The Weight of Him(16)

Tricia announced dinner would be ready soon and herded the four children upstairs to do homework. Michael filed out. Already six-foot and as tall as Billy, the boy stood broad and lean. He also boasted a chiseled face, gray-blue eyes, and a soft, full mouth. His chin was small and recessed, though, and his forehead too high, making his dark hair start too far back on his head. Handsome, some might say, without the burden of being too good-looking.

At dinner, Michael hadn’t eaten much. A sick stomach, he’d said. Billy scoffed two helpings of the beef stew, eating fast, his other arm on the table as if guarding his plate. He’d also eaten Michael’s dinner, unwittingly devouring his son’s last meal. The memory made him sick.

No matter how many times Billy went over everything, there was nothing unusual about that night. Aside from Michael not eating and his saying he didn’t feel well. Billy couldn’t remember exactly what they’d all talked about around the table. They’d mentioned the weather and the chill that had felt like it was coming for them. Ivor said the full moon looked like a snowball.

“That’s a big snowball, Vor,” Michael said in his distinctive deep voice. He was the only one who ever called the boy Vor. “Let’s hope it doesn’t melt.” Ivor laughed.

Billy didn’t see Michael again that last night until after the football training. Michael returned home late, around eleven o’clock, and joined Billy, Tricia, and John in the living room. Anna and Ivor had long gone to bed. Michael brought in the smell of beer and Billy and Tricia exchanged a knowing look. They’d gotten the whiff off of him a few times over the previous few months and were choosing to turn a blind eye, unless he took to the stuff too hard.

Michael complained about the frozen pitch and how hard Molloy had worked them. John pulled himself from his TV trance and joined in the brief rant with his brother. Billy only half listened, intent on the screen, a rerun of the first-ever episode of Father Ted. Billy chortled when Mrs. Doyle scalded Father Ted with the tea.

“It’s not that funny,” John growled.

Michael remained silent, seeming lost in his own world. Billy howled again toward the show’s end, when Father Ted sat trapped at the top of the Ferris wheel.

“You’re ridiculous,” John said, but he was laughing, too. Michael still seemed far away.

As soon as the show ended, Tricia ordered the pair up to bed. “Michael,” she added, “you need to finish your college application. It’s due next week.” He had his sights set on UCD, to study agriculture. After he graduated, he would take over the farm from Billy’s father, and someday inherit the lot.

“Don’t worry,” Michael said. “I’ll take care of it.” Had there been a dark edge to his words?

On his way out of the living room, Michael stubbed his toe on the foot of Billy’s armchair. He hissed and yowled.

Billy gripped Michael’s arm, wincing. “Ow, I felt that. Are you okay?”

Michael laughed through his discomfort. “I stubbed my toe, not you. You can’t feel it.”

“I can feel it, all right,” Billy said, his face scrunched in sympathy.

“That’s not a real thing, Dad.”

If only Billy had continued the conversation, if he’d said something that might have made the difference. “Night” was all he’d said, his attention back on the TV.

“Night, Dad. Night, Mam,” Michael said.

“Night, son, sweet dreams,” Tricia said.

If only Billy had looked up at the boy. If he had seen the boy’s pain wasn’t just in his stubbed toe.

Did Michael know, when he said good night, that he would never see his parents again? That it was their last time together, just the three of them, as it was in the beginning, before John was born? If Michael did know, how, then, could he have left them with so little?

*

Ronin Nevin called in after dinner. He and Michael had been best friends, ever since they’d started school together, at four years old. He’d visited several times since Michael, to check on them.

The three sat at the kitchen table. Billy fought the urge to ask Ronin to get up off Michael’s chair and sit anywhere else. It didn’t help, either, that Ronin had the same height and build as Michael. The same dark hair and chiseled features. Red, pus-filled acne splattered Ronin’s face, though, an affliction Michael had only endured briefly in his early teens. Also unlike Michael, Ronin’s eyes were the dull brown of tree bark and his nose looked small and unfinished. He wasn’t quite as quick with the wit and easy smiles, either.

Ronin’s motorbike helmet and fat leather gloves sat on the table between them. Billy thought of bodiless parts. On the Internet, he’d read that most suicides hang themselves because they want to cinch at the neck and get away from their tormented minds.

Ronin had also received a summons to the inquest. “What are they going to ask me, like?”

Billy sad-smiled. “Don’t worry, they won’t drill you nearly as hard as we have.”

“It’s a formality,” Tricia said. “We just have to get it over with.”

The three stabbed at pleasantries and small talk, but the conversation came around to the same questions.

Ronin shifted on Michael’s chair and shrugged. “I wish I had answers.”

“You want someone, something, to blame, you know?” Billy said. Aside from ourselves.