‘Mark is my son,’ Ryan said, his eyes never leaving Mark’s.
‘Yes.’
We went back to silence again.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Ryan said, every word an accusation.
Bea stepped closer to me and said, ‘I don’t think you are in any position to ask that, Dad. Not after what you did.’
Mark spoke then, speaking with the ease and confidence that I’d always been proud to witness, ‘Nice to meet ya. Not sure what to call you though.’
Ryan said, ‘You look just like my dad. And I suppose that means you look just like me too. It’s good to meet you too.’
‘Will we try a hug or something?’ Mark asked.
‘I’d like that.’
I watched them do the hug that men do, where they slap each other on the back as they embrace. It didn’t linger and was over as quick as it began. But it was a start and they both grinned identical smiles when they parted.
‘I’d no idea, I swear,’ Ryan said to Mark.
‘I know. Mam told me that. I only found out when Bea came to visit. She copped it when she saw me. Said I was the image of you.’
‘You never told me,’ Ryan said to Bea.
‘Don’t, Ryan!’ I said, my voice rising. ‘Don’t you dare say a word to this lovely young woman. She said nothing because I asked her not to. It had to come from me.’
Ryan sat down in his ugly green chair that was so battered it should be on a rubbish tip somewhere. I gave him a beat to process everything.
Bea moved closer to her dad and said, ‘Think about how difficult this has been for Aunty Lucy. This situation was thrust on her. She didn’t choose it.’
He nodded, looking from Mark to me.
‘Bea, I wonder if you’d take Mark down to see your studio apartment? I’d like to have a chat with Ryan on my own. I think we need to clear the air.’
The two kids left and, as crazy as this situation was, I was glad they had each other.
‘If I’d known …’ Ryan said again.
‘Then what?’
‘I don’t know. Then something. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘If I’d realized before I left New York, I would have. But it was months before I discovered I was pregnant. I was going to call after my first scan to tell you. Then I received Maeve’s letter with your wedding invitation. It was deeply upsetting for me.’
‘Oh Lucy.’ His head dropped in sorrow and shame.
‘Did you love her, Ryan?’
‘I grew to love her, but not in the way I loved you. After you went, we leaned into each other for comfort. And we had the baby to think about. I proposed after Maeve’s first scan. Mam thought it was a mistake. She said I’d regret marrying Maeve, baby or no baby. That it was you I loved.’
I felt a rush of gratitude for Peggy. She’d always had my back. ‘Did Maeve love you?’ I thought about all the guys she’d dated and how she’d never called it love with any of them. Was it possible that she found love with Ryan before she died? I realized to my surprise that I half hoped she had. Everyone deserved to find love at least once in their lives.
Ryan burst that bubble in an instant. ‘I’m pretty certain that she only put up with me. I was never her type of man. And had she lived, we’d never have lasted. I irritated her, she thought I was boring, writing all the time, or with my head in a book. She wanted to be out partying. Maeve would have left me eventually.’
I saw the truth of his words. They had been like chalk and cheese. Always had been.
‘If I’d known about you and Mark, I’d never have married her.’
‘And what? You’d have come to Ireland and married me instead?’ The arrogance astounded me. ‘Well, surprise, I would never have married you!’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant … fuck … I don’t know what I meant.’
‘I came here once.’ I told him about my secret trip to New York all those years ago. ‘I realized how stupid I was to think that we could ever move backwards. My life was and always will be in Ireland. Mark’s too. We’re happy there.’
‘You must hate me so much,’ Ryan whispered.
‘For a long time I did. But I don’t any more. I hate what you did. Not you. There’s a difference. Bea did something incredible for me by visiting. She gave me back my sister. Through her, I’ve managed to let go of all the anger I’d held onto. And over the past few days, I’ve been able to remember the Maeve that I loved with all my heart, without any of the pain.’
‘Her last two words she uttered, right before she died, were your names – Lucy and Bea. You asked did she love me? The truth was that you both were the great loves of her life.’
