‘Keep down!’ He sounded almost hysterical, so she did as she was told. They drove in silence, bouncing across the potholed lane towards the road. They turned out of the gate and Edward sped up.
‘You’re OK now,’ he said and she sat up, kissing the baby’s head to reassure her.
‘Have you got a blanket for Elizabeth?’
He looked completely stricken. ‘No. I forgot. I wasn’t thinking. Sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Patricia was worried he might crash the car, he seemed so stressed. Trying to calm him down, she said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll just wrap her in the coat.’ And she did.
The tunnel of light in front of them led them across the causeway and then under some trees. They were leaving Castle House behind them. Patricia half-expected Mrs Foley to jump out of a ditch in front of them and drag them all back to the house. She glanced at Edward. He was gripping the steering wheel hard and leaning forward, concentrating on every inch of the road. His breathing still seemed laboured and even in the glow of the dashboard she could see the gleam of perspiration on his brow. Elizabeth began to cry.
‘I think she might need changing.’
‘We can’t stop yet. We’ll get petrol in Bandon. You can do it there. I’m sorry.’
She wanted to ask questions but she didn’t want to distract him. He was taking her away from Muirinish and back to Buncarragh and if that meant Elizabeth had to cry all the way to Bandon, then so be it.
She had no idea what was going through Edward’s mind as they sped through the dark roads. Patricia looked at the warm lights glowing in the windows of the houses that they passed. Some were right on the road, some set back, new bungalows, cottages, large country houses. Lives being lived in each one. Dinners being put on tables, televisions being gathered around. Were they happy? Was someone sobbing behind the curtains that were leaking light out into the darkness? What would they make of this strange trio speeding through the night?
After Bandon, Elizabeth slept. At first the villages they went through had people standing outside pubs, and lights in the windows, but as the miles slipped by and the hour got later, the bars were in darkness, and the fish and chip shops had kicked out the last of their customers. The whole country seemed deserted. The telegraph poles and hedges flashed by and Elizabeth’s warm, even breathing was the only sound in the car.
Patricia thought back to when he had driven her down from Cork in silence. The agony of that journey. She remembered how worried she had been about her hair and getting her skirt wrinkled. Sitting in the car now, with no clue what she looked like or even when she had last had a bath, that other journey seemed like a lifetime ago. She stole a glance at Edward. They weren’t even halfway yet and part of her still feared that he might change his mind. His mother’s will would seize him across the dark empty miles and reel them back to the Foley castle. Eventually Edward seemed a little calmer and Patricia risked asking him a question.
‘What’s your plan?’
Edward didn’t react and she wondered if he had heard her.
‘Plan?’ he said without looking at her.
‘Are you going back?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about your mother? Won’t she come looking for me? Is …’ she dreaded hearing his answer, ‘is Elizabeth staying with me?’
‘Don’t worry about my mother. Don’t worry.’
He didn’t mention the baby. Patricia began to feel afraid.
‘Elizabeth, Edward. What is going to happen to Elizabeth?’
He gave a strange tight cough and then replied, ‘I, we, can’t look after her. I’ll send you money.’
Money. She was heading back into the real world where she had to worry about such things. She wondered if she had a house to return to. She squeezed the baby a little tighter.
‘Thank you.’
Somewhere north of Clonmel, Patricia’s head was nodding towards sleep in a blur of cat’s eyes and briefly glimpsed tree trunks when Edward said her name.
She looked over at him.
He was still hunched over the wheel, staring ahead intently.
‘I did care for you. I hope you know that.’ His words were hoarse.
Patricia shut her eyes. She still had so much rage inside her. If he cared for her why had he allowed this to happen, to continue for so long? How could he be so cruel to someone if he had feelings for them? Then she thought of him, having to return alone to Castle House. Living with his mother and her fury for … well, forever. He could never escape. Edward was as much a victim in this as she was. She let the wisps of hair on the baby’s head rub against her face.
‘I know, Edward. You’re not a bad man.’ She considered saying more, telling him how he must escape his mother, or at least get her help, but she decided against it. There was no point upsetting him further.
Only a fox standing at the bottom of the lane that led up to the town dump witnessed Patricia’s return to Buncarragh. As the car glided beneath the street lights she found she was holding her breath. Everything was just as it had been when she left, but deserted and still. How could it be the same when she could barely remember the naïve young woman who had left this place so long ago? The artificial light made the town seem almost two-dimensional. Words slipped from her mouth, like an incantation she had repeated many times before. ‘My friend works there. That’s the family shop. These are the new traffic lights. Straight on. Left at the fork. Up the hill.’
They had arrived. The car pulled to a halt outside number sixty-two. The first thing she noticed was the For Sale sign outside.
‘Look at that!’ She pointed at the board, seething.
‘It’s not sold,’ Edward replied simply.
‘True.’
The engine switched off, they sat in silence in the car. Still Patricia feared that there would be some last-minute hurdle, or disaster. He would reach for the baby, or suddenly start the car again and drive into a wall.
