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Niall stood in front of the gathered crowd of smiling faces, holding up two cards.
“As you all know, today we’re here to celebrate my brother’s wedding.”
Laughter, and applause. He grinned, his heart in a vice like grip.
“I have two cards with me today. One yellow, and one green.”
“Oy! Get on with it!” Someone from the crowd shouted. They were quickly forced into silence. Niall’s grin turned fixed.
“See, I’ve written two toasts. One on each card. I’m going to let Ruben choose the card. Green or yellow, Ruben?”
He turned to Ruben, eyebrows raised.
Ruben raised his flute of champagne. Niall wanted to knock it out of his hand.
“Green, of course!”
Niall kept his smile perfectly in place. It was happening. His palms were sweating. There was no turning back.
“Well, the green is an interesting pick. The green is what I like to call my “home truth speech.” Or, I suppose you could call it, “when Ruben came through the window”.”
Ruben’s face froze. Niall relished the moment, but continued on. He had one shot. He could very easily be killed today. But he wasn’t going down without a fight.
The crowd was laughing. Of course the crowd was laughing. They assumed he was about to tell a funny little anecdote about their shared adolescence.
“I was young when Ruben and I became family. I’d known him since we were small children. But suddenly, at fifteen, there was this other boy living in my room with me. We were left alone a great deal. Really, I was left to look after Ruben most of the time.”
Their family laughed, Lori shaking her head fondly.
“Well, you know what they say. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. And our hands were quite idle. When I was fifteen…when I was fifteen, and Ruben was eighteen, he crawled in through the window of our room. Him and his lovely wife sitting beside him, Mona.”
The crowd gave a tepid round of applause for the mention of Mona. The woman herself seemed almost dwarfed by her veil. Her eyes bore into Niall's own. Leveled by her stare, his rage mingled with pity.
“I was sleeping, when they crawled into my bed, and pulled my clothes off of me, and made me have sex with her,” he began to speak, gaining speed and volume, “I didn’t want to. I asked them to stop. But I suppose that doesn’t matter much. It struck me that my brother was very generous, forcing me to sleep with his girlfriend.” He took in a large breath, eyes on the blank card in his hand.
“In the morning, at night. In the wintertime, in the summertime. He made me, again, and again. I suppose it must seem like he did me a favor, to those of you in this room. Like maybe I ought to thank them. Of course, years later, Ruben would get out of prison. And he would come visit me in the hospital.”
The card crumpled in his hand. No one moved. No one spoke. A glass shattered.
“I’d knocked the car ornament off his car. I was angry, I suppose. Angry at everything he’d done to me. Of course, what he did was out of generosity. And he continued to be generous, in that hospital room, when he shoved that car ornament up my arse until I was bleeding, and torn open, and screaming for him to stop. But we all know he’s truly a kind, and generous man. And I suppose he could have done worse. Though I can’t imagine how.”
He sat back down, winded, only for Ruben to rise up almost immediately. Niall faced him. Ruben's skin was a chalk white. The crowd had grown discomfited. Niall figured they couldn’t decide if he was a liar, or whether they ought to care at all. Personally, he didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to be done with it. And he supposed now he was meant to be done with it.
But the relief never came. Ruben dove over the table, grabbing him by the lapels, and the relief still did not come. There was only an emptiness, and the realization that everyone now knew what had been eating at him since that first night when he was fifteen. And that it meant nothing to anyone but Niall himself. He was glad he’d told Ava to stay at home.
He landed on the front lawn, and got a kick to the jaw, before the groomsmen grabbed Ruben by the shoulders and hauled him back inside. Niall laid there, on his back, in the grass, and finally felt something settle.
Shame, he thought. The shame was still there, and would not be leaving any time soon. But he could live with it now. He had to.
He wandered around the rented castle for a while. There was no way to get back home, not with all the flooding. They, unfortunately, were all trapped for the rest of the night. He wasn’t keen to go back inside.
