Season of Second Chances: an uplifting novel of moving away and starting over

by Aimee Alexander

  Stomach knotted tighter than it’s ever been, he picks up the phone. His thumb hovers over his father’s number. Mouth dry, he stares at the screen. He takes a deep breath. Then pauses. If he makes this call, his father could still show up. Jack would become his tool. While also betraying his mother. She would be devasted if she knew that he kept the SIM, never mind talking to his father.

  Phone in hand, he slumps onto the bed. He can’t betray her. And he can’t blame her for trying to protect them. She kept them innocent for so long. Jack had no idea – until he began to spend time at his friends’ houses. That’s when he noticed. Not all dads spoke to their wives like his did. They didn’t criticise them. They didn’t insult them. They joked and laughed and teased maybe, but fun teasing, that resulted in teasing back. When his father joked, it could turn at any moment. You could feel the tension in the air like ice particles, everything brittle, as if something was about to crack at any moment. And crack it would.

  Jack wants to tell her he’s sorry. But sorry is a word that his father used to get what he wanted. Sorry is a word that Jack doesn’t trust.

  He thinks back to the days before he knew. He’d burst through the school doors to find his mum waiting for him in the yard with a little box of juice and another little box of raisins. She’d pick him up and he’d throw his arms around her neck and lay his head against her chest. Then she’d whisk him and Holly off to the cinema or the beach or the amusements in Bray where he’d kill alien invaders with an enormous pink gun up against his shoulder. She was such a warm mum. She still is. He just stopped noticing, coloured by his father’s view of her. She’d die for them; he feels that now, like a great force of truth. He wishes he could wipe out all the pain she went through. He wishes he’d stood up for her. He thinks he’s so hard. But if he really is hard why didn’t he step up? Why didn’t he protect her like she protected him?

  There’s a knock on the door. He turns the phone on silent and shoves it under his pillow.

  He opens up to see his mum. There’s so much he wants to say. But he keeps it all in.

  “Just wanted to say goodnight,” she says, looking beautiful, if he’s honest.

  He forces a smile. “’Night.”

  She goes to him, cups his face in her hands like she used to when he was little – and he used to cup hers right back. He’d forgotten that. The memory touches him.

  “I just want you to know that you can relax now,” she says, looking deep into his eyes. “You can be a teenager, look out for yourself, have fun, be free. We’re okay now. The hardest bit is over.”

  Suddenly, tears threaten. And he never cries. “Yeah, okay, gotta get some sleep.” He won’t sleep.

  “Okay, sweetie, see you in the morning. Love you.”

  Maybe, someday, he’ll be able to say it back.

  Grace knocks gently on Holly’s door. Opening up, her heart melts. Holly has carefully laid out her uniform on the back of a chair. Her school books are organised according to subject on the dressing table, ready to go into her bag. And she’s tucked up in bed, listening intently to the sea area forecast and repeating the words exactly as they’re said. Everything she has done today, she has done while listening to the radio. Grace smiles at her baby and sits on the edge of the bed. She opens her arms wide for a hug. Holly folds into her. Grace kisses the top of her head. That Holly was conceived in violence has never weakened Grace’s love for her. If anything, it has made it more fierce, more determined.

  “Love you to pieces.”

  “Love you too, Mum,” she says in a strong Cork accent.

  Grace pulls back. “That’s so good!”

  “Really?” Holly asks hopefully, continuing to sound like a native.

  “Really!”

  Holly turns down the radio and looks into her mother’s eyes. “We’ll be okay, won’t we, Mum?”

  Grace tucks a strand of hair behind Holly’s ear and looks into her eyes. “We’ll be better than okay. We’ll be amazing.” The minute she says amazing, it feels too strong, too unbelievable, too big a leap. Why didn’t she just say “great”?

  But Holly is looking at her like she really wants to believe it.

  Grace pinches her nose. “New start. Clean slate. The world’s our oyster.”

  “The sky’s the limit,” Holly says.

