The Day I lost You

by Fionnuala Kearney

  Leah catches my eye. Her face, a young forty-three until that moment, ages before me as her features crumple. Singing angels and Anna’s star status in the night sky disappear in an instant. Rose thinks Anna is coming back, and I have to choose whether to break my granddaughter’s heart now or break it some other day. Seeing Rose’s expression, the coward in me opts for another time.

  ‘Darling, Grandma and Gramps are coming to stay for a few days and Anna won’t mind if they borrow her bed.’

  Rose squeezes her eyes shut. ‘No!’

  Leah reaches for her hand and holds it tight. ‘Sweetheart, Gramps can’t manage the stairs in my house so he has to stay here?’

  Rose sits up, crying. ‘Nanny, you sleep in here and they can have your bed.’

  ‘Okay.’ I nod. ‘Can Nanny have clean sheets?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, come here. Don’t cry. Nanny will sleep here. Come on, up to me.’ I pull her tiny frame from the bed and she clings to me like a limpet. Leah watches helplessly.

  ‘Let’s go make pizzas,’ she says after a few minutes. ‘Rose, you want to?’

  Rose nods her head, peels herself from me and jumps into Leah’s arms. I follow behind, past the pile of linen that I now know I’ll have to wash, dry and put back on the bed tonight while Rose is asleep.

  She is helping Leah to grate mozzarella when we hear a car pull up on the driveway. I stare anxiously towards the hall.

  ‘You expecting anyone?’ Leah is rubbing her hands on a towel, about to go to the front door.

  ‘No, but I’ll go.’ My slippered feet pad across the hallway, expecting it to be Theo on the other side, finally responding to my texts, Anna’s letter tucked under his arm.

  Tonight, I do not need to see Sean and his éclair mother on my doorstep, but the Gods, in their infinite wisdom, send them to me anyway. Rose, however, is thrilled to see her daddy, so I reluctantly invite them in.

  ‘Poppet!’ Mrs Dwyer bends down to hug Rose.

  ‘We thought we’d come by and see you both.’ She mouths the rest of her sentence to me, which looks like ‘because we’re in the area, you know …’.

  I bite my tongue. They are in the area. Jesus. They are here to attend their granddaughter’s mother’s funeral.

  ‘How are you coping, Jess?’ Mrs Dwyer’s head shakes so much, I can’t help but wonder how it’s still attached.

  Sean looks uncomfortable, his hands in the pockets of a blazer-like jacket, both his thumbs protruding out of the top.

  ‘Can I get you something?’ I ask as we make our way to the front living room. Rose is still covered in flour from her efforts in the kitchen, and proceeds to invite them for home-made pizza. Thankfully, Sean mutters something about having already eaten. ‘Now, listen,’ Grandma Éclair whispers to me as Rose chats to Sean, ‘George and I are here on Monday. We’ll take Rose, keep her busy …’

  I catch Sean, who had been looking at me, avert his eyes.

  ‘Clara,’ I call her by her correct name. ‘Rose will be with us on Monday. Me and Doug, who are burying her mother.’

  ‘Yes, well, we—’

  ‘Jess,’ Sean is standing. ‘Let’s talk in the kitchen?’

  Clara nods at no one in particular, claps her hands and bends down to play with Rose.

  He begins in the hallway. ‘I think that Rose—’

  ‘Sean. Rose is coming on Monday.’

  We have made it to the kitchen, where Leah is presiding over half-made pizzas. Sean glares at her. ‘Leah,’ he almost growls.

  He has obviously opened his post.

  ‘As you’re both here,’ he glances back towards the living room, ‘what in Christ’s name are you playing at?’ The words seethe from his mouth.

  Leah looks at the floor.

  ‘We have our reasons, Sean. I’m not doing this to hurt you,’ I say.

  ‘A DNA test?’ He nears me and I feel the need to back away. ‘She is my daughter, you hear? My daughter.’ He jabs the air with a forefinger. ‘I have loved her for nearly six years!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re doing this because you don’t want her to move away with me. You’re doing it to spite me. You’ve never liked me. Well, tough shit. I’m her father.’

