"Why d'ya gotta carry Charlotte around, Da?"
"She's too little t'walk on 'er own, love."
"How old is she?"
"Six months."
"Paulie's walking."
"Well, Paulie's two and a half."
"Oh." A pause. "How long are y'gonna live, Da?"
"Funny question. How long d'ya t'ink, sweet'eart?"
"Dunno." A pause. "Thirty?"
"T'irty!" he laughed. "I'm twenty-six now, Cally-- y'mean yer only gonna let me live anot'er four years?"
"No..."
"T'an why'dija say I'm only gonna live ta t'irty?"
"I canna count any bigger, Da."

St. Martin de Porres Primary School had serviced four generations of McPhersons, and reluctantly opened its doors to accept the fifth. Tony went by himself, or with a few friends Feargal didn't like but didn't publicly oppose. Paulie, the youngest of the three, was taken by Jack O'Faolain, and Feargal took Cally. It was five blocks from the McPherson flats to St. Martin de Porres, and every morning at 8:40 Feargal walked the blocks with Cally hanging onto his finger the entire way. She never held his full hand, just the finger, but her grip was tight as if she was scared he might slip away at any moment. Even when she was older, and had started focusing less on her dolls and more on her clothes and friends and boys, he still walked her to school and she still gripped his finger.
At the front of the school, Feargal told his children to be good, do their work and gave them their lunch money before watching them file sullenly into the gray-brick building, weighed down by bright zipped backpacks and tugging at their crisp blue blazers. At the yawing mouth of the door Cally always paused and turned back, scanning the faces of the parents for her father. When she saw him she smiled and waved her mother's wave, but there was always that look in her eye, the look that told him she fully expected to leave class that afternoon to find him gone from her life forever. Then she turned back and vanished into the crush of students.
After making sure the children were in school, Feargal and the O'Faolains parted ways and Feargal walked down Burgh Quay to Tara Street, stopping at a small, unassuming pub known at McTurkel's, where he spent the next six hours behind the heavy wood bar. McTurkel's was a neighbourhood institution, owned by the man that owned the Quays, Sean Callahan.
Feargal had known Sean Callahan since he was fifteen, when his classmate Jimmy Callahan had come crawling home to his father with a broken nose and missing a tooth. It had been Feargal, he complained to his father. He hadn't been the one to knock his teeth out, no, but he'd set it up, he'd set up the fight that had taken four teachers to break up, he'd set it up and then smiled afterwards. Feargal McPherson was behind it, and Jimmy wanted him to pay.
Feargal had been sure he was dead. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew who Sean Callahan was, everyone knew that when you were pulled out of class in the middle of a lesson and escorted to a car shined to a reflective chrome with tinted windows, you would be lucky to come out of that car with all your body parts, much less your life. Feargal had been escorted to that car the day after the fight.
"Lad," the wire-haired man had begun, snipping off the end of a cigar. "Ye'know who I am, donch'ye?"
Feargal had nodded and shrugged. "Sure."
"An'ye know what happened to my boy, donch'ye?"
He'd shrugged again. "Yeah. I set up a fight 'tween him and Bobby Driscoll."
Callahan had raised an eyebrow. "So ye admit it, then?"
"Sure."
There was a pause from Callahan, and then he chuckled under his breath. "Lad," the older man had placed a hand on Feargal's shoulder and stared into his eyes, smiling a little. "Normally, ye wouldn't be breathin' right now. In fact, by now, whatcha did t'my boy would cause me t'cut yer fingers off, yer ears off, tear yer eyes out, and shoot off the back-a yer head."
"So...why havent'cha?"
Callahan's smile widened. "Cos ye gotcher-self a paira cast-iron balls on ye, lad. T'ats rare around these parts-- too fuckin' rare if ya ask me. The lads what do got 'em end up doin somethin' stupid wit'em...join the IRA, hooliganism, shite like that. Now, that's world-class shite-for-brains workin' there, lad. Y'belong t'any-a that politics, like?"
Feargal shook his head. "No, sir."
"T'ats good. Cos now yer gonna be workin' for me. You get me?"
Feargal frowned a little. "And if I don't want ta?"
"It ain't an offer, McPherson."
