by Kelly Rimmer
He was good and drunk, and as he sat there, he swayed a little.
“I’m sorry I was so awful to you that first day,” he said sud-
denly.
You shouldn’t be.
“You were under a lot of pressure,” I replied, my voice weak
with guilt I hoped he wouldn’t hear.
“I couldn’t have survived the past four weeks without you.
And it can’t have been your fault. Not really.” He pinched the
bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, his breathing suddenly
shaky again. “She was a woman on her own in broad daylight,
just waiting to meet her sister after shopping, at least as far as the
world knew. You weren’t even in a bad area of the city. What
has the world come to that a woman can’t even wander the city
alone in broad daylight?”
“None of this is fair.”
I meant those words to the very depths of my soul. In a fair
world Grace would never have been forced to resort to such
measures.
“I shouldn’t have blamed you, Maryanne,” Patrick whispered,
and his face crumpled. “I still don’t understand how you could
kill your own baby like that, but you’ve been nothing but good
to me and my kids. I should have done a lot of things differently
in my life, but I can’t change any of that now. Just…please be-
lieve me. I am sorry for the things I said to you.”
I started to cry because as much as I’d never liked Patrick, his
distress was so near to me and so raw. In that moment I wasn’t
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sure I’d actually survive the guilt of my role in my sister’s death.
I sank down into the chair beside Patrick and patted him on the
back, just as little Beth had done for me.
“You don’t have to worry about that now, Patrick,” I choked
between whole-body sobs. “Please.”
“But don’t you see?” he croaked back. “We always think
there’s time to do better. I was always going to man up one
day. I really was, I promise you. I was going to stop drinking
and pay the bills and teach the kids how to use tools and to buy
Grace nice things and I was going to love her the way she de-
served to be loved. But I ran out of time and I let her carry this
family all on her own and I told her she h-had to harden up and
I…” He was a mess—his face was beetroot red, his expression
twisted with grief and shame. He was leaking pure grief—tears
and snot and even spittle as he spoke with such self-directed fury
at all of the ways he’d let her down. And all I could do was to
watch him suffer, because there was nothing at all I could say
to make any of this better.
“I never even got to say sorry.” His voice rose as if he was
bewildered by life, and the way that it promises us happiness
and delivers only heartache. “There is no fucking time, Mary-
anne. There’s only now, and Grace isn’t here now, and I won’t
ever get to say sorry to her. I can only say sorry to you.” He
was bawling like a baby, and fumbling for my hand. I let him
take it, and he squeezed my fingers hard, then rested our hands
against the cracked vinyl of their dining room table. “Please let
me say sorry to you instead.”
“You have to be brave, Patrick,” I choked, thinking of Tim’s
sofa fortress, and how even the child had known to protect the
littler ones. “The children are going to need you to be brave.
You’re going to have to put all of that behind you in the past
and build a new future for them on your own. It’s too late to
say sorry to Grace, but you can do better for her kids.”
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And Patrick let go of my hand, pushed his dinner away and
slumped onto the table to weep into his arms.
I decided I would leave a few days after the funeral—I couldn’t
wait to get back to California. I was going to positively inhale
the freedom of my old life, and finally take some time to grieve.
I was so busy with Patrick and the children that I hadn’t found
time to really accept that Grace was gone, let alone process my
role in her death. I kept promising myself that as soon as I was
on that train, I’d let the floodgates open.
But first, I had to find the letters. I told Patrick I was reor-
ganizing the house to make it tidier, and I pulled things out of
cupboards and closets and I searched through every single nook
and cranny I could find.
I was searching through the children’s clothes one afternoon
when Father came around to talk to Patrick, and at first, I as-
sumed they were discussing funeral arrangements. But then Fa-
ther left the house in a huff, slamming the door behind him,
and Patrick stormed back into his bedroom and I realized they’d
actually been quarrelling. I tried to ask Patrick about the inci-
dent, but he was in such a state, I didn’t have the heart to force
the matter. He’d run out of whiskey and there was no money
for more, but after that day, he stayed in bed with the drapes
drawn and for the most part, kept the door closed.