  He’s right. I’ve never really liked him, and if I could have done anything to delay him taking Rose, I’d have done it – even this, had I thought of it.

  ‘Then you won’t mind taking the test.’ Leah is wiping flour from the worktop with a cloth. She doesn’t even look up. ‘You’re her father? The DNA will prove it and then you and Rose can shimmy off to Blackpool happily.’

  My hand touches my chest and I stare at her. I have only Theo’s version of what Anna said. What if she lied for some reason? I don’t want—

  ‘I’m not sure we’ll be “shimmying” anywhere, Leah, but come June, Rose will be moving to Lytham St Annes to live with me and my parents.’

  I swallow hard.

  ‘And another thing,’ his voice calms a little. ‘The reason I came over tonight. I don’t want Rose there on Monday. Mum and Dad have offered to look after her. Obviously, I’ll be there.’

  Though there is some logic in what he says, I can’t imagine keeping Rose away from Monday’s service, especially after today. Leah and I have already discussed how – if I talk to Rose beforehand – Monday’s service may help her to move on.

  Unconsciously, I start to wring my hands together. I have never had to do battle with anyone over Rose. Anna decided what to do and, if not, Anna and I decided together. Without exception we both instinctively agreed on what was best for her. This is new and dangerous territory.

  ‘I really want her there. She needs to be there and Anna would want her there too. I think it will help her understand what’s happened.’

  Finally, all the while watching me, he nods. ‘Okay …’

  ‘Thank you.’ I almost choke on the words.

  ‘Okay, then. Is it all right with you if I have her on Monday night? I know it’s not scheduled, but Mum and Dad are leaving Tuesday and it would be good for them to spend some time with her.’ His tone has become the normal business tone he uses when we are discussing access to Rose.

  My screaming instinct is to say ‘No’. If she’s upset, it will manifest on Monday night. She will wake crying and calling for her mummy. ‘I really think she’ll be better here.’ My voice is a low whisper. ‘It’s not scheduled,’ I try.

  ‘I had hoped that—’

  ‘Sean. I’m cremating my only child on Monday.’ My voice breaks. ‘You have Rose for the rest of the day after the service, but please, let me hold my grandchild that night, will you?’

  He raises a hand to his face, seems to press on his right eyebrow, as if he has a headache. ‘Fine,’ he relents. ‘But Jess, June half-term week, I’ll be taking Rose with me.’

  I keep very still, say nothing.

  Leah’s voice snaps the moment. ‘Take the test, Sean. Then we’ll talk about who is taking Rose where.’

  Sunday. Mum is fussing. She has arrived early, laden with the essential ingredients for a fabulous Sunday roast but, apparently, I don’t have the right things to serve dinner on. And why the hell have I not got a dining table yet? I look at her. Swapping around of beds, I can do; reorganizing my house to have a dining table in it right now, I can’t.

  Leah comes to the rescue and says we can have dinner at hers. We can all make our way over there now and Mum smiles, the thought of being let loose in Gus’s state-of-the-art kitchen obviously a good one. Normally, I’d be insulted. Today, I don’t care.

  I’ve installed Mum and Dad in my room, which is a better idea anyway as they can use the en suite. I’ve set myself and my things up in Anna’s for the next few days. Rose has already asked if she can sleep in there with me, and I’ve told her of course she can. Everyone is now at Leah’s and Gus is fawning over the family guests, or as much as he can do considering Mum is ruling the kitchen and Dad doesn’t acknowledge his presence. R
ose is happy to be fussed over, though, and I left her curled up with Gus on the sofa, reading a book that she’s had read to her a thousand times already. I have escaped for a walk with Pug.

  My pace is as quick as she’ll allow as I walk towards the town, choosing to be around lots of anonymous folk today rather than a lone walk in the woods. I find myself glancing at the men I see en route, searching for clues in their faces. Not just features like eye colour, or ears and nose shape, but the way someone might smile. If I hear a laugh, I turn around, measuring it against the sound of Rose’s giggle. He’s here somewhere. I can feel it in my bones. Who is he, Anna?

  I turn a corner and see Theo standing in front of me, a bunch of Sunday newspapers under his arm.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ he says.

  ‘Had to escape the madness for a bit.’

