Keeping 13

“‘I need to talk to Joey.’ I needed to know what I was supposed to say if someone asked me what happened. I didn’t know the story.”

Shannon’s thoughts upon waking up reflect the extreme impact that years of abuse have had on her. Despite the pain she is in and the fact that she nearly died, her immediate response upon waking up is that she needs to know what lie to tell authorities to protect her family—failing to recognize that responding this way has made it impossible for anyone to help her.

“‘She was fifteen years old when she had me—fourteen when she was pregnant!’ [Darren] added. ‘Think about that for a minute. Think about how fucking frightened she must have been when she was thrown into a life with that monster. She doesn’t have a mother or father to show her the way. All she had in the whole fucking world was him. She was a baby having babies and it broke her!’”

Darren’s words to Shannon and Joey in the hospital introduce a central conflict in the text: the clash between Darren and Shannon/Joey on how to view their mother’s situation. While they all agree that she is suffering from The Lasting Impact of Trauma, Darren believes that his siblings blame her for the extreme impact the trauma had on her. Conversely, Shannon and Joey believe that she holds some responsibility for allowing that trauma to pass on to them.

“Having him here, hearing his voice and seeing his face, settled something deep inside of me. Something shifted into place. An almost relieved sensation fluttered over my skin, soothing something deep inside of me. I felt like I was home. […] The weight I was feeling, the heaviness in my heart and the pressure on my shoulders, just fell away.”

When Johnny comes to Shannon in the hospital, his presence soothes her both physically and emotionally. For the first time in her life, she has someone who provides her with comfort and safety, allowing her to find relief from the trauma in her life. This quote touches on the theme of The Power of Love to Heal and Transform, as this is the first moment when Shannon realizes just how much Johnny’s love does to heal her.

“Something was happening to me, I realized, something was shifting deep inside of my mind, and for the first time in my life, I felt restless. I felt like I wanted to pull on the chains shackling me to this house and break free. I had no idea where the notion had come from, but it was there, it was real, and it was encouraging me to dust myself off and fight back. To be brave and turn this life around for myself.”

Shannon uses the metaphor of shackles to describe her newfound longing for freedom from the house that has been the scene of her trauma. Shannon is beginning to change, realizing that she wants to stay alive and break out of her family’s cycle of trauma. For the first time, she has people like Johnny, Claire, and Gibsie to give her life meaning outside of her home, conveying The Importance of Community.

“‘Take Claire downstairs with you,’ [Johnny] instructed calmly. ‘Make whatever you want in the kitchen or chill out in the sitting room. Whatever you want. Gibs and I will sort him out.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked, not feeling very sure at all.

‘Positive.’”

As Shannon tries to go help Joey, Johnny stops her, insisting that he and Gibsie will take care of him. For the first time in her life, Shannon has help and support in dealing with her brother, showing The Importance of Community. Up to this point, she and Joey have served as parental figures to each other, taking care of each other when their actual parents failed to do so. Now, however, she has formed friendships that give her support and allow her to be the teenager she is.

“Now that I finally had Shannon alone, I didn’t know what to do. She looked so uncertain earlier that it had chipped away at my conscience to the point where I pulled back. I wanted to kiss her, but I didn’t know if she wanted me to, and that was a problem for me. Because contrary to Claire’s assumptions, I didn’t want to jump the gun. I didn’t want to dump my feelings on top of her and take advantage.”

Despite Darren’s and Marie’s insistence that Johnny is not good for Shannon and he will try to take advantage of her vulnerability, his perspective reveals otherwise. He is aware of Shannon’s vulnerability and, throughout the novel, repeatedly does everything he can to ensure that she feels safe and comfortable with everything that happens. This respect for Shannon’s autonomy is something she doesn’t get from her family, and it goes a long way toward helping her heal.

“‘You think it’s the other way around, but it’s not’ he told me. ‘I need you, too, because you calm something inside of me. […] You make me feel like I’m enough as I am,’ he finally admitted. ‘Like if this is the furthest I go, if I don’t make the squad, then it’s okay.’”

Johnny’s confession to Shannon conveys the theme of The Power of Love to Heal and Transform. For Johnny’s entire life, he has felt the pressure of needing to be a good rugby player and feeling as though his skill is what defined him as a person. Now, however, thanks to Shannon, he recognizes that there is more to his life than just rugby.

“‘She knows she was wrong, don’t you, Mam?’

Silence.

‘Mam,’ Darren pushed, tone harder now. ‘Tell Shannon that you know you were wrong.’

Nothing.

‘Mam!’ Darren barked, voice cracking. ‘Answer us.’”