Ewan had given him a week of bereavement leave, unusually
generous on account of his guilt at having dragged Patrick back
to work just before Grace’s body was found. When several more
days passed with Patrick still essentially catatonic, I decided to
leave him in peace. This gave me more time to search, and be-
sides, soon enough he’d have to go back to work, so the least I
could do was to let him have these short days to grieve before
we laid Gracie to rest.
I kept things running in the household—tending to the chil-
dren, doing the housework and such. I even decided I’d try to
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arrange care for them for after I went home. I saw Mrs. Hills
out fetching the eggs from the hens in her backyard, and so I
called her over to the fence.
“How are you today, Mrs. Hills?” I said as cheerfully as I
could.
“Maryanne, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. After the fu-
neral, this has to stop.”
“What has to stop?”
“It’s not right at all, love,” she said, pursing her lips. “I know
this has been a trying time, but you can’t go on this way.”
“I know,” I said, still a little confused. I knew I wasn’t the
best stand-in mother in the world, but I really had been doing
my best under extremely trying circumstances. “But…have I
been doing something wrong?”
“I don’t know about where you’re from, but where I’m from,
a man and a woman don’t live alone under one roof unless
they’re married.”
“Mrs. Hills,” I gasped, then I scowled. “Are you really sug-
gesting that anything untoward would happen between me and
carefully about what you’re implying here, please.”
“I’m just saying that if you’re planning on sticking around,
you should look for alternative accommodation,” she said, her
expression softening a little. “People talk, Maryanne. It was
different when your parents were here, but they’re gone now.
I know you’re focused on getting through the funeral, but as
soon as it’s over, it’s time you made this right.”
“I’ll be going back to California after the funeral, for your in-
formation,” I snapped, but then I remembered that I had come
to ask for her help, so I pulled all of the animosity out of my
tone and said very gently, “Actually, I was very much hoping
we could count on you to help Patrick with the children once
I’m gone.”
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“Are you crazy, young lady?” Mrs. Hills gasped. “Those chil-
dren are hellions.”
“Oh, they aren’t that bad,” I muttered, glancing back over the
fence, just in time to see Jeremy push Ruth over so he could steal
the cupcake she’d been eating. When I glanced back to Mrs.
Hills, she raised her eyebrows at me. “The thing is, there’s just
not many people we can ask. Couldn’t you take them at least a
few days a week?”
“Your parents will have to step up,” Mrs. Hills informed me
haughtily. “That mother of yours will have to do it.”
I piled all of the children into Father’s car that afternoon and
drove them to my parents’ house. I couldn’t help notice the way
that the houses grew larger and the streets grew wider, until we
were in a patch of paradise where every house had at least two
stories and a late-model car in the drive.
The children hadn’t been to Mother and Father’s place since
they were babies, and as we pulled into the yard, they stared
wide-eyed at the expansive gardens and the huge house. When
I parked and helped them all out, Ruth jumped up and down
with glee.
“I want to see the princess!” she said.
“What princess?”
“She thinks it’s a palace,” Tim muttered.
“No, darling. This is Grandmother and Grandfather’s home,”
I said, and I watched as all four faces fell in disappointment. “Oh,
come on, children. They aren’t that bad.”
But as I sat with Mother in the living room to talk about the
future, she started off the conversation by shrieking at the kids.
“Don’t touch anything, do you hear me? We have nice things
in this house. It’s not like your place. You keep your filthy little
hands to yourselves. Is that understood?”
“Mother,” I whispered, shooting her a look. “They’re unset-
tled because of…you know. And besides, you can hardly blame
them if they don’t know how to behave here.”
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Mother raised her chin stubbornly.
“We’ll soon fix that, Maryanne. Don’t you worry.”
“I actually wanted to talk to you about what will happen
after the funeral, when Patrick goes back to work. He’s going
to need your help.”
“Father and I have spoken about this, and we have decided
that the best thing for everyone is for the children to move in
here,” Mother said. I nearly dropped my teacup. It clattered
against the fine china saucer and Mother’s gaze narrowed on
me. While her attention was off the children, Jeremy picked up
a vase.
“Jeremy!” I gasped, reaching out to snatch it off him. “Please,
Jeremy. Please just sit there on the rug and watch the television
and I’ll give you some candy when we go home, okay?”
He smirked, then dropped heavily onto his bottom, elbow-
ing Beth on the way down. Beth immediately burst into tears
and climbed up onto my lap. I gave up on the cup of tea, setting
it carefully onto a coffee table so I could focus on my mother’s
shocking announcement.
