Chapter 5: His Irish parents
The Monday evening air carried the first true bite of autumn as Javier walked the familiar route to Killian's Boxing Club. The streets of Dublin had settled into that particular rhythm of early evening, students drifting homeward, shopkeepers pulling down grilles, the last light of a low sun catching the tops of the Georgian buildings. Javier carried his gym bag over one shoulder, his left eye still feeling the ghost of the weekend's long drives through Connemara, the wind and salt still somewhere in his skin.
He had been back two days now. Two days of Roisin fussing over him, bringing him extra portions at dinner, texting him even when he was in the same house. Two days of Seamus clapping him on the shoulder and asking about the roads, about the weather, about whether he'd stopped at that pub in Clifden where they do the best chowder in Ireland. Two days of feeling like he had never quite belonged anywhere the way he belonged here.
The gym sat tucked into its basement as always, the worn sign rattling slightly in the breeze. Javier pushed through the door and descended the concrete steps, the smell of sweat and leather and old wood rising to meet him. The faint hum of the fluorescent lights, the rhythmic thud of gloves against heavy bags, the creak of the ring ropes. It was a smell he had come to love, the honest smell of work.
Killian was in his usual spot by the far wall, taping his hands, his deeply lined face catching the flicker of the lights. He looked up as Javier came in and nodded once.
"Grand weekend, was it?"
Javier set his bag down against the bench. "It was. West coast. Cliffs of Moher."
"Ah." Killian's eyes crinkled. "Good for the soul, that place. Now get warmed up and we'll work on your footwork. You were getting sloppy with that left hook before you left."
The session was good. Javier let himself sink into it, the familiar discipline of the body, the way everything else fell away when he was in the ring. Killian pushed him hard, correcting his stance, showing him how to shift his weight more efficiently, how to protect his chin when he threw combinations. By the end of the hour, Javier's arms ached and his lungs burned, but there was a clean feeling in his chest that he couldn't quite name.
"You're learning fast," Killian said, unlacing his gloves. "Most lads your age, they want to swing hard, win the crowd. You listen. You think. That's rarer than you'd think."
Javier pulled off his gloves and wiped his face with a towel. "My trainer in Valencia said the same thing. That I think too much."
Killian laughed, a low rumble. "Thinking's only a problem when you stop doing it. You're fine."
The walk home took him along the canal, the water dark and still under the evening sky. Streetlights were coming on, casting their orange pools across the path. A few ducks drifted near the bank, unconcerned by the approaching night. Javier's phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out.
You're not walking home in the dark, are you? You know I worry.
He smiled and typed back. Almost home, mum. No need to worry.
The reply came almost instantly. There is always a need to worry. Seamus is making shepherd's pie. It'll be ready in twenty minutes.
He picked up his pace.
---
The week settled into a comfortable rhythm. His Master's program at University College Dublin was demanding in a way that suited him. The lectures were rigorous, the reading lists formidable, the expectations high. But Javier found himself thriving. The other students in his cohort came from a dozen different countries, and their conversations in the common room ranged from deep-sea ecology to the politics of fishing quotas in Icelandic waters to the best place to get a proper breakfast in Dublin.
His professors had started to take notice. Professor Gallagher, who ran the marine biology department with the energy of a man half his age, had pulled Javier aside after a seminar on benthic ecosystems.
"Barreiro, your dive experience shows," he'd said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "The way you talk about the sea floor, it's not abstract for you. You've been down there. That matters. Keep it up."
The marks had come back for his first round of assessments. Straight As. He had looked at the screen in the university library for a long moment, feeling a quiet satisfaction that had nothing to do with the money in his accounts or the lottery win. This was earned. This was real.
At dinner that evening, he had mentioned it casually, not wanting to make a fuss. But Seamus had set down his fork and stared at him.
"All As? Every single one?"
"All of them," Javier said, a little embarrassed. "It's just coursework."
"It's not just anything," Seamus said firmly. He lifted his glass of stout. "To our boy. The marine biologist."
Roisin had beamed at him from across the table, her blue eyes bright. "I knew it," she said. "I knew it the moment I met you. You're going to do wonderful things, Javier."