That was nearly the undoing of me.
‘She would have done anything to make things right with you. If she’d known you had a child too …’
‘We can’t waste another moment on a what-if, Ryan. You have a son and I’m sorry that it’s taken me this long to tell you. But I can’t beat myself up about that either. What’s done is done. He’s an incredible young man. Clever, funny, kind. And he makes me proud every day. You’ll like him. I know you will.’
‘I already do. I made a right old mess of things, didn’t I?’
There wasn’t an answer to that.
‘There’s something else I need to say. If it wasn’t for you, I’m not sure I would be writing now. You gave me the confidence to walk away from the police academy and to pursue my dreams. I’ve never forgotten that. So thank you, Lucy.’
It surprised me how much I needed to hear him acknowledge this. I had been important to him, to his life. Over the years, it’s easy to doubt memories.
‘Can we be friends now, do you think?’ Ryan asked.
I had been worried that when I saw him all the old feelings would come flooding back. But whatever love I’d felt for him was long gone.Taking this walk down memory lane had allowed me to run into ghosts of my past, both the living and the dead. And I’d survived the experience.
For the first time in almost thirty years, I’d let go of my lost love. Maybe in its place, I could welcome a new friendship, with the father of my son. Maybe. I gave him my answer. ‘I’ll take that hug now.’
44
BEA
February 2020
Innisfree, Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn
Lucy and Mark stayed on in New York for a week. Dad had become their official guide, taking them to all the sights. I promised to meet them at the Rockefeller Center that evening, to take in the view from the top of the tower. We’d formed a new WhatsApp group that Lucy had named the ‘Jerry Springer Crew’. Funny lady.
I was back in work and picked up the phone to call Olive, to check in on her. I wouldn’t normally do after-care for clients, but somehow Olive’s journey to find Ted was all mixed up in my journey to find my mom. But as she answered the phone, I lost my ability to speak. You know that saying, on the tip of your tongue? Well, it was true. I could feel the words dancing on the tip of my tongue, but they refused to sashay their way out of my mouth. It wasn’t the first time this had happened either and it terrified me.
Katrina walked in. Her timing could not have been worse. ‘What is wrong? Bea?’
I looked in my handbag and grabbed a pen and a receipt from our lunch earlier. I scribbled on the back of the receipt, I can’t speak.
‘You’ve lost your voice?’ Katrina asked, reaching up to feel my forehead. ‘You are not warm. No fever.’
I shook my head and tried again to make the words cooperate. But the only thing that came out was gobbledegook that sounded like, ‘Inbhalosthaoume.’
The fear I felt hearing this gibberish was echoed in my friend’s face.
‘We’re going to the emergency room,’ she said, and for once I didn’t try to stop her. I needed help. We grabbed a cab and made our way to Lenox Hill Hospital.
‘Maybe you should call your dad,’ Katrina said.
I looked at her and pointed to my mouth, then gave her a look t
hat I hoped screamed ‘Seriously?’
She giggled then said, ‘You can’t be that sick, smart Alec. I’ll call him.’
I shook my head. Then scribbled an instruction down. ‘Under no circumstances call anyone.’ He’d only worry and for what? He was having fun getting to know his son. I was not going to mess that up for them. By the time Katrina checked me in with the hospital reception, my voice returned. I felt like a fraud. But the attending physician insisted on checking me over all the same. ‘Aphasia – losing your speech – warrants some investigation into what caused it.’
‘Like what?’ Katrina asked her.
‘It could be caused by a neurological disorder. But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. I’m going to run some tests and we’ll take it from there. Right, let’s take a look at your eyes. Look at my right ear.’ She shone a light in my eye, making me blink. ‘Now the left ear. Good. Any other symptoms other than the loss of speech?’
‘No,’ I replied, as Katrina shouted out, ‘Yes.’
I threw a look of annoyance at my friend. ‘Nothing else worth mentioning,’ I said pointedly.
