The Things We Know Now

by Catherine Dunne

Rebecca

  I LISTENED TO FRANCES’S voicemail for the third time. I had the oddest feeling that this was a language that was unfamiliar to me: a grammar that was foreign and unforgiving. I could understand each disparate word, knew each individual meaning, but the message made no sense. I was tired, jetlagged, but that couldn’t be the whole reason. Some part of my brain was refusing to process what it was receiving. And underneath that refusal was the simmering of something I’d been feeling for some time, but had chosen to ignore.

  It was the onset of an obscure and irrational feeling of culpability. I don’t know when it started. All I know is that that morning, I immediately felt as though I was responsible for whatever ill had just befallen my father. And this was bad news regarding my father and Ella, there was no doubt about that. The urgency of Frances’s tone left me in no doubt about that.

  I listened to the message again. I was torn between rushing to my car and switching off my phone. But I could do neither. I was paralysed. I stood in the middle of the crowded arrivals terminal, bodies pushing their irritable way past, mothers and fathers managing cases and children and lack of sleep. I called Frances.

  ‘Rebecca, thank God.’ My sister’s voice was harsh with relief.

  ‘What on earth has happened?’

  And she told me, her voice choked, her words disconnected, fractured, but their meaning all too clear.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said. ‘When?’

  As if the timing made any difference. But it was one of those details I needed, something solid to anchor me to what I was hearing. To help me construct some sort of a reality that I might begin to comprehend.

  ‘God almighty,’ I said. I wanted to see my own two children, to hug them with all my strength, to feel their hard young bodies close by my side, where I could keep them safe. Protecting them felt more and more urgent in the face of what I was hearing. I did not want them to end up like Daniel.

  ‘What should I do?’ I could hear my words, somewhere outside my head; I barely realized that I had spoken them.

  ‘You must go to Dad and Ella at once, Rebecca. That’s all that matters. Everything else is irrelevant.’

  I was grateful for the simplicity of her response. My ever-reliable sister: she always knew the right thing to do. In fact, she and Sophie always seemed to know the right thing to do. Sometimes they appeared to me as two halves of the same whole. I’d always envied them their closeness.

  ‘And don’t worry about Ian and Aisling,’ Frances said now, answering my next question before I’d asked it. ‘They’re here with us. Martin went to collect them as soon as we heard. We felt they should be here with their cousins, with all of us.’

  I almost wept. I was filled with horror that my children had been with a childminder when Daniel died. A perfectly nice and responsible and competent Polish girl, but nonetheless. At fifteen and thirteen, my children lived very independent lives. Magda was there when I couldn’t be. She filled in all the practical spaces that I left in my wake. But right now, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that I hadn’t been there for them, there with them.

  At a time like this, family was what counted above everything. It was probably the first time I had articulated that thought to myself quite so clearly. I know that for many years I’d lived on the defensive. Who needed Adam? I could do very nicely without him. My alternative arrangements were impeccable. Who needed extended family? I could manage quite well on my own, thank you all the same. I had no need of a suffocating network of support.

  But right now, I had never been so grateful to have sisters. ‘Thank you, thank you. I am so glad you did that, so glad. Can I speak to them?’

  ‘It’s not even seven o’clock, Becky. They’re fast asleep.’ Frances’s tone was kind, reasonable. But I could hear the question in it. ‘I’ll wake them if you like, but—’

  ‘No, no,’ the words came out as a sob. My sister’s use of my name – my childhood, affectionate name – had touched a nerve. ‘Leave them be. Tell them I’ll call them later.’

  ‘Of course. You drive carefully – do you hear me? And come here afterwards. Don’t be on your own. I mean it. We’re here, anytime.’

  I nodded. I could no longer speak. But it was as though Frances could see me.

  ‘Okay, then,’ she said. ‘See you later.’

