First We Take Manhattan

by Colette Caddle

  ‘Yes, okay, but please don’t take too long.’

  ‘We won’t,’ Sinéad promised, squeezing her hand.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Kieran sat staring at his two children, stunned at the coldness in their eyes and the hostility in their voices. His little fragile Sinéad was looking at him as if he were something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe. He thought of how, as a little girl, she used to look at him as if he were a god, how she had always been so loving and caring. How could she turn on him like this?

  ‘Dad?’

  He looked up into Max’s expectant, judgemental eyes. ‘I can’t believe that you would believe that of me. I adored your mother.’

  ‘Dad, she left a suicide note and Bridie confirmed everything. I have her letter right here. I’ll read it to you if you want.’

  Kieran waved it away, feeling furious with his sister-in-law. ‘Stupid woman.’ He turned his eyes on Sinéad, imagining the scared little girl sitting by the window waiting for her mother to come back. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what happened that night, sweetheart?’

  ‘Bridie wouldn’t let me. She thought it would be better if everyone presumed it was an accident.’

  ‘Ha, yes, well, that does make sense.’

  ‘What about the baby, Dad?’ she asked.

  ‘Baby!’ He gave a bark of laughter at the ridiculous notion. ‘There was never any baby. Let me see this note your mother wrote.’

  He watched them exchange glances and then Sinéad said, ‘It’s in the car.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Max said.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve felt like this all these years,’ he said when he was alone with his daughter. ‘Why would you even want me in your life if you thought me capable of that?’

  She looked at him, her eyes dark with sadness. ‘I’d already lost one parent. I didn’t want to lose the other. But when Sheila disappeared and Bridie died—’ She stopped as they heard the front door close.

  Kieran dropped his head in his hands. ‘I don’t know what to say, I really don’t.’

  ‘You could start with hello.’

  He lifted his head and gasped at the sight of Sheila standing in the doorway. He jumped to his feet and rushed to take her in his arms. ‘Oh, my darling girl, my darling girl. Oh, thank God you’ve come back to us.’ He realised that she was stiff as a board in his embrace but he didn’t care. She was alive and she was standing in front of him. He stepped back to study her, not even bothering to wipe the tears from his cheeks. ‘Let me look at you. Oh, Sheila, you look wonderful. Welcome home, sweetheart, welcome home.’

  She pulled away and went to sit by her sister while Max sat on the arm of the sofa. ‘I believe you wanted to see this.’ She pulled an envelope from her bag, carefully removed a page and handed it to him.

  He smiled broadly at her as he took it.

  ‘You think this is funny?’ she asked.

  ‘Not at all, darling, but I don’t care how angry you are with me. I don’t mind if you hate me. You’re alive and well and nothing else matters.’ He looked down at the letter in Maggie’s untidy, practically illegible hand. ‘And how did you come by this?’

  ‘I found it in Bridie’s house along with the file about her son.’

  He nodded and started to read.

  ‘You knew Bridie had had a child?’ Max asked.

  ‘I did.’ He continued to read his wife’s desperate words, tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘Ah, Maggie, God love you.’

  ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ Sheila said, incredulous. ‘You drove her to take her own life.’

  ‘I did no such thing,’ he protested, ‘but I suppose I can understand why you would think so after reading this.’

  ‘That and the fact that you don’t seem surprised that Mum killed herself,’ Max said.

  Kieran nodded: Max was a smart one. He stood up and walked to the door, feeling very tired and old.

  ‘Where are you going? We’re not finished, Dad, not by a long shot,’ Sheila called after him.

  He closed his eyes at the anger in her voice. ‘I have something I want to show you. I’ll be back in a minute.’ He went slowly upstairs, aware of their whispers. God, it hurt to see them turn against him like this but maybe it was no more than he deserved. He’d handed them over to Bridie and gone on with his life while she’d poured poison into their ears.