He had let himself soak in the warmth of it, the feeling of being proud and being made proud, the simple fact of this house and these people. His phone had buzzed later that night on his bedside table.
I'm so proud of you. Those words feel small right now. I don't have bigger ones.
He had stared at the message for a long time before replying. Thank you, mum. That means more than you know.
---
By Friday, the exams were done. The cohort had survived the first round of assessments, and someone, a Spanish exchange student named Lucia, had suggested a night out in Temple Bar. The plan gathered momentum quickly. A group of them, maybe a dozen, would meet at a pub called The Old Storehouse and toast the end of their misery.
Javier almost said no. The thought of a crowded pub, of noise and drink and the inevitable chaos of a Friday night in Dublin, didn't appeal as much as it once had. But Lucia had been insistent, and Molly, the American girl who sat next to him in their oceanography seminar, had looked at him with those dark eyes.
"You have to come, Javier. You're the only one who can talk to the barman in actually good Irish. We need you."
Molly was a big girl, tall and soft with a wide smile and a laugh that carried across a room. She was brilliant, one of the sharpest minds in the cohort, and she had a way of making everyone around her feel at ease. Javier had grown fond of her over the past weeks, the easy friendship that had developed between them.
So he went.
The Old Storehouse was a warren of rooms and staircases, timber and stone, the smell of beer and whiskey and peat smoke. The band was playing in the front bar, a fiddler and a guitarist tearing through a reel with enough energy to shake the floorboards. The group claimed a table in the back room, where the noise was slightly less overwhelming, and the drinks started flowing.
Javier nursed his first pint slowly, letting the conversation wash over him. Lucia was arguing with a German student named Klaus about the ethics of deep-sea mining. Molly was telling a story about a research vessel she'd worked on off the coast of Maine, something about a rogue seagull and a plate of fish and chips. The laughter was easy, the warmth genuine, and for a while, Javier felt the simple joy of being part of something.
By the second round, the atmosphere had loosened. Molly was sitting next to him, close enough that he could smell her perfume, something floral and sweet. She leaned in to say something about a paper she'd been reading, and he had to concentrate to catch her words over the din.
"Are you ever going to take me for a dive?" she asked, her mouth close to his ear. "You talk about the North Sea like it's the most beautiful place on earth. I want to see it."
"You'd need a drysuit," he said. "And a lot of training. It's not the Caribbean."
"Promises, promises."
She laughed, and he found himself laughing too. It was pleasant, this easy banter. There was no weight to it, no complexity. He was aware of Molly's hand resting on his forearm as she made a point, aware of the warmth of her skin, aware of how simple it would be to let something develop here.
But even as he thought it, he felt the pull of something else, a quieter thing, a reminder of a silk blouse the color of emeralds and a voice that called him son and meant more than the word could hold. He pushed it away and took another sip of his pint.
Then the night changed.
A group of three men had come in, loud and raucous, already well on their way to drunk. They commandeered the next table, and one of them, a stocky man with a shaved head and a Celtic tattoo curling up his neck, kept glancing over at Molly. His friends egged him on, muttering words that Javier couldn't quite hear but could guess.
Molly ignored them, kept talking. But the man got up, swaying slightly, and made his way over.
"Alright there," he said, leaning over the table. His breath carried a sour wave of whiskey. "You're a lovely looking woman. What's a girl like you doing with a bunch of students?"
Molly's smile didn't waver, but her eyes went flat. "Having a good time with my friends."
"Ah, come on now. Don't be like that. I'm just being friendly."
"It's fine," Molly said, turning back to the conversation. "We're fine. Thanks."
The man didn't take the hint. He reached out and touched her shoulder, and Javier saw Molly flinch.
"Come on, love. One drink. Just one. My mates and I are having a bit of a session and we could use some beautiful company."
Javier set down his glass. "She said she's fine."
The man's eyes slid to him, taking him in, measuring him. "Did I ask you, pal?"
"No. But she's told you no twice. That should be enough."