  ‘Can I drop you home?’

  ‘No thanks, I need the air.’

  ‘Right,’ he nods at nothing. ‘Everything okay for—’

  ‘Everything’s sorted.’ I interrupt.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Your phone not working the last couple of days?’

  He blushes, tugs on his shirt collar under his fleece jacket.

  ‘I texted you, said I’d like to read the letter.’

  ‘I know. Though I’m not sure why. I told you it just okays me talking to you about anything she’d shared.’

  ‘You won’t mind me seeing it then.’

  ‘Why are you so angry?’

  ‘I’m not angry.’ I tug on Pug’s lead as she tries to pee at the lamppost next to me.

  ‘You seem pretty angry, Jess. You angry at Anna, me, or that moment – the one we’ll both pretend didn’t happen? Again.’

  My own cheeks redden. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid.’

  A woman walks by, tosses me a glance over her shoulder. Pug yaps at my feet, dog-speak for ‘Are you okay?’ Cars drive by us. Horns toot. The chitter-chatter of people talking surrounds us. More people walk past us and I’d swear they’re staring. Can they see it? What do they see? Two friends talking? One of the local doctors with a woman who might be a patient?

  ‘Step in here.’ He pulls me into the doorway of a café. It’s closed but he leans his body on the door, sort of places me opposite him in the alcove. ‘Well?’ he asks.

  ‘If things are awkward it’s because I’m mad as hell at you. Tell me something, Theo. If Sean hadn’t been threatening to take Rose away, would you ever have told me he’s not her father? If this bloody letter hadn’t existed, if you hadn’t had permission to tell me, would you just have let him take her to Blackpool? I’m the closest blood relative she has and you know what she means to me.’ I move out of the doorway, am uncomfortable with this proximity. ‘You know what she means to me.’

  Whatever words he has are tripping over themselves in his head because he’s mute.

  ‘You would have, wouldn’t you? You would have kept quiet because of your precious code of ethics. Jesus. I was right …’ The thought has been torturing me these last few days. Would he, could he, have kept such a secret from me?

  ‘I …’ He shakes his head. ‘I took the Hippocratic Oath, Jess.’

  ‘More like a hypocritical oath. Things are not awkward because we kissed, Theo, though I regret that. It was a kiss, nothing more, a heat-of-the-moment lack of judgement on my part. Things are awkward because I don’t know if I can trust you.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  I lock eyes with him. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  He bites his top lip. ‘Your friendship means an awful lot to me.’

  ‘Yes, just not enough.’ I make to walk away.

  ‘That’s it? Jess, you’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Anna’s funeral is tomorrow. I’ve more important things to think about than you.’ I tug on Pug’s lead, leave Theo in the café doorway and, as I run across the road through stationary traffic, feel his eyes bore into my back. I’m really angry at him. I’m really angry at Anna. And I’m really angry at the world, and am questioning how I’ve been walking this earth for so long, not really knowing anyone I thought I knew.

  25. Jess

  My mother is happy. She is playing hostess in Leah’s house and both Gus and Leah are happy to let her. She’s managed to find matching everything – something that would have been impossible in my home. By the time I return from my walk, the table is set and their house is filled with the homely scent of a roast dinner.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ I ask when Pug is settled. She’s exhausted after the walk and I’m tempted to try and curl up beside her.

  ‘No, darling, everything is under control,’ Mum says, Leah by her side rolling her eyes. I sit up on one of the stools at Leah’s breakfast bar, look across the huge space between me and the ceramic hob Mum is standing at. Behind me, Rose is on the floor making a Lego house from a box Leah keeps here for her, Gus sitting by watching and handing her the bricks as she commands him. Every now and then, Rose glances in my direction, as if she senses something’s off. I smile each time I catch her eye, let her know I’m here.

  Dad is sitting in an armchair watching them play, seems to be taking in every movement she makes. I wonder if he watches her in awe like I do, marvelling at the miracle of her, feeling sad that he never noticed his own children in the same way. It’s what I do when I watch Rose; I feel sad that life was too busy for me to notice the wonder of Anna as a small child.

