The Weight of Him(46)

Tricia slapped his hand away. “What are you doing?” She checked the pulse at Ivor’s neck and his wrist.

An anguished cry gathered in Billy’s chest, fighting to get out.

Thumbs Tom also appeared, his deformed hand reaching between Billy and Tricia, offering a dripping bottle of water. He waved his free hand, beckoning the first aid crew.

Tricia eased Ivor’s head onto her lap and brought the water bottle to his pale lips. “Come on, son, wake up. You’re all right. Take a little drink for me, now, good boy. Ivor?” Her voice climbed. “Ivor?”

Wake up, Billy silently screamed.

The crowd pressed closer, sending up anxious whispers. “Is he all right? What’s going on?”

“Give us a sec,” Billy growled. When he looked back down, Ivor’s hand covered Tricia’s on the water bottle, the boy drinking in deep gulps. The sense of relief almost knocked Billy off his knees, as did the sudden memory.

When Michael was a baby, he would clasp Billy’s hand on his bottle of formula during feeds. The memory was so strong, Billy could almost feel Michael’s fierce baby grasp and the sticky warmth of his tiny hand. Michael’s eyes would also fasten on Billy, wide and inky blue then, and full of trust.

Ivor remained sprawled on the grass, his color returning. Billy reached to stroke the boy’s head, but Ivor pulled away. Billy reached again, frowning. Ivor scrabbled backward on all fours, like a crab from a net.

“Come on, Ivor,” Tricia said, hooking him under his arms and helping him to stand up. “Let’s get you home.”

After several sad attempts, Billy succeeded in getting up off his knees and onto his feet. Tricia held on to Ivor’s arm, the boy still woozy. “Here, let me,” Billy said, reaching again for Ivor.

“Don’t,” Tricia said through gritted teeth.

Billy scanned the onlookers, his shame mounting. “I was trying to help.”

“Help?” she said, incredulous. “This is all your fault.” Everyone started to move off, pretending at discretion and a return to the business of the walkathon. “Couldn’t you have let the child alone and not always be pressuring him?”

“Me?” Billy said. When did he ever pressure Ivor? She was the one always nagging the boy about his weight. She pressured all the children, except John, her favorite. He wondered if she’d even admitted to herself how much she’d drilled Michael about going to UCD and getting that ag science degree. As for him? He hadn’t wanted Ivor to look bad in front of everyone, that was all. Hadn’t wanted the other children sneering and teasing.

Tricia’s eyes cut to the parents and children still looking on while pretending not to. “There, you’ve made a show of us again, are you satisfied now?”

He whirled around and plodded toward his car, his knuckle in his mouth, his teeth biting hard. In his periphery, he spotted Aidan Burke, the boy bent over, his hands on his knees. Billy charged, hobbling on his right foot. “You!”

He wagged his finger in Aidan’s face. “It was your fault. I saw that knock you gave Ivor.” He looked around the field for Cormac Cullen. He had a few choice words for that lad as well. For his father, too, if he was here. Aidan started to walk away. Billy followed him. “You better say sorry to Ivor, you hear me?”

“For what?”

“Don’t give me that.”

Nancy Burke reached them, out of breath. “What’s going on?”

“That lad needs to learn some manners,” Billy said.

“I beg your pardon—”

Billy moved off, leaving her mouth hanging.

*

Billy couldn’t shake the scene inside Flynn’s Field. How the army of spectators had stared. He could imagine the talk.

Did you see him dragging the boy? Sure, you wouldn’t do that to a donkey.

I’d say there’s a lot more goes on there behind closed doors than any of us know.

It’s pure neglect, the size they’re letting the lad get to. And then what he said to Aidan Burke.

I thought Billy Brennan was a teddy bear, but now I’m starting to wonder.

Maybe Michael had more reason to do what he did than they’re making out.

Billy needed fast food. Just this once. He would go to the pretty young cashier in Seanseppe’s, the one with the black hair parted in the middle and flicked out like crow’s wings. She always had a soft smile for him, and never reacted to his size, or the size of his order, not even his most outrageous pig-outs.

He phoned Denis. “I’m mad tempted, I need something hot and greasy and salty—”

“No, you don’t. Now, calm down.”

“Yeah, not working. I’d eat my own hand right now if it was deep-fried.”

“Okay, okay, give me a few nice big breaths,” Denis said.

Billy thought about hanging up, about the pretty, smiling cashier.

“I don’t hear you,” Denis said. “Come on, Billy,” he said gently.

Billy drew a long, loud breath that felt slicing.





Fifteen

In the days after the walkathon, Billy tried to make amends with Ivor, but the boy wasn’t having any of it. “Leave me alone.”

Tricia continued to shut Billy out, too, doing and saying only the bare minimum to keep up some semblance of normalcy in front of the children. Billy retreated more and more to the garage and his other world.