The Things You Don't See

3. The Missing and The Lost (Cassie)

The rain in Dublin was a torrential downpour. Walking down the pavement with my friend, Dylan, we were talking about the new Marvel film coming out soon, 'Avengers: Endgame.' And we were excited beyond belief. Seeing as we both bonded over the Marvel and DC comics when we were younger, our favourite characters were coming to life on the big screen and we could barely contain our excitement. We'd seen 'Infinity War' on opening day, ditching school because of it. Something that our parents did not approved of when they found out that we'd cut classes to see a film. We didn't regret one thing, even though we were both trying to hold back our tears at the end of it anyway. We'd went to a local ice cream shop and ate our sorrows away with it.

"Can you believe that it's going to be an end of an era?" Dylan asked me.

"I know," I stated. "We've grown up with these films. Now it's a whole new phase for Marvel."

"What are they going to do without Robert Downey Jr?" Dylan asked.

"Learn to use the actors they have at their disposal," I retorted. Dylan rolled his eyes at me. He had learnt to get used to my sarcastic responses.

He held the umbrella over us as we walked down the street. "Do you want to come over for dinner? I know your parents are working late tonight."

Dylan nodded his head. "What's for dinner?"

"Probaby cottage pie," I responded. "I have two packages of beef mince to use up and it clears a lot of shite out of the fridge."

Dylan scoffed at the my comment, but it wasn't in a mean way. "Sure," he said. "That sounds great. You're a better cook than your mam. Though I love your mam dearly."

"Because I season my food?" I asked. As much as I loved my mam dearly, she never seasoned her food. It had always drove me insane so when I started cooking, I seasoned the ever loving shite out of my food. Though my mam complained about it being 'too salty' everyone else in the flat seemed to love it. "Do you mind if you keep Nick and Lynette occupied while I cook dinner? I don't want them running around in the kitchen.

"I will happily play Uncle Dylan," Dylan responded.

'Uncle Dylan' was the name Noam and Linoy called him. Seeing as he had been a staple in their lives, seeing as he lived right next to us, and was always over at our flat, it was a natural thing. Dylan didn't seem to mind and neither did my sister-in-law and my mam. As long as everyone who was involved was okay with it, it was fine with me.

As we arrived in the public housing sector of Dublin, the two of us did our best to keep our heads down and not cause a scene or draw attention to ourselves. As the sun set we walked we did our best to ignore the people that were shooting up on the steps of the buildings we were all situated to live in. People that had grown up here or needed to be here came out. "You're not working tonight, are you?" Dylan asked.

I shook my head 'no.' I worked as a prostitute, roaming the streets at night and having sex with any one that would pay me. It was a disgusting and thankless job, but we had to put food on the table. With how expensive Dublin is and the fact that I had University coming up, we needed to make money somehow. The fact that my mam worked a minimum wage job, which paid €10.20 an hour, wasn't much. Or nearly enough to put food on the table. Even though we barely qualified for assistance.

Did my mam know that I was prostituting myself ever since I turned eighteen years of age? Yes, yes she did. Did she ask me about it? No, no she did not. Some things were better left as secrets, no matter how much I loved her. She didn't need to think about me like that. And I respected that. Even though what I was doing was considered illegal in Ireland. That also didn't come up in our one-worded conversations about work.