The First Time I Saw You: the most heartwarming and emotional love story of the year

by Emma Cooper

  Da, Michael and I sit speechless until we burst out laughing, the type of laughter that crunches your stomach muscles and takes away your breath. Da claps me on the shoulder.

  ‘That’s one of your bucket list ticked off, eh, Sammy?’ He smiles at me and I see tears in his eyes; I’m not sure if it’s from the laughter or because of what is happening to me.

  In all this time, I hadn’t really thought about what it was like for my parents to see me losing my sight; how difficult it would be for them to watch their son lose the world in front of us. Our laughter peters out as a thought hits me out of the blue; I will never see the face of my children. I will never get to hold my baby in my arms and look at its features and say it has my nose or my eyes. That’s even if I have kids. Who would want to take this burden on when they could find a person who is able to look into their face and tell them how beautiful they are?

  Sophie is better off without me.

  Week Twenty-Five

  Sophie

  I have thrown myself into my new business, trying to hide Charlie’s words in between the neat rows and columns of numbers, but they refuse to be hidden, peeking out at me when the total doesn’t match the receipts. His words cling to the backs of my eyelids when I try to sleep, they lie on my tongue when I try to eat, they reverberate around Bean’s cocoon, and I wish I could grab them with my hands and hide them away.

  The image of my hand slapping his face refuses to go. I can’t remember any thought process before my hand left my side; it was just instinctive. The Book says mood swings are normal; it is normal to act out of character, everything feels heightened and this is all down to my hormones. I worry that my mood swings may not go once Bean comes. I’m hanging on to this excuse: it’s my hormones; it’s not learnt behaviour; I won’t become a result of the things I saw as a child.

  My hands grasp the coffee cup and my feet are tucked up beneath me as I stare at the TV. The curtains are drawn, and my half-eaten dinner is congealing on a plate on the floor.

  I don’t think I have ever felt so alone.

  My mother’s voice resonates inside me: ‘You can never be alone in this house.’ She had said this while she was polishing the cheap memorabilia that were scattered around the room, shuffling picture frames on the window sill, picking up small ornaments that she had bought on various day trips. ‘This house is full of memories and each one is a reminder that you are not alone.’ She smiled at me as she ran the cloth over the old teak sideboard which doubled as a makeshift bar at Christmas, picking up a snow globe with a Welsh dragon trapped inside. ‘Do you remember the day we got this?’ I can hear her voice as if she was still in this room.

  My hand slides away from the coffee cup and I wipe away a stray tear. ‘It was that horrid day out to Llandudno when you were four . . . do you remember? It had rained all day, so we ended up in that little gift shop. You started crying when you saw the dragon, because he was facing the wrong way and couldn’t see what was going on around him.’

  I answer her, even though my words are falling on silent walls and empty chairs. ‘You said if we took it home, he could watch us for the rest of his life. You said that, Mum, but do you know what I used to think?’ I rub my face. ‘I used to think that it would have been better off staying in the shop than watching the things he did to you.’

  My new sideboard sits against the wall, the edges of the wood leaning further out than the rest of the oak, in the shape of a fat ‘T’; all that is on it is the blue frame that Charlie gave me and Bean’s scan picture sitting neatly inside. What things could I display on it? What story would my possessions tell? I put the coffee cup down and walk towards it, sliding my hands along the smooth surface. What would I cover this with? Nothing from the London house meant anything to me. I trace my finger around the frame and across Bean’s picture.

  ‘That’s what we’ll do, Bean, we’ll put our favourite things on here, only the good things in life. Nothing bad.’ I open one of the drawers and pull out a pack of Post-it notes and a pen. I write on the first one my happiest memory so far: seeing Bean at my twelve-week scan. I write it down and then stick it on top. I write on the next one: the day I kicked Samuel in the ankle. I smile and stick that below the first one. I feel Charlie’s words start to lose their sting as I replace them with good memories; good things in my life.