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ the doctor said, waiting for me to continue. When I didn’t oblige, she looked at Katrina. The bloody traitor sung like a canary.
‘To start with, she has been more forgetful than normal.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ I said, forcing joviality into my voice. ‘Work has been busy this year. That’s all.’
‘You have been getting headaches too.’
That was true, I couldn’t deny it. ‘From the jet lag, that’s all. I’m not long back from a trip to Ireland.’
‘You had headaches before Ireland. And you’re tired all the time.’
The doctor scribbled notes as Katrina and I argued about my symptoms.
‘Any nausea or vomiting?’ the doctor asked.
I shook my head and closed my mind to the mornings I’d been ill in the bathroom.
‘Tell the doctor about the letter,’ Katrina said.
Now I really wanted to hit her. There was no way I wanted to repeat that.
‘What letter?’ the doc asked.
‘Bea thinks she is getting messages from her younger self through a magical letter.’
That hurt. Where did the ‘think’ come from? I thought she believed me.
‘I’d rather not discuss this,’ I hissed.
‘I’d like to hear about it,’ the doctor said, smiling. Then she pulled up a stool and sat down, like we were two girlfriends about to have a gossip.
‘I don’t see how my childhood letter is relevant to this,’ I said.
But the doctor and Katrina just looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
‘You’re going to think I’m crazy. And I’m not. I’m perfectly sane.’
Katrina at least backed me up on this fact. ‘She is sane. I can verify that. Not one to fantasize about things. In fact, the opposite. She’s one of the most logical people I know, which is why she is such a good investigator.’
I felt mollified by this. Slightly. But I was still reluctant to share this secret I’d carried with me for weeks now.
‘I’ve heard all sorts in ER, Bea. Nothing you can say will shock me. I need you to tell me everything, in case it has relevance to your aphasia. OK?’
I nodded and suddenly felt afraid. But I also felt trapped and couldn’t think of a reason not to confess.
‘I used to smoke,’ I said. ‘But then a few weeks ago, I woke up and was no longer a smoker.’
‘You quit overnight. Impressive,’ the doctor said.
I shook my head. ‘No, it wasn’t like that. I woke up and no longer felt the need to smoke.’ I took a deep breath and continued. ‘And I couldn’t find my cigarettes anywhere. In fact all evidence that I’d ever been a smoker was gone. I was convinced my dad had staged an intervention to make me quit.’
‘Had he?’ she asked, looking a bit sceptical.
I shook my head.
Katrina jumped in, determined to get the whole story in. ‘I’ve known Bea since we were ten years old. And to my knowledge, she has never been a smoker.’
Now the doctor looked confused. I felt sorry for her. I knew that feeling well. ‘You imagined that you were a smoker.’
I didn’t like it when she said it out loud.
‘There’s more,’ Katrina said.
‘The night before I became a non-smoker, I received a letter I’d written when I was ten years old, to my future self. It had been placed in a time capsule. Well, I scribbled a message to my younger self, on the letter. I said that smoking didn’t make me look cool and would be a pain to quit. I advised myself not to start smoking. And the next morning …’ I trailed off. I found myself unable to complete the sentence.
‘So you think …?’ the doctor also was unable to finish the thought.
‘She thinks her time-capsule letter is some sort of time-travel portal. That she can give messages to her younger self and effect change. That’s what she thinks,’ Katrina blurted out.
I felt tears sting my eyes again. I wanted to get out of this room, away from the doctor’s prying eyes and Katrina’s interference, no matter how good a place it was coming from.
The doctor leaned over and patted my hand. ‘I think I’d like to have a letter like that. The things I’d tell my younger self. A dodgy perm when I was sixteen – meant to emulate Christina Aguilera, but actually made me look like a prize poodle – springs to mind. Not a good look.’ She shuddered to emphasize the point.
The tears halted.
‘And have there been any other messages?’
I nodded. ‘I’ve had about half a dozen. And they’ve all meant something. They led me to Ireland and I found my half-brother.’
