The Last Days of Us

by Caroline Finnerty

  The Last Days Of Us

  CAROLINE FINNERTY

  For Mary, for always making me feel so welcome in her family and for being a truly lovely grandmother too.

  Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Harry

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Harry

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Harry

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Harry

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Harry

  Chapter 19

  Harry

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Harry

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Harry

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  The Irish News Online Edition

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Harry

  Chapter 36

  Harry

  Chapter 37

  Harry

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Harry

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  More from Caroline Finnerty

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  This is the story of us: my family – JP, Harry, Robyn and me – my whole world. We were once just like any other family; life was a mundane tangle of school runs, after-school activities, a never-ending laundry pile and bedtime stories. But it was my ordinary life, and I treasured every minute of it. You know those beautiful moments, the ones where you step outside yourself for a split second to appreciate what you have and just soak it all up? Where you recognise that this snapshot in time is utterly perfect. Where your heart swells and you know that this – this is the very place you have been waiting to reach your whole life. This is where you are meant to be, and this is what it’s all about. But then, there are sometimes defining moments where things can change instantly, splitting your life into ‘before’ and ‘after’ and you know nothing will ever be the same again.

  I’m glad that I didn’t know then that my world was set to fall apart…

  1

  Cinnamon and nutmeg floated on the sugar-scented air, entwined with the smell of cloves and star anise. It was Christmas Eve and the children and I were in the kitchen making gingerbread men to leave out for Santa Claus. Mince pies were baking in the oven and mulled wine was brewing on the hob for JP and me to drink later on, after the kids were tucked up in bed.

  I had been looking forward to this day for weeks. To me, Christmas Eve was the best day of the whole year. I loved the anticipation, the piney smell of the real (never fake) noble fir tree, the aromas wafting from the kitchen, the excitement written on the kids’ faces. Christmas Eve was like a beautifully wrapped present, as you waited to reveal the gift of Christmas Day.

  I had an image in my head of the perfect Christmas, almost like an image from a catalogue. I knew I was a hopeless dreamer, but I couldn’t help but get swept up in the merriment of it all.

  I helped Robyn, my four-year-old daughter, to press her cutter down into the dough as Judy Garland’s caramel-smooth voice was singing ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ on the radio:

  Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

  Make the yuletide gay,

  Next year all our troubles will be miles away…

  I sang along but didn’t quite reach the high notes like Judy.

  ‘Do you think Santa likes gingerbread?’ Harry asked from underneath a cloud of icing sugar.

  ‘Well, he’s eaten it every year that we’ve made it for him, and we’ve never had any customer complaints,’ I joked.

  He laughed, showing large, gappy teeth. His adult teeth were starting to fill in the spaces where the baby teeth had been pushed out. They still looked too large in his small mouth; it was as though his face was playing catch-up. A trace of freckles that had appeared in the summertime still dotted the bridge of his nose. At nine years old, my boy was growing up fast. Too fast, I thought with a sigh.

  ‘Can I make a gingerbread lady?’ Robyn asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Harry retorted, ‘they’re called gingerbread men!’

  ‘We can have gingerbread men and women,’ I said in a bid to keep the peace. ‘We’re all about equal opportunities in this family!’

  ‘Oh, can they have a little boy and a little girl like our family, Mammy?’ Robyn asked with wide-eyed excitement.

  ‘Sure, sweetheart.’

  She used a chubby hand, with its knuckles softened by baby fat, to push her soft golden curls out of her eyes and grinned up at me. I watched her whole face screw up in concentration, as her small fingers attempted to cut out the gingerbread family. Her fingers were still so young, she was just learning to grip and fold as she tried to ply the dough to make mini gingerbread children.

  I stopped to look at the scene before me, like an observer in my own life. It was at moments like these that Harry and Robyn still made me catch my breath. My son and daughter stood before me, working together to make treats for Santa. How had I got so lucky? Ten years ago, I would never have believed this scene could be mine. That children could be in my future. I still had to pinch myself that this was real – that these children were ours: JP’s and mine.

  We had longed for our babies so much. We had waited and tried so hard to have them. My sister Fiona always joked that I had wanted a baby since I was eight years old. I was the girl on our street who would ask the neighbours if I could push their baby around the estate in the pram. So, I knew as soon as JP and I had married, I wanted to begin trying for a family of our own. While friends of mine wanted to wait a few years to have some fun times with their new husband first, I had insisted that we start trying on our honeymoon. But despite our initial leap out of the starting blocks, we endured years of gruesome disappointment after gruesome disappointment as we tried to conceive.

  In the end, JP and I had undergone six rounds of IVF to have Harry. Unless you have experienced that gut-wrenching pain that infertility wreaks upon your life, then you have no idea of the hollowed-out feeling you experience as, once more, cramps forewarn you that you have failed yet again. That you have let your husband down. That you are the reason he isn’t yet a dad, while the rest of his friends are rejoicing in fatherhood.

  There were endless injections, drug regimes, blood tests, internal examinations and procedures – we had been tested to our limits – but I could honestly say that all the heartache had been worth it the very moment Harry, a mewling, pink-faced bundle, was placed into my arms. So, JP & I could hardly dare to believe our luck when I had fallen pregnant naturally with Robyn. Harry and Robyn were our precious babies – each a miracle in their own way.

  I reached over and pulled the two of them into a bear hug.

  ‘Hey, Mam, what are you doing?’ Harry said, laughing and wriggling away from me. He was reaching that age where he was starting to get embarrassed by physical affection.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ Robyn asked.

