I learned a lot about Peg as we ate, mostly because the woman was a chatterbox. I actually kind of loved how she filled the quiet, because God knows I didn’t have much to say. She was Scottish, which explained the accent that wasn’t entirely like the ones I’d been hearing, but she’d been living in Ireland for more than twenty years, so it was an odd mixture of both Irish and Scottish. She’d followed her husband to his hometown after their wedding, and though I never got a clear answer, it seemed she was still married, but they hadn’t lived together for quite some time. Their son, Patrick, who Peg seemed to think walked on water, was away at University studying literature, and she’d worked at a local grocer for almost as long as she’d lived in Ireland.
She talked and talked and talked, and before I knew it, almost two hours had passed. I knew my mother would be home any minute, and though I didn’t think she would even notice my absence, I didn’t want to chance it. Who knows how badly she’d fly off the handle if she knew I hadn’t gone straight home from school. My parents had never had clear rules for me, but every once in a while, I’d unintentionally do something that would set them off and the punishments were severe.
“I better get home,” I said reluctantly, cutting Peg off as she went on and on about her handsome son. “My mom should be home soon, and she’d worry if I wasn’t there yet.”
Peg’s brows furrowed for a moment as if she knew exactly what I wasn’t saying, but almost as quickly as the frown appeared, it was gone and she was smiling brightly.
“Well, this has been lovely,” she said as we stood from the table. “Would ye like to come again tomorrow?”
I grabbed my school bag off the floor, thinking about my answer before turning back toward her. “I’d like that.”
“Perhaps tomorrow ye can tell me a little more about yerself. Seems I didn’t let ye get a word in edgewise today!”
“I didn’t mind.” I replied shyly, my cheeks heating as I realized she’d noticed that I’d barely said a word the entire afternoon.
“I’ll see ye tomorrow, lass!” she called as I raced down her cement front steps.
I made my way home with fifteen minutes to spare before my mom walked in the front door, and was quietly doing my homework on my bed when she came to check on me.
My mother was beautiful. She made sure of that, with weekly trips to salons and daily workouts to stay trim. But it was a brittle type of beauty, one that looked as if one wrong movement would shatter the entire façade. I think the shit her and my father snorted up their noses had something to do with that.
“Oh, good, you’re home.”
“Where else would I be?” I asked, rolling over to look at her.
“Good point.” She brushed her hands over the light blue dress she was wearing, making sure nothing was out of place after her short walk home from the local realtors office where she was a receptionist. “Your father and I are having a guest over later, so be sure to stay in your room after you grab some dinner.”
“Okay,” I replied woodenly, refusing to show any emotion.
“Finish your homework.”
She walked out of the room and I listened for her bedroom door to close before I dropped my head to the bed and struggled not to cry. It had been months since they’d had any ‘visitors,’ and I’d been hoping that it was all over since we’d moved to a new town. They’d put me into a private Catholic school, for God’s sake, and we’d started going to Mass again every Sunday for the first time in years. I’d let myself believe that things would be different.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
At least I had tea at Peg’s to look forward to the next day, that was something. I leaned back up and returned to the math homework I’d been working on, but I wasn’t able to focus.
As excited as I was to visit with Peg, I couldn’t help the worry that pooled in the pit of my stomach. Our house was tiny, and I was going to have to figure out how to make myself as scarce as possible when their visitor arrived. I didn’t even know if I could stand to be in my bedroom, which shared a wall with both the living room and their bedroom.
I glanced at my window and came to the conclusion that I would climb out after dinner. The nights were still pretty warm, and if I took my flashlight, I’d be able to read while I was out there. I wasn’t sure how long I’d have to hide, but I was hoping I could still get a little sleep since I had school the next day. With that decision made, there was only one thing left to worry about.
How the hell was I going to discuss my life with Peg without hinting at all about my parents’ lives? I wasn’t clear on Irish customs, but I was pretty sure that hiring prostitutes—the younger the better—wasn’t considered normal behavior for married couples with children.
If Ballyshannon were anything like the previous towns I’d lived in, nothing good would come from people knowing about their extra-curricular activities.
No one could know.
Chapter 2
Amy
I waited until I heard my dad come home that night and voices began filtering in through the wall connected to my parents’ bedroom before I grabbed my comforter, a flashlight and my tattered copy of Fahrenheit 451 and climbed out my window. There was a thick patch of grass beneath it between our house and the one next to it that provided me a safe little cocoon as I leaned against the wall.
I wrapped my comforter around me, pulling it up and over my head so I could turn the flashlight on without drawing attention to myself while I read. It wasn’t ideal; I’d much rather be inside, but it worked. I was just glad our house had only one story, or I would have been shimmying down a frigging drainpipe to get away.
I read most of the book before my eyes grew tired, but I still hadn’t seen or heard anyone come out our front door. I wasn’t sure how late it was, but I knew from experience that sometimes ‘visitors’ stayed well into the night. I’d just have to wait them out.
I jerked awake with a gasp some time later when I felt someone shaking my shoulder. My feet were freezing, and I was soaking wet.