  In his bedroom he pulled the chair over to the wardrobe, climbed up and felt around on top until he found his old briefcase. He took it down, blew off the dust and, sitting on the chair, opened it and pulled out a portfolio of documents. He hadn’t looked at this stuff in years, he wasn’t even sure why he’d kept it all. Perhaps he’d subconsciously realised this day would come. He flicked through the papers, selecting just a few to show them. There was no point in overwhelming them with all of it: they were upset enough. He put the pages in order, slid them into a folder and went back downstairs. They lapsed into silence when he walked in, looking up at him expectantly. ‘These will give you the other side of the story,’ he said, looking at each of them in turn. ‘It’s not a happy story but it may be slightly easier for you to handle than the one you currently believe.’ He handed the file to Max. ‘I’ll be in the garden if you want me.’

  It was bleak and cold outside but Kieran didn’t care. The temperature inside had been worse. He lit a cigarette and wondered what Beth would think of him when she knew the full story. He didn’t exactly come out of this looking like much of a parent or a man. Had he been a good husband? He wasn’t even sure of that any more. Why had he gone along with all the secrecy? Why had he let Bridie rear his family knowing even then that she was a damaged woman? Maggie had been diagnosed with mental illness but was Bridie any better? It sickened him that Sinéad had not only known of her mother’s suicide but had been forced to stay silent about it. It was a miracle that she had turned out to be the wonderful young woman that she was today. Perhaps, though, he was as bad as Bridie. He had treated Sheila like an adult, allowing her to shoulder ridiculous responsibility simply because of her generous and sensible nature. It had been because he was terrified by Sinéad’s fragility, that she would turn out like her mother and Sheila was so reliable and strong and good with her twin. His thoughts turned back to Bridie. Why had she written that pack of lies to Max? Was the stigma of mental illness still such an issue for her that she wanted to deny it even after her death? Or had she thought there must be some truth in the stories Maggie told? Had she suspected him of adultery? He supposed he would never know now.

  It was Sinéad who came looking for him, throwing herself into his arms. ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’m so sorry.’

  He tossed away his cigarette and stroked her hair. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart, you weren’t to know.’ He felt her shiver. ‘Let’s get you back inside before you freeze.’

  When they walked into the sitting room the papers were strewn across the table and Max and Sheila were bent over them. She looked up, her eyes full of tears. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Me too,’ Max said. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Why would I? So you could wonder if you had inherited the madness?’

  ‘What exactly was her illness?’ Max pored over the medical notes. ‘It doesn’t say.’

  ‘They had no real name for the episodes your mother experienced. It was some sort of personality disorder. She would fluctuate between bouts of depression, paranoia and joy. I’m not sure what they’d call it these days but –’ he shrugged – ‘what difference does it make? It’s just a name.

  ‘But once she was taking the medication that suited her she was fine for long stretches and when she was she was such a wonderful mother to you and the loveliest wife a man could ask for. But then some darkness would grip her and she would change just like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Sometimes because she hadn’t taken her tablets but sometimes for no apparent reason. She’d be consumed with suspicion, watching me, listening when I was on the phone, going through my pocket
s. She was convinced that I was seeing other women, that I was going to leave her and there were even times that she thought that I was trying to kill her.’

  ‘Oh, Dad,’ Sheila said, her eyes full of sympathy.

  ‘And she’d attempted suicide before?’ Sinéad asked.

  ‘She had,’ he admitted, hating that he had to tell them all this, hating the way Sinéad’s voice trembled while Sheila sat as still and pale as a statue.

  ‘Did Bridie know all this?’ Max asked, waving a hand at all the doctors’ reports and another suicide note he’d just found.

  ‘Of course she did. But sure your grandparents had both her and your mother brainwashed. “Don’t tell anyone, never discuss it. If anyone asks, Maggie is just delicate.” Delicate!’ He shook his head in disgust as he thought about how they had made his poor wife feel ashamed, as if her condition was her fault. ‘Bridie admitted that if she was having a “turn”, they wouldn’t let her leave the house and locked her in her room if they had visitors. They were ashamed of her and petrified that people would think there was madness in their precious family.’

