorce leads to unconsciousness, it has nothing to do with the church. The real trouble is The woman I fucked after my divorce." "Keep your mouth clean," my mother was furious. "I'm not as slick as you, and I don't know the details, but I know at least one thing: Father Vincent will never let you take communion. That's the church where you were baptized." Feel like you've won. I remind myself that the point is to talk, not win or lose.I said obediently, "I think you're right." "Of course, that goes without saying." "At least I didn't teach Holly to be a pagan, she will go to mass." I thought mentioning Holly would soften my mother's attitude, but God only knows it will add fuel to the flames. "She almost turned into a heretic, are you brave enough to say? I missed her first communion! She's my first granddaughter!" "Mom, she is your third granddaughter. Carmel's two daughters are older than her." "The first granddaughter, and it looks like the last one too. I don't know what the hell Shay's up to, he probably dated a dozen girls and none of us knew about it, and he never brought them home. I'm sorry God swear, I'm ready to give up on him completely, your dad and I thought Kevin should..." She bit her lip, clattered the tea to boil, put the cup on the saucer, and poured the biscuits into the plate.After a while, she said: "I don't think we'll see Holly again." "Look," I said, holding up a fork, "is this clean enough?" My mother glanced at it casually and said, "Not enough, you have to wipe between the tines of the fork." She took the tea set to the table, poured me a cup, and pushed the milk and sugar to me. "I'm going to buy Holly a Christmas present, the little velvet dress I just love, I'm going to buy it for her." "Christmas is two weeks away," I said, "let's talk then." My mother squinted at me, I couldn't guess what she meant, but she didn't say much, she just took a piece of cloth and sat down opposite me, and picked up a silverware that looked like a cork. "Tea," she said. The tea was so strong that even the teapot could not be closed, and the smell was pungent.The street is quiet, everyone has gone to work, only the monotonous soft raindrops and the sound of cars in the distance.My mother wiped some silverware that I didn't know what it was, and I finished wiping the knives and started attacking the picture frame.It is impossible for me to clean it to my mother's satisfaction. Although it is full of gorgeous patterns, at least it can be seen that it is a photo frame.After the atmosphere in the kitchen calmed down, I said, "Mom, let me ask you, did Dad ever get along with Teresa Daly before he started dating you?" My mother suddenly raised her head and stared at me, her expression unchanged, but many things flashed in her eyes."Where did you hear that?" she asked. "Then they were indeed together once." "Your dad is a jerk, you already know that, and you're no better." "I know, I just didn't know he was such a jerk at that." "She's a big problem, that woman, always attracting others, swaying her hips in the street, yelling loudly with her friends, she doesn't look like it." "But Dad fell in love." "They're all in love! Stupid men, they're all crazy about her. Your dad, Matt Daly, and half the men in the Liberty Zone hang around Teresa O'Byrne's ass all day long. She'll come and go , Hook up three or four at a time, as long as you don't care about her a little bit, change a group of people every two weeks. Let them crawl back and beg her." "We men just don't know what's good for us," I said, "especially when you're young. Daddy must have been young, right?" Mom snorted. "I'm not young enough to see who treats me well. I'm three years younger than her. Even I can tell him that it must end in tragedy." I said, "You fell in love with him then?" "That's right, yeah, that's right. You mustn't think..." Her fingers slowed down as she wiped the silverware. "You can't think of it now, but your father, he was very handsome back then. That curly hair, blue eyes, and that smile, he looked so good when he smiled." In unison, we turned to the kitchen door and glanced at the bedroom.Mom continued to talk, and you could still feel from her tone that the name was as wonderful to her as dream ice cream. "Jimmy McKee can pick any woman he wants." I smiled at her. "Didn't he chase you from the beginning?" "I was a kid. I was fifteen when he went after Teresa O'Byrne, and unlike girls these days, twelve looks like twenty. I had no body, no makeup, Don't understand anything... If I meet him at work in the morning, I always try to catch his eye, but he never gives me a second look. Your dad is completely obsessed with Teresa, and among the men, she is the most like him." I've never heard of these things, and I bet Jackie doesn't know, or she would have told me.Mom wasn't the "let's share our feelings" kind of person, and if I'd asked her a week earlier or a week later, she'd have been pissed off.Kevin's death broke her heart and stripped her of her armor.Seeing that the opportunity was not lost, I asked, "Then why did they break up?" My mother pursed her lips and said, "If you want to wipe it, wipe it well, and don't miss the gap. If you want me to wipe it again, then why ask you to wipe it?" I said, "Excuse me," increasing my elbow swing. After a while, she said, "I didn't say your father is a saint. Although Teresa O'Byrne has no shame, your father is not a good thing." I didn't stop, waiting for her to speak.My mother grabbed my wrist, checked whether the photo frame was bright enough, nodded reluctantly, let go of my hand and said, "It's not the same. It's different