“You’ve got two minutes to get down here, Mikey.”
TV blaring, he had to shout. He came back into the kitchen, rubbing the heel of his hand over his chest. The other two kids were squabbling, whether it was true that Mikey was going to the States with his band. One of them spilled the milk.
“For Christ’s sake, shut up and clean that up. Now!”
“It wasn’t me Da, it was him,” started up again.
Paul yanked up the blind. Garden battered by wind and rain, sure he hadn’t a clue how to care for flowers. He’d told her that, and she’d smiled up at him, her hands covered in soft earth where she’d gently pressed tiny plants home. They’d be worth it for the colour they’d bring, she’d said, and he’d stood back and watched her in all her rumpled beauty, her dark hair falling softly around her face. “Plants are like people, families, they’re better together. They help each other find the light.”
She’d asked him to put her hair in a gap in the garden wall after he’d helped her shave her remaining patches. An old wives tale, something about new life and good luck. He’d gathered up the shavings from the floor, and her hair was damp from his tears as he pressed it into the gap.
“Breakfast in one bloody minute, Mikey,” he shouted, through gritted teeth.
He cracked an egg on the side of the pan — more fell outside than in — then flung open the door to shout again. Mikey was there, bare feet, shorts, and a tee-shirt that had seen better days, long hair sticking up at all angles, sleepy brown eyes so like his mother’s.
“You’re still not dressed. What’s wrong with you, your first chance at getting a proper job. My boss is only doing this as a favour to me.”
“I don’t want the job. I didn’t ask for it, you did.”
“What’s the point asking you when you’re never here. And it wouldn’t occur to you to help out with these two, would it? You’re always up in your bloody room messing about with your music.”
“I’m not messing. If Ma was still here, she’d try to get that through your thick skull.”
Mikey stopped, held the back of his hand in a fist against his mouth. His little brother and sister at the table, mouths open, his sister looked like she was going to cry.
“Da, I didn’t mean…I shouldn’t have…I didn’t mean it, Da.”
Paul lifted the pan and smashed it down, shattering the glass hob. He tried to speak to tell Mikey he was right, but the words wouldn’t come. His face crumpled, his knees buckled, he clutched the edge, but his body slumped towards the floor.
Mikey caught him as he fell.
Doreen Duffy (MA in Creative Writing) studied at DCU, NUIM UCD and Oxford online. Pushcart Nominated. Publications include, Poetry Ireland Review 129 by Eavan Boland, Washing Windows Volumes 2, 3 and 4, Arlen House, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, (Germany), The Storms Journals 1 & 3, The Galway Review, Flash Fiction (USA) and in Live Encounters (Indonesia), The Incubator Journal, The Woman’s Way and The Irish Times. She won The Jonathan Swift Award and was presented with The Deirdre Purcell Cup at Maria Edgeworth Literary Festival. Shortlisted in Francis MacManus Competition, her story ‘Tattoo’ was broadcast on RTE Radio One.
So well done!
Wow. Powerful stuff.