When Shannon confronts her mother about how she treated Johnny, Darren attempts to defend her, as he has done every time to this point in the novel. However, as she fails to acknowledge them and his anger rises, this is the first instance where Darren begins to recognize that he may have been wrong about their mother’s ability to be a sufficient parent to her children. This interaction foreshadows Darren’s change, as from here he slowly begins to support Shannon and even Johnny, turning against his mother.

“Swinging the car door shut, I slipped my bag onto my shoulders and made my way toward the courtyard, body rigid and mind reeling. The closer I got to the main building, the harder it was to keep breathing regulated and even. I was anxious, and with every step I took, I slipped closer to a full-blown panic attack.”

On Shannon’s first day back to school after being in the hospital, she repeatedly almost turns around or tells Darren to take her home. This moment exemplifies The Lasting Impact of Trauma: Shannon has done nothing wrong and has nothing to be nervous about, yet years of bullying from her peers and abuse at home have led her to expect the worst.

“‘Your shell,’ [Johnny] confirmed. ‘Don’t do that to me, Shannon—don’t block me out. Don’t give me you last weekend and then take it away again. I’m the same me from that night in my house. I’m the same me from every other time we’ve been together. So don’t put a wall up between us, not when you’ve already let me climb over it.’”

Johnny uses the metaphor of a wall to describe the emotional defenses that Shannon creates to protect herself from vulnerability. He reaffirms and supports Shannon, encouraging her to trust both herself and him. His constant reassurance and reminders to be sure of herself demonstrate the theme of The Power of Love to Heal and Transform.

“‘Sean pissed the bed again,’ Joey sighed wearily. ‘I better go—’

‘I sorted it,’ Tadhg cut in. ‘It’s done.’ My heart broke. Babies taking care of babies.”

Tadhg is portrayed as rough and angry throughout the novel—he swears violently, refuses to trust anyone, and has a grim outlook on every situation. However, this scene between him and Joey gives insight into his character. With Joey largely absent and Shannon spending time with Johnny, Tadhg—an 11-year-old child—is left home to deal with his younger brothers. This shows the cyclical nature of the abuse and trauma in the Lynch household: Darren took care of his siblings, then left; Joey took over, then left; Shannon is still caring for them but is becoming more distant; and now Tadhg, even as a “baby,” is stepping up to fill the parent role—helping to explain his grownup nature and his anger.

“I held my breath and waited to see what her next move would be. She skittishly closed the space every single time, moving closer and closer until she was sidled back up to my side. I did that at least four times just to make sure that this was where she wanted to be—with me—because it scared me sometimes, not knowing what was going on inside that head of hers.”

As he walks down the beach with Shannon, Johnny struggles with anxiety and self-doubt. While he is extremely supportive of Shannon, by allowing her to choose how close she wants to be to him and not forcing her into anything, he is also overthinking the situation by repeating the move multiple times, unsure what is “inside that head” even though she has repeatedly assured him that she loves him. The novel’s alternating perspectives allow readers to understand each character’s interiority in a way that the characters cannot: While Johnny wonders what is happening inside Shannon’s head, she likely cannot imagine the self-doubt in his.

“In two months, he would be gone. In two weeks, I could be gone. The tangible fear of the unknown was what catapulted me into action. If my dad came back…No! Don’t think about it, Shannon. Just be here in the moment with him. Just absorb him.”

While showing The Lasting Impact of Trauma as Shannon battles her anxiety, this quote also shows her character development. Walsh uses italic text throughout the novel to show Shannon and Johnny’s internal monologue and their inner fears; here, Shannon fights back against those fears, arguing with herself and pushing down her anxiety, something she becomes better at doing as the text continues.

“The engine roared to life once more and I repeated the same instructions, shifting the gears for her. ‘Good job!’ I praised when she didn’t stall and the car started to crawl. ‘That’s it, Shan. You’re doing it, baby.’”

Johnny teaching Shannon to drive shows his kind and supporting character, while also symbolizing the role Johnny is taking in her life. Shannon’s lack of parental figures means that she has never had someone to teach her to drive. By giving Johnny that role, Walsh is showing that Shannon is gaining the ability to replace what is missing from her difficult home life in other people, conveying The Importance of Community.

“‘You are not your father’s daughter, and there’s no orchard in the world far enough from the tree your apple fell from.’ His arm tightened around me, the heat from his body cocooning me. ‘He won’t break you, because I won’t let that happen. Not ever.’”

After the confrontation between Teddy and Johnny, Shannon lies in Johnny’s bed overwhelmed with anxiety. However, she turns to Johnny for support, and his words and supportive physical presence show The Power of Love to Heal and Transform. She uses a metaphor to compare the feel of his body to a cocoon, suggesting not only protection but transformation as well.

