The Book of Love

by Fionnuala Kearney

  One day, maybe all, or at least some of that, might make sense.

  And I love you because you know you’re a crap singer and you do it out loud anyway.

  Mightily yours,

  Dom xx

  7. Dominic

  NOW – 3rd June 2017

  From The Book of Love:

  ‘Erin, I love you because even when you’re afraid, you’re brave.’

  She should have been a photographer.

  I’m looking at a spread of her images left on the kitchen table. They’re so good – clean lines, perfect colours, and a natural knack to frame her subjects. There’s a great one of me flying a phoenix-shaped kite, and several more of our gang, all pulling faces, at the pub quiz night. A few years ago, Erin was never without a camera – when did that stop?

  I find myself studying an old picture of Maisie that’s stuck on the fridge, sharing a magnet with the menu for the local Chinese take-away. She’s on her feet, chubby legs trembling, and using the sofa to move herself along. The grin on her face is pure joy. I remember, despite being out of shot, being there behind the baby, arms stretched out waiting to catch her if she fell. I blow her a kiss before leaving the house.

  Outside the front door the rain has stopped. The temperature has risen and there’s a sweaty haze hovering above wet ground. Lydia’s house is a short walk from Valentine’s Way, but I take the longer route, up Hawthorn Avenue. Outside number 27, I stop, lean up against one of the stone pillars at the entrance. They’re new. And the front garden’s different; denser, with loads more scruffy shrubbery that makes me want to get in there with some secateurs. Someone has planted ivy that’s grown wild around the front bay window of the ground-floor flat. It looks like shit; messy, unkempt and it saddens me.

  Behind that window was once our living room and behind it, in the middle of the flat, was Maisie’s bedroom. It was there that Erin first told me how she felt afraid and I told her she, we, had nothing to fear.

  I really believed back then that nothing could touch us.

  It was there on the 10th May 1998 that I learned she was right and I was so very wrong …

  The air in the flat is tight. I grasp the brass hook handles and pull the sash window in the living room until it raises its standard three inches. There’s no fresh burst of outside air but better to leave it open, I think. There won’t be any three-inch high burglars getting in tonight.

  Erin’s asleep, has been for hours. She’s exhausted and the doctor has given her something mild to help her sleep. I debate a brandy. Sleep for me feels impossible – eyes will be closed with my mind still pumping, going over and over stuff. Pouring a half glass, I’m already regretting it at the first sip, regretting what I’ve become. I swallow it in two gulps, look around and check the plugs, like I always do, before looking in on Maisie and going to bed.

  Maisie’s room, next to the living room, is even more stuffy and still and I open the window, pulling aside the heavy curtain Erin insists on having to try to convince our thirteen-month-old daughter it’s night time. She’s too clever though, knows she’s being duped and we end up listening to her babbling in the room next to us for at least an hour after bedtime every night. Tonight, she’s kicked the sheet off and has bundled herself into the furthest corner of the cot, her face rooted into the crumpled cotton and her left arm slung over Elephant.

  I move her, turn her over, Erin’s maternal words of warning whispering in my ear. ‘She shouldn’t sleep on her tummy,’ something my own mother had always insisted Erin was wrong about. And as my hands touch her, as my fingers grasp my baby, my flesh and blood, I know immediately. She’s so cold; my first thought is that there’s no coming back from this. As I turn her over, even in the moonlight I can see her face is mottled blue.

  One second: she’s on the floor and I try to breathe life into her cold lips.

  Two seconds: I listen for the sound of her fluttery heartbeat in her silent chest.

  Six seconds: She’s in my arms and I’m in the living room, the phone in my hand. The voice answering my call for an ambulance is calm and tells me the paramedics are on their way.

  Ten seconds: I open the airing cupboard in the hallway, pull out the first thing I see, a coloured crochet blanket, try to wrap her in it, the phone held in the crook of my shoulder and ear.

  ‘She’s so cold,’ I say to the woman on the end of the phone, my instinct already telling me her shift will end in tears. My eyes are on the doorway to our bedroom at the end of the corridor, the bedroom where Erin’s sleeping.