Feargal had been with the Callahans since, and when Sean Callahan had bought McTurkel's, he'd instituted Feargal as the head bartender, to make a little extra cash for his ever-growing family and to provide a legitimate job for the tax papers. This was a front, of course, and not a terribly convincing one, either, because nobody in the neighbourhood believed for an instant that the six-foot-two tattooed Irishman with the piercing blue eyes made his living pouring draughts for local pensioners and dockmen. Feargal's real job started when the rest of Dublin Island crawled into bed, and that job lay in back-room negotiations, barroom interrogations and wharfside annihilations.
But in the daylight hours, he was simply a bartender at a tucked-away pub, a loyal husband, a devoted father and a man determined not to let day and night turn into dusk and dawn.

"This latest behaviour is inexcusable, Mr. McPherson."
The voice matched the woman it belonged to-- hard, creased, and stuffed into an over-starched habit. She glared at him from over her wire-rimmed spectacles, her bony hands clasped firmly in front of her. His daughter sat against the wall, swinging her legs in a bored manner while she heard the charges against her mount up.
"Classroom disruption is one thing, Mr. McPherson," the woman continued. "Threats are another. But this," she said sourly, her eyes wild with barely-restrained rage. "Is completely inexcusable."
Feargal glanced down at the object she pushed forward and frowned as he picked it up, feeling its cold weight in his fingers. A .38 caliber pistol. Jaysus.
"Sister Rose," he began slowly, glancing up at her, his voice soft and non-confrontational. "Wouldja please excuse us? I need t'talk t'my daughter."
"Of course, Mr. McPherson," she answered, casting a strong glare at her student before heading out the door and closing it firmly behind her.
Feargal sighed and pulled the chair closer to Cally, staring her in the eyes. "Where didja get t'e gun, Caledonia?"
She flinched: she knew he would never say her full name unless she was in more trouble than she could imagine. "Found it," she mumbled, roving her eyes to her lap.
"Where?"
"Laundry room, behind the washer."
"Why didja bring it t'school, Caledonia?"
"Cos...cos David Pendelton called me a half-breed Mick bitch." Her face flushed when she repeated the words. "So I brought it-- I only meant t'scare him, y'know? I didn't mean for anythin' t'happen, it weren't like I were gonna use it!"
"Shh...I know, I know," Feargal's voice was becoming softer, more restrained, and this was entirely his intent as he saw his daughter shrink back in her chair, away from the relentless gaze. Anger was an energy, Feargal knew from experience. People expected anger, they expected cruelty and that's what they fed off of to mount their own defenses. When they were met with kindness, calm and oh-so-certain understanding, the energy was drained and they were left floundering. Cally was floundering in front of him now. "Now, this Pendelton lad, why would he say t'at t'ya?"
"He's English."
"And y'dont t'ink t'at's fair of him t'be callin ya t'at."
"No!" she looked up at him, her eyes blazing in fury. "No, it's not bloody fair! Why should he get t'call me t'at, and then not get in trouble when I tell the teacher? And why should she call me a tattler and gimme a time-out for that? Da, y'canna tell me t'ats fair!"
Feargal shook his head. "No, Cally, t'at ain't fair. Yer gonna learn t'rough t'e years t'at...well, I don't wanta sound all clichéd and say t'at life ain't fair, but it really ain't sometimes. Yer always gonna have people callin' y'names, and y'gotta rise above it. D'ya get me?"
She nodded sullenly. "Yeah, I get you. But...Da, if he feels like t'at, why dont he go back t'England? He weren't born here, I was and he ain't got a right t'call me t'at!"
Feargal sighed and put a hand on her shoulder. "Cally, you'll understand someday. But for right now, y'gotta get t'rough it. And y'gotta do t'at without bloody guns. He had words, y'had bullets. Does t'at sound very fair t'ya?"
Cally considered this a moment and shrugged. He could see her resistance weakening to the breaking point, and he made a note to stop the interrogation before she started crying. He would have made an excellent cop. "I guess not."
"No, it ain't, and y'have t'remember t'at. Y'cant solve much of anyt'ing with violence, sweet'eart, it only makes more violence, and t'ats why y'get t'ese bloody mad political groups blowin' up cinemas. D'ya understand me now, girl?"