“What in God’s name are ye doin’ out here, Amy?” Peg scolded as she rubbed my shivering shoulders.
“I didn’t want my parents to know I was awake reading, so I snuck out here last night… I must have fallen asleep.” The lie passed my lips easily, but Peg’s expression told me she didn’t believe my bullshit.
“Now, ye remember when I said I’d seen ye around, dontcha?” she asked quietly.
“Y-yes.” I was stuttering as she stared me down.
“I see most things that happen around here. Probably comes from havin’ too much time on my hands…” She let that sink in as my eyes grew wide. “Seen that gash goin’ in yer house last night with yer da.”
I gulped, but stayed silent.
“Also saw her leave not an hour past,” she told me with a nod. “Get on back in yer bedroom before ye catch yer death.”
I scrambled to my feet, too relieved that she hadn’t asked me any questions to ask any of my own. I gave her an impulsive hug before I picked up my flashlight that had rolled a little from my hiding place and crawled back inside. Then I closed my window as she walked away as if nothing had happened.
When I glanced at my clock, it was four in the morning. Thank God, I’d get a couple of hours of sleep in an actual bed before I had to get up again for school. I was so exhausted, I couldn’t even think about how awful it was that Peg knew my secret.
***
I was distracted all day during school, my anxiety about what Peg had seen making me jittery and unfocused. I wasn’t sure what would happen. Would she tell everyone? Ballyshannon wasn’t a tiny town, but it seemed pretty close-knit. God, my life would be over if anyone knew, especially if my schoolmates’ devout Irish Catholic families found out.
By the time I walked home that afternoon, I could feel hives beginning to form on my wrists and the tops of my hands. I think it was a family trait; both my mother and I dealt with the physical manifestation of stress. I was alternately sc
ratching and rubbing my arms through my cardigan by the time I passed Peg’s front steps.
“Thought ye were comin’ in for tea!”
I stopped abruptly, and whipped my head in her direction. “Oh, um…”
“The offer stands.”
“Okay,” I whispered back, turning toward her house.
I didn’t understand why she was still being so nice to me. She had to have some idea of what was going on. There was no way she’d misinterpreted the situation the night before; she’d practically spelled it out when she found me.
Peg held the door open as I walked inside slowly.
“Sit down! Sit down! I baked a caramel shortbread!”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked quietly as I followed her into the kitchen. “I know what you saw.”
“What does that have to do with anythin’?”
“Well… I just figured you wouldn’t want me over again, since… you know.” I mumbled back. I was so uncomfortable, my arms began itching almost all the way up to my elbows.
“Lass,” she sighed as she stopped moving around the kitchen and placed a plate of shortbread in front of me before dropping down in the seat across the table. “What yer parents choose to do hasn’t got anythin’ to do with how I feel about ye.”
“How you feel about me?” The pastry sat neglected on the table as I stared at it, afraid to meet her eyes.
“Well, from what I’ve gathered, yer smart.” My eyes snapped up to meet hers. “Yer kind, thoughtful, pretty, and yer just plain sweet the way ye’ve catered to an old woman’s whims like ye have.”
“You’re not that old,” I replied automatically.
“And ye’ve got nothin’ wrong with ye, no matter what yer parents choose to do in their own home.” She smiled at me gently, and reached out to squeeze my hand. “Now, enough talk about those perverted parents o’yers.”
I choked on her matter-of-fact assessment of my parents, and giggled as she winked.
“Well, just one more thing.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a shiny new key, setting it on the table in front of me. “Ye can’t be spendin’ the night outside, especially once the weather starts turnin’ colder.”
I looked back and forth between her and the key in confusion before her offer became clear.
“You can’t give me a key to your freaking house! Are you crazy? I could steal all of your stuff! I could…I could murder you in your sleep! You don’t know me!”
She laughed at my indignation, and swiped the back of her hand away from her body as if she was literally brushing away my comments.
“Got nothin’ to steal!” she cackled. “Ye plan on murderin’ me in me bed, well, ye could do that by climbin’ in me open window, now couldn’t ye?”
“I can’t take a key to your house,” I argued stubbornly. “No. No way.”
“Ye’ll take it,” she snapped back. “Ye’ll use it if ye have the need, and if ye don’t, well, I’ll have someone to water me plants when I go on holiday.”
“You’re going on vacation?”
“Well, I haven’t yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t in the future.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mumbled, causing Peg to reach across the table and flick my forehead. “What the hell?”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain in this house. That’s non-negotiable.”
“God-shit-sorry!” I hissed and dodged as she tried to flick me again. “I won’t!”
“Well, good then. Now can we eat? Ye said ye’d tell me about yerself today.”
I watched in awe as she stood back up to grab her own decadent looking pastry then sat back across from me as if we hadn’t been arguing for the past five minutes. The woman was quite obviously out of her mind, but I couldn’t help but find it endearing. She may have been more trusting than anyone I’d ever known, but I could also tell that she was no one’s fool. She’d known exactly what she was doing when she’d had that key made for me.
