“I’ll miss you.”
“Oh, Delia, it seems like forever, doesn’t it, since I first came? So much has happened. I can hardly believe I have a grandmother and aunties now. And new friends in you and Jude. Do you think you two will be all right? I mean, you’ll get back to being friends?”
I watched the crows trail across the sky to their roost. The night I’d found Jude crying over the photograph of Fran, I knew we couldn’t possibly be friends, even if she were willing.
“Who knows?” was all I said.
“I think it won’t be long,” Annie, the relief nurse said as she handed over her report. “He’s going. I didn’t expect it just yet. The doctor was here and upped his morphine. He’s calm and not communicative.”
“Have you told Jude?”
“She’s away out. I didn’t know how to get in touch with her. I called you at your place and they told me you were on your way.”
I called Mike’s number but got no answer. Iris went to look for him on the estate to see if he had any idea where Jude might be. She arrived back with Jude in tow. The two of them sat together with Daniel. After an hour I went to check on him, then went to the kitchen to put on the kettle. Jude followed me.
“How long will it be?”
She seemed calm, but her hands fumbled the tea caddy and tea leaves scattered across the countertop.
“There’s no way to tell exactly. The body has its own time. Could be tonight, tomorrow. I think it will be soon.”
She nodded and took the tray to his room. I trailed in after her. Daniel was almost as I had left him. His breath was slowing but still regular. I measured out morphine into the syringe and administered it. That done, I took up my place in the parlour again.
Iris came in about twenty minutes later.
“I think he’s gone,” she said.
The day of the Removal of the Remains to the Church I went to the funeral home to see Daniel laid out. It was ahead of the appointed hour for the Visitation, so I could have a little time alone with him. He lay in the coffin, hands crossed on his chest. He looked at once recognizable and nothing at all like himself. I pulled up a chair and sat by his body. Here beside him, the time for “if only” was over. There had been no time for our relationship to season and who knew whether or not it would have? As Jude did with ,Fran, I had to let it all go. At least as far as I could. As I sat beside his body, the resentment and anger I’d held against him for so long seemed a waste of time. He was a man trying to do his best, much like the rest of us. To release the power he had in my imagination was a relief. Finally I rose and touched his forehead, patted a stray lock of his hair into place. His skin was cold and hard. Unyielding. From my coat pocket I took the red and green scarf that Maggie had grasped when she tried to steady Fran that day on Howth Head. I ran it through my hands one more time, put it to my nose. The faint trace of her perfume was gone: it smelt slightly musty and of turf smoke from our house. Not much trace of Fran remained. After all this time I had forgiven Daniel, perhaps one day I could forgive myself. I tucked the scarf into the inside breast pocket of Daniel’s jacket. For all of us, Fran, Maggie, Jude, and for myself, it was the best I could do. It was all I could do. I had barely smoothed his jacket in place when people began to arrive for the Visitation and the ritual of burial began.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the following people for their help and support:
Wayde Compton, a true champion of writers, and a patient, thoughtful mentor;
Clarissa Green and Leslie Hill, who read very early drafts and gave me excellent advice and encouragement;
Gayle Mavor, Heather McCabe, Bruce Leighton, Brian O’Neil, and the late Cullene Bryant, part of The Writer’s Studio graduate group that read hot-off-my-computer drafts and encouraged me in the final stages of writing this book;
Zsuzsi Gartner, who read the opening pages and gave me excellent advice;
and not least my sister, Una Cotter, without whose input I would have made some very big gaffes;
and to all the folks at Signature Editions for getting this story out into the world in such a beautiful form.
About the author
Joan B. Flood grew up in Limerick, Ireland and lived briefly in France and England before settling in Canada. She spent a number of years in Ottawa, Toronto and Hamilton, before putting down roots in Vancouver, where she currently lives. She has published a Young Adult novel New Girl. Her poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction have been published in the literary journals and anthologies Room of One’s Own, By Word of Mouth, Emerge (Canada), Lesbian Bedtime Stories, the Binnacle Ninth Annual Ultra-Short Story Competition 2012 edition (USA), and Wee Girls: Women Writing from an Irish Perspective (Australia). Her YA novel New Girl (Musa Publishing, USA), won the Orpheus Fiction Contest and her story “87” won honourable mention in The Binnacle Ninth Annual Ultra-Short Story Competition. A graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio (TWS), she spends time in nature and visits art galleries and photo exhibits. Otherwise she hangs out in coffee shops, where she people watches and scribbles in notebooks.
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