Chapter 15: A Complicated Life

Kelly screamed! “DADDY!”

“JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH!”

“OH, SHIT!” was my contribution to the growing nightmare. Mister O’Connor looked like he was going to kill me, so I ran down the hall to Kelly’s room, with her barely in front of me, our towels fluttering to the floor behind us. I heard him trip over one and sprawl on the floor, and that was the only thing that saved us. I slammed the door behind us, and Kelly grabbed for the door knob an instant before the door rattled and boomed as Mister O’Connor slammed into it. Kelly flicked the lock on it and looked at me wildly.

“Get dressed!” she ordered.

“You think?” We scrambled around looking for our clothing as Kelly’s father pounded on the door and tried to twist the knob. Going through the back of my mind was the thought that he had really gotten his money’s worth with this house. The door was a strong one! What was going through the front of my mind was more elemental. It was very doubtful I was going to survive much past the next ten minutes. Sooner or later, he was going to either come through the door or find an axe to break it down.

I have never dressed so quickly in my life. Out in the hallway Mister O’Connor was mixing his curses, alternating English and Irish. I whispered to Kelly, “What’s a cac?”

She grimaced. “Oh, dear. You don’t want to know. It’s not good.” Kelly grabbed for her phone on her desk while I kept pulling myself together. She started dialing somebody. Maybe it was the police. Maybe she could get them here before he killed me!

I started looking around the room. Kelly didn’t have any weapons visible, unless we were planning on a pink pillow fight. I looked at the window. If I pulled the window out completely, both sashes, I could probably jump, but beneath it was the driveway, and we were on the second story. I’d probably break my legs jumping. Worse, when we got inside, the first thing I had done was kick off my sneakers and toss my jacket on the couch. That was the jacket with my car keys in it. That was hopeless, anyway. A large car was in the driveway, parking me in. I was going to have to run home on broken legs to be safe!

Behind me I heard Kelly on the phone. “Mom! Where are you? You have to get home ... Daddy’s here ... Yes, he’s here ... You should have warned me! ... Grim is here! ... Mom, it’s not funny! Daddy’s pounding on the door and cursing in Gaelic!”

Kelly gave a quiet shriek and tossed the phone on her disheveled bed, still unmade from earlier. That was the least of our problems. If her father got through the door, she could use the towels and sheets to soak up my blood! “Mom’s just a few minutes away. She promised to calm him down. He came over as a surprise.”

“Yeah? It worked!”

Just then there was an ominous creak from the door, and we both pushed back against it from our side. “Daddy, you have to calm down! Mom will be here in a minute. Daddy, stop it!”

That just resulted in more Gaelic. I wasn’t looking forward to Kelly’s mother showing up, either, but I figured she couldn’t cause as much damage. The door kept thumping.

The time until Mrs. O’Connor came home was the most terrifying of my life. The time I spent with Candy Pants Holden and his gang was much more enjoyable. Finally, we heard, “Seamus, I’m home. Come on downstairs and let’s talk.” There was a loud Gaelic response, but then Kelly’s mother’s voice came closer. “Seamus, you’re scaring the children. Let’s go downstairs and talk. Come on.”

“Sharon...”

“Let’s go downstairs and talk, Seamus.”

The pounding on the door stopped and the yelling dropped off. Kelly looked at me from her side of the door where she had been bracing it. I finally took a deep breath and stepped away from the door, fully expecting to have to brace it again. The door didn’t collapse. “Now what?” I whispered.

“Get cleaned up!” she whispered back.

We straightened our clothing, and Kelly tossed the towels into her closet and remade the bed. I still had the need to go downstairs and retrieve my shoes and car keys. On the other hand, once I got downstairs, I might be able to dodge Mister O’Connor long enough to get out a door. I figured I could probably outrun him if need be.

“Kelly, would you and Grim come down please?” It sounded like Mrs. O’Connor was calling from the top of the stairs.

I looked at Kelly and whispered, “Should we?”

“We can’t stay in here forever!” she said. I shrugged. That actually sounded pretty good right now. “Follow me. Daddy won’t hit me, at least.”

While my manly instincts were to go in front, my survival instincts were to stay behind. I just nodded. She flicked the lock and cracked the door. I looked out with her. Our towels were still on the floor in the hallway, but it was otherwise empty. We slowly crept down the hallway. No irate Irish father jumped out at me. Or did the Irish use shotguns? We went down the stairs slowly, with Kelly leading the way.

In the living room, Mister O’Connor was seated, and glowering at me, red-faced. Mrs. O’Connor seemed a lot calmer and was sitting on the couch. She was closer, so I hoped that if Kelly’s dad decided to come after me, she could delay him a bit. “Grim, I think it best if you went home now. I think Kelly and I need to talk with her father.”