  Fifteen seconds: Inside I’m screaming, ‘Erin! Wake up!’ But the cries stay put. I’m pacing with Maisie swaddled in my arms. I whisper to her not to worry. I tell her I love her. I ask her not to leave us. Please. Maisie. Please. Don’t leave us.

  I stop being aware of time when there’s a banging on the front door and suddenly three people are all barking orders at one another trying to resuscitate our first child on a blanket on the living room floor. Our bedroom door opens.

  Then Erin is howling, a sound I will never forget. She’s clutching her stomach, swollen with twins, with one hand, scrambling to grab hold of Maisie with the other. She’s on the floor, just repeating, ‘No, no, no’ on a loop. ‘DO something,’ she screeches at no one in particular, before folding in half. I get down on the floor, squeeze my eyes shut, grasp her so she can’t move, knowing that if I let her go, she will simply break.

  I quicken my pace to Lydia’s. It’s still bright out, despite a sky laden with lilac, rain-heavy clouds. Cars, their lights on low, drive by and splash me but I’m oblivious, as I throw my head back and look to the heavens. ‘Life,’ I tell Maisie, ‘is about choices. Some we regret. Some we’re proud of, and some will plague us forever.’

  8. Erin

  THEN – May 1998

  Erin couldn’t breathe. From somewhere beneath her mouth, beneath her neck, she felt as if she was being kicked. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe she was dreaming about being mugged.

  Her babies were telling her to find air. She opened her mouth, and instead of the gulp she’d expected, she heard herself cry out. Maisie.

  She began to rock. Forwards. Back. Forwards. Back.

  What was she doing on the living room floor? Who were all these people? How did she get there?

  Dom was holding her. But he was gripping her too tight, so she began to hit him. Hard.

  Next to them, there was a man huddled, bending over something. She wanted to pull away from Dom, let her eyes land on the sight she knew she’d already seen; to let herself look at it from further back so she could talk herself through it. Her head moved slowly left to right. No.

  No, no, no, no.

  One two, buckle my shoe. Three four, knock on the door.

  There was someone knocking on the door. And there was a strange woman letting him in. Erin counted. One, two, three, four. There were now four strangers in her living room, all dressed in black trousers and white shirts, all of them bent over something, someone. She began to wail, heard the sounds coming from herself and thought there must be some mistake. Even when she held her mother’s hand as she had taken her last breath, Erin had been silent. She wasn’t a screamer. Erin wept into Dom’s chest and felt afraid, really fearful, that she would now, after this night, always be a screamer.

  She could see it unfold. Dom would hand her a cup of tea and she might scream.

  He might try to hold her, and she might scream.

  Dom would whisper something hopeful, something kind and she might scream.

  She forced herself away from him, crawled along the floor towards the huddle and pushed her way through. Maisie was lying on the floor on her blanket, the one Erin’s own mother had crocheted so many years ago. A stranger’s hand gripped her, tried to stop her getting to her baby. ‘You’re wrong!’ Erin growled, a feral sound. ‘Leave her alone!’

  Gathering her baby up in her arms, she whispered to her. ‘Everything will be alright. Mummy’s here. Everything will be alright, won
’t it, Daddy?’ She looked to where she’d left Dom, who sat on his haunches. When her eyes found his, Erin saw something she didn’t recognise, as her memory pulled a line she’d written to him once, ‘I love your absolute certainty that nothing can touch us.’

  She cradled their child, pulled the blanket tight around her. Maisie loved to be swaddled, and she was so cold. Erin kissed her lips, looked at a woman who was sitting next to her, also crouched down on her knees. The woman wiped her eyes with the back of her gloved hand. ‘She gets cold,’ Erin told her. ‘And she loves to be warm. She gets cold,’ she repeated. And as Erin began to rock again, silent, slow tears traced a path down her face. She kissed her baby as she felt another one move inside her. ‘Don’t worry, darling, Mummy will make it better.’ Running a hand over her hair, her fine, beautiful hair, she felt the back of Maisie’s neck. Cold. She rubbed the folds of her skin underneath her hairline and moved her up onto her shoulder. ‘She likes this,’ Erin told the woman as she moved her hand in slow circles on Maisie’s back.

