Mum's List

by St. John Greene

  Even though I was surrounded by close family, it wasn’t their responsibility to babysit while I went out and let my hair down. They all wanted a good holiday on their own terms, of course. I understood that completely, but it didn’t stop me feeling a bit sorry for myself from time to time. The weather didn’t help, and on December 29 it started to absolutely pour down.

  “It’s the first time we’ve had so much rain for many, many years,” the waiter told me merrily. “Normally it rains just a little, about three days in a year. We’re all very excited about it. It’s such a very unusual event.”

  “Great,” I thought. “That’s all we need.”

  It was Finn’s fifth birthday, and I was hoping to spend the day snorkeling, swimming and playing on the beach in the sunshine.

  “Am I having a party?” he asked.

  “No, Finn, not out here,” I told him.

  “But Reef had a giant massive big party. It’s not fair!”

  “I know, but I’ve had a brilliant idea,” I told him, pulling him close.

  “What?” he said suspiciously.

  “Well, it’s not great having a birthday so close to Christmas, is it?” I said.

  “S’pose not.”

  “It means you get all your presents at once, and then nothing happens until next year.”

  He nodded. “What’s the idea then?”

  “How about if we celebrate your birthday again in the spring, when the weather is better? All the family will celebrate your real birthday, but you can have a giant massive party with your friends in March, near my birthday and Mum’s Day.”

  “Yes, deal.” Finn smirked, immediately asking: “How many sleeps is it? Can I have a cinema party?”

  “It’s lots of sleeps, and yes you can,” I said. “We’ll hire the whole cinema, just like we did for Reef, and we’ll call it ‘Finn’s unofficial birthday party.’”

  He gave me a high five and bounded off happily to tell Reef, but this didn’t solve the problem of how I was going to keep the boys entertained today, and my nerves were beginning to snap a little. The rain was getting heavier by the minute and was battering on the window of our hotel room, while rivers of water were running down the paths outside.

  I desperately wanted to get out in the sea, but there was no chance of that.

  “When will the rain stop, Daddy?” Reef whined. “I’m bored.”

  “Hopefully soon,” I said.

  “How soon?”

  “I don’t know, Reef. How can I possibly know?”

  He started playing with the buttons on the hotel phone, and Finn tried to jump from one bed to the next.

  “Stop it, both of you!” I said. “You’re going to break something.”

  Bang on cue, Finn toppled off the end of his bed and fell awkwardly against a chest of drawers, hurting his back.

  “I’m all right,” he said bravely, wincing and biting his lip to hold back his tears.

  Seconds later he was zooming round the room again, while Reef had turned his attention to a tube of sun cream, which he managed to squirt across the bedclothes.

  “Boys, give me a break!” I shouted. “Can’t you just play nicely together with one of Finn’s new toys or something?”

  “Boorriing!” Reef muttered.

  “When can we go outside, Daddy?” Finn nagged.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Please both play quietly on your DSs while I have a shower and get five minutes’ peace!”

  They grumbled but did as I asked, sitting on my bed with their games. I’d been in the shower for less than five minutes when there was a loud, urgent knock at the door. I couldn’t believe it, and I wrapped myself in a towel and stormed to the door, dripping wet and fuming.

  In front of me on the balconied passageway stood an immaculately dressed waiter who was wearing a starched white apron and holding an enormous tray containing a large chocolate cake, a selection of biscuits and a steaming pot of tea. He was framed in the doorway by an angry black sky, even though it was the middle of the morning.

  “For your boy, sir,” he said, giving a nervous smile.

  At that very moment a tremendous flash of lightning hit the tennis courts behind him, lighting him up like a Christmas tree. The cake had a large sheet of tin foil swirled flamboyantly around the top, and I looked at it in terror, suddenly seeing a giant lightning conductor instead of a chocolate sponge. Rain was pelting down like bullets, ricocheting off the pavements, and electric zigzags of lightning were zipping across the sky, leaving purple, flashing clouds in their wake. There was an irritating smell in the air; a cloying mixture of smoke and disturbed dust that caught in my nostrils. I could feel hot blood rising up the veins in my neck and I let rip.