  ‘That’s barbaric,’ Max exclaimed.

  ‘Aye, it was that, son, but they were very odd people. I never took to them but they loved me. They never thought someone would take Maggie off their hands. It was beyond their wildest dreams that she became a respectable married woman. Bridie was better off in Boston though of course it didn’t help, the way she left. Apparently they couldn’t wait to get shot of her either, more shame on the family. That pair had a lot to answer for. I could never understand why your mother bothered to keep in touch with them.’

  ‘Was Mum okay when you met her?’ Sheila asked.

  He smiled as he thought of those early days when he’d fallen head over heels in love. ‘She was fine, sweetheart, but no thanks to them. One of her teachers knew something was wrong. She had a relative with a similar condition. She tried to talk to the parents but of course they would have none of it. God bless the woman, though, she took it upon herself to get Maggie help and once she’d seen a specialist and he had put her on medication she was fine.’ He chuckled. ‘When she first told me about the illness I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t. She was clever and funny and beautiful and saner than most, certainly than the pair of eejits who raised her.’

  ‘You must have got a shock the first time she got sick,’ Sinéad said.

  He frowned as he thought back. ‘Not really. It was a gradual thing and her turns were brief and infrequent.’ He smiled at them. ‘She positively bloomed when she was pregnant. It was only really in the last three or four years of her life that it became serious.’

  Sheila looked at him, her eyes sad. ‘I wish you’d talked to us about her when we were kids, Dad. When she died you and Bridie never mentioned her. It was as if she hadn’t existed.’

  He felt ashamed, knowing it was true. ‘I’m sorry but I couldn’t talk about her without falling apart and I didn’t think it was a good idea for you to witness that. I was a mess. I felt as if someone had ripped my heart out. I suppose I was so caught up in my own grief I didn’t think about what you were going through. Selfish.’

  Sinéad’s eyes were bright with tears. ‘It’s nice to know that you loved her so much.’

  ‘I loved her more than life itself,’ he assured her.

  ‘But in later years, Dad, why didn’t you tell us about her health then?’ Max asked. ‘You give out about Granny and Granddad keeping secrets but you did it too.’

  Kieran looked at him, shocked. ‘I did but not because I was ashamed of her, I just wanted to protect you. I didn’t want you wondering if she killed herself. I wanted you to only have good memories of her.’

  ‘I don’t understand why Bridie would have lied in the letter,’ Max said. ‘She could have said nothing and we’d be none the wiser. Why would she set you up like that?’

  ‘I was wondering the same thing when I was out in the garden,’ Kieran told him. ‘The only thing I could come up with is that she thought there was no smoke without fire, that there was some truth in what Maggie told her.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘But on my oath, I was never unfaithful to your mother.’

  ‘I believe you,’ Sinéad said, coming to sit at his feet and resting her head against his knee.

  ‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ he smiled down at her, glad to see the love in her eyes.

  ‘I do too, Dad, and I have a different theory,’ Sheila said.

  ‘What if Bridie read Mum’s suicide note again recently and believed it to be true?’

  Max stared at her. ‘That would make perfect sense.’

  ‘Oh my God, you’re right,’ Sinéad agreed and looked up at him. ‘Dad?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe, but does it matter why she did it? We’ll never know for sure and I don’t see any point in dwelling on it. What’s important to me is that you three believe me. That’s all I care about.’

  ‘We do,’ Max said, his eyes roaming over all the documents on the table.

  ‘I’m sorry I let you down,’ Kieran continued. ‘If I’d been a better father Bridie wouldn’t have had the control over you that she did. I let her keep you away from me and that was wrong. I was weak and selfish.’

  ‘Don’t, Dad,’ Sheila begged when he could suppress his tears no longer. ‘We survived, didn’t we? We’re together again. Everything’s going to be fine now.’