  My back aches as I look at the sideboard, which is now covered with the things that make me happy: Helen and Greg’s home; the way Caitlin drags her snowman teddy around with her everywhere she goes; this house that I’ve made my own . . . and Samuel. There are lots and lots of happy memories with Samuel: the way he walks, almost as if he might trip himself over at any minute, the look in his eyes as he proposed that I stay in Washington, the awkward way he had asked me to stay at the end of the week. Once I start to write these memories down, I can’t stop. His smell, his accent, the scar inside his hand, how he had been dancing the day I had watched through his window . . . the sideboard is covered with my memories of him.

  Mum was right. I don’t feel alone any more, but she has shown me more than that: she has shown me that my head is filled with Samuel; that I am happiest with Samuel.

  ‘Shall we call Your Dad, Bean?’ I ask quietly, daring myself to speak the words out loud. I rub my stomach tentatively. ‘I wonder what he will think of you.’

  I glance up at the giant clock-face that counts down the days to Bean’s arrival. It is the middle of the night in DC. I’ll call him tomorrow . . . and this time I know I won’t hang up.

  Samuel’s mobile is now out of order, as is his home phone. I swallow down my irritation. If I had let the phone connect those few weeks ago, I would be closer to finding him now. I google the Greenlight number and hear the dialling tone connect as I swallow down my nerves and take a few deep breaths. Bean is kicking me impatiently. I picture the reception desk; I picture the doors that I had walked through: a confident businesswoman in killer heels. I rotate my foot, an old flip-flop dangling from my swollen foot.

  ‘Greenlight Finance, how may I help?’

  ‘Hello.’ My voice from a lifetime ago rings out into the kitchen. ‘Please could you put me through to Samuel McLaughlin?’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, Mr McLaughlin is no longer here. Shall I transfer you to his department where another member of our team can help you?’

  ‘Y-yes, please.’

  This doesn’t make sense. Why would he leave? Why would he have left after everything he had said about his job and how he had betrayed me to ensure that he kept it?

  ‘Good morning,’ announces the sing-song voice of a young woman.

  ‘Hello, I was hoping to speak with Samuel McLaughlin. I’ve worked with him before and I would like to—’

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ the sing-song has stopped and is replaced with something gentler, ‘but I’m afraid Samuel is no longer with us, just a moment.’ I hear her hand cover the receiver and urgent muffled conversations in the background. Her hand slides from the receiver as she tells a colleague that she’ll be right there.

  ‘I’m sorry, is there anyone else who can help you today?’

  ‘Could you tell me what happened to him? To Samuel?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m new here, just a moment.’ The muffled tone fills my ears again before she continues.

  ‘There was an accident.’ She comes back on to the line. ‘At his house, I believe. Is there anyone else who can help you today?’

  ‘An accident?’

  ‘An explosion. I’m sorry, but Samuel has gone.’ There is no song, there is only remorse in her tone. Bile rises in my throat and my hands start shaking. ‘Is there anyone else who can help you with your enquiry?’

  ‘No. No . . . could you tell me when Samuel, when he left?’ She’s talking to someone else again.

  ‘March. Is there anything else I can do to help you today?’

  ‘March,’ I repeat. The daffodils would have been out . . . why am I thinking about daffodils? The walls are closing in around
me, my breath is being sucked out of my body and I’m finding it hard to form any more words other than a quiet ‘No’. No, she can’t help me. My shaking hands reach for the keyboard as I type in Samuel’s Washington address into the search bar, followed by the word explosion. There is a report in the Washington Post:

  Authorities in DC Investigate Report of Explosion

  At approximately five o’clock on March 15, an explosion ripped through a property in Hangart Drive. Authorities said it appeared to be related to a gas leak.

  The owner of the house, Mr Samuel McLaughlin, was dragged from the burning house by a neighbor. He is said to be in a critical condition and is being treated in the Washington Hospital Center.

  I scroll down to where a picture of Samuel’s house, or what is left of it, is being hosed down by firemen.