  “Reef! Finn!” I bellowed. “Which one of you two has ordered room service? I told you not to touch the phone!”

  I turned and saw their two little heads poking out from under the covers of my bed, four blue eyes looking very sheepishly at me.

  “You’re both in so much trouble I can’t tell you! Have you any idea how much this is going to cost?”

  The pair of them came slinking over to me, looking worried and confused.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have let you watch those Home Alone DVDs. Is that where you got the idea from. Well, is it?”

  They looked at me blankly.

  “Er, there is no cost, sir,” the young waiter explained delicately. “This is a birthday cake for your boy, Finn, compliments of the manager. It is a happy birthday cake.”

  I noticed the waiter’s thin smile had completely disappeared, and he was looking extremely worried. I could feel my blood rising again, but this time it wasn’t bubbling up in temper, it was filling my cheeks with the glow of shame.

  “I am so sorry,” I said, finally taking the tray off him.

  “It’s quite all right, sir, but please can I come inside for a moment?” He had a note of urgency in his voice, and his hands were trembling. I suddenly realized he wasn’t in the slightest bit upset by my outburst, but was absolutely terrified of the storm. “I have never seen a storm before,” he explained, his voice quaking now. “Two palm trees on the complex have been hit by lightning. Their roots are on fire. It is like nothing I have seen in my life. Normally we do not have rain.”

  “I can’t apologize enough for the confusion,” I said, ushering him in. “Please come in. And boys, I owe you an apology. Come on, you two, have a piece of cake.”

  Reef gave me a rather unimpressed look, and even Finn needed a few moments to get over the mix-up.

  “We all make mistakes,” I told them. “But don’t hold a grudge, boys. It’s best to accept an apology, shake hands or have a cuddle and get on with it.”

  Finn nodded silently and wrapped his little arms around me, and Reef quickly followed suit. It was the fastest cuddle on record as the gooey chocolate cake was beckoning, but I was glad of it.

  “Happy birthday, Finn,” I said. “I think it could be one you will never forget.”

  When the waiter finally plucked up courage to venture back outside, the rain had turned to giant hailstones. I was amazed to see they were practically as big as pound coins. I’d seen plenty of storms, but never one as dramatic as this.

  I looked up into the sky and shook my head. It’s just as well I didn’t really believe in the afterlife, I thought. If I did, this was most definitely Kate’s doing. She was venting her rage at not being allowed to share Finn’s birthday; at least that’s what some people might have thought. Either that or the crash of thunder was Kate falling off her cloud, laughing her head off at me making such an idiot of myself. I didn’t believe those things, not really, but the timing was weird enough to make me think twice.

  The next morning the sky was blue again. I somehow knew it would be. The sun was shining brightly, and there
was a clean smell in the calm, still air. It was a fresh start to the holiday, and we could go back to what we did best: making the most of it. While my brother entertained the boys with a morning game of water polo, I wandered off to sit on the beach.

  The calmness in the air was a little unnerving. I saw the burned roots of the palm trees that had been struck by lightning and I couldn’t stop thinking of the same phrase over and over again: “the calm after the storm.” This definitely felt like the calm after the storm, but I’d been caught out by that feeling before, and I didn’t trust it. I hoped to God there wasn’t another one coming.

  I sat on the sand and looked at the empty space beside me. Never in a million years did I think Kate would die so young. Thirty-eight was no age at all. It was ridiculously young. She didn’t deserve to have her life cut so short. My mind wandered once again to the day Kate and I sat on the beach back home when Reef’s treatment was finally over, and he was thriving, against the odds. “We made it!” Kate said, and we really thought we had. We’d survived the lightning bolts and put out so many fires for so many years. Doctors had stopped the spread of Reef’s cancer with drugs and surgery, and we were all enjoying the calmness we craved. We didn’t realize that it was the calm before another storm; the bloody great electric thunderstorm of Kate’s cancer. What if there was yet another clap of thunder or crack of lightning waiting to strike? Would I be able to cope with another blow on my own?