  He smiled at her through his tears. ‘You’re amazing.’ He looked at each of his three children. ‘You’re all bloody amazing, do you know that? I’m a lucky man and a very proud one.’ His eyes came to rest again on Sheila. ‘I can’t believe that I’ve got you back. I have so many questions. I want to know everything that’s happened since you left, everything.’

  ‘And I’ll tell you,’ she promised, tearfully, ‘but can you wait until tomorrow? I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m exhausted.’

  Sheila and Sinéad sent Max home to Krystie and shared a taxi. There was no longer any awkwardness or tension, just the silence of two people who knew each other well and were comfortable together. Sheila leaned her head against the window and stared blindly into the darkness. She had cried so much tonight and yet she knew there would be more tears. She could feel the vibration of Sinéad still shaking from the emotion of the evening and reached for her hand. There were rows and reproaches and recriminations still ahead, of course she knew that, but she also knew with certainty that they would come out the other side.

  It was clear that she owed a lot to this girl, Krystie. How strange that she was the one to blow her cover but also the one who would become so pivotal to the family. Sheila couldn’t wait to meet her and she prayed that she would love her as much as Sinéad and Max obviously did, and even Dad seemed to have fallen under her spell. Things were working out so much better than she could have hoped. In her mind she had cut her father off and never thought they would talk again, and now she had him back and he was completely redeemed in her eyes, in all of their eyes. Now she could put herself in his place and feel the incredible grief he must have felt at losing the love of his life so young. Because what was very clear tonight was that, despite her mother’s moods and the outrageous things she’d accuse him of, he’d stuck with her because he loved her.

  She wondered if Zach could ever feel that strongly about her or if Nancy had been the love of his life and was irreplaceable. That thought brought such pain that she moaned softly and Sinéad’s grip automatically tightened. She closed her eyes, revelling in the fact that she had her sister back and there would come a day when they would once again share their worries. She relaxed back into the seat, and wondered how Philip and Karl were doing. They were both strong, confident men but both going through a tough time in their lives. For Karl it was a good outcome, she felt. It must hurt to know that he was the result of a rape but a comfort to know that Bridie did care and had never forgotten him.

  Philip was a different matter. She knew well that people, family included, thought he was fa
lse but he was actually a sensitive soul, just a private person. And that was why she was worried that he suddenly wanted to announce to the world that he was gay and in love. She sensed that this was Jonathan’s doing. He was a lot younger and probably wanted, maybe needed, Philip to make the grand gesture that Sheila was convinced was a mistake. She couldn’t help smiling. Did she ever think, that night she walked in on him and Jonathan, that she would be worrying about their love life just months later?

  But it was all thanks to Karl and Zach. Without them she would never have climbed out of that dark place and discovered the joy of going solo, realised that she could be happy again, happier than ever before.

  She turned to Sinéad. ‘You realise that I’m not coming back.’

  Sinéad was silent for a moment, and when she spoke it was barely a whisper. ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s not because I’m angry or upset with you, Sinéad. I just need to do what I was meant to do: I need to paint.’

  ‘I know,’ Sinéad said again.

  Sheila wished she could see her sister’s face. ‘Is it okay? Are we okay?’

  Sinéad turned her face and Sheila could see the glisten of tears in her sister’s eyes.

  ‘It’s okay, Sheila. I’ll miss you but I’ll be fine. Maybe I needed you to go, to find out I was strong enough to go it alone. But please don’t ever walk out of my life again.’

  ‘Of course I won’t, Sinéad, not now. To be honest I think being apart from you will bring us closer. I will be so much happier doing what I love and –’ she couldn’t suppress her smile – ‘I’ve found a really special man.’

  ‘Oh, my God, Sheila, really?’

  ‘I don’t know if it will last but he makes me feel so good, Sinéad, and he makes me laugh.’

  ‘Laughing’s good.’ Sinéad’s smile flashed in the darkness. ‘Will I meet him when I come to Manhattan?’

  ‘Damn right you will.’

  Chapter Thirty-eight