Seven years before

It was not long past midnight when Joe Donovan pulled into the driveway of his family home. Branches of the overgrown orange tree scraped the top of his car roof and he made a mental note to trim it down on the weekend. With all the large landscaping projects he'd taken on, his own home had fallen to the wayside.

Even though he had worked in the landscaping business for a long time, Mary was the family gardener and was often pottering around with her watering can, planting new trees and cutting the flowers to make floral arrangements for the house. But she had recently undergone another round of chemotherapy and their son had been guarding her dutifully to make sure she rested.

Joe turned his coat up as he got out of the truck – it was chilly this time of year and especially this time of night. Aware of how late it was, he gently shut the car door as to not wake his wife or son if they were sleeping inside. He grabbed his toolbox from the back and whistled to Murphy, their dog, to hop down and follow him to the front door.

As he was kicking off his muddy boots on the porch, he paused as he breathed in the familiar scent of cinnamon, clove, and peppermint.

His youngest child must have visited tonight.

Even though he was disappointed in missing out on seeing her, he knew it would have made Mary so happy. Trying to catch Maeve was like trying to catch smoke since she started saving the world and curing diseases and revolutionising a whole lot of science things that were lost on him – but it didn't make him any less proud of his wee Space Cadet. When Mary became unwell, all his children had responded differently. Maeve had predictably thrown herself into research and had nearly become an oncology resident overnight. He hoped tonight had been a rare social call that didn't involve the inner workings of some Swedish study on somatic mutations or something rather.

He stepped inside quietly and put his keys on the small hall table. Their house was narrow – as were many suburban houses in the neighbourhood – with a long hallway with their bedroom coming off and an open kitchen, dining and living room at the end. The kid's old bedrooms were upstairs – still mostly intact. Murphy made a bee-line for the end and Joe was about to follow when he noticed a familiar yellow, slightly tattered backpack dumped by the door, weighed down by some kind of heavy book.

Joe could hear quiet murmuring and rustling around down near the kitchen. When he walked in, he saw Maeve sitting on the kitchen counter with her legs swinging anxiously, wavy hair was curtaining both sides of her cheeks so he couldn't see her face nor had she noticed him. Murphy was under her dangling feet watching her shoes sway with interest. Mary stood in front of Maeve with a pack of frozen peas in one hand and antiseptic wipes in the other. The first aid kit was upended on the counter next to Maeve.

This didn't concern Joe much at first. His memories of Maeve's childhood were littered with bruises, bumps, cuts, concussions, burns, dislocations, fractured bones and sprains. She was always brilliant but devastatingly clumsy. Not to mention her curious mind always made them end up in the emergency room because she threw herself off the roof for a physics theory or blew up the backyard for a chemistry experiment.

Clearly whatever she had done was a result of her hapless ways as Mary fluttered around her – tense and upset.

"I can't believe this. How could you ke-"

"How are my girls tonight?" Joe interrupted them, dropping his toolbox on the dining table. Both women jumped and Mary dropped what she was holding in surprise and quickly stood in front of Maeve plastering on a surprised but welcoming face.

"Joe! We didn't hear you get in!"

"Aye, love. I thought you'd be in bed. I thought the Tomlinson job would take all night," he tried going around his wife to put the coffee pot on but she blocked him again.

"Ach, Mary. Surely, I can have one coffee? That twig of an apprentice is doin' my head in so." he joked.

"No, no," she waved her hands nervously. "I'll make your coffee, you go sit down. Tea, Maeve? Longjing tea to keep that beautiful brain of yours grand?"

"S-sure, thanks Mum," Maeve replied, a pitch too high and shivering as if she were freezing despite the warmth emanating from the fireplace in the living room opposite. She was fiddling with the sleeves of her shirt, pulling them over her wrists and avoiding her father's eyes as he watched her suspiciously from where he was sat at the dining table.

His daughter was, for lack of more eloquent word, a complete chatterbox. Endless facts, boundless statistics, ceaseless trivia. She haemorrhaged information. When she was little, her brother had once asked her for help on a classic literature assignment and three and a half hours later, he emerged from her room panting, desperate for food, air, sustenance. The rest of the family would roll their eyes and groan when she got excited and started on one of her energetic tangents, but Joe always thought it was one of her most beautiful qualities and encouraged her much to the family's chagrin.