It was also more comforting than I would have ever admitted that she’d set a rule, even if it was as small as taking the Lord’s name in vain. Her punishment had been swift and effective, and I knew in the future exactly what would happen if I slipped and said it again. It wasn’t as if the flick had even hurt that badly, but it had gotten Peg’s point across. The thought of disappointing her or making her angry was enough of a deterrent to keep my language clean when I was near her—the flick was more of a reminder.
My chest felt light as she nodded to prod me along.
“Well, I was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming of all places…”
***
After that first week, Peg and I settled into an easy routine. I stopped by nearly every day after school, and she was always waiting for me on her front stoop as I made my way home. She became the first truly comforting person I’d ever had in my life, and before long, I couldn’t imagine my world without her in it.
We didn’t talk about what was happening at my house; I refused to bring it up and she was too understanding to mention it, but I noticed the way she watched me more closely after one of my parents’ visitors came.
But I didn’t use her key.
It felt too much like taking advantage of her at first, and after that I was too afraid that she’d worry if she knew how bad it was getting. She must have noticed the women—and now men—traipsing in and out of our house at all hours of the night, but she never said a word and I didn’t either.
It wasn’t until two months later that I finally broke down, running barefoot to her house at two in the morning.
“Are ye okay, lovey?” she asked urgently, pulling me inside the house before I’d even grabbed the key from the string around my neck. She must have been watching for me.
That night, my parents had two visitors. From the different pitches of their voices, I’d guessed it was both a man and a woman, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. However, as I’d sat against the side of my bed, my fingers in my ears and a book resting on my knees, I’d noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. Then I’d watched in horror as my doorknob turned slowly and silently.
If it hadn’t been for the small slide-lock I’d picked up at the little hardware store down the street and installed myself, whoever was trying to sneak into my room would have succeeded. I’d stared frozen until the knob stopped turning, then hopped to my feet and practically dove out my window to safety and Peg.
“I’m okay. I’m okay.” I repeated a few times, trying to convince us both. “I just got freaked out. I should go back. I overreacted.”
“Absolutely not!” Peg shrieked. “Ye’ll not go anywhere tonight.”
I was still so shell-shocked, I just watched silently as she locked the front door and grabbed my hand.
“Ye can sleep in the second bedroom.”
“But my parents…”
“They’ll not know a thing unless ye want them to,” she assured me, pulling a cord above her head to turn on the light in the small room. “I’ll wake ye when I go to work and ye can slip back in yer room.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t ye argue with me!” Peg scolded, flitting around the room to find sheets and a quilt for the bed. “Ye’ll just stay right here tonight, where I know yer safe.”
“I probably overreacted,” I repeated as she held the blanket and sheet up so I could slip inside. “It wasn’t a huge deal.”
“I don’t care if ye were imaginin’ green monsters. Somethin’ spooked ye, and I’ll finally get some sleep tonight if I know yer safe under my own roof.” She leaned down to kiss my forehead, something I never remembered my mother doing, and stood back up to turn off the light.
“Sleep, my girl.”
I fell asleep easily that night, the smell of Peg’s house and the softness of the bedding and mattress comforting me like nothing had ever done before. She woke me like she’d said she would the next morning as she left for work, which gave me plenty of time to sneak back in my window before it was time to get r
eady for school. After that night, a pattern was established.
The next time we had visitors, I didn’t wait before racing to Peg’s house to climb inside the soft bed I’d come to love and listen to the most important parental influence I’d ever have snore softly in the next room. It didn’t happen every night, or even every week, but every time my parents paid for a prostitute to visit our house, I went to Peg’s. And every time, she met me at the door.
I never even had to use the key she’d given me in the months that followed; she always waited up to let me in.
Chapter 3
Amy
“Whoa! Who de fuck are ye?”
The voice coming from the edge of the bed startled me awake, and as soon as my eyes opened, I froze in terror. The man’s face was shadowed as he leaned over me, and I couldn’t even take a deep breath to scream before the light in the spare bedroom flicked on.
“Patrick! Stop scarin’ the poor girl and get away from the bed!” Peg scolded, immediately calming me. Oh, good. Patrick. I knew that name. Peg talked about her son all the time.
I turned to give Peg a small grateful smile, but jerked my eyes back to the man when he kicked the side of the mattress.
“Who de hell is dis? Ye takin’ in strays now, Mum?” he asked angrily, looking me over with a scowl. Damn, his accent was so thick it took me a second to realize what he was saying… and then I was pissed.
“Fuck off!” I snapped.
“Patrick!” Peg scolded at the same time.
“Ah, she speaks?” he replied sarcastically, scowling at me.
I glared back silently, unwilling to get into an argument with the prodigal son. I knew I was the interloper, and I was instantly terrified that his presence would ruin the safety I’d found with Peg. Even if he was being a jackass, he was her son and I was just the pitiful neighbor girl whose parents were too occupied with prostitutes and drugs to realize I was gone.
“Patrick Gallagher, this is my house and if ye don’t stop glarin’ at that girl, I’m goin’ to beat ye bloody!” Peg hissed, surprising us both.