Chapter Text
Chapter One: History of the Blood We Share
January 10, 2005
When I was little, I thought my mother was a fairy. She was young, small, and pretty fierce when pushing my older brother, Joey, around. But the more my home life sucked the youth out of me, the more I just learned my mother was a Murphy. That we were all Murphys, and well, being a Murphy will always beat being a Lynch.
That is what I told myself, what the small town of Ballylaggin, Ireland, told me. Lynchs weren't good news; they were more like nooses tied around your throat, but Murphys, they were beautiful. And so in turn are we.
We, being my six siblings and me. Not all of us look like our mother, but we all share Murphy's high cheekbones, puffy, swollen lips, and straight brows; there was no use denying that we were all some part Lynch. The rot I feel in me, I know, is from our father, Teddy.
Most Lynches had curly blonde hair and green eyes. They were tall, lean people with sun-kissed skin, which sounds nice in theory, but our Da’s eyes are the coldest, palest eyes I’ve ever seen. So pale they were almost translucent. Da’s hair was also more brown than blonde, more waves than curls. I’m sure his hair would be brighter than dishwater if he didn't spend every euro Joey earned on liquor. He was also stockier than what I could remember his side of the family being, not that we saw them much. Dad had a lot of siblings, who had lots of kids; lots of people meant more eyes on us. On our bruises and split lips, so we didn’t see them much, especially after we all moved back to southern Ireland during the Troubles. We didn’t really leave the house; honestly, it was a miracle Da even let Ma’s family pay for us to move back to Cork.
My maternal grandparents were from Cork; they were young children when Cork was burned. They grew up poor and homeless; eventually, Grandda Murphy joined the IRA in helping fight the British soldiers. Well, Nanny couldn’t be away from him for long, and she wanted to help support the Irish soldiers in her own way as well, so she packed up her two daughters and moved to Derry.
Mam still has some nightmares of the bombings, shootings, and just meeting our dad in general. Da was the child of an Irish Protestant woman and a male British soldier; we also didn’t see much of his family due to them seeing Ma and, by product, us children as lesser than.
After we older kids got returned from foster care, the Murphys, specifically Grandda, fought for us to move back near Cork. The town still hadn’t recovered from the fires, but it was home, and really the only home I truly remembered.
I don’t remember much of Derry or foster care. Mostly just the feeling of stress, and the smell of gunfire. Joey, on the other hand, has the best memory of any person I knew. He could recall things even from back then down to the specific dates things happened. I know my grandparents struggled a lot when we Lynchs joined them, but I’ll never not be grateful. Even if I suspect our Da’s heavy drinking was from him missing home or being forced to live in this birdcage of a broken-down house. At least he was allowed to leave, unlike us. We were only allowed out for school, Joe's job, or hurling. It was especially strict with me, as I’m the only girl, besides my mother, who was too depressed to get out of bed most days.
Our poor Ma, Marie. If Lynchs were death warnings, Murphys were sirens luring you into the night with their thick chocolate brown hair, pale skin, and exotic blue eyes. At least, that’s what Da said; I didn’t find myself to be very pretty… That's also why I was never allowed out, except for school. I am practically my mother’s carbon copy.
In total, my parents had eight of us, but only seven of us were alive, and only six lived at home. Darren is the oldest, the only boy, and a Murphy through and through. Rich, dark waves, freckles, and blue eyes. The only thing Darren and I got from our Da was his wavy hair. Darren was the most driven of us, bullheaded, like our Da. Nothing could stop him when he had a goal, similar to how no one could stop Da when he wanted a drink. Darren’s been the only one to move out; he didn’t wait a day past his eighteenth birthday.
Joey said we were the lucky ones. I think the only luck any of us kids had was when Mam miscarried, babe. It happened after she had me; Da was never happy about having a daughter.
Things get a little complicated from here, but life was about the complexity of survival in our home. Technically, Joey is the second eldest, but he and I were the same age for the majority of the year. “Dutch Twins,” Doctors called it. More like Da wouldn’t let Ma heal from Joe’s traumatic birth before getting her pregnant with me. Most people didn’t know this fact, as I am a grade below Joey in school, being held back in naíonraí, playschool, due to severe bullying. That, and Joe was Da’s doppelganger. It was uncanny most of the time; they moved similarly, their voices sounded the same, even down to the way their faces moved. In the dark, my mind couldn’t tell them apart, but my body always knew. My brain could be scared all it wanted to, but when my hair didn't stand up on end, I knew it was Joe.
Safe, warm protector Joey. We were a team, a bonded pair; our shared birthmarks prove that. His blood had always sheltered me, even in our mother’s womb, and nothing could be as sacred as that. Where he raged against our father and helped put food on the table, provided us with a roof over our heads; I yielded and cooked, cleaned and nurtured. Two sides of the same coin, partners we are.
After I was born, and Ma miscarried the next, it took a while for her to have the next baby. Tadgh was born when I was eleven. My first babe, like how I was Joe’s and Joe’s was Dar’s. You never feel that type of love till you have your first. He came out looking just like Joey, not Da, Joe. I couldn’t have been more proud. Though Tadhg acted like Joey too, that sometimes scared me, but even though the boys could be reckless, they were protectors. While Joey was a loud, warm fire, leading our Da away, Tadhg was a deadly winter wind. A very quiet, precise watchdog, he was always watching to know where to land the killing strike. They were strong; you couldn’t knock them down unless you killed them. Unlike me, I was weak, a crier.
