Seven Letters

by Sinéad Moriarty

  ‘Well done, man,’ Rob said.

  ‘Thanks, Adam. Sorry for calling you a prick.’ Riley smiled sheepishly at her uncle.

  ‘I was behaving like one. I need people to call me out when I’m being an arse.’

  ‘Happy to oblige.’ Riley grinned.

  Rob looked at his watch. ‘I’m really sorry to break up this moment, but I’ve got to go to the airport.’

  ‘And I need to get Riley to school,’ Mia said. They all stood up.

  ‘We’ll miss you, Rob.’ Mia hugged him. ‘You’ve been an absolute rock. Thank you for everything.’

  ‘I’m glad I could help in some small way.’ Then Rob whispered in her ear, ‘Look out for Adam, won’t you? He needs you guys. I know he can be difficult, but he’s a good man.’

  Mia patted him on the back. ‘I promise you that we will.’

  Adam picked up his car keys. ‘Well, I’d better get you to your flight on time or Ellen will never forgive me. What am I going to do without you, bro? I’ve got used to having you around.’

  ‘You’ll be all right. You’ve got a big family right here who have your back.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring Izzy over for dinner tonight?’ Mia suggested.

  ‘Thanks, Mia, but I’ll pass. I feel pretty shattered, to be honest, but tomorrow would be lovely,’ Adam said.

  ‘Great, we’ll see you then.’

  They waved goodbye to Rob and Adam.

  ‘Well, now.’ Charlie turned to Mia. ‘The man has a heart after all.’

  Mia smiled. ‘Yes, he does, and we need to nurture it.’

  ‘I’m kind of wrecked. Can I skip my exam?’ Riley asked.

  ‘No, love, not a chance.’

  Riley groaned and climbed into the back of Charlie’s car.

  ‘Do you think we’re going to be OK, Dad?’ Mia asked.

  Charlie looked up at the sky. ‘We just keep putting one foot in front of the other, Mia. That’s all we can do.’

  Mia walked around and climbed into the passenger seat. He was right: there was no miracle cure, it was just life – getting on with it and waiting for the pain to subside.

  54

  Mia was dabbing night cream around her red, puffy eyes when Johnny came into the bathroom. He stood beside her, leaning against the white-tiled wall. ‘I need to talk to you about something. I’ve tried to find the right time but there hasn’t been any right time lately.’

  Mia washed the cream off her hands. It would take a miracle to make her eyes look better. She’d aged so much in the last three weeks. They all had.

  She smiled at Johnny in the mirror. ‘You got the job, didn’t you?’

  Johnny put his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘No. It’s about the journalist in the hospital and Sarah’s story.’

  Mia’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, no! Tell me the story’s not coming out.’

  Johnny cleared his throat. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember when I went to talk to Jimmy Dolan about quashing the story?’

  ‘Yes, and he said he would.’

  ‘Well, that’s not exactly what happened.’

  Mia’s hand froze mid-air. ‘What the hell is going on, Johnny?’

  ‘When I spoke to Jimmy, he was very reluctant to pass on it because, let’s face it, it’s a great story from a news editor’s point of view. I tried everything to get him to drop it, but there was only one way I could do it. I had to offer him a deal.’

  Mia’s eyes widened. ‘What? What deal?’

  Johnny sighed. ‘It wasn’t a good solution, Mia, but it was the only solution.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Mia said hoarsely.

  ‘Jimmy was going to run the story one way or another. I couldn’t get him to drop it. He already had a pile of research done – they had pulled photos from Sarah’s Facebook account, they knew what was going on and it was being printed, no matter what. The only concession I could get …’ He stopped and looked at her.

  Mia felt like her world was about to explode all over again when the next words left his mouth.

  ‘The only way I was able to stop the story coming out was to offer an exclusive written by me.’

  Mia backed away from him into the bedroom. She sat down suddenly on the bed.