Not that it happened a great deal anymore. In fact, it had been a very long time since Maeve had attended any kind of family gathering. She would always cancel at the last minute, her voice shaking through an obvious lie in her voice messages – always reassuring them that everything was fine. Joe had begun to worry about her since the last time she had essentially been tricked into coming over. Mary had feigned feeling particularly unwell so Maeve would come over and she could surprise her with her wedding dress. His eldest daughter, Ingrid, had chosen a new dress for her own wedding and Mary knew how much Maeve had loved the old dress and would trace the patterns in the fabric when she was little. Joe would never agree to deceive Maeve like that normally but he could literally see the improvement in Mary's condition when she thought about giving Maeve her dress.

Unfortunately, the idea had been a complete disaster. Maeve had looked panicked and frozen, they collectively thought due to the embarrassment of them all being there. When Ingrid had jokingly tried to force the dress over Maeve's head to let them see, she had snapped out of her statute-like state and screamed in horror pushing the dress off of her with such vigor that it crumpled to the floor quite dramatically. Maeve had apologised tearfully, looking as shocked as the rest of them and ran out the house with her hand over her mouth. Mary had sighed when she folded the dress carefully over her arm and told Joe that Maeve always felt everything stronger than everyone else and wedding nerves wouldn't be an exception.

But it only furthered the concerns Joe was already harbouring.

Bobby Putnam was always cheery and charismatic. The Putnam's lived on the same street as theirs and Bobby had attended the same school as Maeve for the few years that Maeve was in high school. Even after Maeve had graduated early from school, Bobby had been her only friend for years until her internship. It had been sweet when they were little – a friendship encouraged by both families to prompt Bobby to become less rough and tumble and more focused on school and for Maeve to learn to be more sociable and less shy around kids her own age. Though as Maeve got older, Joe was starting to become concerned that this friendly protector of Maeve's was starting to become the reason she didn't have anyone else.

He knew it was more than fatherly concern. As their relationship progressed, he was the only one uneased by the seemingly charming boy. For one, he always stopped Maeve during one of her excited speeches to tell her to calm down or make fun of whatever she was so passionate about and make Maeve blush in all the wrong ways. The rest of the family didn't take any notice but Joe discerned how she would stay quiet for the entire evening and eventually turned into her rarely speaking at all unless spoken to and even then she spoke nervously and carefully – and always apologising if she thought she said the wrong thing.

He would tense with anger when he saw Bobby chuckle and wrap his arm around Maeve and whisper into her ear like Ingrid and her husband would. But there was nothing sweet and loving about the action and he would always say things along the lines of: "The topic's closed for discussion, Maeve." "We'll talk about this at home." "Don't embarrass us in front of all these people, darling." "I thought I told you be normal tonight."

It sent shivers down Joe's spine and he so desperately wanted to talk to Maeve about it but Mary and Ingrid had forbidden it. They were convinced Maeve would never forgive him if he ruined her first relationship. Which was a ridiculous notion since he knew someone could accidentally stab Maeve and she would apologise for being in their way. The engagement is what finally drove Joe to confront Maeve about it. All four elder Donovan's filed into the Putnam's barbeque under strict instructions and etiquette pep talks from Ingrid.

Then Bobby proposed to Maeve in front of everybody with his grandmother's ring. Joe watched the inner torment battle across his youngest child's face as she struggled in the situation she was in and even glanced up at her father for a brief second fearfully. Ingrid quickly stuffed a bread roll into his mouth as he opened it to say something but by then Bobby had crushed a still speechless Maeve to him before she was swept away by a horde of squealing sister-in-laws-to-be (The Flakes is what the Donovan's called this particular group of women).

He wondered if it was reluctant wedding plans and pretentious in-laws that had gotten his little one so down and quiet this evening.

"Earth to Space Cadet?" he said to her. "Is anyone home?"

Maeve's head popped up for a split second to acknowledge him but then dropped back down hastily – but it was enough for him to notice. Joe stood up so quickly that the wooden dining chair fell backwards against the floor with a bang and Maeve jumped in surprise.