  “If you can dream it, you can do it!” Grace exaggerates a shudder and they laugh. She puts her arms out again.

  Holly clings to her.

  And she clings right back.

  “Do you think if I leave the radio on I’ll listen in my sleep, subconsciously, like?”

  Grace smiles. “It’s worth a try.”

  Grace is lying awake at two in the morning, her mind swirling around on a worry loop. What is Simon up to? Does the fact that he didn’t appear this weekend (when at his most outraged and off work) mean that he’s not going to? Can she allow herself to hope that the law really will stop him? Maybe he spent the weekend with fat-cat lawyer pals preparing his backlash. What’s the worst he can do legally? Get access? He can’t force them back to live with him. That’s what matters. She has to stop thinking about him. He’s in the past. She has a future to worry about. Will the kids be okay at school and in Killrowan in general? How fast is her father’s Parkinson’s progressing? And is she up to taking over from him? That last question, alone, is a minefield. At the age of forty-seven, Grace is returning to work full-time – without the full educational credits she needs. The Irish College of General Practitioners has said that she can continue to gather them (with further courses and study) as she works. But what if she makes a mistake? Her experience is mostly with young mothers and children. The patients in her father’s practice are, by and large, elderly. She could really do with a crash course in geriatrics. And that’s just to be competent. Grace has to go beyond that. She has to be as beloved, as respected as the original Dr. Sullivan. For him.

  But there are positives too; she has to remember that. She is returning to what she loves, full-time. Becoming independent again. She knows that Simon would never doubt himself if he was in her situation. He’d walk right into that surgery, head high, thinking everyone lucky to have him. It’s disconcerting to realise: Grace should be more like him.

  She looks at the hands on the clock. She really must sleep. She can’t start work in a fog. Maybe one codeine. Just one. And just for tonight….

  10

  Monday morning, Holly stands at her bedroom window, out of sight, looking down on the street at everyone heading to school. She whispers a thank you to the woman in the uniform shop – who was right about the skirts, shoes, coats, everything. Holly checks out – exactly – how the girls are wearing their hair. Straightened and in high pony tails. Luckily, she has just straightened hers.

  She leaves the window.

  The ancient (and kind of gross) dressing table is actually pretty handy. Holly can sit facing the mirror with somewhere to rest her hair things.

  There’s a knock on the door. Out of the corner of her eye she sees it open.

  “I’m heading out now,” her mum says. “Just wanted to wish you luck.”

  “Thanks,” Holly says without taking her eyes from the mirror. Time’s running out and she has to get this ponytail right.

  “Give your mum an old hug.”

  “Haven’t time!” Her eyes meet her mother’s in the mirror.

  “You look lovely,” she says, smiling.

  “I can’t get my hair right,” Holly says in growing frustration.

  “Want me to do it?”

  “No!” she snaps. Apologetically she adds: “I know the exact height.”

  Grace places her hands on Holly’s shoulders and kisses her temple. “Have a great day, sweetie.”

  “Great? Not amazing?” Holly wishes she weren’t so superstitious. Like, how can what her mum wishes her affect her actual day? It can’t. So it doesn’t make a difference if she wishes her a “great” day instead of an “amazing” one. That’s not how life works
. Hopefully.

  “Amazing. Of course, I meant amazing.”

  Holly knows she’s being dumb. Still, she smiles in relief. “You too. You have an amazing day too.”

  Her mum presses her nose. “I’ll see you when I get home, chicken.”

  “See you then.” First, though, she has a whole day to get through.

  Jack is sitting on his bed, tying his shoes when his mum knocks and pops her head in.

  “Good luck at school,” she says.

  The luck he needs is with his dad. “Thanks. You too.”

  “How about a hug?” she asks as if she’s expecting a no.

  And he is so tempted by that no. But he gets up and opens out his arms, out of loyalty to how close they once were.

  She does a little pretend race to him, arms pumping. Laughing, he wraps his arms around her. Easier that way. She’s tiny.

  “This feels like a lucky hug,” she says.