Cally nodded and swallowed. "Yeah. Da?"
"Yeah, Cally?"
"I'm sorry, Da."
"I know y'are, sweet'eart. Let's get home."

It had been stupid of Colin Johnson to try anything that night.
Johnson fancied himself a kingpin, going so far as to affix 'Lord' to his name, claiming he descended from a long, proud line of Celtic kings of the North. Feargal and nearly everybody else knew this was a crock of shite and that he really descended from a long proud line of fish-and-chip vendors of the West. He was a tall man but round in the middle, with thinning patches of red hair topping small beady eyes and a ruddy complexion. He was the right-hand man of Dennis Nichols, Sean Callahan's greatest rival for underworld supremacy of Dublin Island, but had an ego to match his gut and something shifty behind those beady eyes that Feargal didn't trust. "Y'know, t'ere's a reason y'own t'is city," Feargal had remarked to Sean Callahan once. "Y'got blokes like Nichols takin' advice from fuckwits like Colin Johnson and expectin' everyt'ing t'turn inta peaches."
Callahan had laughed. "And because I take advice from ye, Feargal, that's what makes me great?"
"No," Feargal had answered, "but I can assure ya, you're a sight better off t'an if y'listened t'the great Lord Johnson."
Feargal faced the great Lord Johnson now, the water of the Liffey Bay shimmering in the dirty moonlight under their feet, the smell of rotting fish and machine oil piercing their noses with sharp sweetness. Callahan and Nichols would never see each other here, not on the Quays, not where Callahan's influence was the greatest. Instead, they had sent their representatives to work out this argument, this dispute over a previously unclaimed patch of land down south. It was a trivial argument, one that could be worked out with a pint and a quick talk, perhaps a raised voice or two but nothing extreme.
Leave it to the great Lord Johnson to make things difficult.
Feargal had been the one to see the first man draw his weapon, been the first to fire. Soon the air around him was alive with bursts of orange sparks and the rattle of gunfire, the splintering of wood and ping of metal as men collapsed, gurgling as their lungs exploded from flaming-hot projectiles of titanium. Feargal had seen Lord Johnson vanish into a shack, heard the roar of a motorboat but had restrained the O'Faolain brothers from going after him. It was dark, visibility low and he didn't want to have to explain to his father-in law why he'd gone out with three brothers and come back with one.
Instead, his thoughts came to one disturbing conclusion. Lord Johnson hadn't come there to negotiate, fuck no, that was obvious. He'd come there to wipe Feargal out, to leave a hole in the fabric of Callahan's regime. And if that particular McPherson wouldn't go down tonight-- well, there were six others to take his place. Oh, Jaysus.
"Mickey! Start t'e fuckin' car, now! We gotta get back home-- t'e fuckers, t'e fuckers!"
At first Feargal hadn't felt the pain, hadn't felt much of anything as he hurried back to the humming DeSoto. There was an odd lightness to his walk, a sort of numb feeling rattling around his skull but he paid it no mind as he opened the passenger door and sat inside. When his back made contact with the seat and a million firecrackers went off behind his eyelids, Feargal slowly became aware of a sharp burn in his back, of a warm slickness that seeped into his clothing, of the drops of crimson running down his thumb to drip drip drip on the floor below.
Mickey had noticed this, too. "Fear-- oh, fuck, boss, we gotta get'cha t'hospital..."
"Not now, Goddamn it!" he'd growled, whipping out his pistol and pressing it to Mickey's jaw, his voice as icy as his gaze. "Get us the fuck back home, Mickey, or yer just as dead as my babies are gonna be. Now drive!"

Every light in the triple-decker was on when the DeSoto had slipped into the vacant space in front of it. Feargal stepped out onto the pavement, a fresh torrent of blood erupting from the thousand little holes in his back as he hurried up the stoop, leaving thick crimson footprints in his wake. Jack O'Faolain was waiting at the door, and Feargal grabbed his arms, glaring wildly up at him. "Are t'ey okay?" he growled, tightening his grip. "Y'fucker, y'tell me t'ey're all right!"