  ‘This is a celebration.’ My mother’s announcement, clinking two glasses to get attention, interrupts my thoughts. Gus has moved into the kitchen, is standing behind her, a bottle of champagne in his hand, an awkward, unsure, expression on his face. I’ve known Gus a long time and this face is a distinctly uncomfortable one. He’s as unsure as I am about popping champagne today.

  ‘I know, I know it’s a little strange,’ Mum says. ‘But I think we should celebrate Anna. She brought all of us nothing but happiness.’

  Until she died, Mum; then she brought me a truck-load of confusion.

  I’m just wondering when I’ll actually tell Mum about Anna when I see her gazing at me and I realize she wants permission to open the bottle. She wants me to say that it’s okay sharing champagne before my daughter’s funeral; that it is, in fact, an all-right thing to do. I give her a tiny smile, one I don’t really mean but I have no energy to argue. She nods at Gus who looks at me. I nod at him too and then pop, he twists the cork out of the bottle like an expert. He fills five glasses and I bring one over to Dad, who takes it with his good hand and I lead him back to the kitchen end of the room. Rose glances at him but pays more attention to the house she’s building.

  ‘To Anna,’ Mum says, her glass in the air. ‘The most beautiful, kind and sensitive soul that we were lucky enough to have in our lives for a long time, though not long enough.’

  ‘To Anna,’ everyone echoes, even Dad, but not me. I sip the drink for Mum’s sake.

  ‘I’m cooking her favourite.’ Mum puts her glass down and gets back to work. ‘Roast lamb, roasted vegetables, fluffy spuds and alcoholic gravy.’ Everyone laughs, except me again. Alcoholic gravy was a concoction that Anna and Mum had come up with one Christmas when Mum had nothing to thicken the gravy with. Anna assured her that if you put enough alcohol in, it would thicken itself. It didn’t, but the result became a firm favourite over many Christmases to follow. For a second I think of Christmas, of her singing voice, of her absolute joy for the season. She loved the tack, the gaudy, the food, the drink; the sense of family that Christmas could bring. It will never be the same again.

  I drain my glass in one go, wiggle the empty at Gus, who fills it immediately, topping up his own empty glass. I’m glad I’m not the only one finding this hard, but I’m conscious of getting home – have to drive later – but right now? Give me another mouthful of champagne to help me swallow this cursed lump in my throat.

  I’m not, I realize, wanting to cry for Anna. I want to cry for me. I want to cry for the mess she’s left in my head.
I want to cry for Rose. In fact I want to scream and shout at Anna, but I hold off. There are other people to think about today. Rose hovers by my knees. ‘Come see my house, Nanny.’ She pulls on me and I cross the huge space to where she’s built a house that somehow looks just like Theo’s. Dad is already back in the armchair surveying the scene.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I tell her.

  ‘Look,’ she makes me bend down so I can peer inside the window of the downstairs. There are three figures in one room. ‘It’s you, me and Mummy,’ she says. I hug her, tell her again how wonderful it is and catch my father’s eye. A silent, lone tear is making its way south down his cheek. I go to him, wipe it away with my thumb and bend down. ‘Love you, Dad,’ I whisper.

  Gus is by my side with my glass.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘If you want to have a few drinks I won’t have any more so that I can drop everyone back to yours.’

  I pat his arm. ‘No, thanks for the offer, but I need to keep my wits about me. It’ll be a long day tomorrow.’

  ‘If you change your mind?’ He places an arm around my shoulder and I lean into him.

  ‘I won’t change my mind.’

  By the time everyone is home and my father is settled in what is my bed, and Rose is settled in what is Anna’s bed, I am agreeing with Mum over a cup of tea that it was in fact a lovely day.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  She waves me away with an impatient hand.

  ‘You made a fabulous dinner. You talked so easily about her all day that it felt like she was there, with us. It was lovely, Mum.’

  She moves from the armchair and squeezes in beside me on the tatty sofa.

  ‘Tomorrow won’t be easy,’ she says.

  I nod.

  ‘I try and imagine if it had been you or Leah, and I like to think that I would never ever let you go or say goodbye. I mean, yes, we have to have a service, but it’s not a final goodbye. It’s just a wave … A wave until she’s in our thoughts again the very next day and every day after.’