He found his mum, eventually, standing out back. She was smoking a cigarette, staring at the sky.
He stopped beside her.
“I suppose you’re happy with yourself?” she asked.
Niall shrugged.
“You blame everything on him. You’ll never be happy if you keep blaming all of your problems on that man.”
“I’m not blaming anything on him except for what he did.”
“And you’re saying he raped you? Is that it, Niall?”
He scowled, leaning back against the cold stone walls. He supposed he expected her to believe him. Though he couldn’t say why he expected it.
“I’m saying he hurt me.”
“People are hurt all the time. They forgive. They move on. You’re stuck in the past.”
He rubbed a hand over his aching eyes.
“And if I let it go? Who remembers then? Nobody. He gets away with it all.”
“I just want you to be happy–”
He slammed his fist against the wall. Niall could feel his face turning an ugly shade of puce.
“No! You want me to make things easier for you. I won’t do that. What happened, happened.”
“Niall.”
They both turned, to find Ruben standing there, hands in his pockets.
Niall figured he looked like some sort of grim reaper. The seventh seal of hell pealing back up. He shook all over. But still he nodded.
“Need to talk to you.”
His mother took a step in front of him.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“And I don’t think I asked you, Lori.”
“What the fuck was that, yeah? You want to make me look like a queer?”
It was dark in the wine cellar. Dark, and dank, and stinking of grapes and cedar wood.
“No. I wanted to make you look like what you are.”
A hand grabbed at the back of his hair.
“Which is what?”
“A monster. A piece of shit father and husband”
His face was slammed into the wall. It happened so suddenly he could barely feel it. Blood was flowing from his mouth. And when Niall looked to the ground, he saw a tooth.
“And maybe I’ll tell them all about you, yeah? How you were always looking at me. Fucking faggot. How fairy-like you were, even when we were kids.”
Niall laughed.
“Oh? I’m the villain here? I’m the freak? You’ve got my face against the wall, Ruben. You’ve knocked my teeth loose.”
He was released suddenly, left to collapse onto the floor.
“Is that what you think of me? That– that I’m a raper?”
He was scared to look at Ruben’s face. He forced his eyes up anyways. Ruben was staring at him, face open and afraid. He looks like a child, Niall thought. He looks lost, and alone.
Empathy welled within him. He thought about it all. Two decades. The countless nights spent in terror, certain Ruben would come for him. The inability to feel anything when he came except for disgust. The missed calls, and lost jobs, days spent curled in the corner. And everything with Baird and Mona.
He used to blame the entire failed experiment of his life, everything before Ava and their daughter, on Ruben.
Now he felt liberated, because he could pin down the restless feeling of blame he felt forced to place at Ruben’s feet. He finally understood what Ruben was actually at fault for. For decades, he didn’t understand the emotion. Didn’t know why it kept with him, pushing him past the limits of normal morality. Everything had to be Ruben’s fault. Because the one thing that was his fault wasn’t allowed to have happened.
Men didn’t get--men didn't get attacked in Glasgow. Not real men. Men surely didn’t consider it rape to fuck a woman at fifteen. They considered it their good luck. And so had Niall. Except for in the deepest part of him. Beneath it all, in the soles of his feet, in the place where he met the Earth and began to sink in on himself. In that place, the knowledge of what had been done to him lived and breathed and made a life for itself. A pernicious life. A life that meant to destroy everything in its path, and to take Niall with it. And it almost had.
But he knew now. And the rest, all the things Niall fucked up himself? He knew he could have tried harder. Made different choices. Stopped himself from hurting the people he cared about.
But he also knew one thing for certain: He didn’t fucking want it that night, when he was fifteen. And he didn’t want it in the hospital bed. And he wasn’t going to recant to make Ruben feel better.
“I’ll make a speech too,” Ruben insisted, “You get up. We’re going back up there, and I’m going to make a fucking speech.”