  In a dream, I started to make my way towards the bus that would take me to the car park. But I couldn’t remember where I had left the car: not the bay, not the number, not even the colour code. I rummaged for the ticket in my purse, hoping that I’d written down the information I needed to retrieve a car I wasn’t even sure I’d recognize.

  And suddenly, I was weeping. I stood right there in the concourse, made no attempt to hide the tears, no attempt to brush them away. I didn’t want anybody to stop and speak to me – wouldn’t have known what to say if they had.

  But no one did.

  I found the ticket at last, folded and placed into the compartment of my purse where I always kept it. But it was as though I had never seen it before; as though I had never seen anything like it before. The world looked different to me, and everything in it. Everything now had a sharper edge, a more defined outline. Things stood out against each other, as though each object was discrete, separate unto itself; as though the world had suddenly lost all coherence.

  It felt like hours later when I finally made my way out of the car park and into the tangle of Monday morning traffic.

  It seemed to me, as I pulled into the driveway, that Ella’s house was shrouded in silence – or something that felt like silence. The air was extraordinarily still, as if everything here had stopped suddenly and was holding its breath. I had always thought of this house as Ella’s – my father merely a temporary resident there. Frances and I had spoken about this once, as I recall. But our views on that, as on most things, diverged significantly over the years.

  After Daniel arrived, it became his house, too. But never my father’s. Not in my eyes. He had always looked out of place there, on the occasions when I’d felt forced to attend those family get-togethers arranged by my sisters.

  ‘The children should know each other, should grow up together.’ Frances had been firm. ‘Just don’t stand in their way.’

  I hadn’t. But my job meant absences over which I had no control – particularly once Adam had fled the coop, and I had two young children to look after and a financial meltdown to repair. Frances and Sophie held frequent gatherings of their own, and Ian and Aisling slotted into their family routines easily, happily. Both my sisters had offered second homes to my children, homes where they felt loved and welcomed. It was some kind of solace for their father’s abandonment of them.

  But I found it hard to be surrounded by all that happy family stuff. Each gathering was a reminder of what I no longer had – perhaps had never had. Not in my own parental home, nor in the home I later made with Adam. And once Adam left, I knew with some certainty that I would never have the chance of it again, would never trust a man again.

  My husband left a huge absence on his departure. Not just the lack of his presence; hindsight has perhaps taught me that things were never as I believed them to be between us. The biggest, most hurtful chasm is the one he left in his children’s lives – even if they don’t fully understand that yet. They are, and always have been, fatherless.

  I have begun to believe that even a father to fight with is better than no father at all.

  I’ll never forgive Adam. For myself, I don’t care any more. Don’t care that he replaced me with a younger model: a colleague of his, the exotic María Isabel, who had visited our home on several occasions, as we had visited hers. I don’t care that he became a walking, talking cliché in his fortieth year. I don’t even care that he wiped me out financially. I’ve recovered from all that.

  But not to be a father to your children: that is unforgivable.

  I parked in Ella’s driveway, trying to still the uncomfortable rhythm of my heart. It had
begun to pound just as soon as the house came into view. I noted that all of the blinds were up, the windows open. So my father and his wife were at home, then. And awake. I took several deep breaths before I opened the car door and stepped out onto the gravel.

  Whatever I might accuse my father of in this new family of his, I could not for a moment doubt his devotion to his son. Standing there on the threshold of my father’s other home, I regretted above all the bitterness I had allowed to grow and fester between us. I felt the width and depth of the breach that had existed between us for so many years. And I knew that it was of my own making.

  Nothing but sheer willpower enabled me to take the dozen or so steps to his door. My legs felt weak, rubbery, as though they might give up on me at any moment. Apart from the physical sensation, I was not at all sure of my welcome.

  I rang the bell.

  It was he who answered. We stood looking at each other for a moment, he blinking in the morning sunlight, I trying to make out his face, stark against the shadows of the hallway.

  ‘Rebecca,’ he said.

