“Bob Dylan wrote songs while stoned,” Conor replies, sitting cross-legged. “Tons of artists write their best hits when high. Drugs and music go together like peanut butter and jam.”
“If you say so.” I smirk as we pass the joint back and forth in between working our way through the beer. The one good thing about freezing our asses off at the top of Killiney Hill on a winter’s night is the beer is nicely chilled.
We play our guitars as we work on the melody for a new track. Then Conor gets a text from his grandpa saying he’s on his way, so we pack up and start the trek down to the car park.
“What’s a song you like you’d never admit to in public?” Conor asks as we try not to trip over the uneven path in the dark.
I don’t even have to think about it. “‘I Knew I Loved You’ by Savage Garden.”
“Why?”
“It’s the lyrics and the sentiment behind them. It resonates with me personally.”
“How?” He brushes stray branches out of the way, and I duck my head to avoid a piece of bark in face.
Maybe it’s the beer or my semi-stoned state or the fact I know with complete confidence that Conor will never tell a soul what I confide in him, but I find myself opening up without hesitation. “My entire life I’ve felt like there’s this void inside me. I’m constantly searching for a sense of completion—the missing pieces I need to feel whole. Those lyrics could’ve been written especially for me, but it’s more than that. It’s the notion that fate is out there waiting to be claimed. It gives me hope that whatever I’m seeking is out there. That there could be a time when I don’t feel so empty. Where I’menough.” I shrug as we exit the narrow path and hit the back of the car park. “It just speaks to me.”
“You want to dream someone into life,” he says, nodding as we walk across the large empty space in the direction of the headlights streaming towards us.
“You know the song?” Savage Garden are not a current or cool choice among my peers, but Conor has always danced to his own beat.
“Music is my only companion. There isn’t much I don’t know.”
“You know about the emptiness, don’t you?”
He stops and turns to me with a rare lucid look. “Darkness is who I am. That is a given.”
“What happened?” I ask as curiosity gets the better of me. I’m not normally one to pry.
“Maybe someday I’ll tell you.” He starts walking towards his grandpa’s car, and I keep pace with him.
He stalls with his hand on the door handle, glancing sideways at me. “Hang your hopes on the stars, O’Donoghue. It might be too late for me, but you can still pack your bag for outer space.”
I’m cleaning out the cow barn when Da’s rusted brown 4x4 comes to a noisy stop outside.
“Dillon,” he calls out, and I stop what I’m doing and jog to the entryway. Da leans out the driver’s side window. “Get in. I need your help with the fencing on the top field.”
“I thought Shane was helping with that?” Although my brother manages the business side of running the farm, he’s very hands-on too, and I know he was working with Da to replace some of the rotten wooden fencing around the larger field.
“Fiona was feeling under the weather today, so he stayed home to look after her.” Shane only told us last week he’s knocked his long-term girlfriend up. Baby’s due next year. It wouldn’t be for me, but Shane’s happy as a pig in shite. Ma is super excited at becoming a granny, and it’s helping to distract her from her grief.
I climb up beside my ole man and we take off. Country music plays in the background as we amble over the bumpy path towards the rear of our extensive farm. Da doesn’t speak, but it’s just his way.
He puts me to work immediately, hammering the posts into the ground while he secures the panels. It’s repetitive work, but it’s soothing on the brain. The only sounds out here are the rustling of the wind through the trees, the intermittent chirping of birds, the pounding of two hammers, and the screaming of my own thoughts.
Since Ma and me had our little talk last month, I’ve thought a lot about my bio parents and what she said. There’s an overwhelming sense of sadness I never had a chance to know my mother. I’ve wondered what part of America I was born in and what my life might have been like if I’d grown up there. Would I still have found music? Was one of my bio parents a musician? Is that where I get this calling from? Would I still have felt this ache inside? Is that missing piece the mother I never knew? Guilt crawls up my throat at that thought, like always, and I swing the sledgehammer harder as if it can pound the horrible thought from my brain.
I don’t want to believe this hole inside me is from missing the woman who gave me life when I have the best fucking mother in the world. It feels like such a disrespect to Ma to even think such a thing. That cannot be the reason for the emptiness I feel. But I sure as fuck am not aching for that prick that gave me up with little consideration.
I’ll be seventeen in two months, and I can start a conversation with my aunt’s friend in the agency that will lead to finding where I came from. I haven’t changed my mind, per se, but a part of me wants to confront that man and ask himwhy? Why did he discard me so easily? Why didn’t he want to cling to me as something precious created with his wife before she died? Perhaps their marriage was like Jay’s parents’ marriage—a totally shitty one—and he saw a two-for-one opportunity to terminate it permanently.
I don’t know.
And that’s the problem.
What if this ache is because I’m missing the truth? Will it always exist unless I have all the answers? Should I take a risk and find out in the hope it will help me to find the closure I so desperately need?
I don’t know.