Something unintelligible came from Kelly’s father.

I just nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am!” I didn’t even bother putting my shoes on. I simply grabbed them and my jacket and went out the door.

Kelly called out, “I’ll call you later!”

I waved good-bye and went out to the Sienna and locked myself inside. I was able to put my shoes and jacket on then. I started the Sienna and managed to maneuver it out of the driveway and out onto the street, though one side’s tires did bounce down over the curb. I winced at that, but it didn’t seem to hurt the minivan. I drove home wondering what would happen next.

Mom and Dad were out when I got home, so I told Jack to order pizza. My parents came home around nine or so. Mom was surprised to find me sitting there watching television instead of out with Kelly. “Grim, what are you doing here? I thought you and Kelly were going out tonight? Something wrong?”

I didn’t answer, but she must have seen something in my eyes. “Come on, tell me what happened. Is Kelly alright?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so.”

She gave me a Mom look. “What happened? You two get in an argument?”

“No, it wasn’t like that. Uh, her father came home for a surprise visit, so she’s probably spending the weekend with her family.”

“That’s nice. Are Kelly and Sharon still coming over tomorrow? Maybe we should invite them all to dinner?” she asked.

I must have gotten a wild look at that idea! I didn’t want to see Mister O’Connor anytime in the near future, or the far future, come to think about it!

“What happened, Grim?” she pressed.

“Like I said, it was a surprise. We weren’t expecting him to come home.”

She suddenly stopped and looked at me. “Just how bad was the surprise?”

I gulped. “I don’t think they make them any worse, Mom.”

Mom turned her back to me, but I would have sworn I saw a smile. Just then my father came into the room, and we went through it all over again. “Grim, what are you doing here?”

Before I could answer, Mom answered for me. “Seamus O’Connor made a surprise visit home and found Kelly and Grim.”

Dad didn’t even bother to try and hide his laughter. “And you made it out alive? You still have all your body parts, boy?” Mom was snickering, too. I just wanted to crawl into a hole. I headed upstairs, but Dad grabbed me. “In my study, young man.”

“Dad!” I whined.

“Go!” He pointed and followed me. Once inside, he closed the door. “Just how bad was it?”

“Well, he didn’t walk in on us, if that’s what you mean. It was afterwards, but we still hadn’t cleaned things up.”

“Probably the only thing that kept you alive,” he commented.

“Kelly managed to call her mom and she got home in time to calm down Mister O’Connor. They’re having a big talk right now. I don’t know what’s going to happen next,” I told him.

“I can’t say I’m surprised. The way you two have been banging each other for months now, I’m only surprised you haven’t been caught before this!”

“Dad!”

“Give me a fucking break, Grim! Maybe you two need to learn a little discretion and safety!” He shook his head. “Christ, Grim! I should have said something earlier, but she’s only fifteen! You could go to jail for statutory rape!”

Personally, I thought that was a bit extreme. Kelly had told me once that she had looked it up. That only applied if she was under sixteen, and since I was under eighteen and only a year older than she was, it was only a misdemeanor. As long as we didn’t get arrested before the end of February, I wasn’t going to jail. I told her at the time I didn’t want to go to jail even for a misdemeanor, but then she took her tank top off, and I changed my mind.

Kelly and Mrs. O’Connor didn’t come over on Saturday. Kelly did manage to call me and say that her father was under control, but I should stay away until after he went back to London, which wouldn’t be until Tuesday. Then she whispered that she loved me. I guess she didn’t want to chance her father hearing her. I returned the sentiment and told her we would talk in school on Monday.

That was an interesting conversation. We met at lunch in the cafeteria and found a table as far from everybody else as possible. “So, what happened?” I asked her quietly.

Kelly rolled her eyes. “It was pretty bad Friday night. Be glad you escaped.”

“How bad?”

“Daddy kept alternating English and Gaelic. He grounded me for the rest of my life, and then some, and then threatened to send me to a convent school. At least there aren’t any around Matucket!”

“You’re grounded?” That might put a crimp in things!

“Well, at least until he heads back to London. Mom was a whole lot calmer about it. She told me that we weren’t being anywhere near as sneaky about what we were doing as we thought we were.”

I grimaced at that. “My parents told me the same thing. I didn’t get grounded, but they both chewed my ass out. How’d your mom say we got caught by her?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s so much being caught as leaving evidence around. Mom said that she was almost positive that we would ... be intimate, was how she put it,” answered Kelly.

“That’s nicer than my old man put it!” I said.

“Uhhh?”

I lowered my voice. “He basically said we were fucking our brains out every chance we got!”

Kelly blushed, but she also grinned. “That’s pretty true, isn’t it?”

