Needing 13 - Johnny Kavanagh

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

OCTOBER 31ST 2001

TARA

Sean Lynch had been born at 11:45 p.m., measuring 19 inches and weighing approximately 6.5 pounds. Or at least that's what Joey had said when he called me, frantic and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, from the hospital.

"God," I murmured, looking through the glass at the crib where my little brother was tossing and turning, "you're a tiny thing, Seany-boo."

According to Joey, he had come into the world screaming and kicking like a goat—a born fighter. Like all his siblings before him. He looked like Tadhg and Ollie when they had been born, with his signature mop of curly sandy blonde hair.

There was a voice inside me telling me that this was wrong, that bringing a new baby into this family wasn't going to fill the cracks that were there, but that voice was silenced the moment big brown eyes stared at me.

It was as if everything around me disappeared and time stopped, and it was just me and him. He looked at me with innocent curiosity, and I knew right then and there that I would protect that baby with my life.

That innocence wouldn't last long; I knew because it had happened with Shan, Tadhg, and Ollie. It wouldn't take Sean long to realize that the family he was born into was not normal. It wouldn't take him long to realize that the imaginary monsters that other children thought were hiding under beds and in closets were real in our house. It wouldn't take him long to realize that the Big Bad Wolf didn't stay locked in a book but rather lived with us.

Nor would it take him long to realize that the people who would cradle him, feed him, lull him to sleep, comfort him, and take care of him would not be a brown-haired woman with blue eyes and a blonde man with brown eyes but a 15-year-old blonde boy and girl with green eyes.

Welcome to the world, Seany-boo. You're going to need all the fight you came with.

"Which one's yours?"

A feminine voice brought me out of my thoughts, and I turned my head to see a blonde woman with brown eyes looking at me curiously. She had the kind of polished elegance you'd see on the covers of Vogue magazines, with an air that screamed filthy rich. She was dressed in a crisp white shirt and tailored black pants, a white designer suit jacket draped effortlessly over her shoulders, and black flats that looked more comfortable than my entire existence. A black bag, likely more expensive than my entire house, hung from her shoulder.

"I, uh," I hesitated, feeling suddenly out of place, "the curly blonde with the brown eyes."

"Ah, I see the resemblance now," she said with a smile. Her lips curved in a way that seemed both kind and patronizing. "Are you a first-time mother?"

"No," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "Sean's the fourth."

The woman's eyebrows shot up in surprise, her eyes widening for a moment before they softened with what looked like sympathy. "You're too young to be a mother, love. How old are you?"

Tara, shut the fuck up.

She's a stranger.

You don't know her at all.

"Why do you think I'm his mother?"

"You have the look."

"The look?"

"The look that says you already love that baby so much that you would give your life to protect it from everything and everyone," she explained. "A mother knows another mother when she sees one."