  “It is,” he lies. Jack doesn’t believe in luck. And though he is surprisingly reassured by the closeness and the familiar scent of “Mum,” he counts to five and pulls back.

  She smiles up at him. “Better get that hair sorted. You look like a hedgehog.”

  Jack checks his watch meaningfully. “Thought you said you wanted to get there early.”

  “I do, I do. Okay, I’m gone!” She does another fake race to the door. Then she stops and turns. “I’ve left lunch downstairs.”

  “Go!”

  She waves her arms in the air, mimicking panic.

  “You’re crazy,” he calls after her, liking the person she is becoming. Or maybe returning to.

  Holly has tried three different ponytail heights. At last, she deems herself satisfied. She checks her watch. Oh no! She grabs her bag and runs. Out on the landing she calls Jack. She’s not walking up that road on her own.

  He appears, looking like he has just dragged himself out of bed – having slept in his clothes. His shirt is hanging out and his tie is off to one side. The worst is his hair, though.

  “Jack! Your hair!”

  He ignores her, turning and making for the stairs.

  She notices his feet and tries to save him. “The boys are all wearing runners!” Jack’s in his old school shoes.

  He turns around. “Do I look like I care?”

  “Why are you always looking for trouble?” she demands.

  He looks at her for the longest time. Then his expression softens. “Okay, look. If you try to fit in, you never will. Just be yourself, okay?”

  “Easy for you to say. People love you.”

  “Because I don’t care. Just don’t care, Holly, and you’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t just click into not caring.”

  “I give up.” He trots down the stairs.

  “Ah, there he is! James Dean himself,” Des says, like he’s impressed.

  “Who?” Holly asks.

  “James Dean. ‘Rebel Without a Cause.’ Actor. Doesn’t matter.” He slides lunch boxes across the table. “I slipped in a little surprise for ye.”

  “Aw, thanks, Grandad,” Holly says, shoving her arms into her coat.

  “Okay, we’re off,” is Jack’s goodbye as he heads for the door.

  “Jack, make an old man happy and put on a coat. There’s rain forecast.”

  “So, what else is new?” Jack grumbles, grabbing the coat his grandfather is holding out and walking off with it still in his fist.

  “I don’t know why we’re walking so fast,” Holly says to her brother. All around them kids are messing, pushing each other around, laughing, joking, teasing each other. “We look way too intense.”

  Jack slows down – for her.

  “Aren’t you nervous at all?” she asks, under her breath.

  “Of a bunch of culchies?”

  She glances around to make sure no one heard. “Shh!”

  “You’re as good as any of them, Hol.”

  When she looks doubtful, he walks ahead, jaw set, like he’s ready to take on the world. Reaching her school, though, he stops and waits for her. “Break a leg, sis.”

  She brightens.

  He stands, arms folded by her school gates.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Just waiting for you to go in.”

  “Aw. I’m touched,” she jokes, hand on her heart.

  “Go on, shoo!”

  She takes a deep breath and heads in through the gates behind a swarm of girls. Reaching the entrance, she turns around. Jack raises an arm in some sort of crazy salute. She laughs and gives him one back, remembering. Family comes first. Family is everything.

  Crossing the road to the boys’ school, Jack imagines Ross and all the others at their lockers now, having the banter. Without him. He looks around him. He has nothing in common with these, these… farmers. How did they get their “guns” anyway, lifting tractors? He takes out his phone to text Ross. But there’s no service. And the moment of weakness passes. What will he do with himself down here? A boy with red hair passes with a hurl on his back. Jack sure as hell won’t take up hurling, the sport of culchies. He lifts his school bag higher, pushes his shoulders back and strides into the school. If anyone hassles him…

  11

  Grace runs her hand over her father’s old desk. The surgery hasn’t changed. Well, the computer is new. Outside of that, it’s just as she remembers. She sits in the swivel chair, pushes back from the desk and turns in slow circles, absorbing everything, the way the light shafts in and dust motes rise, the warm chestnut wood of the desk and shelves, the way the room smells faintly of antiseptic. This is where her dreams of becoming a doctor first formed. By the age of ten, she knew how all the equipment worked. She could take a temperature, pulse, blood pressure. She knew what caused heart attacks and strokes. And she knew how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre.

