She waves a hand at me. “Yes, and you have a membership to the leisure center where you swim sometimes, and lift, and do Pilates every now and then too. But all of that is planned exertion, Rob. You’re sweaty and rubbing your leg. I’m not an idiot. I’m fluent inmy big brother’s a dumbass who doesn’t always listen to his limits.”
I’ve been living with this disability for more than a decade. I most definitely have a better idea of where my limits are than my sister ever could. But, as much as “the non-disabled family member knows better than the disabled person” might rub some people the wrong way, it curls another warm vine around my heart and squeezes just enough to remind me that it’s still beating.
It’s a subtle reminder that I’m loved, and even if Emma doesn’t always go about it in the right way, her heart is in the right place.
I haul my ass out of the car and force myself to walk into the house without a limp to spite her. “That’s a really niche language. Is it on your language app?”
She snorts, swinging my front door closed behind her like she owns the place. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Well. I guess this is happening right now then. She didn’t even let me get the kettle on before she started shrieking like a fucking banshee. It’s only midafternoon, and I’m already exhausted. I’m not sure I’ve got the fortitude for a confrontation with my sister, but I also can’t see a way around it. Because when her nostrils flare like that, Emma meansbusiness.
“You nearly ended up in fucking prison last time you got tangled up with the Morrigan family, Rob. Or have you forgotten the small detail of the prohibitory injunction?” She labors over every word, slowly, like she’s trying to make sure her point gets across.
I shudder at her words. I remember every single syllable written on that legal document. It covered harassment, defamation, and trespassing. If I’d found any dirt on Michael Morrigan or Taranis, it would have prevented me from printing anything about them too. If I’d broken it, I’d have been in contempt of court, which meant fines or jail. I pull out a chair from the dining room table. If I’m not getting out of this without being ripped a new arsehole, at least I’ll be off my throbbing leg while it happens.
“That’s what I thought. It’s burned into your memory, just like it is mine and Mum’s.” She doesn’t add that it’s right there with the memory of me driving Dad’s old car off the edge of a cliff in a bid to end my life. But it’s hanging between us like a permanent bad smell that refuses to leave no matter what you spray into the air.
“What the fuck were you thinking banging his daughter in The Rusty Anchor?” Her voice is so loud and screechy that I’m sure all the dogs of Larne can hear her and are howling their two pennies worth into the conversation.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I didn’t recognize Rhiannon in her wedding dress, but there’s no mistaking theMorrigan women. I could have picked her out of a lineup, even if she had a paper bag over her head.
“You weren’t thinking, were you?” Emma continues, her words all charged with frustration. “All the blood rushed to your dick when you saw a pretty girl with a sob story running out on her wedding. Did you think she’d give you the scoop if you gave her the O?” She smacks the button on the kettle like it’s said something stupid. “Tit for tat? Literally.”
I open my mouth to answer, but she doesn’t pause to let me. “How could you be so stupid? Things had just started to settle after the court case. You’re getting your legs back under you at work.” She swings open the cupboard above the toaster, reaching for two mugs. She’s making me tea, so I’m not yet on her “to murder” list, but it doesn’t feel like I’m too far away from it either.
That, or she’s making tea for her accomplice who’s on their way to help her murder me.
Could go either way with our Emma to be fair.
“It’s not like you don’t know who she is. She’s kind of a big deal. So?” She gestures at me. “Go on. Tell me what the hell you were thinking? Or did you just trip over a step in the bar and your dick fell into a woman in a bridal gown?”
She glares, folding her arms in a move supposed to intimidate me, but all it does is remind me of how small she is.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s tempting to reach for it, but I might lose a hand if I ignore my sister.
One of her eyebrows bounces. “Well?”
“Oh, you’re really asking?” I guess she actually wants an answer. Another buzz of my phone, followed quickly by another.
Her frown deepens as the kettle clicks, the water bubbling in the kettle to tell us it’s finished.
“Not that I have to justify who I put my dick in, but she came on to me. She wanted to clear her mind after telling theworld that piece of shit cheated on her with her best friend. And I wasn’t going to reject her after what she’d been through.” I’m most definitely not admitting to fantasizing about her a time or two over the years, either.
Emma’s mouth falls open. “You weren’t… going to…rejecther?” Her voice climbs an octave as she repeats my words. “It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact there was a juicy story to go with getting railed in the loo? Or sticking it to her father?” She sighs, clearly at her wit’s end with me. “Did you have someone waiting there to take a picture of you playing tonsil tennis with her?”
At my indignant scowl, she continues. “You’re not a dumb university student anymore, Robert. You’re a grown-ass man in his thirties. You should really start acting like it.”
Emma really has the mum disappointment tone and stare down pat. She makes us tea, places the mugs on the table, then sits. “I really don’t know what you thought you were doing.” She shakes her head.
“I really don’t know how it’s your business.” It was a throwaway comment, but it was absolutely the wrong thing to say because she squawks like a fucking parrot.
“Because it’s all over the goddamn internet, Robert. And we’re your family. You think I wanted to know where you stuck your dick today? Because while I might love you, I have precisely zero interest in knowing that information. Ever.”
She grinds the heels of her hands into her eye sockets as though trying to erase the memories of what she read online. “You’re so fucking confrontational. Always need to be the person standing up for everyone else or calling out injustice. Act first, think later. Same old Robert.”
She says some of those things like they’re bad, but surely calling out injustices is a good thing… right?
My therapist says Emma hasn’t processed the trauma of my trying to kill myself. She never went to therapy; my parentsdidn’t either. The harrowing incident does lend itself to the occasional jibe about how selfish I am, or how reckless I am, or something else from the leg-long list of flaws I have.