  Johnny followed her and hunkered down in front of her. ‘Please don’t freak out, Mia. I know it sounds awful, but it’s the best outcome for us. I got him to hold off until now, and with Adam putting an end to things today, that means the story comes out when it’s over, not while Sarah is still lying in the hospital. That’s really good. You have to see that. And I’ve written it from our point of view, stressing how difficult this has been for the family, how there was no good option available to us. This way, we get our point across before the tabloids row in, twist and sensationalize it. It gives us control, Mia. That’s why I did it.’

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’ Mia shouted. ‘You told me it wasn’t going to come out. That is my sister! Are you using my family tragedy to get in with Jimmy and his newspaper, Johnny? Is that what this is really about?’

  Johnny rocked back on his heels. ‘Jesus, Mia, of course not. I’m trying to protect you all from some tabloid exposé that would cast the family as monsters.’

  ‘You told me it was sorted out. Now you’re telling me that you’re going to expose my family publicly. You lied to me. Are you getting a job out of this? Is using my sister’s life the only way you can get a bloody job?’

  Johnny’s face set in a hard line. ‘Listen to what I’m saying. I’m not using Sarah for anything. They were going to run the story no matter what, so I did sort it out. I did stop it, in the only way possible.’

  Mia poked her husband in the chest. ‘No, you bloody didn’t. I don’t want people reading about my sister and her baby. It’s our private horror. The last thing we need is people weighing in and telling us how awful we are or how right or how wrong. I asked you to sort out one thing, just one thing, and you couldn’t even do that!’ Mia screamed. ‘I’m having a nervous breakdown here, yet I’m still going to work and paying the bloody mortgage and all the bills while you’re sitting around on your arse fucking things up.’

  She put her head into her hands, but Johnny pulled her hands away and forced her to look at him. ‘I am not sitting on my arse. Who the hell do you think has been keeping everything together at home? Me. I’ve been looking after Izzy and Riley and you and everyone. I’ve hunted for a job every day since I was made redundant. I feel enough of a failure without you shoving it in my face. If it wasn’t for me, Sarah’s story would have been splashed all over every tabloid last week. I had to beg Jimmy to hold off.’

  Mia stared at him. She hated him right now. ‘Well, it’ll be splashed all over the papers soon enough anyway, so I’d hardly say you saved the day, Johnny. You did nothing but postpone it. I can’t believe this is your idea of sorting things out. You have lied to me and betrayed my family. Thanks a lot, Johnny. You’re a real rock.’

  ‘There’s no need to be such a –’

  Mia glared at him. ‘What? Bitch? I’m not a bitch. I’m a woman with a shattered heart who has lost her sister and best friend and all the while, instead of falling apart and crying into my pillow, I’m working to keep a roof over our bloody heads.’

  Mia grabbed her pillow and stormed down the stairs. She pulled the spare duvet out of the hall cupboard and flung herself onto the couch.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Johnny asked from the doorway.

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘You’re not sleeping on the couch.’

  ‘I am not sleeping with you.’

  Johnny walked in. He pulled her up. ‘Mia, I will sleep on the couch. You’ve had a hell of a day. Go upstairs to bed. You need sleep.’

  ‘How can I sleep knowing you’ve betrayed me and my family?’ Mia shouted.

  ‘I did the only thing I could to keep it out of the papers, Mia.’

  ‘Well, it’s going into the papers a
nyway, so you did sweet fuck-all. How the hell am I supposed to explain this to Dad and to Adam? Jesus, Johnny, how could you do this to us? After all we’ve been through. I will never forgive you.’

  Mia picked up her pillow, slammed the door shut and walked back upstairs. Riley was hovering on the landing.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow, so I might as well tell you. Your father wasn’t working on an article for a new job, he was writing an exposé on our family and Sarah’s horrific death. It’s going to be splashed all over the paper tomorrow and everyone will know our private and painful business.’

  Riley frowned. ‘But Dad would never do anything to hurt you. He loves you. You know that.’

  ‘I thought I did.’ Mia’s voice caught. ‘But apparently he has decided to betray me. I come home from witnessing the end of my sister’s life and think my husband might hug me or tell me I’m going to be OK, or that he has a job and all the financial pressure will be off my shoulders but no – oh, no. Instead he tells me the whole country is about to know all the painful and intimate details of Sarah’s death.’