“Shannon Lynch changed me. I knew that sounded like trite bullshit, but it was the truth. That day back in January when I knocked her out with my ball, I’d been so fucking lost and miserable. I hadn’t realized just how much until I looked into those midnight-blue eyes and was met with an almost mirror replica of my own secrets and pain.”

While the healing from Johnny and Shannon’s relationship is largely experienced by Shannon, it is important to note that Johnny feels equally saved by her love. As this quote shows, Shannon opened Johnny’s eyes to the importance of things in life besides rugby, allowing him to build friendships, grow his self-worth outside of rugby, and ultimately become a better person.

“Groaning into her mouth, I yanked the drawer open and grabbed the box of condoms, while throwing a silent prayer to the heavens, thanking Jesus for my fucking fantastic best friend and his forward thinking. Good man, Gibs.”

The first time that Johnny and Shannon have sex, Walsh uses a humorous tone, as she does throughout many parts of the novel. As she deals with serious situations—sex, loss of virginity, and working through trauma—she uses humor to lighten the seriousness and tension that would typically accompany these topics.

“Jerking awake with a start on Monday morning, I kicked the bedcovers off my sweat-soaked body and just lay there, still as a statue, waiting for my pounding heart to return to its normal rhythm. […] Every night since coming home from the hospital, I’d woken up to the exact same nightmare. Memory, my brain reminded me.”

Shannon repeatedly has the same dream of the day that Joey stood up to their father, and then told her that Darren would leave them. Her dream represents The Lasting Impact of Trauma, as she still relives a night from eight years ago due to the terror instilled in her by her father. However, it also shows her strength and resilience: Even as she suffers from this, she is slowly healing, putting her fears aside, going to school, and rebuilding her life.

“Don’t lose it, I mentally changed as I worked to clear my path, be smart. You can’t protect her if you’re in a prison cell, Johnny. Keep your goddamn head. They’ve been through enough. Get them out of here!”

As Johnny tries to decide how to help Shannon and her brothers, his interior monologue conveys his character development. Earlier in the novel, he repeatedly used violence, beating up Teddy and Bella’s boyfriend to try to help Shannon. Now, instead of impulsively going into the house to confront Teddy, he forces himself to calm down and think of a better plan. Ultimately, this change saves his life and those of the boys: Had he gone directly into the house, which was already doused in alcohol and petrol, Teddy very likely would have lit it on fire before Johnny could do anything.

“I wanted to stand in front of this girl and shield her from all the horror she was exposed to. It wasn’t right, dammit, and I felt like I was drowning in the unfairness of her life. If I could lay her cuts and bruises over my skin, I would.”

Johnny’s desire to take Shannon’s pain away from her shows how deeply he cares about her. However, it also shows a reality that he has struggled to face throughout the novel: There are some things Shannon has to handle on her own, as she always has. Now, however, thanks to his love and reassurance, and self-confidence he has given her, she is better equipped to handle it than she ever has been before. While he may not be able to help her in all the ways he wants, his love and support have given her the strength to help herself.

“I love her and I hate her and I want to scream at the unfairness of it all. […] I want to go back to when we were little together and beg her to love herself more than she feared him.”

Shannon’s confession to Johnny shows how her feelings about her mother have changed. At the start of the novel, she is angry at her mother for failing to protect her and her siblings from their father. Now, however, she has realized the influence that her father’s physical and emotional abuse had on their mother. As Shannon has recently learned to love herself, she wishes her mother could have done the same.

“We don’t even have to open the results when they come because they don’t matter, pet. A score on a piece of paper tells me nothing, but you rising back up and returning to school to finish out the year and sit in that classroom tells everything about the wonderful, strong girl you are. […] Now, sit down and let me feed you. We’ll put meat on those bones yet.”

Edel reassures Shannon that she will be loved and supported regardless of her grades, echoing Shannon’s reassurance to Johnny that she will love him regardless of his success in rugby. This unconditional love and support is something Shannon never experienced from her own parents. Edel’s empathetic, supportive parenting provides hope for all the Lynch children to heal despite everything they’ve been through.

“‘We all have our secrets,’ Johnny replied quietly. ‘We’re all a little fractured, Shan.’”

After Johnny explains about Gibsie’s past, he emphasizes that everyone—even a jokester like Gibsie—has a part of themselves that is struggling. This speaks to a motif in the novel: the repetition of the phrase “Every part of you.” He implies that everyone is “fractured” into parts, some of which are filled with trauma, but the important thing is to find support in others, build confidence in yourself, and heal those parts as best you can.