Page 100 of The Unlikely Spare

My grandmother’s carefully edited versions, my mother’s bitter recollections, the tabloids’ greatest hits. Who was my father actually? And am I exactly like him, destined to make the same mistakes?

I hear Eoin move, his footsteps soft on the carpet. When I glance in the window’s reflection, he’s leaning against the back of the sofa. Like he’s giving me space while staying present.

“People can lose themselves trying to live up to someone else.” Eoin’s gaze doesn’t leave my reflection. “Especially when that person is gone and all that’s left is everyone else’s interpretation of who they were.”

Air evacuates from my lungs completely. I turn from the window to face him properly.

Somehow, Eoin’s summarized it exactly.

I’ll never know what my father would think about the person I’ve become. I’ll never know what guidance he would have offered me, whether he would have advised me to play by the rules or break them spectacularly.

It’s been driving me mad, trying to infer what he would say or do based on the fragments of him in other people’s memories. Trying to work out how to cope with the particular legacy he’s left me.

“I think you have no choice but to just be you,” he continues, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “Not the version your grandmother or mother wants, or the tabloids crave. Just Nicholas.”

Just Nicholas. As if it were that simple. As if one can simply shed centuries of breeding and expectation like an ill-fitting dinner jacket.

“And if I have no idea who that is?” The question slips out before I can stop it.

Eoin tilts his head, regarding me seriously. His fingers drum once against the sofa back, then still.

“Then you figure it out one choice at a time,” he replies finally.

The simplicity of his words strikes me. Because he’s right. When it boils down to it, all we are is a combination of the choices we make.

I find myself moving closer to him, drawn by some invisible pull.

“Is that what you did?” I ask. “Figured out things one choice at a time after your brother’s accident?”

His eyebrows fly up, like he’s surprised I remembered.

Does he honestly believe I don’t catalog everything he’s ever said to me like some besotted archivist hoarding rare manuscripts? That I don’t trawl through our conversations afterward, searching for clues to the man under that stoic exterior?

His jaw works, the muscle jumping beneath stubbled skin. “I didn’t have much choice. When everything fell apart, I just…did what needed doing.”

“Which was looking after your brother.”

Eoin nods, moving to the mantelpiece, picking up one of the decorative objects and turning it over in his hands without really looking at it. “Malachy’s life was derailed by his injuries. He wasthis mouthy kid who loved nothing more than playing football, making mischief with his mates. And then suddenly, this kid who was always on the move was a full-time wheelchair user…” He trails off.

I stay quiet. I get a sense he needs to tell this story in his own way.

“I was supposed to be with him that day.” His fingers tighten around the ornament. “But I’d gone out to meet friends. If I’d been home instead…”

“You might both have been injured,” I say softly. “Or worse.”

His jaw tightens. “Or I might have got him out sooner.”

The weight of that guilt hangs in the air between us.

“So you became his protector,” I say.

“Someone had to.” Eoin shrugs. He sets the ornament down with exaggerated care, then turns to face me properly. “Da already had a drinking problem, but it got worse after the accident, and he drank himself into liver failure. Had my aunt and uncle nearby, but they had their own struggles.”

“That’s a lot of responsibility on you.”

“You do what needs doing,” he repeats as if it’s a mantra he’s lived by. “Mal needed someone to help with physical therapy, to make the flat accessible, to fight the insurance companies and the landlord. I needed…” He pauses, seeming to search for the right words. “I needed to not feel helpless.”

I understand that feeling at a visceral level. To not be at the mercy of circumstances beyond your control. To find purpose in a new situation. It’s what I’ve been searching for ever since my life was derailed and I became second in line to the throne.