"Calm down," Jack spat out. "Y'calm yerself down now, Feargal. T'ey've 'ad enough of a shock t'night, ain't gonna do t'em no good t'see t'eir Da runnin' in all hysterical, like."
Feargal's grip relaxed a little. "Teyre all right, t'en?" he asked. "Yer tellin' me t'ey're okay."
Jack nodded tightly. "Caroline's got 'em in my flat. Tony's...well, he's Tony, Paulie slept t'rough it and Seamus were goin' fuckin' mad but 'e's okay now. T'ey're okay, boss."
Feargal could feel an icy claw creep up his throat and he set his jaw. "Tony, Paulie and Seamus are okay, y'say. Good-- 'cept I got five kids, Jack, not three. Where are my daughters, Jack?"
"Boss..."
"Fuck ya, Jack!" Feargal pushed past him and tore into the living room, feeling his blood begin to simmer with worry and fear and hatred. "Where t'e fuck are my girls?"
"T'ey're in t'e laundry room," Jack told Feargal as he climbed up the stairs, blood drizzling in his footsteps. "T'ey ain't hurt, not so far as I can see, but t'ey won't come out. Feargal," he grabbed his brother-in-law's arm and made him turn on the top step, looking up at him from under his heavy brow. "Cally's killed ona t'em."
Feargal could swear that he heard his heart stop beating for a minute. "I...what're ye tellin' me, Jack? Yer tellin' me my girl's killed someone? T'at's what'cher tellin' me?"
Jack nodded, once.
"Oh, Jaysus," Feargal muttered, and then rushed through the flat, through the living room and kitchen and to the back laundry room, where he paused and briefly crossed himself before entering.
Cally curled against the wall against the washing machine, her eyes wide and glazed as she stared at the dead man before her, the blood seeping onto the slick linoleum floors. The thick burgundy crawled towards her, and tiny pink toes curled against it, peeking out from the hem of last Christmas' nightgown, now spattered with crimson. Only after close examination could he see Charlotte there as well, pressed into her sister's body, dark hair plastered to her face and pajamas. Cally's thin arms were wrapped around Charlotte, pressing the younger girl's face to her body, keeping her from the corpse's cold, grasping fingers.
Cally hadn't heard Feargal approach, she hadn't heard him speak to her or saw him as he kneeled in front of her. She only noticed him when his bloodstained hand, scarlet ringing his nails, colouring the creases in his palm and stiffening the course brown hairs that crossed his knuckles reached out and took Charlotte from her trembling arms. "Shh, shh, baby, it's me, it's Da. Don't cry, sweet'eart, everyt'ing's okay now, it's all over. C'mon...c'mon, let's getcha back t'bed," he told the terrified little girl, cradling her gently and kissing the top of her head while he handed her to Jack. "Get 'er t'her Mam, right?" Jack nodded and Feargal watched them go through the kitchen before he turned back to the gruesome scene at hand.
"Cally," he began gently, kneeling between her and the corpse. "You all right?"
She nodded.
"Either of y'get hurt?"
She shook her head.
"Can y'tell me what happened?"
Cally nodded slowly and swallowed painfully. "I...I woke up, I heard something at the window and I woke up. And there were this bloke there, right? Onna ladder or summat. So I screamed for Ryan or Eamon, and I grabbed Charlie and ran out-- I heard the window break, so I knew he were followin' us, so I screamed again for Mam and I-- I went inta here, inta the laundry room." She closed her eyes and continued. "I closed the door, and I locked it, but he were big, and he broke the door..."
"So y'grabbed the gun."
She nodded. "It were behind the washer again. So I grabbed it and he broke in and I just started shootin', y'know?" She formed a gun with her thumb and index finger and pointed it over Feargal's right shoulder. "Bang! Bang! Bang! Three times, just like that."
"Where's the gun now, Cally?"
She sniffed and pointed towards a corner formed by the laundry hamper and the wall. Feargal reached over and took it carefully between his fingers, feeling the metal still warm in his hand. He turned back to Cally and softened his gaze. "I'm goin' ta make t'is better, Cally," he told her as he methodically wiped down the grip with his jacket hem. "Doncha worry, love, I'm goin' ta make t'is all better."
She looked at him disbelievingly and wrapped her hands in her hair, her voice a barely audible whisper. "I shot him, Da."
