Liam and Jade

I've never been to Ireland and there is no chance of me going any time soon, so any information about the climate, people, customs, or anything really, would be very helpful. Also, I need some help knowing where to break up the paragraphs. Review/read away!




Liam sat at the computer. He took a sip of his coffee, enjoying the feel of the warmth in his throat on these cold Irish mornings. I think he liked it, at least. I don’t know why he would drink it if he didn’t. He looked through his dating account, hoping for a hit. There was one: sendit2me81@yahoo.com Liam clicked on her profile, and dropped his coffee mug. It was Veronica. Liam had stumbled upon his ex-girlfriend of—oh who knows how many years? They had been together for years back in college. All of the students in Liam’s classes wondered why he never dated. Oh, Veronica was pen pal. They had lost touch do to some unfortunate circumstances. I should probably introduce myself.

I’m Jade. I’m Liam’s daughter. Apparently, when my mother came to Ireland she said the hills looked like the most perfect color of jade. I was born the next year on the exact same day she made that remark. For some unknown reason, that comment stuck in her head, and she named me Jade for the hills of Ireland. Go figure. I am Jade Illume Oroan. My father is Liam Oroan. My mother is dead. Liam said that she died just after I was born. Liam and I live way out of town, like in some of those pictures you see on postcards. We live about half way up on one of those hills. Right now, since it is winter, that hill is covered in snow. I remember when I was little (and this is the only memory I have of my mother), my mother said that the snow was dandruff. Once I knew what dandruff was, I wouldn’t leave the house for days! I should get back to Liam and Veronica.
So, when he clicked on her profile, up popped this picture of her in this leopard print bikini. I am surprised that Liam didn’t keel over dead right then and there. Liam stared at Veronica’s profile, and discovered that she really hadn’t changed a bit since college. She still had her black hair, and as he put it, “those sparkling sexy—I mean beautiful green eyes.” Liam started typing his response. I was informed in no uncertain terms that I was supposed to leave the room. I slunk off to my room. And went straight to the webpage. He isn’t exactly great at hiding his username and password. So I just settled in looking at Veronica’s page, and waited patiently for Liam to post his comments. When he did, I almost died from trying to keep from laughing. He wrote:

My dearest Veronica,
When I found you here, my heart stopped for fear it was a dream. I am almost afraid to post this now, in case it would disrupt the cosmos and send you away from me again. If you wish to contact me and revive an old friendship, respond on my page. If you wish to make it something more, call me. My number is still the same as it was when we first met on that fateful day.
I love you with all my heart,
Petro

So, needless to say, I could have keeled over right then and there. I was half-ways tempted to walk down the stairs as cool as you please and shout to the world, “Hello Petro!” For some reason, I don’t think that Liam would have appreciated that. *sigh* So many words, so little time. I wonder where “Petro” came from. Where the hell do you get that name for my physics professor father? Seriously, I would have expected that for some pimply kid my age. I heard a knock on my door, and Liam pushed it open. I had just enough time to close out the Internet before he saw what I had been doing. He said to me,

“Hey there kid, what do you say we go out and do a little snowshoeing?” I rolled my eyes at Liam and his Scottish accent. I can’t get over how much he sounds like a louder and younger version of Sean Connery. I love it. On any guy other than my father, it would be incredibly sexy. Thank God I am not into incest. I said to Liam,
“Liam, you know I hate snowshoeing. Just because the only hit you got is your ex-girlfriend doesn’t give you a legit excuse to be annoyingly dense.” Liam gave me that look that said “Child-you-are-too-intelligent-for-your-own-good”, and said,

“Well then, Miss Precocious, why don’t you find something for us to do?” He turned around and walked down the stairs. Before I even realized what I was doing, I walked back out to my door and shouted down at him,

