In a Moment

by Caroline Finnerty

  He tried not to feel disappointed; this was her way of dealing with her grief, he reminded himself. Why had he expected that once she saw him everything would be the same as before? How could he have expected her to still be that same person? He needed to be the strong one here. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy but at least he was here now and he was going to do everything in his power to help her through.

  He glanced around the strange but familiar room, unsure as to whether he should sit down on his own sofa that still had his shape moulded into its cushions. There were books belonging to him on the shelves and his CDs were stacked in the rack, there were even photos of his graduation and of him in his morning suit on their wedding day on the mantelpiece. Everything in this room was recognisable so why did he feel he was a visitor in his own home?

  He walked out through the hallway and into the kitchen. Normally you had to squeeze past the buggy to get to the kitchen but there was an empty space where the buggy used to be. He had to swallow back hard.

  His eyes took in the kitchen which looked different since he had last been here. It looked barer somehow and then Adam realised that all the baby paraphernalia that had been sitting cluttering the worktops was now missing. The high chair was also gone from the end of the table. He noticed the pots growing herbs on the kitchen windowsill had all died, their shrivelled brown leaves now clinging desperately to the stalks. Everywhere he looked a different memory lay in store. He could feel his chest tighten, the familiarity was painful. In the hospital he had been spared the constant reminders of life when Fionn was in it but here they were everywhere.

  As he looked around the kitchen, he could recall the morning of the crash with clarity. He had strapped Fionn into his high seat to give him his breakfast. Fionn had smiled and screeched at him and kept his mouth open constantly for more cereal. He had slapped his two palms down on the tray, causing his cup to fall off, and then he had leaned over the side looking at it on the floor. When Adam had picked it up for him, he had giggled. He saw it as a game and continued slapping the tray so that Adam would have to pick the cup up for him again.

  After breakfast he had cleaned him up and got him dressed and decided they would call over to see his parents. They loved having any opportunity to spend some time with their grandson. He had packed up Fionn’s bag with a spare set of clothes, nappies, wipes, barrier cream, bottles; he had hoped he wasn’t forgetting anything. He dressed Fionn in his snowsuit to protect him from the chilly winter morning and strapped him into the car. The white sunlight flooded in through the car windows. He had driven slowly, leaving the city behind and within minutes was out in the countryside amongst frost-tinged trees and ditches. He passed by a farmhouse with red sash windows and wrought-iron gates marking the start of a narrow path leading to the front door. He hugged the bend of the road as his body pulled softly to the left with the car. Right ahead was a crossroads and a car shot through it at speed, startling him. He reached the crossroads as a second car tore out from the left.

  And then Fionn died.

  48

  As soon as Adam came home, the faces disappeared just as instantly as they had arrived. Emma’s mother, who had more or less moved in to take care of her in the aftermath of the crash, said that they needed their own space and so she had gone home to her own house. She gently told Emma that she and Adam had to get on with things themselves as a couple. But Emma didn’t feel like part of a couple; she barely knew the man who was now back in her house claiming to be her husband.

  She stayed holed up in her room because she couldn’t bear to look at the constant reminder that was Adam. Looking at him alive was just too raw; she knew it was wrong but she wished it was him instead of Fionn. The unjustness of it all made her so angry. She couldn’t talk to him; she couldn’t find words because her head was spinning with grief. He had been the last one to see him alive, he had been driving the car for Christ’s sake, and she resented that. He kept persisting with her, sitting by her bedside, trying to talk to her about Fionn, trying to get her to open up, telling her he was worried about her or asking if he should he get someone to come and talk to her. She never responded. When that didn’t work he would switch to mundane topics and have a running monologue with himself trying to fill the silence with words. He would ramble on about the weather or about some news story about fraudulent bankers or whatever project he was involved in at work. His chatter grated on her. How dare he just come back here and try to act like things went on as normal! She couldn’t bear to say Fionn’s name, she feared that if she said it she might choke on the word like a lump stuck in her throat. Every time Adam mentioned his name she wanted to scream at him to stop, it was too painful to hear it out loud, a name that still existed but the person gone. How can a name exist for a person no longer there? The hollowness of hearing his name was too awful and it just tore at her chest, like a knife darting against her flesh.

  * * *

  The painkillers that Adam had been prescribed were no match for the morphine that he had been given in hospital. Every day was a daily battle against the pain. Nevertheless, there was something he had to do. His stomach was knotted together and he broke out in a sweat with dread whenever he even thought about it. But he still found it hard to believe or accept what he was being told; he needed to see it for himself.

  He went through the turnstile of Primrose Cemetery and felt ashamed that he didn’t even know what direction to go in. He didn’t know where his own son was buried. He staggered along the twisting path on his crutches. Some graves were decorated with coloured pebbles; others were neatly sown with grass. Some were carefully maintained, more lay weedy, with cracked yellowing plastic crosses that once contained vinyl flowers. There were large, leaning headstones from days gone by. As he scanned the names and ages on the headstones, all belonging to people who had lived good long lives, it was another painful reminder that Fionn was taken away too early.