  My fingers punch in the words ‘Washington Hospital Center’ and I call them, gently stroking Bean, trying to keep my child and myself calm.

  ‘Washington Hospital Center.’

  ‘Hello? I was hoping you could help me. I’m trying to find a friend of mine.’ The memory of his face, as he held out his hand to me when I was sitting in the puddle, steals the breath from my lungs and I have to concentrate on gulping air back into my body. ‘He was admitted in March?’

  ‘What name, please?’

  ‘Samuel McLaughlin.’ His name doesn’t roll around my mouth the way it used to; it sounds brittle, fragile.

  ‘There is nothing on the screen to say that he is a current patient and I’m afraid I can’t give out any personal information about any of our past patients.’

  ‘I understand, but I know he was taken to hospital in March and I know that his injuries were severe, but I don’t know any more than that. Please, if you could give me anything about him, anything at all, I would be . . .’ I close my eyes, their surface burning inside their sockets.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t give you any more details. Perhaps if you contact his next of kin?’ These words punch me in the stomach. Next of kin.

  ‘I don’t know where his . . .’ I force these words out of my mouth, these words that are associated with death. ‘I don’t know who his next of kin are.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but there is no more I can do to help. Maybe ask his friends? They might know?’

  ‘I will, thanks for your help anyway.’ I’m being polite. How is it that I am still managing to be polite when inside I am full of chaos?

  I hang up and look down at my stomach.

  ‘Oh, Bean, where do we go from here?’

  ‘Would you tell me, please,’ I whisper into the silence, repeating Alice’s line as I did as a child, ‘which way I ought to go from here?’

  ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ Mum replies.

  But deep down I already know. Washington DC.

  Week Twenty-Five

  Samuel

  The McLaughlin family are clambering towards their seats en masse. The Kingspan Stadium is filled with the smell of grass and beer, the excited chatter mixed with the anticipation of the game. We used to do this a lot when I was a kid, come to see Ulster play. And when I played here, they didn’t miss a single game: Mam, Da and Sarah always screaming my name, always telling me to get up off my fat arse.

  Michael is leading me to my seat. I’ve had to pass my plastic pint glass to Sarah to carry as I side-step my way to my chair, my backside sliding against strangers’ knees. What must I look like to them? A blind man coming to watch the game. We take our seats and I collapse Michael and put him below me.

  The doctors knew my sight would deteriorate quickly, but I didn’t think it would happen so suddenly. The fist has begun to lose patience and has started to squeeze harder and faster; in the space of the last few weeks, the darkness has begun to creep closer. Like hot tar, it oozes from out of the shadows and swallows the world in front of me. I haven’t mentioned this to anybody just yet and I wonder if they’ve noticed how much more I’m relying on Michael, how much more I have to move my head to let my surroundings in. Sarah’s hand takes hold of mine and she passes the plastic cup into my grip.

  ‘Cheers,’ I say and take a sip. I hear her passing drinks to her kids as I stare out at the pitch, taking in as much of it as I can. I’ll be able to see most of the match if I move my head quickly enough with the players; it’s the rest of the stadium that will be stolen from me. The sky above it will be sucked away into a black hole. I will be able to hear my sister’s cheers and I’ll be able to hear Da’s insults and Mam’s gasps at a tough tackle, but unless I turn my head right towards their direction, their expressions will be hidden from me. My time is running out.

  As the players run on to the pitch, we all clap and cheer, the noises of the stadium knitting together just as they always have, the whoosh of heat that comes from thousands of gasps, thousands of cheers, thousands of ‘ooohs’ as a player takes a hit, all the sounds weaving into each other to produce a whole ‘image’ that is just as complex, has just as many components as the view on the pitch, and it is just as intoxicating.