‘Have you keys?’ he asked.
‘Under the plant pot.’
‘Right.’
Edward took a deep breath and heaved open his door. Patricia edged hers open too and then he came around the car to help her. She stood on the pavement while Edward got the bag from the back seat.
He carried it over and placed it at her feet. ‘Thank you.’ She had begun to shiver in the night air.
‘You’d better get in.’
‘Right.’ But she didn’t move.
The steam from their breaths floated between them as a single cloud.
Edward placed a hand under the baby’s chin and lifted her face towards his. He bent down, and Patricia heard him whisper to his daughter.
‘You be a good girl now. This is for the best. It’s all for the best.’
When he raised his head he couldn’t look at Patricia and his mouth was contorted into a twisted ribbon of pink.
‘Goodbye, so.’ His voice was high and strained and he ducked into the car as quickly as he could.
Patricia suddenly felt awful. She had only thought about herself and Elizabeth and what was best for them. She had never really considered at what cost. Now she watched aghast as this man with tears streaming down his face struggled to start the engine of the car. Without thinking she stepped forward and rapped her knuckles against the window. Edward stepped back out of the car, and stood up with only the baby separating them. Patricia raised her face to him and he kissed her on her lips. Standing on tiptoe, she pressed back against him. It was a gentle embrace, with no hint of lust or passion. His lips were so much softer than she had imagined, but the stubble on his chin scraped her face. She stepped away, and then raised her hand to wipe away his tears.
‘Thank you, Edward. Take care of yourself.’
He said nothing, just bent and kissed the baby’s head and got in the car.
The power of forgiveness.
She pulled another woman’s coat over the head of another woman’s baby and watched the man she had never married drive away.
When the red lights had reached the bottom of the hill and disappeared, Patricia lifted Elizabeth up and kissed her on both cheeks.
‘We are home, my baby!’
The key was where she had expected to find it, and opening the door she allowed the familiar smells to wash over her. Had she ever thought that stepping into this hallway could feel this wonderful?
Pushing open the door to the sitting room, she carried Elizabeth over to the sofa and wedged her between two cushions. From the hearth she picked up the largest poker and marched outside. Nobody watched as she flailed the heavy fire iron in the air and smashed the For Sale sign in two.
NOW
1
She felt a bit cheated. So much had happened to her while she had been away, but still New York refused to acknowledge it. The same movie posters were on billboards as when she left. The ugly red dress was still in the window of Inspirations, that weird store on the corner of 33rd. Armando behind the meat counter at D’Agostino greeted her as if she had been in the day before. Even Shelly the cat refused to respond when Linda Jetter brought him back to the apartment. By the time Elizabeth woke up the next morning, she had begun to doubt herself. Ireland seemed so far away. As the daily soundtrack of car horns and sirens started up outside her window, she wondered if she had ever sat on the wall looking out to sea at Castle House. Had her father squeezed her hand? Were Gillian and Noelle trawling through Convent Hill, as she lay in bed tracing the cracks in her bedroom ceiling? Peeling herself out of bed, she resolved not to dwell on her Irish trip. Today was not about the past. She had to focus on the life she was living in the here and now. Zach would be home soon and she was finding it hard to imagine what it was going to be like. A week ago, their conversations were about college applications and his homework, now he was going to become a father. For God’s sake, she was going to be somebody’s grandmother! It was insane. She let out a manic yelp to express her bewilderment as she stepped into the shower.
Zach’s homecoming was not what she had expected or hoped for. He walked through the door with a backpack that dwarfed him and a very pregnant Michelle. The apartment seemed far too small for three people. Elizabeth was incredulous that she had failed to notice the pregnancy in December; how could she have missed it? They squeezed into the living room and sat down. Zach stared sullenly at the floor and gave monosyllabic answers to his mother’s enquiries about his trip. Michelle overcompensated, smiling brightly and going into great detail about some vegetarian restaurant Elliot had taken them to in San Francisco. Elizabeth wondered when they would address what was very nearly the elephant in the room.
‘I’m putting my stuff away.’ Zach got up and hauled his luggage with him. When he was gone Michelle leaned forward, affecting a look of remorse, and in a conspiratorial whisper said, ‘I’m afraid Zach isn’t very happy with me.’
That makes two of us, thought Elizabeth. ‘Oh?’ She couldn’t bring herself to ask more.
‘I explained about the baby.’
‘Explained?’
‘That I would be the primary caregiver. That I don’t want this event to overwhelm his life.’ She smiled at Elizabeth in a way that suggested they were kindred spirits in this plan.
‘It might be best if you left us. I think we have a lot to talk about and that might be easier if …’
‘Of course,’ Michelle said, getting out of the sofa with remarkable speed for someone so encumbered. ‘I’ll go.’
And then she left. Just went. There was no goodbye to Elizabeth or Zach.
The moment the front door closed, he thrust his head around his bedroom door. ‘Did Michelle leave?’
‘Yes. Yes, she did.’
Zach’s face darkened. ‘Did you tell her to go?’