  Birds could be heard tweeting their morning song on the crisp, sunny air and that almost seemed to be a mockery of how he was feeling inside. He made his way towards the newer plots at the back of the cemetery and suddenly he was faced with a small white marble headstone which had Fionn’s name on it.

  He moved forward and read the inscription:

  Here lies Baby Fionn White

  Born on June 6th 2009

  Died tragically on December 14th 2009

  Always remembered by his loving mammy, daddy,

  grandparents, aunt and uncles.

  Rest In Peace, Angel.

  He wondered who had organised the headstone. Weeks of holding himself together made it suddenly hit home. Fionn was gone. He was lying here underneath this cold earth – his baby, his baby son. It was all he could do not to put his crutches aside and start scraping at the earth to dig him out and hold him again in his arms. His arms ached to feel his full weight. He’d had such a short time in this world.

  He fell down onto his knees and hammered the gravestone with his fist repeatedly until it began to hurt. He stood back up and kicked a wreath that lay on the grass so that it flew up into the air over his head with the flowers falling off before it landed back down again. How dare this happen! What the fuck had he ever done to deserve this? It wasn’t fair! If there was a God in this world – and he strongly doubted it – how could he let such a cruel thing happen? Someone had said to him that it was the circle of life, but how could it be when Fionn didn’t even get past his first year?

  “I’m so sorry, son,” he sobbed over the grave. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t do more for you. I’m sorry I even brought you out, we didn’t need to go, we could have just stayed at home and then you would still be here with us today.” His whole body heaved with the force of his tears, his shoulders jerking up and down. “If I could turn back the clock, just to hold you for five more minutes, that’s all, just to hold you in my arms again and tell you I love you, I would. I’ll always love you, Fionn.”

  When the tears finally stopped, he sat back,
worn out, and rested against the headstone. Had he really done his best? Could he have acted faster? Could he have pulled them out of that spin? Had the impact of the crash killed Fionn or had he died when they tumbled into the garden? There they were again, the ‘what ifs’ tormenting him.

  He pulled himself up and stood breathing in the chilly air in the lonely graveyard before hobbling on his crutches up to the top of the cemetery.

  * * *

  As the weeks went on, Adam soon realised things were not good with Emma at all and they didn’t show any sign of getting any better. She stayed in her room whenever he was in the house and when he tried to talk to her, she didn’t talk back. It was as if she was looking straight through him, like he was opaque and she couldn’t see him standing there in front of her. He felt like shaking her by the shoulders to tell her it was him, Adam – her husband was back. Did she not remember? She went around like a zombie, oblivious to life around her. He felt like he was in her way and maybe she needed some space so, not knowing what else to do with himself, he decided to return to work.

  After being off for four months, the office had seemed very different even in that short period of time. Firstly, there was a new receptionist, a mad little thing called Jo who seemed to have the entire male workforce in the company wrapped around her finger. Then everyone was busy working on a new project; the project he had last worked on had long since been completed.

  His first day was awkward for everyone. People didn’t know what to say to him when they saw him first. He still limped slightly but every day his muscles were getting stronger. He covered up his scars by wearing long-sleeved shirts and jumpers. His colleagues had taken it in awkward turns to come up to him with a mumbled “Sorry for your trouble” before quickly running away in case he fell apart in front of them. He almost wanted to tell them that their words didn’t cause the memories to resurface because he constantly thought about what had happened. He knew they were wary about what they said in front of him. They carefully chose topics of conversation and those who had kids didn’t talk about them. It had taken a while for people to relax around him but, after a few weeks, they gradually began to treat him like they always did. They included him in their chats and jokes or they asked him if he wanted to go out for drinks which he never did because he would always hurry home to Emma. Though he didn’t always find her there.

  He was surprised to find that work was actually a welcome distraction; it was a relief to be able to go in there and escape his house every day. He was distraught with worry about Emma’s state of mind. He didn’t know what was going on inside her head. He desperately wished she would just talk to him. He had tried everything. He didn’t want to worry his family by telling them what was going on – they were already devastated after what had happened, they had been through so much as well. So he said nothing, and as far as everyone was concerned they were working through their grief together.

  The nightmares tormented him on an almost nightly basis; they were becoming more and more frequent. He was finding it hard to go to sleep at night out of fear for what lay in store for him but inevitably he would drift off at some godforsaken hour only to wake in a sweat moments later with fragments of what had happened spinning around inside his head.