‘Her dad got two sisters pregnant at the same time,’ Katrina said, delighted to share this juicy part of the story.
The doctor’s expression at this revelation was quite funny. I knew Katrina and I would giggle about that look for a long time to come. But to her credit, she continued, ‘The things you’ve described, from the headaches to forgetfulness and tiredness, to the delusions about your letters, they could be neurocognitive issues. I’m going to send you for a CT scan.’
‘I’m supposed to be meeting my dad, my aunt and my brother this evening.’
She shook her head. ‘Let’s get the results of the scan, then we can work on getting you home.’
Have you ever had a moment in life when you realized that the game was up? I’d spent months lying to myself, to my family and friends, but here in Lenox, I knew that it was time to come clean. And to be honest, I was bone-tired from juggling everything on my own.
‘Erm … there’s something you should know. I’ve already had a scan.’
That admission was the beginning of the end.
And I could no longer ignore or hide that fateful day, a few days before Christmas, when I was in this very hospital discussing CT scans. Only that time, Dan was by my side.
45
BEA
December 2019
Lenox Hill Hospital, New York
I woke up, disorientated and thirsty. I felt the pinch of plaster on my hand and saw a drip had been attached to my arm. I cried out, relief flooding my body when Dan leaned in, whispering love and support into my hair.
‘Where am I?’
‘Remember, you had a seizure last night, love. You’re in Lenox,’ Dan said. ‘You frightened the shit out of me, Bea. One minute we were drinking tea at my place, the next you were on the ground. You’ve been asleep for hours.’
His words were a bit like re-watching a movie you’d seen when you were drunk. You kind of remember the overall story, but the details are hazy. ‘You didn’t tell anyone?’
‘No, I respected your wishes. Making me promise that while you were in an ambulance was unfair. This is too big to keep from Ryan. And Katrina will kill me if she finds out you’re in hospital and nobody told her.’
I smiled because he was right. But I w
as still adamant that I didn’t want anyone to know, not until I knew what was going on. Dad was working around the clock to meet a deadline on his latest novel. Uncle Mike was on nights, so would be asleep right now. It was better to keep it to ourselves, at least until we knew what was wrong. I’d had an MRI and a CT scan yesterday. Results were due today and I was bloody terrified. For the past few weeks, things hadn’t been right. I’d become forgetful to the point that I had to keep writing things down. I had what I called brain freezes. My mind went blank and I forgot words for everyday objects. Then two nights ago, I forgot how to speak. I know that sounds so strange, but there’s no other way to describe it. Dizzy spells came and went along with headaches. Now, none of this was constant, just every now and then. But I could no longer pretend that I was hungover or overworked. I knew there was something wrong.
The door opened and Dan and I both jumped at the sound. Dr Talis came in and I knew that, whatever she had to share with me, it wasn’t good news. I’d never been a pessimist in my life – the opposite in fact – but I could see it in her eyes. ‘How are you feeling, Beatrice?’
‘Call me Bea. Nobody calls me Beatrice. And I feel great now.’
‘I’m glad to hear that … Bea. As you know, we’ve run some tests and I need to talk to you about the results. Would you like your boyfriend to stay?’
Dan answered for me, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘You have a tumour.’
Four words to turn a world upside down.
‘A glioblastoma.’
‘That’s a mouthful,’ I said.
‘Yes. I prefer to call it a GBM. Easier to get our teeth around, right? Well, each tumour is graded. One to two is low grade. Three to four is high grade.’
‘I’ve never been a high-grade type of gal,’ I said. I waited for the laughs but none came. ‘Am I right in assuming that this is the one occasion where I don’t want to get high grades?’
The doctor smiled as she nodded. ‘Yes. That’s right. I’m afraid yours is a four.’
I heard a strangled sob and I wasn’t sure if it was me or Dan who had made it.
I looked at Dan and he said, ‘You picked a fine time to become an over-achiever.’
The Moon Over Kilmore Quay Page 30
