This is part of Chapter 7...and this turns brutal. I'm not sure where it came from, but it's beginning to explain Brendan's mother and father and bringing change to him. He's 12, right now, half listening to his mother and two neighbors chat about his older brother, Eamonn. He's been accepted to Queen's and is planning a career in law.

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I was outside at the window waiting for Danny and wee Eammon to come, so was using the sill to hold an old clock and some of my tools. I’d found it in a dustbin behind a shop. The levers were rusted near solid but I had finally worked them apart. Its wooden body was split but could be filled in and painted over. And since the face was in such perfect condition, being this painted porcelain with old-fashioned brass numbers, my plan was to clean it up, make it work right, and sell it to Mrs. Donaldson’s shop down in Waterloo. She had second-hand goods in the back area that only looked half ready for use. I thought doing this might also show her I could fix those things up, as well, to bring her a better price...and maybe a steadier line of work, and never mind she was Protestant.

So I was only half listening to their craic, simply because I didn’t want to get too caught up in this before the lads appeared. I had my little work box at my feet to set everything into at a moment's notice. But then Ma just had to say, “It’s a pity not all my sons’re like Eamonn, strong, smart and sure of themselves. Livin' their lives to make the lives of other’s better. When he shifted coal, every shilling he made was handed over without a word of complaint or me havin' to fight for it.” 

I looked at her with disbelief, for I remembered full well how many times Eamonn had asked her to let him keep a little of his wages, and Ma’s reply had been that he was a selfish child who thought of no one but himself when she had to scratch the earth to keep kith and kin from having to eat grass like they did in the famine, and on and on. Oh, she could lay on eloquence as well as Father Jack, when she had a mind to. She was glaring straight at me when she offered up that lie, as was Mrs. Rafferty in what appeared to be complete agreement. 

Without a thought, I popped out with, “Oh, aye, Ma, between you and Da's drink, there was no one could keep his own wages.” 

She hissed, bolted up and yanked me by my hair and her fist struck me hard in the face as she snapped, “You dare talk of your own father like that? A murdered saint of a man?” 

I tore away from her, wiping blood from a cut in my lip. Mrs. Rafferty was shaking her head in horrified agreement with Ma, saying, “The mouth that one has, Bernadette. You’ve a trial with him, there’s no question.” 

Mrs. Haggerty rose to her feet, wiping her hands on her apron, wary but silent. Rhuari appeared at the door, looking at me as if I was mad. He must have been in his usual corner, reading. He didn't have the ability to block out the world when he was lost in a book, not like I did. A couple of neighbors also popped their heads out to see what was the commotion. 

Now I’d have left it there, but Ma was not yet content in my punishment. She grabbed up the clock’s face from the sill and smashed it against the corner, shattering it, causing Rhuari to race inside. Then she glared around at me, a vicious slash of a smile on her face, and snarled, “Now you’ll come back here and clean this filth up!” 

That look...that snarling grin...it tore something apart, inside of me. I'd seen it when she was fighting her worst with Da, a couple of times, almost like it was a pleasure to her, so I snapped. “I could have made two crowns off that clock, Ma! For one so concerned about money, you seem not to give a tinker’s damn about that!” 

Jesus, God, did her face grow red and twist with anger. Which I expected...but not that joy would be dancing in her eyes, as well. Cold and vicious. Anticipation of the damage she would do to me. 

It kicked my mind with a memory from when I was but nine years old. The night of September Equinox. Da was coming home from Belfast. He'd been gone much of the summer, and it was not long after the bus had arrived that I heard him coming up the hill, singing a fight song. To my surprise, he did not seem perished from the drink. Still, I'd warned my older brother, who picked up Rhuari and headed for our room, saying it was time for his bed. 

Mairead and Maeve were already in theirs, reading, so for them we had little worry; Da rarely aimed his fists at them, and then only when he was in the worst of ways and seemed not to know any of us. As for Ma in the back? I'd shot a quick, "Da's comin'," to her then scurried up to our room, hoping to have covers enough to cushion against his blows. 

Only he did not burst through the door, raging. Instead, we heard him clomp inside, drop his sack, exchange soft words with Ma, all of which was followed by a confusing silence. Then he jumped upstairs to crash into their room. 

Moments later, my sisters were screaming. Young Eamonn and I burst to the door to see what was wrong only to find a shaken Mairead carrying a weeping Maeve downstairs. Then my brother jolted and tried to cover my eyes, but not before I saw Da come out and stand at the railing to bellow, "Bernadette! I'm callin' to youse!" 

Now in truth, this was not the first time I'd heard him say it and have my sisters banished from their room...but this was the first occasion where I saw him naked. 

Top to bottom. 

With his tadger pointed out straight from between his legs. 

To say it jolted me would not be a lie. I'd just moved away from young Eamonn's hands when Ma came all but leaping up the stairs, in her shift, her hair wet and streaming down her back. She called over her shoulder, "Mairead, wrap yourselves in the shawl on the settee. I'll let you know when to come up." We'd kept the door closed tight enough so she didn't notice us watching as she danced past and threw herself into Da's arms. He grabbed her rear in a way most vulgar and they kissed and stumbled back into the room and their door slammed closed, and for half an hour the creaking of their bed could have been heard clear to Armagh. 

Young Eamonn sighed, shut the door and turned back to the covers, where Rhuari was already asleep. I did not move. Moments later, I could hear he was also away from this world. Obviously, he was not surprised by the actions of our parents. 

But I was. 

It made no sense to me. All of the times I'd been caught in the middle of their battles and hurt, thinking they'd hated each other and it was only the church refusing divorce that kept them as man and wife...to witness the joy in their faces as they embraced was confusing, at best. The confusion lasted right up past when he crushed my hand for a five-pound note.

Then Da was dead and Kieran on his way. And I'd had no need to think about it, anymore. 

Until now. 

The smile on Ma's face after breaking that clock's face brought it crashing into me. The image of Ma's joy as she flung herself against a man I'd seen brutalize her time and again. And the days of peace, after. I had also seen that same coloring of joy when they were in the midst of one of their fights. 

Her fists balling tight like his? 

The vicious grin on her face, like his? 

I finally understood. 

They had fucking loved each other. 

For that anger. 

For those fights. 

For the pain it caused. 

All the screaming and blood, between them...I could finally see they had actually lived for it. Da with his howling growls. Ma with her sharp nails and tongue. Drink being the excuse to explode both of them into fury. Him caught in it; her joining in it. Fighting and spitting like wild beasts. And me thinking I had to try and stop them. My brother thinking he had to stop them. When they cared nothing about ending their battles, themselves. They had reveled in them. She had loved his abuse. Loved abusing him. They had hurt each other because they wanted to. They had hurt me and Eamonn the younger because they wanted to. They had gotten some bizarre form of pleasure from it all. 

And now? 

Now? 

Now, I understood her hate of me. She needed someone to abuse. She no longer had my Da and Eamonn was too much his own man and Mairead too calm in the face of her spits and snarls, so I was her choice. Because I was quiet and sneaky and would take it with silence. 

Well, no more.