from before. At least we still know how to respect ourselves, and we don't know how to learn from TV." Acting, looking for people to go to bed with." I asked, "Dad did that with Teresa O'Byrne on TV?" My mother gave me a punch in the arm: "No! Didn't I just say that, are you listening? The two of them are already crazy, and they are even worse when they get together. That summer, your father borrowed from a friend Car, drove Teresa to Powersig Manor to see the falls on Sunday afternoon, and the car broke down on the return trip." Possibly Dad made it up.Mom gave me a meaningful look. "And then?" I asked. "Then they stayed and spent the night there! Back then there were no mobile phones, no way to call a garage, or even notify someone of an accident. They walked a short distance, but the path was in the wilderness of Wicklaw. In the countryside, it was getting dark again, so they had to stay in the car and asked the farmer to help start the car the next day when they passed by. Before they came back, everyone thought they had eloped." She held the silverware at an angle, holding it up to the light to check how perfectly polished it was, and extended the pauses—mother likes to tantalize. "Well, your dad insists that he sleeps in the front seat and Teresa in the back seat. Of course I don't know if that's true or not, but the Loyalty doesn't think so." I said: "I want to know." "Girls don't sleep with men back then, sluts do. No one I know would do that before marriage." "After this incident, I think the two of them must get married, so as not to lose her reputation." Mom put her face in front of me and snorted, "I bet your daddy thinks so, he's so infatuated with her, that bastard. But the O'Byrnes look down on him and think they're superior. Teresa's dad and her Uncles beat your dad so badly that I almost didn't recognize him. They told him to stay away from her, saying he had done enough." I said, "So he is obedient." It's good, I like it, it feels natural.Even if Matt Daly and his brothers beat me half to death, as soon as I got out of the hospital, I'd be limping to find Rosie. The mother was serious and said with satisfaction: "He has no choice. Teresa's father has been herding cattle and grazing before. I personally accompany her to work. I don't blame him, everyone is gossiping. Punks taunt her in the street, three aunts and six women wait for her to make a fool of herself, half of her friends are forbidden to talk to her, lest they become prostitutes like her, Father Hanratty preached that unfeminine women were bringing down the country and failing the men who died for the country in 1928. I tell you, the priest didn't name him from beginning to end, but everyone knew him Who are you talking about. Teresa has never dared to be presumptuous again." Although half a century apart, I can still feel the commotion.Things were getting bigger and bigger like a vortex, and the place of loyalty smelled blood, and the adrenaline secretion immediately doubled, ready to move.The events of those weeks likely planted the seeds of madness in Teresa Daly. "Mouth, I think," I said. "She deserves it! Let her learn a lesson. She loves to hang out with men, and she hopes that her reputation won't stink, right?" Mom sat upright with a dignified look. "Then she started seeing Matt Daly straight away. He'd been in love with her for a long time, but she never paid attention until she figured out she could use him. Matt's an honest guy, and Teresa's dad didn't mind two People come and go, this is the only way to get out." I said, "That's why Dad hates Matt Daly so much because he stole his woman?" "Almost. Of course, they don't like each other at all," the mother lined up the silverware in her hand with three other similar gadgets, and flicked off the small particles that didn't know where they came from. From the silverware waiting to be cleaned I took another small Christmas decoration from the container pile. "Matt has always been jealous of your dad, your dad is a million times more handsome than him, I kid you not, and he's very popular, not just girls, even boys think he's great and funny...Mike Te is just a boring brat, dead." Her tone was full of memories, triumph, bitterness and malice intertwined.I said, "So once Matt got his woman, he kept showing it off?" "Not only that. Your dad was going to drive at Guinness, and he was assured that as long as someone retired, the job would be his. But Matt Daly has been in the winery for a few years, and so has his dad. Quite a few. After Teresa, Matt went to the foreman and told him Jimmy Mackey wasn't a good fit for Guinness, and there was a bunch of people for every job anyway, so there was no need to hire someone who might cause trouble people." "So dad ended up working as a plasterer." I'm not kidding. "My uncle Joey put him on an internship because we got engaged shortly after Teresa and your dad needs a job if he's going to support his family." I said, "You're so quick." "I just went for it when I saw the opportunity. I was seventeen, old enough to turn boys back. Your daddy..." Mom's mouth was gone, and the cloth in her hand was twisted into the Christmas decorations twisted tighter in the gap. "I know he's still obsessed with Teresa," she said after a while, and there was a haughty gleam in her eye, and I thought I saw the girl with the chin up, watching the wild from this kitchen window. Unruly Jimmy McKee, thinking he was mine. "But I don't care. I think if I catch him, I can change him. I don't ask for much, I'm not a Hollywood movie star, I don't have any ambitions. I just want a small house of my own. The house