He was led up the stairs of the cellar by the back of his suit. Caterers stopped, eyes wide and horrified, as Ruben marched Niall further and further through the castle. Back into the reception room, the doors slammed open to find about half of the guests from earlier. People were mingling, barely, in groups of two or three. An uneasy air about them. Mona sat in the corner with her mother and sister, unwilling to indulge anyone. Her eyes vacant.
The whole lot of them turned, wearing varied expressions of shock and horror that Niall was gratified to see.
“Aye. My brother here got to make his speech. I think as groom I’m entitled to one of my own!”
Niall was sat down in the place of honor, Ruben’s hand on the back of his neck. Suffocating him.
“Let me tell you something,” Ruben started off with a sneer, “I loved my brother. I allowed him everything, yeah? I paid his bills. I paid his rent. I bought him signed fucking autographs from his favorite actors. And I did it all, even knowing what he was. I’ll tell you now, huh? Nothing left to hide. Niall Kennedy is a fucking queer. He’s a sick fucking pedophillic queer. And he shouldn’t be allowed near his kid, if I have anything to say about it.”
Niall was busting at the seams. He was a good father. He was. It was perhaps one of the only things in his life that defined him. One of the only things he could actually do well. Until the day he died he knew that 1. He was a writer, and 2. He loved his daughter, and was a good father to her.
But of course Ruben would spin it around on him. Of course Ruben would make it all about Niall and his shortcomings, when this whole exercise had been born out of the fact that Niall knew Baird wasn’t being looked after. He’d held that baby in the delivery room, handed to him by Ruben himself, and he’d looked into his own brown eyes. And he knew it couldn’t go on like this.
He tried to convince himself, in that first year, that Ruben was capable of it. Of changing. Of being the father he claimed he wanted to be.
Niall hadn’t known how to parent himself. Not at first. He’d struggled, holding Ava’s hand, afraid that he wouldn’t love their child. That he was too fundamentally broken.
But things changed. He drove around the block for hours on end to get the baby to sleep. He rocked her, and fed her, and fell asleep half way through the day with her on his chest. He put ear plugs in so he could hold her and weather the sound of her screaming her head off from the teething. He learned very quickly that there was no way to back out. You had a child, you had to be all in. You had to own up. Niall figured Ruben would learn the same thing.
He was wrong.
Niall checked up on Baird after a week, wary of making Mona nervous. He should have known better.
The house had been filthy. Mona was sitting in the living room, her back to Niall. When he moved to sit next to her all she afforded him was an ugly glare.
“You here to gloat, you fucking worm?”
“No.”
He didn’t have the energy to gloat. His own child was six months old. He was barely getting three hours of sleep a night. At this point, he just felt sorry for Mona. Sorry that he put her in this position, no matter how much he hated her.
“Can I help?”
“Do what you want.”
She handed the baby over to him, and he noticed immediately the bruise on her wrist. He wasn’t stupid. He knew who put it there.
He didn't mention it. Instead he fed Baird a bottle, and changed him, and put him back to sleep after remaking the sheets on the crib. The crib that had a noticeable break in its bars, as if someone had, in their frustration, tried to rip one off. He sighed, looking around the nursery, disgusted.
A child couldn’t live like this.
Still, he held out hope. The visits became a bi-weekly thing. Ruben seemed to grow bored of fatherhood quickly, spending more and more time out of the house. He welcomed Niall taking over more responsibility. The great experiment that was closing up the wounds of his own childhood trauma didn’t necessarily account for late night runs to Aldi or two loads of laundry a day.
Niall had the time. He was mainly at home now anyways, writing taking a back seat. Ava had allowed him to move back in about seven weeks after their daughter was born, after a thorough slap across the face that if he ever slept with another woman again he’d be out on the street for good.