"No y'didn't, sweet'eart," he replied, and then twisted behind him, aiming carefully and firing. Cally yelped as the corpse shuddered, a new stream of blood erupting from its scalp to puddle on the floor. He turned back to Cally and smiled gently. "I did."
"Da..."
"Shh, shh, baby," he slipped the gun in his jacket pocket and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her up. She clasped her skinny arms around his neck and buried her face in his shirt as he walked her towards the door, motioning to Jack and Ryan to clean up the mess in the laundry room. "Don't worry, love. Just trust me, okay? Can ya do t'at?"
"Yes," she mumbled into his shirt.
"T'ats good. Y'should always be able t'trust me, Cally." He carried her into the toilet and sat her on the rim of the bathtub before turning to the sink and kneeling by it, opening the lower cabinet to rummage for a pair of long yellow gloves that Caroline used to clean with. Finding them, he snapped them on and nodded towards Cally. "C'mere, love." He turned on the tap as Cally hesitantly approached, then took her hands and put them under the warm water.
"Da, what're y'doing?"
"T'eres powder residue on yer hands," he said matter-of-factly as he massaged her delicate pink fingers with his clumsy yellow-gloved ones, rubbing the course soap into a lather on her palms. "But, now t'are ain't gonna be anymore. T'ere's residue on my hands, but t'ere ain't none on yers. Yer prints ain't on that gun, Cally, mine are. Yer clean, Cally, d'ya understand me? Yer clean."
"Da...I shot him."
"I did, love. I shot him. You were protecting yer sister, t'ats all you were doing. I got the powder on my hands, my prints are on t'at gun-- y'didnt do a damn thing." He grabbed a hand towel from the rack and shut off the water, wrapping the cloth around Cally's hands and pressing them dry. He peeled off the gloves and tossed them under the sink before cupping her face in his bloodstained hand. "Y'dint do nothin' wrong t'night. Y'hear me? T'at man were scum, he were tryin' ta hurtcha and yer sister-- y'dint do nothin' wrong by it. Yer clean, baby. Yer clean."
"Da?"
"Yeah, sweet'eart?"
"You're bleeding."
"Yeah, baby, I know."
She frowned, her eyebrows knitting together. "Shouldnt'cha be gettin' that fixed?"
"I need t'putcha t'bed first, love." He picked her up, wincing at the sudden pain in his back before heading out of the toilet and carrying her to her parents bedroom, nesting her next to Charlotte, already fast asleep and clutching her cuddly puppy. He kissed both of them and tousled Cally's red curls. "I love ya, and I'm right proud of ya, sweet'eart. Go t'sleep now."
She smiled up at him and closed her eyes, wrapping an arm around Charlotte. "G'night, Da. I'll see you later."
"Right, sweet'eart," he smiled, flipping off the light. He closed the door and then his knees gave out, sending him crashing into Mickey O'Faolain's outstretched arms. Ian O'Faolain had grabbed some basic supplies from the toilet and they'd hustled him into the kitchen, where Caroline sat nursing a cup of tea. He sat there now, straddling a wooden chair that creaked under his weight, the slats digging into his stomach as Caroline dug into his back. Occasionally he'd hear the ping as another piece of shot fell onto the plate she'd brought out, an old cracked one that had belonged to her grandmother, and he'd hiss as the cotton swab of alcohol was pressed to a freshly opened pit of skin.

How are you?
Hurts like shite.
I'm not surprised, half your back's been blown out. No, it didn't touch your cross, don't worry.
Thanks, sweet'eart.
What did you tell her?
I told her she didn't do anything wrong. I told her she was clean.
That's good, baby. She needs to know that.
What happened?
I don't know. I was asleep and then I heard Cally screaming, and then the glass breaking.
What didja do?
I ran to the stairs, yelled for my brothers. Who were those men?
Some friends of Colin Johnson's. Fucking loonies, the lot.
Well, you don't have to worry now. They won't try anything like that again.
I hope not. They do, I'm taking them down myself. Ah!
Sorry, baby. Only a few left.
It's okay.
Baby?
Yeah, sweet'eart?
You're clean, too.
No, I'm not. But thanks anyway, sweet'eart.