Four years later, Tadgh had his first, Ollie. Ols was the complete opposite of all us kids. He looked like Ma, round and doll-like, but he was a curly, blonde-haired, hazel-eyed boy. He was so sweet, nicer than any of us. ‘One decent apple in a bad batch,’ the teachers called him. Even with the school thinking Ollie was the best of our family, they still ignored his blatant need for speech therapy.
The next one in our sick family line was baby Sean. Being so young, it was hard to tell whether he favored Ma or Da, but he had curly sandy hair, so I was hoping he’d be a mixture of both. It would be nice to have a sibling with Ma’s coloring around again.
Unfortunately, he won’t be the last, as Ma’s pregnant again. But even though we’re poor, and it’s hard to keep enough food for growing mouths, and worse, clothes for growing bodies, I wouldn’t change a thing. I think that’s my most selfish desire: company in this bleak world.
But this year I’m hoping it will break the chain of misery I’ve been shackled to. It was the first day back to school after Christmas break. I was nervous- so much so- that I puked no fewer than three times, just this morning. My throat burned, and my high pulse started to become a concern. Anxiety. That was the mental illness my father bestowed down to me. Mornings like this, I wish I would’ve gotten Ma’s depression instead. I work up into a spiral till my entire inner intestines decide to come up out of my mouth.
I think this is the fifth time I’ve brushed my teeth, just in the last two hours. Trying to avoid another episode, I smooth down my new school uniform, trying my best to get the wrinkles out. The bathroom mirror shows me, someone I don’t even recognize. Navy jumper with the Tommen College crest on the breast, with a white shirt and red tie. The gray skirt stopped at my knees, showing my scrawny pigeon legs, and finishing with too-tan tights, navy socks, and black court shoes.
I looked like a phony. I felt like one, too. The only thing that was making all this better was the shoes “Mam” bought for me. I don’t doubt it was Joe’s money, but I’m grateful either way, as the two-inch soles brought me up to the five-foot-two mark. I was ridiculously small for my age in every way.
My body was very thin and bony; even my hips and breasts were underdeveloped. Clearly I’ve been untouched by the puberty fairy that had hit everyone else my age.
Today I let my brown hair loose, letting it flow and brush against the middle of my back to try to cover my spine. I hated it when my hair got in my face, so I held it back with a red hair band. No makeup touched my skin, making all my round features look every bit child-like and small as I felt. My eyes were too big, making me look like I was in a constant state of surprise and too blue to boot.
The girls at my old school said I looked like a ‘Gollum’. I have no idea what that meant, but context clues say it wasn’t any good. I’ve tried pulling and maneuvering my face to look more human-like, but I just look constipated.
What I lacked in height and weight, I like to think I made up for it mentally. Nanny Murphy always said that I was born an old soul. It was true to an extent. I’ve never really felt like a kid, even when I was young; I wasn’t fazed by boys or fads, like others my age.
It really came into perspective last year, when Joey had some trouble with drugs. He would be out later, spend more money than we had, and I didn’t have as much help. So, as much as I hated it, Tadgh, the ever-present observer, stepped up, as much as I’d allow, and helped with the younger boys. I read somewhere that we mature with damage, not age, and I do everything I can to keep any damage from falling on my brothers. I couldn’t really help Joey, in the ways he needed, but his girlfriend Aofie is an angel. She got Joe the help he needed, and was probably my only friend that wasn’t blood-related.
A lot of the time, when just us girls talk, I worried that I didn’t work like the others. I didn’t have urges or even interest in boys at all. In sixth class, I even started to think I might have an interest in women instead, but I just didn’t have that with anyone. Not boys, girls, hot models, or even famous actors.
I didn’t care for kissing, or any touching of any sort. The thought of it made me sick all over again. I guess seeing the absolute shitstorm of my parents’ marriage had put me off for life. If that was what love was, then I didn’t want any part in it; I’d rather be alone.
Flushing the toilet, I start to brush my teeth. Again.
Tommen College was my fresh start, and I am desperate to stop the cycle of my anxiety. I am going to have a good day. Tommen will be better.
Any school will be better than my last one. Schools, I flinch at the thought, plural.
For some unknown reason, I had been a target of every child’s and adult's cruel frustrations from the tender age of four.
Most girls in my class decided on the first day of junior infants that they hated me. That I wasn’t to be associated with; and the boys, while less physical at this age, weren’t better. It never made sense to me, as I got along with almost every other child that lived on our street. But school?
School was my seventh circle of hell. All nine of my years of primary had been torture, and to make it worse, my ma and teacher thought it would be best to hold me back a year. Even though the traditional eight years of primary would have been nicer and I could’ve stayed in the same year as Joe, it had its good moments.
My new class had held my childhood best friends, Claire Biggs and Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Young. When it came time for secondary school in our final year of primary, I realized I was very different from them.
Claire and Lizzie came from wealthier families. ‘Nice’ families, and I wasn’t. When the time came, they were to attend Tommen College the following September: a lavish elite private school with massive funding and top-of-the-range facilities. The kids that were there had parents who were hell-bent on making sure their children had the best futures possible.
Meanwhile, I had been enrolled at the local, overcrowded public school in the center of town. I was horrified by the feeling of separation. So desperate to get away from the bullies, I had begged Mam to send me away to her sister, my Aunty Alice, who lived all the way in Beara.
All my youth and feelings had shattered like a teacup, leaving me empty when my father put his foot down on me moving.
Mam loved all of us, but she was a weak and weary woman. She never put up a fight with Dad. But she was the lesser of two evils.
A rapist, abusive drunk of a father or a weak ghost of a mother. I’d be picking Mam every time, even though in my bones I knew I probably would grow to hate her just as much as, if not more than, him one day.