  Riley wasn’t convinced. ‘Dad must have had a reason, Mum. He’d never betray anyone, least of all you.’

  ‘He swore to me that the story had been quashed. Now he says it was going to come out anyway – if it was, I’d prefer to have been betrayed by a stranger than by my own husband.’ Mia slammed her bedroom door and locked it.

  She had thought Johnny was going to hug her and tell her how brave she was and how sorry he was that she had just said goodbye to her beloved sister. But, no, he’d landed this on her instead. Mia stared up at the ceiling and wondered how she was going to explain Johnny’s betrayal to her father and to Adam. It made her feel dead inside, like Sarah. She didn’t think she would ever be able to forgive her husband.

  55

  Mia sat outside in a garden chair, wrapped in her dressing-gown. She watched the sun rise. It was spectacular. The sky slowly went from navy-blue to pink as the rays burst through, announcing the birth of another day.

  Mia’s first day without her sister. Her first day with nowhere to go, no one to visit. It was over. She felt empty, depleted. Was she really supposed to ‘get back to normal’ now? Was she supposed to get dressed and go to work as if her world had not been ripped apart? Would she have to talk about the weather and the news and which movie stars were sleeping together? Mia shuddered. All she wanted to do was talk about Sarah. She wanted to say her name over and over so that she would not be forgotten. She wanted people to know her, to understand how wonderful she was. To know how unbearable it was to lose your sister and her baby.

  Mia wanted to run down the road and scream at people, ‘Do you know how lucky you are?’ Maybe she was going mad from grief and lack of sleep, but how can you sleep when your heart is broken, when you have seen your sister’s body decomposing in front of your eyes? Sleep had not come.

  Johnny’s bombshell had rocked her to the core. She had lain awake, thinking about Sarah, then feeling huge waves of anger as she thought of what Johnny had done. She didn’t want to remember all she’d said to Sarah during that final goodbye, but it kept rearing up to confront her: she had talked of love and cherishing and going easy on herself and everyone. Was this the first test?

  It had gone round her thoughts in a loop, exhausting her, and the only person she wanted to talk to about it was Sarah. What would Sarah have said? She’d always listened carefully to Mia, but then she was always so fair and generous to Riley and Johnny. Mia knew Sarah would tell her to give him the benefit of the doubt, but she kept pushing that voice away because she didn’t want to hear it. What he had done was so huge. How was she supposed to get past it?

  The door opened and Mia heard footsteps. She looked up. Johnny handed her a cup of tea.

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘Mia, I know you’re upset about the article but –’

  ‘I’m not upset, I’m furious. You let me down. You betrayed us, you –’

  ‘Mia,’ Johnny snapped. ‘I had no choice. You have to believe me. I wouldn’t lie to you about this. I’ve been torn apart ever since that meeting with Jimmy, but it was honestly the only way to resolve it. You’re my world, Mia.’ He stopped, trying to compose himself. ‘Please, Mia. Read it before you judge me. I went to get the first edition. It’s out today. Why don’t you read it and then decide if you’re going to forgive me or not?’

  He handed her the newspaper and placed the cup of tea on the ground beside her. ‘I’m going for a walk. I need to clear my head.’

  Good riddance, Mia thought. She was so angry with him, she could barely look at him. She threw down the newspaper and looked back up at the sky. She stared at the colours until her eyes watered. It was going to be another lovely day.

  As she watched, a thrush with a speckled breast landed on a branch of the ash tree. It was a beautiful bird, its eyes darting with curiosity. Mia stayed perfectly still. The bird hopped onto a lower branch, then a lower one. It was coming closer to her with each hop. She could see the yellow feathers mixed with the creamy-white and brown ones. She’d had no idea a thrush had so many colours. It flew from the low branch, landing neatly on the path, only about a metre from her chair. It walked delicately towards her, watching her intently all the time. It stopped just an arm’s reach away and regarded her without any fear.

  My God, Mia thought. She’d never been so close to a wild bird.

