Summary

Chapter 6 begins a year later, just after Ryan’s sixteenth birthday and his and Karine’s first anniversary. In the past year, Ryan has left school and home, and has moved up in the drug world while working for a man named Dan Kane. While buying alcohol, Ryan notices a small girl stealing beer for her parents. Ryan catches up to the family on the street and chastises them for using their child to do their dirty work.

The narration then switches to Maureen, who is talking to an imagined apparition of Robbie O’Donovan. She tells this ghost about Dominic Looney, the man who got her pregnant with Jimmy and left as soon as he found out. Maureen conveys that she was “up to me armpits in punishment…for doing feck all,” and so does not think she needs to redeem...