and the kids, and Jimmy McKee." "Tch," I said, "you got the kid and you got the guy." "I got it in the end, yes, but Teresa and Matt drained him, and he was already drinking." "But you still want him." I keep my voice friendly and non-judgmental. "My whole heart is for him. My mother - may her soul rest in peace - she warned me never to hang out with people who drink, but I don't understand anything. My dad - you won't remember him Yes, Franco, but he's a nice guy—he doesn't drink at all, so I don't know what an alcoholic looks like. I know Jimmy takes a few drinks, the question is which man doesn't? I think it's very Simple—and it was, at least when I first fell in love with him, until Teresa O'Byrne blew his head off." I trust her and I know all too well what a woman can do to a man at some point - it doesn't mean Teresa is out of it, it's just that some people just shouldn't meet, the consequences are too wide, too deep, too long . Mom said, "Everybody said Jimmy McKee was doomed to nothing. His parents were alcoholics and he never worked a day in his life. When he was very young, he would go to the neighbor's house to ask if he could stay for dinner. Because there is nothing to eat at home, and he often wanders on the street at night... When I met him, everyone said categorically that he would become a waste like his parents." Her gaze wandered away from the silver she was polishing, to the window and the drizzle. "But I know they're wrong. He's not a bad guy, Jimmy isn't bad, just wild. And he's not stupid, he can make something. He doesn't need Guinness, he can open his own business, he doesn't have to wait on the boss, he hates Like that. He's always loved driving, he can carry cargo, have his own van... as long as the woman doesn't beat him to it." That's the motive, as perfect as a gift with a ribbon, plus an obvious criminal touch.Jimmy, Mackey had the best girl and job the day before, and he was ready to build a colorful future with his own hands. He gave the middle finger to those jerks who didn't like him, and the next second he just took a wrong step, just such a small step, stupid goose Mai Te Daly took the opportunity to step in and snatch Jimmy's life away. By the time he came to his senses, he'd married a woman he didn't love, had a dead-end job, and had drunk enough to drown Peter O'Toole.For more than two decades, Jimmy has watched his life come to life in another man's house across the street.Then, in that short week, not only did Matt Daly humiliate him in front of a whole street of neighbors and nearly get him arrested (in the world of alcoholics, mistakes are always someone else's fault), he also discovered that Ro Sy Daly grabbed his son and manipulated him between his hands. Maybe more than that, maybe even worse.Dad smiled and winked at me, and challenged me with words: "The Daly girl, isn't she? That chick is so cute, especially the ass, my darling..." My dear Rosie, that made him love and hate A remake of Teresa O'Byrne. He must have heard me tiptoeing across the living room.I thought he didn't, but he heard it.I've watched him fake sleep no less than a hundred times.Maybe he just wants her to be away from his family, maybe he wants more.But when she shows up and slaps him, she shows that she doesn't care what he wants: Teresa reappears irresistibly and unattainably, and Mat's daughter takes everything he wants from him.Maybe he was drunk until he realized what he was doing.He was strong, back then. We are not the only ones awake in the house.Kevin got up too, maybe wanted to go to the bathroom, and found the two of us missing.To him, it was fine, because Dad was often gone for days, and Shay and I would occasionally work the big night shift.However, when he learned that Rosie had been killed this week, he suddenly remembered. I felt as if I had mastered all the details, and the moment I heard Jackie's voice from the answering machine, the whole story had already surfaced in the abyss of my head, and I felt my lungs filled with dirty, cold water. Mom said, "He should have waited for me to grow up. Teresa is beautiful, yes, she is, but when I was sixteen, a lot of boys thought I was beautiful. I know I'm young, but I'm growing If he would just take those stupid eyes off her and look at me, just one look, nothing would happen." The exclamation in her tone was so heavy that it could sink several ships.It suddenly dawned on me that she thought Kevin was also drunk, like his dad, and fell out of that window.But before I could correct her, my mother was already pressing her lips with her finger, looking at the clock on the window sill and screaming: "God, look, it's already one o'clock! I have to eat something, or I will collapse." She Throwing away the Christmas decorations, pushing the chair back, "You have a sandwich, too." I said, "Shall I get one for Dad?" My mother turned her head and glanced at the bedroom, then said, "Leave him alone." After speaking, she began to take things from the refrigerator. The sandwich is white toast with cream and mince ham, cut into triangles, and it takes me back to my childhood when my feet didn't even touch the floor.Mom made another cup of strong tea and ate the sandwich in her own way.From the way she chewed, she should have replaced better dentures.When she was a child, she always said that it was our fault that she lost a tooth, and she lost one every time she gave birth. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she spoke.She put down her glass, took a faded blue handkerchief from her cardigan pocket, and waited for the tears to dry before blowing her nose and eating her sandwich.