  The game begins, and I watch the kick-off easily enough. White shirts with black collars chase after the ball, but the ball . . . well, the ball is just too fast for me to follow. Play soon slows down; I can watch the phases, the ball hunkered down beneath the players before it is thrown backwards, but then I’m lost again amongst the flashes of white shirts being guarded by the opposing reds. My eyes search the pitch until I find it. I never thought it would be this exhausting. I’ve lost track of the ball again.

  ‘You all right, Sammy boy?’ Da asks.

  ‘Yeah, I’m grand, thanks, tremendous game so far, eh?’ I answer as I scan what I’m fairly sure is the twenty-two-metre line.

  ‘Only, well, I only ask because you’re looking the wrong way, son.’

  Arses.

  I turn towards Da’s face. The crowd roar and I can sense that most of them are in the halfway position of standing to cheer for a try and sitting back down when the opportunity is snatched away from them. He isn’t looking at the game; he’s looking at me in a way that I haven’t seen for a long, long time. He’s looking at me just like he used to when I was a child – when I was Joseph in the school nativity and forgot my lines. Or when I got my arse kicked in a scrap when I was ten. The expression that tells you that your father would live that moment for you if he could.

  ‘It’s hard to keep track of the ball,’ I say and turn my face back towards the pitch.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so sooner, you silly arse? I always wanted to be a commentator. Now, turn your head towards the five-metre line, can you see they’re about to throw in the line-out?’ I feel Da’s arm around my shoulder as he begins possibly the worst commentary in a match that I’ve ever heard before, but, at the same time, one of the best.

  I’m drunk by the time we get back into the car, which is more like a minibus, really. Gone are the days when we would all just squish in, Sarah sitting on my knee while as many cousins as we could manage would sit shoulder to shoulder, rugby shirts on top of rugby shorts. My limited sight is even more distorted, even harder to keep hold of, but I don’t care. Da, Sarah and I are singing rugby songs and Mam is telling us to hush up before we get ourselves arrested for disturbing the peace.

  ‘What’s next on your list, Sammy?’ Da asks in the over-loud way that we all do when we’re drunk.

  ‘A show,’ I say.

  ‘I get you, but that’ll be just me and you, lad,’ he winks over his shoulder at me.

  ‘Not that kind of show, Da,’ Sarah says as she rummages in her bag and passes packets of crisps to the kids sitting behind us who are whinging about not having another hot dog. ‘Sam likes musicals.’

  ‘What?’ Da yells.

  ‘Mr McLaughlin! Lower your voice or I’ll end up crashing the car and killing us all, and then where would you be?’

  ‘Where would I be? Dead, I’d imagine! What do you mean, Sammy likes musicals? What, like Jesus Christ Superstar a
nd all that malarkey?’

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of West Side Story?’ I say and then burp behind my hand as Mam takes a sharp corner. ‘You’d like it, Da, I hear there are more deaths in it than an episode of Game of Thrones.’

  ‘This is your fault, Mrs M,’ Da says and turns his head back towards the windshield.

  ‘And just what do you mean by that?’

  I turn my head towards Sarah, who rolls her eyes at me; I grin back at her.

  ‘You were always too soft on him when he was a lad, always putting magic bloody cream on his grazes . . . and now listen to him! Musicals! Paddle boats! What’s next, Sammy? Flower arranging?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe.’ I wink at Sarah, who laughs.

  ‘What do you think you might do, as a career?’ Sarah asks as Mr and Mrs McLaughlin bicker in the front about how Ma’s uncle was a florist; the fact that it never did him any harm is currently under question.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m all right for a while but I’ll need to do something with myself. I might see if I can get back into a bank. It’s weird, a few weeks back, the idea of losing my sight felt like, I suppose a bit like I was terminally ill or something. But now . . .’ I look through the tunnel and out of the window where the Irish summer sun warms the dust that is being blasted up the sides of the car and smile. ‘Now, I don’t feel like that . . .’

  ‘So how do you feel?’

  ‘A bit lost.’

  I think about the look in Sophie’s eyes the first day I met her . . . If only she could find me, the way that I found her.