“Why don’t you, Petro-darling?” Liam stopped in his tracks, and stared up at me. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of Liam. He had never scared me before. He had told me scary stories, and jumped out at me before, but I had never feared him himself. It was a strange experience. He stared at me with dark blue flashing eyes, and I turned around and ran back to my room. He followed me, and before I could shut the door, he was in my room. I didn’t know where to go. My room was a dead end.
Any window I had was too small for me to fit through. I turned around, and Liam was right up there in my face. If looks could kill, I would have been dead the second I shouted “Petro-darling” Liam pushed me onto the bed, and shoved a pillow in my face. I couldn’t see anything through the thick cotton, but I could hear him shouting. I couldn’t breathe, and my lack of oxygen made it harder for my brain to process what he was saying. I tried desperately to suck in any air through the pillow, but it didn’t work. I started to feel less and less of my body. First I lost my fingers, and then my toes. It almost felt like I was stepping into a warm bath, but the water was so hot it was the kind that made your body numb for that split second before you realized how hot the water was. Soon, the little bit I could feel was my brain. And that started getting slower and slower until…





I pulled the pillow away from Jade’s blue still face. Her eyes still stared up into the ceiling, like they were searching for one of those infuriating flies in the summer. Suddenly, her green eyes flicked over to me, anger and hatred driving knives into me. I shut my eyes tightly, opened them again, and they were once again staring into the ceiling. It hit me then: I had killed my daughter. I had killed my daughter. I had killed my daughter. It played through my head, my own torturous mantra. I heard nothing but it in my head. Not the early robins singing in the snow-covered trees, not Jade’s hamster in its wheel, not even any other thoughts of my own. Nothing but my mantra. I had killed my daughter. I threw down the pillow, my horror enveloping me. I held Jade’s hand, and found that although she was barely dead 10 minutes, her hand was already colder than the snow falling outside.
I saw a tear leak out of her eye, sliding gently down her cheek. I once again jumped at the site of my living daughter, until I realized that it was my own tear that had fallen onto her glassy eye. While my emotional half of my brain was still in shock at the site before me, the other more logical half was already planning. Where do I get rid of the body? What do I tell friends and relatives? How do I tell Veronica? My thought process was interrupted by the familiar blipping of my computer, indicating I had a message. It seemed so out of place, that beeping. I felt like I had gone to another world, an alternate dimension, and that beeping just seemed too similar to my previous world to be real. The thought of Veronica came into my mind, and I realized that it must be her. I ran down to my computer, and found her response to read:
Hey Petro!
So…I kind of forgot your phone number. Mine is 652-429-8729. Call me when you get this.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I had killed my daughter for a woman who couldn’t even remember my phone number. Nevertheless, I picked up the phone and called her number. She picked up, her wonderful lilting voice bringing some sort of solace to my stunned emotion brain.
“Hello?” My throat was dry. My hands were sweating. I had killed my daughter. I answered,
“Veronica?”
“Petro! Oh my God, you got my message! How are you?” How am I? I just killed my daughter. I am talking to the woman I have mourned every day since she left my life. So, how am I doing?
“I’m doing great, what about you?” Veronica answered with absolutely no hesitation,
“I’m doing absolutely great! I just got a teaching job at Harvard University in America, and am making more money that I ever dreamed possible. I was thinking the other day, and I was wondering if… you know… I could talk to our daughter?” Can you talk to our daughter? I just killed my daughter. I just killed my daughter. I just killed your daughter. I just killed our daughter. How do you answer that question?
“I’m sorry, Veronica. Our daughter died a few years ago. She was with her friends at that famous American mall—what is it called? Oh yes, the Mall of America. They met a boy, and met him a few more times. It was a serial rapist and killer.” Veronica was silent for quite a while. There was no sobbing, no anger. Just silence. She replied after almost 25 minutes,
“Oh. I’m sorry. I…I have to go. I’ll call you later. ‘Bye.” Without waiting for me to reply, she hung up. Slowly, I put the phone down. I had just killed my daughter. I had killed our daughter. I had killed your daughter. No matter how I said it, it still sounded just as bad. I still sounded like a murder. Sometimes, on TV, it seems like people think that their killing is justified. I know that although I would not have liked to have my daughter find out about Veronica, I could have still dealt with it and her.
I suppose those who are reading this still don’t understand why I would kill my daughter for finding out that her mother was in fact still alive. The thing is how do you tell your daughter that her mother has no memory of her? How do you tell your daughter that you are the one who caused her mother not to remember her?
It had been completely accidental, I assure you. I hadn’t meant to cause brain damage. We had been driving out here to the very house I’m writing this in now. She had been turned around trying to get Jade to stop crying while I drove. I turned around to help her. It was just for a second, I promise. But when I turned around, it was just a portion of a second before a petroleum trucker lost control and slammed into the passenger’s side of the car. I remember the air bag slapping me in the face, and then I blacked out. He must have called the hospital, because when I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. My heartbeat was bleeping at me loudly, and my little 2 year-old was asleep in my arms. There was blood all over her dress, and her hair was matted with the stuff. With a start, I realized that it wasn’t her blood. When a nurse passed by, I asked where my wife was. She was still in surgery. She said that Jade and I could leave any time we wanted. We just had to sign a few papers. We got out in just a few minutes later, and we waited in the waiting room for almost 9 hours. Finally, Veronica came out of surgery. They said all her vitals looked good, and she would most likely make it through the night. She ought to have been waking up in half an hour.
As I write this now, I know very few people will understand what I mean. To wake up and have your wife and friend of 16 years not remember you… well, it is life-altering to say the least. I cannot go on knowing that I caused my wife to lose her memory, and then killed my daughter. I am going now. I don’t mean I am leaving to go to the store, or on a trip. I mean ‘I am going’ as in “I am going for good”. I am going to die. I will not live longer knowing that I tore apart my family. If I do not die now, I will eventually lose my mind completely. Even now, I can see Jade in her chair reading, every now and then looking up at me. When she looks up, her eyes are not their lovely green like her mother’s but a disturbing red, anger and hurt shooting out from her pupils. I am going to poison myself. I am writing this clearly now, so that there will be no speculation of someone else killing me. No, someone else did kill me. It was Grief. Grief and Guilt conspired to kill me. And they have succeeded. Goodbye. Veronica, know that if you don’t remember everything about me, I love you. I still love you. Our daughter was an amazing young woman. You would have been proud of her. She still remembers the dandruff snow, if you remember that. You would have loved her. I know you would have. I loved you both.