"Mary!" he thundered. "If that's what I think…"

Mary dropped the coffee pot on the bench and quickly zoomed over with her palms out calmingly to where her husband was marching toward Maeve. "Now, calm down, love. Lets not blow our..."

Joe's lifted Maeve's face up and she flinched away out of his grasp. Her eyes and cheeks were rosy from crying but one cheek was extremely hot and scarlet – the skin slightly raised up and welted and a purple bruise was forming across her cheekbone. He wasn't sure if the bloodied tissues in her lap where from her still slightly bleeding nose or the matching cut underneath adorning her lip. He lifted up her palms that were covered in painful looking little gashes and grazes that went down to her wrists. Blood speckled the sleeves of her white shirt. There was a pile of tiny splinters of bloodied glass next the tweezers on the bench with rubbing alcohol.

"I'm-I'm okay. I-I f-fell o..."

Joe dropped his daughter's arms as he was overcome with rage. She could barely talk without sounding winded.

"Joe, you need to stay calm, okay? We'll sort this. Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure…"

"…it's n-not that bad. Y-you know how easily I-I bruise."

"We can have a cuppa and calm down..."

"DAMN THE TEA, MARY!" Joe yelled and Maeve jumped at his voice and he immediately felt guilty at scaring her but he was too wound up to calm himself.

He spun on his heel to face his wife. "That…that…cretin has been beating our daughter!"

"I'm n-not being beaten. I-it looks worse than it-it is. I know it was-wasn't okay to do but the-the rest I did...myself. You-you know how clumsy I can b-be. I fell into t-the table and that-that's how I got all th-these," she murmured through hysterical shaking as if her explanation and the fact she couldn't even hold her hands still would make him feel better.

"Right, but this isn't the first time is it, aye?" Joe said turning to Maeve again. "Is it, Maeve?"

Maeve was trembling now, too terrified to look at her father. That was enough for Joe.

"Were you wide of this?" he rounded on Mary who had bustled over with the drinks.

She exhaled incredulously pushing a cup of coffee into his shaking hands. "Catch yourself on, Joe. Do you think I would have let her stay there if I knew? But there's no point getting frazzled."

"Frazzled? FRAZZLED? Mary. Lord, give me strength," Joe dropped his cup on the bench and pinched the bridge of his nose while he paced the kitchen.

Maeve shifted off the counter and put on the most unconvincing display of composure. "I-I'm fine. I-I don't want you to f-fight over this. It's my problem, I can sort it out. I'm sure it..."

In any other situation, Maeve would have laughed at how her father's expression got more and more incredulous by the second. She had never seen him fired up this much over anything other than artificial plants and Gaelic football.

"Maeve Luna, is your head cut? You best wise up if you think you're going anywhere tonight," Mary said placing down the tea in a sternly business-like fashion. "You'll not be sorting this out tonight."

"Dead on," Joe nodded. "I'll be sort this out."

He grabbed his keys off the counter. Both women flurried around him.

"Joseph Donovan, you'll be doing nothing of the sort!"

"Dad! No!" Maeve grabbed at his sleeve as he tried to walk down the hallway. She didn't let go despite how painful it must have been on her cut up hands.

At that moment, Alfie Donovan's shaggy copper-haired head popped out from his bedroom door to see what all the commotion was about. He hobbled out on crutches from snowboarding in Austria or surfing in Waikiki or skateboarding on the way to one of the many jobs he had. It was hard to keep track.

"What's all this?" he said sleepily. "Oh! Mae! What are you doing here this late?"

"That goblin has been beating ye sister."

"Serious? Mae, what-"

"I'm putting this right."

"I'm coming too," Alfie declared and hobbled after his father.

Maeve grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back, choking him. "Absolutely not!"

Alfie was very tall but a twiggy beanpole even without his injury.

"Dad!" Maeve called out after her father but the door slammed behind him with finality leaving his daughter terrified and distraught in the hallway.

"It's okay, love," Mary said smoothing down Maeve's hair and Alfie leaned on one of his crutches to wrap his arm around her.

"Alfie, can you throw all my things into Ingrid's room please so I can clear off your sisters bed?"

Maeve was unable to feel little else besides anxiousness, guilt, and fear. But there was a small and rare leap of relief in her heart when she realised that she had finally come home.