  She stared at the bird and it stared back, and for some reason she thought of Sarah. She was sure she’d read somewhere of a belief that the souls of the dead revisited in the form of a bird. She couldn’t help it, she reached out slowly with her hand towards the thrush. It hopped back a step, then took flight, out of reach, landing on the willow tree further down the garden. It began to sing, and the sound made Mia shiver with delight.

  It was utterly daft, but she felt as if Sarah had come to say goodbye.

  Mia sat up straight to watch the bird fly off, and felt warmth spread over her. The newspaper at her feet caught her eye. It was folded over, but she could see Sarah’s mouth smiling at her from the main photo. She reached down and picked it up.

  When she unfolded it, she gasped. It was a photo of Sarah and Adam, taken at Cousin Julie’s wedding last year. Sarah was absolutely radiant, stunning in a yellow silk dress, her gorgeous hair loose and wavy about her shoulders. She was laughing, and Adam was gazing at her with nothing short of adoration.

  Mia closed her eyes against the hot tears. She didn’t want to, but she started to read.

  An impossible choice

  Johnny Hegarty

  On 15 April, Sarah Brown collapsed at her home. She was thirty-four years old, healthy and pregnant with a yearned-for baby boy. Sarah never woke up again.

  She was rushed to hospital, where the medical team worked hard to find out the cause of her collapse. After three days of tests and waiting, they advised Sarah’s family that she had suffered a severe brain injury and would never survive off life support.

  Sarah was my sister-in-law. I had known her for almost twenty years and she had been one of my best friends for all that time. She was an adored sister, daughter, wife and mother, and the family was utterly devastated by this news. The only tiny sliver of hope lay in Sarah’s womb, where her then fourteen-week-old foetus still showed a heartbeat. Sarah had gone through years of anguish trying to conceive this baby, and we knew she would fight for it with every breath in her body. She couldn’t fight any more, so we had to do it for her.

  Sarah was put on a ventilator and somehow, against all the odds, the baby continued to survive.

  The experts told us that the baby would most likely die too … but he still had a heartbeat. There was the slimmest chance that he might survive. What else could a loving family do but take that chance?

  Yes, it meant Sarah became an incubator and we could not give her a dignified death and burial, but we weighed up the situation and decided to give her lit
tle boy, Ben, that chance.

  But how could he survive? How could a baby survive in a dead woman’s body? She was brain dead, but not physically dead. She was warm to the touch, no corpse-like pallor. She looked like Sarah.

  But was it right? Was it ethical to keep a dead woman alive for this purpose?

  We listened to the experts; we got second and third opinions. We researched, we read medical papers, we trawled the internet until our eyes bled. We talked, we argued. We agreed and then we disagreed. We wept, we prayed, we begged for a miracle.

  Some may sit in judgement of us and our decision, but this was an unprecedented case. There was no ‘how to’ guide that we could consult. The doctors couldn’t advise us based on past experience – no, we were very much on our own, trying to do the right thing in a gruelling situation where there was no right decision, and where there could be no good outcome. No matter what we did, Sarah would be lost to us forever.

  We came together, we pulled apart, but we found our way back. In the end, it was the innocence of Sarah’s seven-year-old daughter who pulled us back. She made us see sense. She showed us how much we need to stick together and not allow grief, anger, frustration and heartbreak to tear us apart.

  In the end, there was only one decision. Sarah’s body began to fall apart. The baby could not survive. I cannot begin to describe the horrors we witnessed.

  And yet, turning off the ventilator was not a decision that came easily. When it comes to the death of a loved one, the hardest part is letting them go. The desire to hold on to them is so strong, it can obliterate all other thought. But we came to understand that the only kindness we could show Sarah was to let her go, to give her our blessing to leave us.

  On 7 May, we stood around her bed as the doctor switched off the ventilator. Sarah’s husband showed incredible courage in making that final call. It fell to him and, in the end, he shouldered that burden with compassion.

  When the machine clicked off, we fell into a silence that drowned us. That clicking and whirring had been the soundtrack of our grief, and when it stopped, the silence was deafening. I don’t think any of us will ever fully recover from that silence. We can’t, because we loved Sarah so much.