What Matters Most by Luanne Rice

Author:Luanne Rice
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780553903850
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-11-25T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

The day after the couple came looking for him, Seamus called in sick to work—something he’d never done. He had such a good reputation at the Greencastle, no one would suspect that he was shirking. Everyone thought him such a good worker, such an honorable man. He knew they’d all be shocked to see him up and about, completely healthy, just hiding out. Kevin, his best friend, had given him such a sympathetic look, when he’d come by to pick up the letter.

It was seeing the couple—Seamus wouldn’t call them his parents. What had they said their names were? Thomas Kelly and Bernadette Sullivan. So, that’s where his last name came from—they weren’t married. He was a bastard. Who cared, and what did it matter? Whether they were married or not, they hadn’t wanted him.

He was grown-up now, with a good life of his own. Why was this bothering him so much? They came to see him—big deal. He had moved far beyond the trials and hurts of St. Augustine’s. Most of the time, in fact, he thought he’d had it pretty good there, as institutions went.

No, his reaction to the couple was shocking him. It was like being stung by a bee, and not knowing you were allergic. You think it’s just an insect, you assume the sting might hurt a little. But suddenly you’re all swollen, finding it hard to breathe, seeing the world go black before your very eyes. You can’t catch a breath because your throat has shut tight, and next thing you know, you’re dead.

That’s how Seamus, sitting in his armchair, felt about meeting the couple. Over the years—not as often as some St. Augustine’s kids, but more than he’d like to admit—he had imagined what he’d do if someone came looking for him. A woman saying she was his mother, a man saying he was his father, or both together.

Oh, Seamus had had quite the speech imagined. At one point, he’d dreamed of spitting on their shoes. That was a nice touch. He’d thought of showing them his class pictures—all the way through eighth grade. To him, staring at the group shots, he’d always thought he looked ridiculous, like a bird. Too skinny, too tall, with his sleeves not fitting right, and his red hair sticking out in tufts.

He’d gone to a school that took students from St. Augustine’s as well as kids from regular homes, and he remembered looking around the class, always being able to tell which kids had mothers and which didn’t.

Mothers combed their kids’ hair. They made them wash their faces, so they wouldn’t have sleep in their eyes. They straightened their ties and collars on picture day. They checked out their sleeves, and if they’d outgrown their shirts, they’d set them aside for the younger kids and pull a new shirt from the closet.

For motherless girls, it was even more extreme. Girls without mothers either tried too hard or not hard enough; as they got older, they sometimes wore extra makeup, as if it could mask the fact they didn’t know what to do, how to act.

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