He took the threat seriously. Ava, he knew, was fighting her own battles. He’d stayed up with her late at night while she went through ancestry records, wondering if she should try and contact her birth mother. He sat with her as she told him again and again that she was happy with their arrangement. As long as she wasn’t alone, as long as he never beat her, as long as he made sure they would last and grow old together. He wondered if she was lying. He knew her well enough to understand just how important it was to her, to have a family. To have a partner that wasn’t violent. That she didn’t have to worry about leaving her in the middle of the night.
He knew Ava. He knew her better than he knew himself, in some ways. But he didn’t know Mona. Not beyond the child they shared.
What he did know was that Mona was sinking further into herself with each passing day. She refused Ava’s offers of friendship. Refused to take care of Baird. Refused to see her own family.
Ruben, Niall thought, was systematically cutting her off from everyone and everything she held dear, and now she had become a walking corpse.
Niall’s own resentment grew. If he could just– if he could get custody of Baird, then everyone would be happier. It just didn’t seem fair, taking away what Mona loved so dearly.
At least, that was what he thought, until two weeks ago.
He’d stopped by again. His daughter was currently walking, and stringing together half-sentences. Baird was six months old. Obviously he wouldn’t be so far along developmentally. But Niall could tell something else was wrong.
He sat there, with his baby in his arms, and watched as his brown eyes observed the room around them.
“He’s not rolling. The book says he ought to be rolling,” Mona told him.
“What does the pediatrician say?”
He got no answer.
“Mona,” he repeated, trying to meet her eyes, “what does his doctor say? Developmental delays can be common.”
“I dunno. Haven’t found time to take him.”
Niall tried to stay calm.
“When did you last take him?”
“Ah…”
From the look on her face, it was clear to Niall that she perhaps had never taken him.
“Mona…does he have his shots?”
She burst into tears, which only made the baby burst into his own sobs. Niall knew who he felt more sympathy for in the moment.
“You don’t get it! It’s not right. I wanted Ruben’s child. If he was Ruben’s, it would be alright. He would be alright. But he’s not. He’s just like you…” She tried to stand, before falling back into the fetal position.
“Little rats…. the both of you, little rats! God. I want to go home! I hate it here. I hate it! I’m dying Niall, please.”
He stood up, and took a step forward, until he was looming over her.
“Then give him up.”
“What?” She asked.
“I’ll draw the papers up. Give him to me, and it’ll be done. You can go back home.”
“Ruben won’t…he won’t let me.”
“Don’t worry about Ruben.”
She laughed.
“You don’t get it. He’s gone mental. He’s convinced if he can raise Baird right, it’ll make up for his Da’ fucking molesting him. He– I wish his old man had killed him. And I wish Ruben had killed me. I wish we all were dead.”
Niall took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Something like a righteous sort of rage began to flow through him. He paced around the nursery, filled with items Niall and Ava had picked out. And he placed Baird down carefully, into the replacement crib Niall and Ava had brought over from their own home.
And then he stood up once more, before sinking to the ground to sit beside her.
“Why?”
“Why what?!”
He wasn’t sure. That was the problem.
“You’re upset because he raped you.”
“No…Ava. Don't use that word. He never did anything like that to me.”
She laughed, lying back down on the dead grass of their backyard. She closed her eyes.
“Niall, love…what do you call it then? What he did to you?”
He didn’t have a name for it. But it wasn’t that. Ruben loved him. Ruben was his brother.
“I was a teenager. I mean, I was lucky. All boys want to get laid.”
“What if something like that happened to Baird?”
He froze, blood turning to ice. That wasn’t–the thought made him–
He stood up, and stumbled over to the bushes by the back of the lawn, vomiting weakly.
He stayed hunched over, for a long while until a hand rubbed his back.
“Niall…don’t cry.”
He hadn’t realized he was crying. He still didn’t feel like he was crying.
“I–”
The baby monitor came to life, the sound of a child’s wail– “Daddy!”
He got up, and wiped his tears off without turning around, and then he and Ava went upstairs to the nursery.