  49

  A few months after Fionn died, Emma had received a phone call from some poor intern in the Human Resources department of A1 Adverts who had been tasked with giving her a call. Emma could tell that the girl on the other end of the phone, who sounded young, and who stuttered and stammered as she spoke, was obviously embarrassed at having to make the call that no one else had wanted to make. She tried her best to delicately ascertain when, if ever, Emma might be planning on returning to work. Emma had completely forgotten about work. It just hadn’t even entered her head that they might be wondering what her plans were now that a few months had passed since the accident. No matter how much she wished it wouldn’t, everything still moved on.

  At first she had been horrified at the thought of getting up and carrying on as if her life was normal when it wasn’t. She felt as though Fionn would think she was already moving on, that she had already forgotten about him. Everyone was telling her the best thing that she could do was to keep busy and get some routine back into her life but she knew in her heart and soul that it still wouldn’t stop her thinking about him every minute of the day. However, the more she thought it over, the more she realised that no matter how many times she relived what had happened, it wouldn’t change anything – it wouldn’t bring him back – so with an overwhelming feeling of guilt, she reluctantly had phoned the intern back and told her she would be back the following Monday.

  When Emma had gone in the door on her first day back, she couldn’t help but notice that people didn’t make eye contact with her. When she spoke they would start shifting nervously and would lower their gaze to the floor. As she walked down the corridors she could feel eyes on her back and whispers crept around the office that she was back. She had met with Maureen in her office. She started by telling Emma that she was truly sorry for everything that had happened. Emma was used to hearing these words from people so she put on her strong face which seemed to make Maureen more relaxed. She told Emma to take her time and if there were days that she just wasn’t feeling up to it not to worry about coming in, but Emma could see she was more than a bit relieved to see her. She briefed Emma on which campaigns they were preparing pitches for, which had recently been won and were now in the production stage and those that were starting on further phases. Emma could see there was a lot on.

  Although everyone had warned her to ease herself into it gradually, Emma threw herself straight in. Instead of dodging the new client enquiries like the rest of the overworked campaign managers, she was now glad to take on more than her fair share of work. Whenever Maureen tried to suggest that maybe it was a bit too much for one person and that she would divide it up amongst the rest of her colleagues, Emma would shake her head, so reluctantly Maureen left her alone. She threw herself into preparing the pitches and winning business for A1.

  The funny thing was that when Fionn was born, she had lost all interest in her job, she hadn’t wanted to return to work, she had considered being a stay-at-home mum but they had a large mortgage as a result of buying their home at the height of Ireland’s property market and she’d had no choice but to return to work. Now here she was a few months later, broken emotionally and using work as a crutch to escape the sadness of her life.

  She stayed later than everyone in the evenings, even Maureen, and she worked through lunch most days but although people had said that the best thing she could do was to keep busy, it didn’t help her to forget. Of course getting up in the mornings and leaving the house every day helped lift some of the blackness, but she thought about Fionn constantly.

  Looking at Adam now was like looking in a mirror of the grief she was trying to hide from. She knew she needed to face him sooner or later but she couldn’t look at him without it dredging up all the hurt and upset and resentment that he was just getting on with his life. That wasn’t right. She was living day to day, not daring to think ahead about their future, but she couldn’t ignore the tell-tale signs that life was running on all around her; winter changed to spring and spring to summer.

  Emotionally she had been through her very worst nightmare, everything else was secondary. Her mind had shut itself off, and made her immune to anything which would hurt her, in order to protect her, like a ship seals off compartments to stop it sinking. Her senses had shut down. She was a shell of a person going through the motions, unable to make a decision, living from day to day, drifting along in the ebb of life because if she thought too far into the future, the thought of living an entire life without her son was overwhelming. So she lived from day to day; then days turned into weeks, and weeks to months and somehow that got her through.

  * * *

  Adam still bore the physical scars from the accident. He had a long lumpy keloid scar running d
own the front of his left shin from where he had broken the bone quite badly and one on the inside of his wrist which if he didn’t wear long sleeves tended to draw people’s eyes, but he was limping less now and his daily cycle to and from work was helping the muscles regain strength. It was the mental scars that were proving the most difficult to heal.

  The dream was re-occurring on a nightly basis, hunting him down during the small hours of the morning. The ordeal was played out over and over in his head, night after night. Even when he was in an alcohol-induced sleep it still managed to find him, he had no escape. He could see the silhouette of trees shining in through his car window as he drove along on a crisp sunny morning. There were the trees, the branches covered in frost, the white sunlight cutting through the sky, the farmhouse with its red windows and wrought-iron gates. There was the bend in the road. The crossroads. Adam would wake up in a panic, soaked with sweat. He felt empty, alone and fearful. Things were bad enough without nightly reminders too. He was becoming too scared to sleep and he was exhausted. He would drink endless amounts of coffee in work, just to get through the day but it gave him a nervous energy, he felt jittery and restless. His foot or fingers were always tapping. Tell-tale bags had formed under his red-puffy eyelids, his skin was ashen and he couldn’t keep the weight on him.