The table had gone quiet. Lucia was watching with wide eyes. Klaus had half risen from his seat. Molly's hand had found Javier's arm, gripping it tightly.
The man straightened up, a smirk spreading across his face. "What are you, her boyfriend? You think you're going to protect her?" He looked Javier up and down. "Little Spanish lad. You're a long way from home."
"I am," Javier said evenly. "But that doesn't change anything. Please leave us alone."
The man's friends had come over now, flanking him, the crowd gathering. The music from the front bar still played, but the room around them had gone quiet.
"What's the problem here?" one of the friends said, a big man with thick arms and a face like a slab of beef.
"No problem," Javier said. "Your friend was just leaving."
"I wasn't," the shaved-head man said. He stepped closer, looming over Javier. "I think you need to learn some manners, boy."
And then he swung.
Javier saw it coming. That was the thing about years of boxing, the way your body learns to read the signals before your conscious mind catches up. The shift of weight, the drop of the shoulder, the slight pull of the arm. He slipped the punch, the air rushing past his ear, and came up inside the man's guard.
He didn't throw a punch. That was not what he wanted. He grabbed the man's jacket, twisted, and drove him back against a chair, pinning him with his body weight, his forearm across the man's collarbone.
"Calm down," Javier said, his voice low. "Nobody needs to get hurt."
The man's eyes were wild with fury and drink. He struggled, tried to throw a knee, and Javier adjusted, putting more pressure on his chest. The man's face was turning red.
"You're making this worse," Javier said. "Just stop."
But the man didn't stop. He wrenched his head forward in a desperate, clumsy movement, and the top of his skull caught Javier square on the cheekbone. Pain exploded through his face, white and sharp, and his grip loosened for just a second.
That was enough. The man shoved him back and lunged, arms swinging wild and heavy. Javier stepped back, the boxer's instinct taking over, and in one clean motion he threw a right hand down the pipe, straight and true.
It landed on the point of the man's jaw.
The sound was a sharp crack, like a bat hitting a baseball, and the man dropped. His eyes rolled back, and he hit the floor with a thud that seemed to shake the room. He didn't move.
There was a moment of absolute stillness. Then the man's friend took a step forward, and Javier raised his hands, palms out.
"I don't want to fight you," he said. His cheekbone was throbbing, and he could feel the heat of a bruise spreading already. "He hit me first. You saw that. I just want this to stop."
The friend hesitated, looking from Javier to his unconscious mate. Somewhere behind them, someone had called the guards. The barman was coming over, a heavy man with a beard like a hedge, and he was not friendly.
"Enough," the barman said, his voice cutting through the noise. "Out. All of you."
The police arrived ten minutes later. Two guards, a man and a woman, both in high-visibility jackets, taking statements with practiced efficiency. The man had woken up by then, groggy and furious, but his friends had managed to keep him quiet. The story was straightforward. Witnesses confirmed it. Molly, her voice shaking but steady, explained what had happened.
"Are you going to press charges?" the female guard asked Javier, eyeing his swelling face.
"No," Javier said. "I just want to go home."
The guard nodded. "He'll be warned. If he makes trouble for you, come back and see us. But I think he'll think twice before bothering anyone again."
---
The night air hit Javier like a wall as he stepped out of the pub. His face was throbbing, and when he touched his cheekbone, his fingers came away with a trace of blood. Not much, just a cut where the man's skull had caught him. But it looked bad. He could feel it.
Molly had come out with him, still trembling. She reached up and touched his face, her fingers gentle.
"Oh, Javier. You're bleeding. I'm so sorry. I should have just walked away."
"It wasn't your fault," he said. "He was going to be a problem no matter what. You did nothing wrong."
"You didn't have to do that. You didn't have to get hurt for me."
He looked at her, her dark eyes wide in the glow of the streetlights, and felt a wave of affection for her. But it was a simple kind of affection, clear and uncomplicated.
"I couldn't let him keep bothering you," he said. "That's not who I am."
She smiled, a wobbly thing. "I know. That's why you're the best, Javier Barreiro."