  I lay back and closed my eyes. “What if?” was a stupid question, I thought. Anything could happen, I told myself. I’d told Reef there was no point in “what ifs,” and I knew I was right to teach him that. It was a negative and unnecessary way to think. Far better to hope for the best, and wait and see.

  All I could be sure of was what had already happened, not what might happen. It was almost twelve months since Kate’s death, and plenty had happened. Life had moved on, and I was both shocked and comforted by that thought. It was right that life had moved on, even though in the beginning there were times when I simply couldn’t fathom how it could. I wasn’t quite sure how or when I’d started moving on because it was a gradual, delicate shift; a softening of raw, screaming grief into tender, aching mourning.

  The first anniversary of Kate’s death was just a few weeks away, and I thought about how, in the year without her, so many good things had happened to make my bereavement more bearable. I let my mind wander through the months and the seasons.

  The freezing cold winter that hung heavy around Kate’s funeral had thawed a little by the time we bought the boat and set off on new adventures. I didn’t expect plain sailing, but I hoped for some happiness, at least. We’d had plenty, I thought.

  I enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my forehead as happy memories gathered in my mind. I could see Reef and Finn eating a picnic at Priddy and scampering off to hunt for bugs and butterflies. I saw their delighted little faces as they took the steering wheel of 4 Saints and chanted, “Faster, faster!” with the wind in their hair. I had a clear, vivid memory of the three of us dressed as pirates, posing for a photograph on Reef’s birthday, happy as sand boys in the sunshine, all three of us.

  I thought sadly about how sometimes, even on bright, sunny days, the sky turned gray seemingly at the flick of a switch, when clouds of grief gathered overhead, overshadowing everything. I never had any bereavement counseling, but I knew that this was normal, and that nobody goes through neatly organized stages of grief. You never know when it’s going to get you, when it’s going to make the memories or the tears flow.

  I had a pang of regret about how I’d handled the Easter camper holiday, when I couldn’t help feeling out of sorts. I’m sure I could have tried a bit harder. I also winced at the memory of 4 Saints being smashed to smithereens, and having to tell the boys she would be out of action for ages and ages, too many sleeps to calculate.

  Without warning, I felt an icy knot in my stomach when I thought about the lumpy nodes in Reef’s belly. Without a doubt, discovering them was the low point of the entire year since Kate’s death, and finding out they were harmless was the best moment ever. Thinking about it pushed all other thoughts from my head, and I had a very clear, lucid thought.

  Having two happy, healthy children was Kate’s dream, and that’s what I had right now. When she wrote Mum’s List, that was her motivation. The little snippets about herself, the pointers for me and the instructions to the boys were really all saying the same thing. “Be happy, appreciate life, have lots of fun,” they said. “And be kind and safe along the way.” Between the lines Kate was also saying: “Don’t forget me, but please move on and make the most of every day.” She said those things in so many different ways as we talked for hours and cried and cuddled while she scribbled away, compiling Mum’s List.

  Would Kate approve of what I’d achieved so far? Would she think I was doing all right? I wished I could magic her back, if just for a minute, so I could ask her exactly what she thought, and get just a little bit more of her precious advice and feedback. She was great at organizing, and she’d be able to tell me in a flash what was what.

  Nobody is perfect, and I knew I hadn’t done everything she had asked, while some of the things I’d actually ticked off the list weren’t perfect either. Moving on with someone else was the toughest request of all. I knew it would be, from the very second Kate told me to find another woman. Her request was so unthinkable back then it took my breath away. My wife was dying, but she would always be my soul mate. How could I ever find another woman, or another mother for the boys?