  ‘Erin.’

  Dom was suddenly in front of her. ‘Shall I take her?’ he whispered.

  Erin’s head shook. ‘No.’

  She needed time. These people had to understand that she and her baby needed time. She felt Dom’s hand on hers as she moved both over Maisie. ‘We just need to hold her. Everything’s going to be okay, sweetheart.’ Erin wasn’t sure if she was talking to Maisie or to Dom.

  They stayed there a few minutes, rubbing their baby’s back until she became aware that the strangers in her home had moved. They were no longer huddled. Things that had lain on the floor had been packed into tight bags and slung over their shoulders. Some of them had left. Only two remained; the woman who had been sitting next to her and a man, tall with a tightly cut red beard. ‘Look, Maisie,’ she whispered in her ear. ‘Pirate!’

  Erin sat back on the floor, still holding Maisie upright on her shoulder. She felt the front of the sofa support her and she sighed. Turning Maisie over, she cradled her in her arms once again. Erin touched her lips with her fingertip, opened them slightly, waited for that fluttery, quivery breath that Maisie would always do. And then she held her own.

  In that moment, Erin figured if she held it for long enough, she too might just stop breathing. It couldn’t be that hard, surely. She saw Dom’s lips move. He was breathing. Dom. Her Dom. He reached forward and took Maisie in his arms. Peas in a pod. And breath burst from her, against her will. Gasping, she quickly held it again. Maisie was in Dom’s arms now.

  As he stood and the woman took Maisie from him, Erin closed her eyes. She felt a kick in her stomach. Two kicks. Two babies. Needing their mummy. Again, she blurted the breath she’d held, this time, heard it exit her in a roar. And then, her eyes still closed as she felt Dom take her in his arms, she screamed again and beat his chest with her fists until she had no more fight.

  And in her mind, she saw again how life might happen.

  Someone, anyone, maybe her friend Lydia, would hand her a cup of tea and she would scream.

  Someone, anyone, maybe her friend Hannah, would try to hold her and she would scream and hit and thump.

  Someone, anyone, would just say something kind and the sound would come.

  Forever? She wondered as Dom placed both their hands on her stomach.

  ‘Breathe,’ he whispered. ‘You have to breathe. We need you.’

  And Erin did as she was told. In and out, she felt her lungs inflate and deflate.

  And when she opened her eyes, Maisie was still there in the stranger’s arms. Wrapped up against the cold in her blanket. Dom had stilled next to her. Without him looking at her, she felt his arm tighten around her and she turned her head towards him.

  And Erin, who already knew what fear could do, who already knew what loss could do, now feared that alongside Maisie, her husband’s blind faith in life being wonderful had also died that night.

  20th May 1998

  Darling Erin,

  Talk to me.

  Write to me.

  I know you’re afraid and I know now there’s reason to be afraid in life, but together, we can get through it, even if we’re on our knees.

  I love you because there’s a strength in you still. I see it when you take vitamins for our other babies, when you shush them gently with your hand through your stomach.

  I love you because you will make certain those babies know their sister. I’m sure of it.

  I love you because loving you is the only other thing I’m sure of right now.

  Dom xx

  9. Erin

  THEN – February 1999

  ‘You need to look after your wife, Dominic.’

  Erin listened behind the door to her kitchen. Her mother-in-law speaking up for her still felt a little odd and her hand rested on her chest.

  ‘We need to look after each other,’ was Dom’s reply.

  Erin placed her forehead on the pine architrave. He was, of course, right but where and how to begin? She moved to push the door in front of her but paused at Sophie’s next words.

  ‘She loves you. You love her. You’re the one who tells me that it doesn’t have to be any more complicated. Look, I’m sorry …’ Erin imagined her looking at her watch. ‘But I’ve got to meet your dad at the club for lunch. I’m assuming you don’t want to join us?’

  Dom laughed. ‘Er, no, ta, we’re going for a walk down by the river.’