She offered to walk with him, to come with him, to make sure he got home safe. But he declined, gently, and she seemed to understand. She hugged him instead, quick and fierce, and then she and a couple of the others disappeared into the night toward a taxi.
Javier walked home alone through streets that had grown quiet. The bruise on his face was tightening, swelling, and he could feel the skin around his eye puffing up. He would have a black eye in the morning, he knew. Maybe not even a morning, maybe by the time he got home.
He felt awful. Not for the fight itself, not for what he had done. He had protected Molly, and he didn't regret that. But there was a sickness in his stomach, a sour taste in his mouth. He had never been in a street fight. Never. The ring was different. The ring had rules, a referee, gloves. This had been ugly and raw and he had hit a man in the face with his bare fist and the man had gone down like a sack of stones.
He thought about Roisin. About her face when she saw him. About the worry she would feel, the fear. The thought made him feel worse.
---
The house was quiet when he let himself in, the hallway lit by the soft glow of a lamp Seamus always left on. He could hear the low murmur of the television from the sitting room. He shut the door as quietly as he could, but the latch clicked anyway.
"Javier?" Roisin's voice came from the sitting room. "Is that you?"
He had hoped to slip upstairs, to deal with his face in the bathroom and face them in the morning. But he should have known better. She was already appearing in the doorway, Seamus behind her, his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead.
The moment she saw him, she stopped. Her hand went to her mouth.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What happened to you?"
"It's nothing," he said quickly. "Just a misunderstanding. I'm fine."
"You're not fine," she said, and there was steel in her voice now. She crossed the hall in three quick steps, her hands reaching up to cup his face, turning it toward the light. She examined the swelling, the cut, the angry purple beginning to bloom around his eye. "You, boy. Come into the kitchen. Sit down. Let me take care of you."
He couldn't argue. He didn't want to argue. There was something in her voice, fierce and maternal and full of love, that made his chest ache. He let her lead him into the kitchen, let her push him into a chair at the table.
Seamus came in behind them and leaned against the counter, watching with folded arms. Roisin ran water into a basin, found a clean cloth, some antiseptic from the cabinet. She worked with practiced hands, gentle but efficient, dabbing at the cut on his cheekbone.
"Now tell me what happened," she said. "The truth, Javier. All of it."
So he told them. The pub, the man bothering Molly, the words he'd said, the swing he'd slipped, the headbutt, the punch. He didn't embellish. He didn't make himself a hero. He just told them what had happened, honestly and plainly.
When he finished, there was a long silence. Roisin was still holding the cloth to his face, her blue eyes searching his.
"You didn't throw the first punch," Seamus said slowly. It wasn't a question.
"No. I grabbed him, held him back. I told him to stop. I didn't want to hurt him. But he headbutted me, and then he came at me again, and I just reacted. I didn't mean to knock him out."
Seamus exhaled slowly. He moved to the table and sat down across from Javier, his big hands folded in front of him.
"You did the right thing," he said. "You protected that girl. You gave him every chance to walk away. He chose not to take it. That's on him, not on you."
Roisin moved the cloth away and examined her work. "He's right," she said softly. "You did the right thing, Javier. And I'm proud of you for it. Even if I hate seeing you like this."
She touched his face again, her fingers brushing the edge of the bruise, featherlight. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, and her voice cracked just slightly.
"My brave boy. My brave, stupid, wonderful boy."
He reached up and covered her hand with his own, holding it against his cheek. The warmth of her skin, the tenderness in her touch, the fierce love in her eyes. He felt something loosen in his chest, something he hadn't known was tight.
"I'm sorry for worrying you," he said quietly.
"Ah, sure," she said, her voice thickening. "That's what mums are for, isn't it? To worry. To fuss. To patch you up when the world is unkind."
Seamus rose and came around the table, laying a heavy hand on Javier's shoulder. "You're a good lad, Javier. The best. And tomorrow, I'll teach you a few things that don't happen in the boxing ring. Just in case."
Javier almost laughed, but his face hurt too much. Instead, he nodded, and Roisin went back to work, her hands gentle on his skin, and the kitchen felt warm and full of love, the way he imagined a home should feel.