  She would visit so often that the surgery was like a second home. She and her mum would bring Des lunch and sit and chat with him for the short break he allowed himself. Her parents were so in love. Right to the end. It showed in the little things. How she’d never miss a day of bringing him lunch. How she’d cut his hair and how he trusted her to. And how he walked on the outside of the footpath so that if anyone mounted it, he’d take the hit. Grace never imagined that marriage would mean anything other than love.

  She turns on the computer, puts her phone on silent and tosses it into her bag. Glancing back at the computer screen, her stomach lurches. She has no idea how to work this system. Why didn’t she think to come in over the weekend? Such an obvious thing to do. She scoots the chair tight to the desk and tries to figure it out. She has to. She can’t call any patients in until she works out how to bring up their files and add notes.

  But the more she looks at it, the more she clicks, the more convinced she becomes that this system might as well be in Chinese.

  She tries not to think of the waiting room filled with patients, already, at five past nine or the fact that there is no sign of her partner, Dr. O’Malley.

  She needs help.

  Unfortunately, Myra, the receptionist, has already proven herself immune to Grace’s charms, her mouth a grim line as Grace introduced herself minutes earlier.

  Well, it’s Myra or sit there.

  Grace hurries out to reception where Myra and her ample bosom are checking in yet another patient. Grace folds her arms to stop herself from fidgeting. More than anything Myra looks efficient. Her mostly grey hair is whipped up into a neat bun. A pen is tucked behind her ear like she means business. No make up. No nail varnish. And a sensible polo neck pullover.

  “Take a seat inside,” sounds like an order.

  The patient thanks her and starts to move off.

  Grace launches herself at the reception. “Myra, can I borrow you for a second just to get a quick intro to the computer system?”

  Myra goes from efficient to irritated.

  “I can’t get started without accessing the patient files.”

  Myra sighs. Reluctantly, she leav
es reception as if all hell will break loose without her.

  As they pass the waiting room, Grace glances in. Her stomach tightens. It’s heaving in there. And everyone’s staring out at her.

  “Has Dr. O’Malley arrived in yet?” she asks sotto voce.

  Myra gives her a look. “We’ll be lucky to see Dr. O’Malley before ten.”

  “But the first appointment’s at nine!”

  “Doors open at nine. And it’s far from appointments we are, here. You’re not in Dublin now.”

  “How do you avoid queues and lags without them?” she asks as she follows Myra into her surgery.

  “Lags? Have you seen the waiting room? It’ll be like that till tonight.”

  It’s how Grace remembers it.

  Myra sits at the desk and pauses. Her face fills with regret. “Ah, the place is so different without him.” She takes a deep breath. “Right, let’s have a look at this.”

  Myra moves at speed. Clicking this, clicking that. Grace struggles to keep up, wishing she’d thought to film it all on her phone. Too late now. If she takes her eyes from the screen for a second she’ll miss something crucial. Plus, she knows what Myra would think of her resorting to her phone over her brain.

  The receptionist stops suddenly and looks at her. “D’you think you have it now?”

  Grace hopes so. She nods. “Thanks so much. You’re a saviour.” She glances towards the door. “You can send my first patient in now.”

  Myra looks straight at her. “You don’t have any patients. They’ve all checked in for Dr. O’Malley.”

  Grace stares. “What about my father’s patients?”

  Myra shrugs. “They’re asking for Dr. O’Malley.”

  “All of them?”

  Myra nods.

  Colour shoots up Grace’s neck and face. Her heart starts to race. Is it the hair? The nails? The notions? The fact that she’s been away for years? Don’t they see her as one of them? Don’t they trust her because they don’t know her? Maybe they consider her too “young” at forty-seven?