I grinned back at her. “Mom complained that we left the car, uh, smelling like a brothel on Sunday morning.”

Kelly nodded. “Mom said that, too. She also remarked on the vast supply of towels I was washing.”

I simply shrugged. Not much I could do about that. “So, are you really grounded?”

“Just until Daddy flies home. Oh, and over Christmas break, he’s flying Mom and me back to London. He said he’d take us to Paris!” she added excitedly.

“Maybe they have some convent schools over there,” I commented.

“Well, at least we’ll have the rest of November and December until then. Buy a big can of car freshener if we’re using your mom’s minivan. I’ll do the same at the house, and I think my bedroom is out for a long time!”

I rolled my eyes and nodded in agreement. Nothing was going to happen until this weekend anyway. We couldn’t date weeknights and I was back to work in the mill after school. If Mister O’Connor had just waited one more week we would have been fine.

The rest of the semester went along quietly. Mister O’Connor flew back to England and that weekend Kelly and I were able to see each other again. Friday and Saturday night we went out, maybe to the movies or hanging out with friends, and then later we’d go parking. We spent a lot more time cleaning up the Sienna afterwards and driving around with the windows down to air it out. At Thanksgiving, we invited both Mrs. O’Connor and Kelly over to share Thanksgiving dinner. Mr. O’Connor was still in London for another week, so I managed to avoid that peril. We pretty much agreed that when he was back in town to not fool around. In fact, we had pretty much agreed that if he was anywhere in the United States, we would cool it.

We were still in love and dating when Christmas rolled around. School was going to be out for two weeks, from Saturday, December 22, thru Sunday, January 6. That was the same schedule for Kelly and her mother to fly to London. I was going to take Kelly out on Friday night, before they left the next morning. I brought Kelly over to the house first, since my folks were giving her something small, a winter scarf and matching gloves. Then I gave her my present, which was a gold necklace with a gold heart pendant. I mean, it wasn’t 24 karat gold, just 18 karat, but it cost me an arm and a leg, and Kelly liked it so much she started crying. She gave me a photo album of some goofy shots some friends had taken of us, along with a small book of English love sonnets. That one was a real head-scratcher to me since I wasn’t much for poetry.

“Well, read one!” she ordered excitedly.

I cracked the book open and glanced inside. “‘ Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day?’, by William Shakespeare.” I cleared my throat. “There once was a man from Nantucket...” Mom and Dad started laughing raucously and Kelly protested loudly. Then I read the real sonnet, not that I understood it, and got a kiss for my efforts. After that I tossed the book on the coffee table and promised to read it while she was away, as I pined away in desperate devotion. That got my brothers to make gagging sounds. Then we took off.

Later that night we gave each other a totally different sort of present up at the lakefront, in the middle section of the Sienna. That was going to have to hold us for a few weeks.

I did pine away, sort of, while she was gone. This was the longest we had been separated since her summer trip to London and Belfast. If anything, I was more in love with her now. That got me to thinking about her, which my grandfather noticed one day.

“What’s on your mind, Grim?” he asked.

“Just thinking, Grandpa.”

“Most dangerous thing a man can do, Grim. Be careful doing that!” he warned.

“I’ll keep that in mind, Grandpa!” I laughed.

Still, I kept thinking. What was going to happen in the future? Sooner or later Kelly was going to wake up and realize she could do a lot better than me. Or her father might decide to lock her up in a convent school in Ireland. Or she might go off to the International Academy for Genius Supermodels like I occasionally joked with her. Then what would I do?

This was added to because the closer I got to graduation, the less I was interested in going to college. I was signed up to take the SAT test in the spring, mostly because I had nothing better to do and didn’t need the grief I would get from my parents if I didn’t take it. There was an ugly truth coming at me. I might be a candidate for Matucket County Community College, but Kelly was a candidate for Harvard. No matter what she said about not leaving Matucket, she so outclassed me it wasn’t funny. What was I going to do when I turned eighteen and graduated? I’d be here in Matucket, either with a high school diploma and working in the feed mill, or at M-Triple-C, working on an Associate’s and working in the feed mill. Neither prospect sounded all that thrilling to me. Worse, I would have nothing to offer a girl, especially a girl like Kelly. Sooner or later, she was going to wake up and dump my ass on the side of the road.

Grandpa was right. Too much thinking was dangerous. Friday the 28 ^th, I drove Mom to the hospital and borrowed the Sienna. I stayed downtown and drove over to the County Office Building and parked it. I went inside and found what I was looking for. I walked into the office and looked around apprehensively.

“Can I help you?” asked a smiling soldier. He was very large and black, had a shaved head, and had on a camouflage uniform, though I didn’t understand why. Who could he be hiding from in an office building?