  ‘Dad, oh, Dad,’ I stepped towards him, my arms out, my courage wavering. For an instant, I thought he was going to turn away from me. Everything seemed to fall away from me in that moment. I saw a stooped and elderly man, a face grey with grief, unruly white hair: I realized with a shock that my father was no longer as I had envisaged him. The strong, handsome, robust fifty-something-year-old that had for so long been embedded in my memory, my imagination – call it what you will – had somehow been transformed into this frail and vulnerable old man. The realization made me falter. It was as though my feet were planted in something unyielding, something that stopped me from moving forward. I could no longer walk towards him, no longer pull him into my embrace.

  ‘Rebecca,’ he said again, and this time, he moved towards me. ‘I am so glad you are here.’

  The simple generosity of his welcome scooped out my insides. I felt shame, sorrow, horror – there seemed to be no end to the emotions that choked my words, blinded my eyes.

  ‘Come inside.’ He drew me in after him. I stepped into the cool hallway, and there, at the end, stood Ella.

  It is here that things get a little blurred. I am no longer sure of the sequence of events – I just know that they all happened. One moment, I am standing there, aware of Ella dressed in something long and white; another moment finds me on the floor; another feels my body rained with blows. And all the while a high, chill keening fills the space around me – a keening that is suddenly accompanied by a deeper note, a bass note that sounds with increasing frequency: my father’s voice. And then I can make out Ella’s words.

  ‘Are you happy now? You don’t need to hate us any more! Daniel’s gone, gone! He’s dead! Have you got what you wanted at last?’

  With each word, Ella’s small hands flail against my chest, my head, my face, while my father kneels, trying to grapple her into quietness. But I don’t resist: not even the instinctual raising of hands to shield my face. Her words meet something inside me – that growing sense of culpability – and I welcome the violence of her attack.

  ‘SShhh, sshhh, darling, darling,’ my father soothes, his hands finally around his wife’s shoulders. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right. I have you.’

  I watch as she collapses into him, how her grief howls through her, through both of them, shattering the shroud of silence all around us.

  It is much later, and the three of us are sitting in the conservatory. The beauty of sunlight on the green garden outside is obscene. There is no other word for it. Its brilliance makes me ache. I don’t even want to imagine what these two people before me must be feeling.

  My father pours coffee.

  I hold Ella’s hand. I haven’t let her go since she sobbed herself into exhaustion on the floor of the hall. I can’t remember what I said after she had collapsed into my father’s arms – I know I begged her to forgive me, my words tumbling over the years like balm. She clutched at me, and the three of us stayed like that for some time, holding onto each other, letting old hurts make way for new.

  It was my father who first extricated himself, finally, gently, giving us all space to get to our feet. ‘Come, let’s have a seat in the conservatory and we can talk. Can you stand, sweetheart?’

  Ella nodded. The tenderness between them made my eyes fill. ‘Yes,’ she said. But she stumbled and I gave her my hand, quickly, without thinking. She hesitated, only for a second, and took it. I cannot describe the welling of gratitude that accompanied her simple, forgiving gesture. It was not blind instinct that made her hold onto me. She had considered it, and made her choice, bringing me back into the circle of family. At that moment, I hated myself.

  We made our way slowly towards the back of the house.

  And now, I stroke her small, pale hand. I feel the smoothness of the skin, see the glint of gold on her finger, the bright arc of her nails. ‘Tell me what happened,’ I say. ‘I want to know – if you can bear it.’

  And together, they tell me. Of an ordinary Sunday – aren’t they always? – a premonition, a journey. Of the unthinkable sight of their son, swaying forever out of their reach. And of why.

  Ella shakes her head. ‘I don’t know – neither of us knows.’ She looks towards my father as she says this. He nods assent, although there is something in his eyes that makes me remember to speak to him afterwards, alone. There is something he is not saying. I know him well enough to know that much.

  And so we sit, until well into the afternoon. There are phone calls and visitors and things to be attended to. All the paraphernalia of loss.

