Needing 13 - Johnny Kavanagh

UNEXPECTED VISITS

TARA

Originally, I had been set to compete in the 100m hurdles too, but that plan went down the drain after a nasty fall during training in June. My knee gave out mid-stride, the pain searing through me like a knife, and everyone agreed I shouldn't risk it. Fintan reached out to the International Amateur Athletic Federation on my behalf and invoked force majeure. Miraculously, they decided not to sanction me. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn't have hesitated to slap me with a ban.

We'd officially submitted my withdrawal from the category a month before the competition. After the fire and the mountain of medical and psychological reports we sent their way, they let me off with just a warning not to try anything like that again.

My father—may the Devil rest his soul—would've fought tooth and nail to push me into competing anyway. It was strange not having him around now. Not that I wanted him back, mind you, but his presence had been a constant. Whether sober or drunk, he always showed up, sometimes late, sometimes on time, but he'd be there by the time I crossed the finish line.

I'd be lying if I said a small part of me didn't wish he could see me now. He hadn't been there for the U18s or the Athens Olympics in 2004, and now, with the World Athletics Championships only a week away, his absence felt heavy. He would've loved to see me perform, though not for my sake—oh no—but for the glory it would've brought the Lynch family name.

I wasn't fucking stupid. I knew the Lynch side of the family had done a complete turnaround. Suddenly, I was a granddaughter worth acknowledging. They'd sent flowers and a card after my gold in Lithuania, as if that could erase the years of silence and abuse. My grandmother even went so far as to send me a signet ring with the Lynch crest carved into it, along with a letter full of bleeding empty platitudes about how proud my grandfather would've been to see me wearing it. Utter nonsense, really.

The ring itself was simple but elegant, plated in 18-carat gold. My father had never received one—Grandad deemed him unworthy. If he had been considered good enough, he would've been given it on his eighteenth birthday. I hadn't shown the ring to anyone, but it was tucked away in my suitcase. Some days, I thought about tossing it into the sea. Other days, I considered wearing it—not for what it represented, but for my siblings.

There were six of us with the Lynch name. Four brothers and two sisters, fighters to the core, every one of them. Survivors. Christ, I was proud of them.

I liked to believe Mam was proud of me too. Maybe not entirely, but the fourteen-year-old version of her would've been. Nanny and Aunt Alice always said a part of her would've been happy to see how far I'd come, especially given how much had been stolen from her.

Mam had lived her teenage and adult years through Darren, Joey, Shannon and me. She treated Tadhg, Ollie, and Sean more like her children than her teammates. That's what us four oldest really were: teammates in survival.

She saw herself in Shannon—her youngest daughter—and because she'd never had a chance to choose her own future, she tried to steer Shannon's. My sister hated it, of course. I pitied Mam for that. Da had trapped her in a gilded cage at fourteen, called it freedom, but no matter how much gold you paint on it, a cage is still a cage.

Mam had always looked at me with a mix of fear and rage, seeing reflections of the girls who'd landed her with my father in the first place. If she hadn't crossed paths with them that afternoon, maybe she'd never have met Da. Maybe everything would've been different.

I'd gone out of my way to find out those girls' names. I blamed them for everything. I carried Mam's anger for her, hurled it back at them, and told them exactly what Mam thought of them.