Page 58 of Finding Him
Molly sits beside me on the floor, a big grin on her face. She’s close enough that our shoulders brush. Lorraine gently sits Atticus on her lap and reaches in to pluck Penelope out, letting the two of them tumble over her legs. “I love them. I love them all. Can we take all three, Molly? Please?”
“Absolutely not,” Molly shakes her head. “One is plenty, Rainey. Mom would kill me if we brought home three cats.”
“But they’re siblings! It’s cruel to separate them!” Lorraine argues passionately.
Before Molly can argue back, the front door bangs open with the subtlety of a bomb going off. Heavy footsteps thunder down the front hall, accompanied by a loud, off-key whistling.
“Nialler! I brought you—oh, hello.”
JJ skids to a halt in the doorway, a plastic shopping bag dangling from his wrist. He takes in the scene—the three of us sitting in my living room, covered in kittens.
“You,” Lorraine says, pointing a tiny, accusatory finger at him. “You’re the cart crasher.”
JJ’s face lights up with a massive, goofy grin. He doesn’t miss a beat. He drops the plastic bag on the armchair and immediately throws himself onto the floor right next to her, criss-crossing his legs.
“What? Would I do something like that?” JJ feigns innocence, reaching over to pluck Shannon out of the basket. “It doesn’t sound like me. I’m JJ. And you must be the famous Lorraine I’ve heard absolutely nothing about.”
Molly rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling.
“I’m eight,” Lorraine tells him, as if that explains everything about her.
“Brilliant. I’m basically eight too, mentally, so some people say,” JJ replies completely seriously. He holds the white and orange kitten up like Simba in The Lion King, presenting her to Lorraine. “Have you met Shannon? She’s mental. Watch this.”
He grabs a feather wand toy off the floor and begins waving it frantically above his own head. Shannon launches herself from his lap, scrambling up his shirt and latching onto his shoulder, swatting madly at the feathers.
Lorraine bursts into a fit of giggles, a bright, chiming sound that fills the room. Within thirty seconds, the two of them are completely engrossed in a high-stakes game involving all three kittens, a laser pointer JJ had apparently brought with him, and a lot of unnecessary yelling.
I watch them for a moment, shaking my head. It’s genuinely difficult to tell who’s having more fun, the eight-year-old girl or my sixteen-year-old best mate. JJ has always been like this. He possesses a chaotic, puppy-like energy that makes him impossible to hate and makes you feel like you just have to join in on his antics.
I feel a shift in the air and turn my head. Molly is standing up from the floor, watching JJ and Lorraine with a small smile, but then she turns and begins to wander slowly around the perimeter of the room.
Our house isn’t small, but it is cluttered, and very lived-in. One thing we always have had an abundance of is photographs. Every spare inch of wall space, every mantle, every side table is covered in framed pictures.
I hang back, keeping my hands shoved in my pockets as I watch her. She stops in front of the large gallery wall on the far side of the sitting room. I take the chance and walk closer to her.
“Your family really likes pictures,” she murmurs, leaning in to look at a small, silver frame. It’s a picture of Claire and me when we were probably six and four, both of us missing front teeth, covered in mud in the back garden.
I step up behind her, keeping a safe distance, though my skin still prickles with the awareness of our proximity.
“My dad,” I say quietly. “He loved taking them. Always had a camera strapped around his neck. Claire inherited it from him, ‘s why she’s always taking pictures.”
Molly smiles softly, trailing her fingers lightly over the edge of a wooden frame. “That’s nice. It’s like... you have your whole life mapped out right here on the wall.”
Her eyes track upwards, moving across photos of family holidays to Spain, school plays, and football tournaments. Her eyes pause, staying on one specific photo. I know exactly which picture she’s looking at before she even says anything.
It’s a black and white portrait of Da. Just him, when he was about my age. The photo was frozen on him mid laugh, and he looks young, vibrant, and completely untouchable. Totally alive.
“This is him, right?” Molly asks, her voice dropping to a whisper. She turns her head slightly to look at me. “He looks just like you.”
The words feel like a cold stone dropping into the pit of my stomach.
He looks just like you.
I hear it all the time. From my mother, from my aunts, from Mr. O’Reilly at the pound store who had known him since he was a kid.
It’s a suffocating kind of legacy. A constant, visual reminder of the man I’m supposed to be, the man who was gone, the man I feel like I’m failing every single day I wake up with my heart pounding from dreams of drowning in water.
“Yeah,” I force the words out, my voice tight. I swallow hard, dragging my eyes away from the photograph and focusing on a scuff mark on the skirting board. “I get that a lot.”