“That’s real ballsy coming from you, Ruben.”
Niall wasn’t sure what he was doing. He was going to be killed tonight. He was sure of it.
Mona was staring at him in horror, her mother’s arm around her shoulders. Ruben shook him back and forth, Niall’s blood spraying all over the white tablecloth.
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?!”
“You think that baby’s yours?”
Niall’s head was shoved down onto the table. He could tell people were crowding, trying to get Ruben off of him. He was gratified to hear gasps.
“He is mine! He is!”
Niall tried to push up against him.
“He’s not! He’s got brown fucking eyes, Ruben!”
Suddenly he was able to sit up. Two of Mona’s brothers had Ruben pushed up against the wall.
“You son of a bitch!”
“You don’t deserve him,” Niall insisted, “You don’t–”
And he was crying again. Nothing man that he was, absolute piece of shit, he was crying in the one moment he should be calm and in control.
“I am a fucking queer, yeah? I don’t give a damn. That’s what Alby was going to tell you, before you beat his face in,” Ruben scoffed, but Niall bowled right over him, taking a step forward, ”And you know it, too. Lie all you want, but you know why you really did it. A child– a baby isn’t a vessel for you to right your wrongs through!”
From the corner of his eye he could see Mona collapse. This was the end. He knew this was the end. He couldn’t stop.
“You haven’t taken him to the doctor Ruben! You don’t clean him, or feed him, or play with him! I do it all, for you! My oh, so generous brother. My brother who rapes and beats his brother, and beats his wife, and will probably beat my child. Because Baird is mine! And I’m not letting you have him!”
It felt like a pin could drop, and you might be able to hear it. No one moved for a moment, no one spoke. Looking at Ruben, Niall thought of the singular moment before a tidal wave bowled you over. When all was calm on the shore.
And then Ruben lunged forward, out of the grasp of Mona’s brothers, towards Niall.
Lori, who Niall hadn’t even seen enter the room, screamed.
Niall ducked down, trying to avoid Ruben’s swing. He only barely succeeded.
“I’m going to fucking kill you. I’m going to kill you!”
He fell onto his hands and knees, kicking out as Ruben tried to grab onto him.
His eyes widened as Mona cracked a plate over Ruben’s head. He dropped like a ton of bricks.
He met her gaze for what felt like an eternity. Her quivering little mouth, her hate-filled eyes, mascara running. Something passed between them. One of her brothers grasped her shoulder, and the moment was broken. She turned her back on Niall and Ruben both.
He sat there on the ground, blood still drying on his face. It felt like the whole world was judging him.
Baird came to stay with them for good on a Saturday. The Child Services Officer handed the car-seat over to Niall, who took it gently. He understood the arrangement.
Ruben was now in jail for the foreseeable future. Fifteen years was the low-end estimate. With the issue of biological paternity settled, it had been extremely easy for him and Ava to take the whole thing to family court.
Now, they would be keeping Baird with full custody until Mona could complete the mandated therapy program for her Postpartum Depression. And then, if she wanted it, she would be allowed weekend visitation.
Ava didn’t love the idea. She still didn’t like Mona. Didn’t like the idea of sharing. This was their family, she told Niall. And their family didn’t include extra members like Mona. He was sure protracted legal battles would follow, if Mona decided to go that route. Sometimes he was amazed at how similar he and Ava really were. It was probably why they worked so well together.
He felt a bit melancholy, moving Baird up to the nursery with their daughter, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. She cooed over him, babbling until he agreed to put them onto the play mat together. It took a second, but eventually she reached over and held Baird’s little hand in hers, and Baird smiled a gummy smile.
Niall wiped the sweat off his cheeks. Sweat, and not tears. The children laughed, like children ought to. And had no idea about the world beyond this one room. All that existed to them was this singular moment, where they were together, and they loved each other.
This is what it should have been like, he thought, between him and Ruben. But he supposed they never had a chance.