Hi Angela,
I love this.. it's unique and I really adore Liam's character. He's a complete lunatic, really genuinely insane, I can't get enough of him going "I killed my daughter" and then answering his phone. It's darkly comical, and I like the twist about Veronica being Jade's mum. It's sad, and it's very funny.
I haven't been to Ireland, but I'm from Cornwall and have some Irish friends. They definately do most of the things the characters do in this story, obviously apart from killing their own kids!! First of all, which Ireland is the story set in? Ireland is its own nation, but Northern Ireland is part of the UK. I haven't heard anything about the climate being different, apparently it is just grey and a bit drizzly, with the normal stuff going on in summer and winter.
I would say that you need to change this line, “Hey there kid, what do you say we go out and do a little snowshoeing?” I rolled my eyes at Liam and his Scottish accent. This doesn't work at all, because 'hey there kid' is too American. Snowshoeing is bizarre, because I've really no idea what it is, and most people won't know what it is. Maybe he could just ask her to go for a walk with him? Also, why does Liam have a Scottish accent? It's not really a typical sexy accent.
Also not sure about the "mall of America" that's meant to be funny... but a lot of people will just think this is a real mall and be wondering why Jade was in America... maybe you could say she got shot by a gang of crackheads in Dublin? That would be daft enough to fit in with the crazy story line. Two more nitpicks. "Petroleum tanker" we call them petrol lorries or diesel lorries - we call trucks and tankers lorries, and petroleum is either diesel or petrol. A store is a shop, a trip is a holiday. If this is set in a part of the UK, then we don't sign forms at hospital as we have free healthcare. I hope that's helpful to you!