  She loves you. You love her. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated.

  Erin’s eyes rested on a black and white image hanging on the wall of the hallway to her left – a picture Hannah had taken of her and Dom on their wedding day – one of those snapped when they weren’t looking. Both of them in profile, she was laughing at something Dom had just said. She could never remember what it was, but the slight tilt of her head backwards said so much more than that she’d just listened to something funny. It said she’d heard something funny from someone she loved. And his eyes, his eyes gazed at her as if he couldn’t believe he’d made this woman whom he loved, laugh like that. Wonder, awe in each other … She closed her own eyes for one brief moment.

  Opening them meant she would either push the kitchen door open or opt to look further left. Left a little, where just beyond the wedding frame hung a small collage of photos of the children. A few pictures Dom had taken of their beautiful twins, Rachel and Jude, now almost eight months old, already making each other laugh. In the centre, just one of Maisie on her first birthday, covered in chocolate cake, only a month before they lost her. Erin had no need to actually look. The grinning images of her three children were burned on her brain. She swallowed hard and entered the kitchen. Crossing the porcelain tiles she’d mopped an hour earlier, she hugged her mother-in-law tight.

  ‘Oh,’ Sophie said, obviously puzzled at the embrace. ‘What was that for?’

  Erin shrugged. ‘Just thank you.’ Of all the people who had helped when Maisie died, Sophie was the biggest surprise. Overnight her mother-in-law had seemed to realise that losing a child to sudden infant death syndrome while pregnant with twins was too much for any soul.

  Erin pulled her padded coat from the back of the kitchen chair. ‘I’m ready if you are?’ she said to Dom checking the buckles on the twins’ pushchair. Despite the sunshine and clear blue sky outside, both babies were cocooned against the cold. She touched Jude’s face. He, unlike his sister, was fighting sleep.

  ‘He’ll nod off once we start moving.’ Dom put his jacket on, wrapped a scarf twice round his neck before ushering his mother towards their front door.

  ‘Bye, Erin!’ Sophie called back. ‘Give them a kiss from me when they’re up!’

  ‘See you!’ Erin replied as she angled them through the awkward kitchen doorway, pushing the pushchair along the narrow hallway.

  Dom stepped outside and took over. ‘Daddy will drive,’ he said as she closed the door behind them.

  Erin pulled the collar of her coat high, pressed her gloves tight between
each of her fingers. It was her favourite sort of day; a crisp, cloudless sky, cold, but cold you could wrap up against. She leaned into the pram one more time and tugged the children’s blankets right up to their mouths, before sinking her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets.

  Together she and Dom walked the length of Hawkins Avenue, silent, not needing to talk. They turned into Percival Way, a long, wide, tree-lined road, that bypassed the mall and the station, towards the river. They walked, crunching through iced leaves from the aging birch trees, crisp and brittle on the ground. Erin could see Jude was finally asleep.

  ‘You were listening at the door, weren’t you?’ Dom, his breath misting, was first to speak.

  Erin said nothing.

  She loves you. You love her.

  ‘We need to look after each other, apparently,’ he continued.

  ‘Actually,’ Erin smiled. ‘I think what your mother said is that you need to look after me. I think she realises you’re already well looked after.’

  ‘Hmmm …’

  ‘Do you love me?’ she blurted.

  ‘Completely. Mightily.’ His ungloved knuckles whitened as he gripped the bars of the pram and she reached across for his hand as he stopped walking.

  ‘And I love you.’

  ‘So, we move on, don’t dwell on things,’ he said, his head making tiny side to side movements. ‘We have each other. We have two more children.’

  But no Maisie … She nodded.

  ‘While you were in the loo, Mum was suggesting we focus on what it was like before.’

  It had been such a short time, just nine months, nothing at all – too soon to imagine laughter, to try and recreate the ‘before’.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Is she right? Any idea on how we can inject some fun into our lives?’

  Erin began to walk again. He was talking about sex. She did want to talk; she wanted to talk like they used to so very much, but not about sex. ‘You mean sex?’ Despite herself, she heard herself say it aloud.