  In the afternoon, at my father’s insistence, I sleep. ‘You’re not driving home having been up all night,’ he says. ‘I’ve called Frances and she and Martin will come and collect you. Martin will drive your car home. Frances will take you. I’ll have no argument.’

  I nod. I hope that my sister will know not to bring our children. I feel guilty, glad and relieved and horribly guilty all over again that all my sisters’ children – and mine – are safe.

  I walk out to the car to take some things from my suitcase. Then I make my way to the spare room.

  ‘Let me know if you need anything,’ Ella says.

  I simply don’t know what to say.

  Despite myself, I sleep. And I dream – of strange and surreal things. Of car parks and trees crying and white dresses and Daniel’s bright smile.

  Before I drift off, I remind myself again to speak to my father about whatever it is he is hiding behind the tired dullness of his eyes.

  Patrick

  WE FINALLY GOT ELLA to lie down, Rebecca and I, sometime around five that evening. Almost immediately, Frances and Martin arrived. They’d parked on the roadway outside and made their nearly silent way across the gravel on foot to the front door.

  ‘We thought Ella might be asleep,’ Frances said. ‘Rebecca texted us to say that she was resting.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Just in the last twenty minutes or so.’ I could no longer stifle the deep sigh that now escaped me. I felt suddenly drained of energy, hardly able to keep myself upright. I began to tremble all over again and shoved my hands into my trouser pockets.

  I didn’t think I could absorb any more sympathy. I felt that I would overflow, emptying myself out, if I had to suffer any more kindness.

  ‘Dad?’ Frances said. She stood by my side and placed one hand on my arm. ‘I know all you want to do is to look after Ella. But you’re exhausted. Please, let us take care of you.’

  I know that I grimaced. ‘I’m okay,’ I said. ‘I’m going to lie down myself now for a while.’ I tried to smile at her. ‘But thank you.’

  ‘We’ll be back tonight, Sophie and I,’ she said. ‘Call if you need us to bring anything.’

  I nodded. What could I possibly want that anyone could give me now?

  Rebecca came over and put her arms around me. ‘I’ll be back again tomorrow.’ She kissed me on the cheek. I could hear the brea
k in her voice. ‘Just as soon as I’ve spent time with the kids.’

  At her words, a silence fell. A brief, appalled silence.

  I nodded again. Speech had temporarily deserted me.

  They left together, quietly. I welcomed the now-blossoming quietness in the house, a poignant stillness that grew once the door had been closed. I wanted, needed, to be on my own, just for a while.

  I had been taken aback at Rebecca’s arrival earlier. I had not expected that. In fairness, she had been in the air when the blow struck: she knew nothing of her brother’s – or half-brother’s, as she used to insist – death, until she’d picked up her phone messages. But at least she lost no time in getting to us; she simply turned the car round at the airport and drove in our direction instead.

  When I saw her at the door, I hesitated. I admit that. I was angry. Angry at her treatment of my son, my wife. Angry at all the wasted years between us. And then I was sad. Sad that it had taken a tragedy of unspeakable proportions to effect even the shakiest of reconciliations between us.

  I stepped towards her and we embraced. I think I told her I was glad that she was here. I hope I did.

  I know that Rebecca has suffered greatly. I know that her own life has not been as she would have wished it to be. And I know that, by the time she arrived back into my newly bereft existence, I had learned almost not to care any more.

  Ella flew at her at once, unable to contain her rage. I did not try to stop her. But my daughter summoned kindness from somewhere and, with astounding generosity, Ella responded. We spent a gentle afternoon together. And I was glad for that, at least.

  But, I have to confess, that by the time Rebecca arrived on that Monday morning, my life was over. Or the life that I had known for so many years, was over. For the first time, I felt old. I became stooped and hollow overnight – as though all my physical robustness had been scooped out of me as I lifted my son in the half-light of his September bedroom.

  It would take anger to motivate me again. Rage, such as I had never known, was waiting for me. I was ready for it. I welcomed it.