“You’re really going to let Patrick move into your house?”
“Oh, heavens no,” Mother said, nostrils flaring. “The chil-
dren will live here. He can visit them on Sundays.”
“But…” It took me a long moment to digest what she was
saying. “But… Mother…”
“Darling,” Mother said, sighing heavily. “We had our con-
cerns all along, didn’t we? Even with Grace there to run the
house he barely managed to keep that family afloat, and now
it’s just too much for him. Those children need more than Pat-
rick can give them.”
“Yes.” I couldn’t argue with that at all. “They absolutely do
need more than he can give them. But he needs those children,
and those children need him—now more than ever. If you re-
ally want to help, then maybe offer to babysit them for him—”
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“I will babysit them,” Mother said stiffly. “They’ll be living
here soon enough. I’ll be babysitting plenty.”
“Have you and Father even talked to him about this?”
“Father told him a few days ago.”
It all made sense, then. No wonder Patrick couldn’t get out
of bed. He’d just lost his wife, and it seemed that he was about
to lose his children, too. My heart sank.
“This is a very bad idea, Mother.”
“Well, if you can think of an alternative, I’d like to hear it.”
“Help him find his feet,” I pleaded with her. “Grace always
believed there was a good man in there somewhere, under all
the mistakes he’s made.”
“And do you think that?” Mother asked me pointedly. “Has
he stepped up over these past weeks to show you what a great
father he would be?”
I hesitated, then sighed.
“He’s very sorry for letting her down. I do think we need
to give him a chance—just a little support until he figures out
how to manage on his own.”
“It’s too late for—”
“You did this with her, too,” I interrupted. My temper was
starting to simmer, and I tried to calm myself, but I had so much
unprocessed pain just waiting to erupt. “You are so judgmental.
The world is so simple to you, looking down on everyone from
up here on your ivory tower. You were hardly perfect parents
yourselves!”
“Maryanne Gallagher, you will not speak to me like that,”
Mother said. She was visibly hurt, and her total lack of empa-
thy only enraged me further. Grace had felt empathy. Grace had
even taught tiny Beth to feel empathy. But my Mother was too
busy popping pills to numb her every emotion to think out-
side her own experience and to recognize other people’s pain.
“He won’t let you take his children,” I snapped, s
tanding.
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, and you’ve clearly overes-
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timated him,” Mother snapped. “He wasn’t happy about it first,
but even he could see that we were right about this.”
“Come on, Timmy. Ruth. Beth. Jeremy, enough with the
vase! It’s time to go,” I said, glaring at my mother and shep-
herding the children toward the door. She didn’t even follow
us out, and so I alternated strapping the children into their seat
belts and firing furious glares back at the house.
Once they were all safely buckled in, I sat in the driver’s seat
and exhaled, then closed my eyes.
“Mommy,” Beth said.
“Mommy’s in heaven, Bethany,” I said heavily.
“Mommy, hungry,” she said.
I turned back to her, frustrated.
“Mommy can’t get you something to eat. She’s in heaven.”
Beth extended her hand toward me and flapped her fingers
impatiently.
“Mommy, hungry,” she said, and her face was starting to red-
den with frustration. That’s when a terrifying possibility oc-
curred to me.
Was Bethany cal ing me Mommy?
“I’m Auntie Maryanne,” I choked. “You know that, don’t
you, darling? I’m Auntie Maryanne. ”
“Hungry!” she cried, completely disinterested in my name.
She just wanted something to eat, and she was in no mood to
wait. I groaned and started the car.
“Well, we’re not going back in there to get something now,”
I muttered, and turned the car toward home.
“Patrick?” I leaned my forehead against the door to Patrick’s
bedroom later that night, took a deep breath, then knocked. I
was so weary. I wanted to crawl into my stretcher bed and sob
for hours, but the funeral was the next day, and I needed to keep
searching for the letters, and I needed to speak to Patrick before
I faced my parents again.
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For the first time I was starting to feel hopeless about the en-
tire situation. My whole future rested on finding that note Gra-
cie wrote, and I simply had to find it before I could go back to
my old life, or Patrick was likely to stumble upon it, and then
I’d lose everything. And the situation with Patrick and my par-