‘No. I didn’t. I promise you, Zach, I didn’t. I think she just felt that you and I needed to talk.’
He leaned against the door frame, not looking at his mother.
‘Come on,’ she said kindly. ‘Come and sit down. I’ve missed you. Ireland was fairly crazy.’
He stepped forward and they hugged. It felt good to hold her boy.
‘Are you hungry?’
He nodded his head against her shoulder. ‘Starving.’
Zach sat on the single high stool in the kitchen while his mother made him a sandwich.
‘Pickle?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Mayo?’
‘Yes, please.’
Elizabeth rested her hips against the sink and watched her son eat. He devoured the sandwich in great gannet-like bites and then went to the fridge to help himself to a glass of milk.
‘Thanks.’ He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
They exchanged a smile. She didn’t want to be angry with him.
‘Michelle told me what she said.’
Zach stared into his milk. ‘It doesn’t seem fair. How come she gets to decide?’
Elizabeth felt she had to tread carefully. She knew this wasn’t just about him becoming a father, but also his way of saying something about her and Elliot. How their break-up had affected him. It hurt her to think that he felt he had missed out. In her mind things had been so much better when it had been just the two of them.
‘Of course the baby will want a father, but, well, you have to make decisions now that will make you the best possible dad.’
Zach put his glass down on the counter. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked defensively.
Elizabeth took time to gather her thoughts and chose her words carefully.
‘It’s just that if you go to college—’
‘But, Mom!’
‘If you go to college,’ she repeated, speaking over his interruption, ‘you’ll be better placed to provide for your child. Be someone they can aspire to be.’
‘Aspire to be?’
‘Yes.’ She was trying to sound reasonable.
Zach’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘And I suppose you think I want to end up like you!’ He gestured at his mother with a look that was a mixture of pity and disgust before leaving the kitchen and slamming his bedroom door.
Elizabeth sighed, and then, turning back to the sink, washed and dried his glass.
Later that night, she was sitting in the living room, marking up poems for her return to work, when Zach pushed open the door.
‘I’m sorry, Mom.’
She took off her glasses and rested the book over the arm of the chair.
‘That’s OK. But, Zach, and please don’t be mad when I tell you this, OK?’ She looked at him to check and he nodded.
‘Kids get to slam doors, not parents. Please listen to Michelle.’
Zach crossed the room in a couple of steps and slumped to the floor at her feet. He put his head in her lap and wrapped his arms around her legs the way he had when he was just a small boy. She stroked his hair and bent forward to give him a hug. Her son holding on to the last few moments of his childhood.
Over the coming weeks normality seeped back into their lives like an anaesthetic. Zach went to class and Elizabeth returned to tutorials, lectures and faculty meetings. Of course, she filled in friends like Laura and Jocelyn on everything that had happened, but it was as if she was describing somebody else’s life, another woman’s crazy, out-of-control family. Groceries got picked up, papers were marked, report cards were signed, laundry got dropped off. Sometimes two or three days would go by without Michelle’s name being mentioned. Elizabeth exchanged emails with estate agents in Ireland but that all seemed so far away and unconnected with her real life of hauling her heavy tote bag of books up the stairs from the subway, or calling her landlord to get the bulbs in the hallway replaced.
It was early February and the snow storm that had been forecast was just starting. Heavy flakes were falling outside the windows of the apartment and Elizabeth could tell it must be sticking because the sound of the traffic on Third had become eerily muffled. She had just crawled into bed when there was a knock on her door.
‘Yes?’
It opened a
nd Zach stepped into her room. His face looked drained of blood and he was holding his phone out like a gift.
‘Michelle called. Her waters broke. She’s gone into labour.’
Elizabeth leapt out of bed. This was really happening.
‘OK. You’re OK, Zach. You’re fine. Where is she right now?’
‘The hospital.’
‘Yes, Zach, that’s good, but which one? The snow is pretty heavy out there.’
‘She’s in the Murray Hill medical centre.’
‘Well, that’s good. That’s great. You can walk over there.’
She looked at him, expecting him to go and grab his coat and boots, but he didn’t move.
‘Are you going to be there?’
‘I guess.’ Zach was passing his phone from one hand to the other as if it was too hot to hold. ‘Mom?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you come with me?’
Elizabeth could see that his bottom lip had begun to quiver, but she was firm.
‘No, Zach, I think you should do this by yourself. Don’t you?’
‘I guess,’ her son replied, but still he didn’t move.
‘Well, go, then!’ she said with a laugh and pushed him into the tiny hallway. He grabbed his coat and slipped into his tall unlaced snow boots. At the door he looked back at his mother and she reached in to give him a hug. ‘Call me when you are a daddy!’
It was just after seven a.m. when her phone woke her. Zach. She scrambled to answer it.
‘Hello, hello! Is everything OK?’
‘Yes. All good here. Your son is a father.’
Elizabeth felt the tears fill her eyes and spill down her cheeks. Despite the circumstances, there was such joy. A new little life.
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