  I sat up on the beach and looked out over the Red Sea, mulling over this thought. Instinctively, the fingers of my right hand reached across to my left hand, feeling for my ring finger. Over the months I’d developed a habit of twiddling the lovers’ knot band I wore in place of my wedding ring. It was an almost subconscious ritual, something I now realize I did when I thought about Kate, and especially when I thought about Kate telling me to find another woman. To my surprise there was nothing but a smooth groove of flesh where I expected to feel the band. I stared at my bare hand for several minutes, registering the blank, white space on my finger and working out what had happened to my substitute wedding ring.

  The band had been looking a bit frayed and thin lately, and I realized it must have finally split apart, and perhaps drifted off in the sea without me noticing. I guess it was bound to happen, yet I had done nothing to strengthen the fibers on the cord when I noticed it sagging and tearing. No doubt it had floated silently away from me when I was snorkeling with the boys, and I’d been too engrossed in watching them marvel at the fish to notice.

  I was moved and a little saddened, but not shocked. Finding another woman actually wasn’t unthinkable anymore, and I didn’t feel uncomfortable acknowledging that. I found myself studying the horizon, wondering what was out there beyond the thin indigo line separating sea from sky. I wasn’t afraid or daunted as I had been in the early months after Kate was gone. I was ready to take a closer look and go exploring. I’d already moved on, perhaps much further than I knew, and I realized I felt strangely expectant about the future. I still didn’t believe I would ever find another soul mate, because Kate was simply irreplaceable. But for the first time in a long time I could envisage a good life, perhaps a great life, beyond bereavement and loss and the endless painful milestones.

  If I’d had the power I’d have jumped up on to the horizon, pried apart the sea and sky and peeped into my new world right there and then. I was ready for it. I would never, ever forget Kate and I would make sure the boys remembered their mum as much as they possibly could. But something had shifted, and it hadn’t just happened that day. Time had been slowly nursing my heart. It had worked away in secret under my skin, silently stitching cuts and soothing bruises. There was still plenty of work to be done, but the wounds of grief were no longer raw and bleeding.

  This was my calm after my storm. The worst was over, I w
as sure. The sun really was shining, and Kate was smiling down on me.

  Chapter 11

  “Would like dining room table so you can have family meals once a week at least”

  Seven months have slipped by since Egypt, and it’s July 2011. The building work is finally finished, and our brand-new dining table arrives this morning. I’m sitting on my bed, having just written out a shopping list for Tesco’s, and I’m going to cook a meal tonight. The boys are at school, and I have the day to myself. I feel it’s time to start writing the final chapter of my book, and I’m looking back through this year’s diary.

  On January 20, 2011, the first anniversary of Kate’s death, Reef had a routine hospital appointment, to check his cancer was still in remission. As I look at my diary entry I almost want to pinch myself when I’m reminded of the words the doctor said to me that day. I’d held Reef’s hand as he went through his familiar barrage of scans and blood tests. After last year’s good news and the reassurances we received about the nodes in his groin being harmless, I was quietly optimistic. As well as joining Scouts and thoroughly enjoying all the activities he did with them, Reef was also doing well with his tag rugby at weekends. I marveled at what an awesome little player he was, despite being unbalanced on his weak leg.

  In his very first match he managed to avoid being tagged and made a dash of about ten yards right through the opposition. He also has an amazing little pass on him, and I watched enthralled as he made the ball spiral through the air brilliantly. Standing on the touchline that day, I was transported back to the incredible moment, three days after doctors had told us Reef might never walk again, when he pushed a stroller across the hospital playroom. Kate and I had looked at each other in stunned amazement. “Oooh, you shouldn’t be able to do that!” Kate had said to eighteen-month-old Reef, before collapsing in incredulous, delighted giggles. We couldn’t believe our eyes, and the doctors had to see it with their own eyes before they believed it too. We knew the femoral nerve in Reef’s leg had been attacked by his cancer and we had been warned that it would be further damaged by all the chemo and radiation he was due to have, but we hadn’t even begun to come to terms with the dreadful prognosis that he might never walk again. Seeing him push the stroller that day, it was obvious that somehow the signals were still getting through from his brain to his leg, despite the aggressive cancer he had. It was a miracle, and even today the doctors don’t fully understand how he pulled it off.