Riley
The mood at the table is tense, not at all like the last time we were gathered here. Everyone is trying to force a bit of cheer and some conversation, a few laughs. Ian doesn’t raise his eyes. He’s sitting opposite me but he feels further away than ever, as if he’s keeping me at a distance – or as if he’s just realised that this thing we have isn’t wasn’t what we thought it was.
I sigh, disheartened as I try to eat a few bites of turkey but my stomach is so full it hurts me terribly, enough to make me feel nauseated.
A loving hand rests gently on my arm.
“Excuse me dear, could you remind me what your name is?”
“I’m Riley,” I tell him kindly.
“Riley,” he repeats to himself as if he were trying to connect me to something in his mind. “And why are you here?”
“Karen invited me.”
He smiles upon hearing his wife’s name. “And are you a friend of the boys?”
“I’m Ian’s friend.”
He looks his children over and then returns his eyes to me.
“You know,” he says starting back up to eat. “Ian came to us when he was 15 years old. He was angry, hurt and suspicious. He wouldn’t let anyone get close to him.” Without realising, he raises his voice. “They advised us against taking on a boy like him because the wounds in his heart were too deep.”
I can barely hold back the tears that threaten to choke me.
“But I – we,” he corrects himself, looking at Karen who isn’t holding back anything, “We did it. We knew his rage wasn’t directed at us, and that his hard shell wasn’t because he was bad…I don’t know if I’m explaining this well.”
“You are,” I say taking his hand in mine.
“He was just a boy then, but he’s become a man now.”
I can feel Ian’s eyes on me. I can feel how upset he is, his anguish and his desire to jump across the table and put a stop to the conversation. But I also feel his pain and his need for it to come to light.
“He’s been through a lot,” he says, shaking his head and drying his eyes. “And no one noticed him, what he was going through. He was left alone in the world and for days at a time lived under the steps at the stadium outside the school. Who knows how long it had been since he had eaten something,” he says innocently, shaking his head. “We had our two boys, you see,” he points to Nick and Ryan, who aren’t doing a very good job of masking their emotions. “But we didn’t consider it even for a minute. A look between Karen and I was enough and our decision was made.”
I look at Karen, who is holding Ryan and Nick’s hands.
“When Nick brought him home to us that night, cold, scared and lost, something in my heart broke.”
That same thing is breaking mine right now.
“He didn’t have anything, and we—”
“And they gave me everything,” Ian interrupts. “They fed me, took care of me, dressed me and sent me to school. They allowed me to play rugby, to have a house, a family and…a life,” he says calmly and raising his eyes to look at mine. “They gave me what I needed and a lot more.”
I’m tied to him, to his eyes and everything he’s telling me without saying a word.
His torment and his pain, that feels a lot like mine.
His desire to open up and his fear of being abandoned again.
His immense heart that is always trying to hide away, instead of letting it show, even though he doesn’t realise it.
I stay tied to him, to what I’m feeling, to what I want: Ian O’Connor.
Always.
