The Six One News hums in the background when my daughter pipes up.

'A relative of yours, Mam?'

A Kilkenny man —our namesake, my née name — is being held in an ICE detention centre in El Paso, Texas.

Overstayed his welcome.

'Probably a long-lost brother,' I say.

She smiles.

 

The joke lingers between us.

But the clock in the kitchen keeps ticking.

He made it.

My older brother.

The carpenter.

He carved our family name and crest into that timepiece as if he could anchor time itself. As if wood and varnish could hold what flesh cannot.

And just like that I am pulled back — to the year of Mary’s movement, when Irish grottos filled with people pressing forward with rosaries in hand, eager to catch a glimpse of the divine in the ordinary.

That same year my brother’s hands went cold.

As did my heart.

My fifteen-year-old heart.

That same year the devil, in the form of drink, took up residence in our home.

If only he had gone to the lights that Sunday night when he stumbled out of the Crown.

His death changed the dynamics of our family forever.

Our father turned tables in pure frustration.

Our mother passed beads through her fingers.

And me —

I hated my parents.

I hated bearing witness to their misery.

I hated my older brother.

I hated God.

I hated the taste of grief.

I hated the trick played on us.

No rod or ruler could measure the sorrow of that night.

Photo albums passed from hand to hand.

 

Every handshake carried a “Sorry for your loss,” and I made my mother proud with “Thanks for coming — make sure to get a cuppa tea.”

The parade went on and on until the last visitor left and the key turned in the lock.

More tea was made but left undrunk.

Paddy Power was the popular choice among the men of the house.

A once happy-go-lucky house was beginning its downward spiral.

Our mother was a saint.

She somehow held her shit together while the rest of the responsible adults lost their heads, knocking back shot after shot as Molly Malone and her wheelbarrow words were sung into the early hours.

I remember Mam sitting with her son while the rest of the family staggered off to bed in a stupid stupor.

I kissed my brother goodnight on the lips like lovers do.

 

Which felt inappropriate.

But his lips were the only part of his body untouched.

The next morning we rose to meet the sun with heaviness in our hearts — and some with a hangover, craving the hair of the dog.

Death is a funny thing.

It builds a ceiling and a floor and traps you inside a room with no doors.

No windows.

And still the light gets in.

You cannot leave until grief moves on.

You are stuck in the gap where nothing is happening, yet everything is happening around you.

That was the feeling when St. Nicholas opened its doors to receive my brother for a final prayer.

The house was full but hollow.

Conversations floated without landing.

Breath steamed the stained-glass windows, as if the sky had lowered itself to pave a solid road for the walk we were about to make — the last one as a complete family.

The bell rang.

The heaviness of my brother was felt by all in attendance as he was lifted onto the shoulders of the men built for heavy lifting and the slow walk down the aisle.

The men carry the body.

The women carry the living.

My mother led us, her arm linked with her eldest daughter.

Her second daughter, followed with a wreath of white roses and lilies.

Then my younger sister — our “Irish gift,” born on Mam’s birthday — guiding John by the hand.

And me.

I walked last.

The baby on my hip, five years old and too young to understand why everyone was standing and staring at us.

Too young to know this was Day Two.

The day of carrying.

The day of silence.

The day before the earth would open.

We moved forward as one line.

But we were already divided.

The days that followed thinned out.

Visitors came less and less until they were gone — back to work, back to school, back to life.

And we returned too.

But not the same.

We were still underwater.

The flood had us by the ankles, the throat, the mind.

If recovery was forming anywhere, it was not yet in us.

After my brother’s death, life did not feel as though it could rise again.

It felt as if it were collapsing inward, caving inside our chests — that knock at the door in April splitting our family clean in two.

Behind closed doors the dust settled.

Whiskey was poured.

Rosary beads clinked.

Our grief was an immovable mountain.

It flooded everything.

The clock he carved.

My mother’s face.

The taste of tea.

The sound of laughter.

There was no telling where grief ended and we began.

It had to run its course.

Wounds widened.

The devil laughed.

He was the victor.

I could not see resurrection.

The load was too heavy to carry.

And still the world kept turning.

The first fifteen years of life wiped clean.

Thanks to my older brother.

My memories of those years are few.

Apple of my parents’ eyes.

The golden child.

Daddy’s pet.

Mammy’s little helper.

Playing catch with my brothers and sisters.

Fresh air.

Endless hours climbing trees.

Building treehouses with my older brother.

Then —

Not the golden child.

 

Not daddy's pet.

 

Mammy's little thief.

 

Stole her engagement ring.

 

I gave it away.

To my best friend.

Róisín.

A birthday present.

Mam whipped me a new one for my stupidity.

I felt the sting of every slap.

Not a tear did I shed.

Because it was worth it —to see the look on my best friend’s face in receiving the gift.

Priceless.

The ring came back as good as new.

No harm.

No foul.

A memory made.

A story to tell to the next generation.

With legs, of course.

Because where’s the craic in telling a yarn if you can’t stretch the truth a little?

But the fun and games of yesterday were over.

This was the here and now.

And the years ahead would change us for good.

Life would never be the same again.

For my family.

Or for me.

 

And still the clock in the kitchen keeps ticking.

 

Our brother’s blood, sweat and tears in that timepiece.

 

The hour has come and gone.

 

The house is changed.

 

We are changed.

 

But the clock ticks the same way it did before the knock.

 

I didn’t know it then.

I didn’t know that one knock could break a family in ways that would take a lifetime to understand.

I only knew that my brother was gone.

And the clock he made was still ticking