  I glanced at the clock on the fridge door, the door that was covered in the kids’ artwork, appointment reminders, sc
hool permission slips that needed to be signed and all the other things that came with children. It was growing dark out. Where was he? He had said he needed to go into the office for a few hours to wrap up a couple of things before the Christmas break.

  JP was the finance director for a US tech company headquartered in Dublin. I was used to him working long hours to meet deadlines and occasionally needing to go into the office on weekends or public holidays. I hadn’t returned to work after maternity leave with Harry; after waiting so long to have him, I couldn’t bear to leave him to head back to the rat race. Then Robyn had come along too and I loved being there with my children for every milestone in their life. I wanted to be there for every tummy ache and scratched knee. I felt very fortunate that JP’s salary meant we could afford that choice.

  JP had said he wouldn’t be long, but that had been four hours ago… Surely, he should be home by now? Then it hit me, he was probably rushing around Dublin city centre trying to buy me a Christmas gift. He was always leaving it until the last minute. I could imagine him now in a sweat, racing through Brown Thomas on Grafton Street or maybe even Weir’s, frantically choosing whatever was left at this time on Christmas Eve, while some predatory sales assistant took full advantage of his desperation. I couldn’t help but laugh at the image in my head.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ the kids asked in unison, looking up at me.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ I said, with a wave of my hand. ‘I think Daddy is probably doing some last-minute Christmas shopping.’

  When we were finished, we loaded the tray of gingerbread men (and women) into the oven and I sent the children upstairs to get changed into their new Christmas pyjamas. I briefly wondered how many more years I had left where they would let me dress them in matching nightclothes, but I pushed the thought out quickly again. Just enjoy the moment, Sarah, I told myself.

  I looked outside, where, beyond the window, darkness had fallen. I put a candle in the window, as was the tradition on Christmas Eve, then I moved around lighting my collection of Christmas-themed candleholders. Every year, JP would groan when I took them out of storage on 1 December and set about decorating every shelf, windowsill and mantlepiece in the house. I adored how the yellow candlelight shone through the miniature windows of the pretty, little snow-capped houses, or how the nose on my snowman-shaped holder glowed orange when the candle inside it was lit.

  Outside, I had light-up reindeer grazing in our front garden and multicoloured lights strewn along the trees. JP thought they were kitsch – and they probably were – he preferred the more sophisticated style of our neighbours’ white lights and fresh holly wreaths, but I couldn’t help going overboard on the Christmas decor because I loved the smile it brought to the kids’ faces.

  I glanced at the clock again. Wouldn’t the shops all be closed by now? They always closed a little earlier on Christmas Eve. Where was JP? It would be time for the children to go to bed soon and he always helped them leave out the treats for Santa and the reindeer, before we tucked them up together and read ‘’Twas the Night Before Christmas’. A bad feeling washed over me. It wasn’t like him to miss this. I really hoped nothing had happened to him.

  I lifted my phone from the countertop and called him. I waited as it rang for what felt like an age, but he still didn’t answer. I prayed he was okay. A sickly feeling of dread snaked its way down my body, and I felt goosebumps prickle all along my arms. Where the hell was he?

  2

  I woke with a start. My heart was racing and I felt panicked. Somebody was calling my name. My arm was being pulled. Something terrible had happened, I could sense it like a black veil sitting upon the cool morning air. I opened my eyes and let them adjust to the half-light of the room.

  ‘Mammy! Wake up, Mammy, it’s Christmas!’ Harry and Robyn shouted in unison. ‘Can we go down and see if Santa has come yet?’

  Their words jolted me awake. My bedside clock told me it was 5.54 a.m. I turned to wake JP, but the other side of the bed was startingly cool. It was then that what had happened the night before came crashing down upon me.

  I had wrapped all the presents for the children, then waited up for JP to come home until I could hardly keep my eyes open any more. I had lost count of how many times I had dialled his number, but his phone had rung out unanswered. I had called his friends, but nobody had seen him. In desperation, I had even phoned all the Dublin hospitals, but they had confirmed that they hadn’t admitted any patients matching his name.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ Harry asked, looking around the room as if expecting his father to jump out and surprise him.

  ‘I’m not sure, sweetheart,’ I said. I heard the concern lacing my own voice. I could remember still being awake at 3 a.m. and he hadn’t come home, and I must have fallen asleep after that.

  ‘Come on, Mammy, get up.’ Robyn tugged my arm again. ‘We need to see what Santa branged us!’

  ‘Brought us,’ I corrected on autopilot. ‘Okay, I’m coming now.’ I climbed out of bed and wrapped my ancient, ragged cardigan around me to shield myself from the cold morning air. The wool was bobbly and fuzzy. There were old holes in the sleeves where I was now sticking my thumbs through and yet I couldn’t bear to throw it out. I had been wearing this cardigan for as long as I could remember. It had kept me warm while I studied for my college finals, I had worn it through my pregnancies and had breastfed my babies in it. Each hole in the wool seemed to represent a different chapter in my life.

  The three of us descended the stairs together and the smell of stale alcohol hit me from the hallway before we even reached the living room. Disappointment began swirling through my veins like warm liquid, curdling somewhere near my heart. I hesitated at the door, apprehensive of what was waiting on the other side for us.

  ‘Come on, Mam!’ Harry said impatiently, noting my hesitation. ‘We need to see if Santa came!’

  ‘No, wait, don’t go i—’ I raised my hand to stop them, but before I could, the kids had pushed the door open and went running into the room. They froze when they saw their dad passed out on the sofa. He was snoring heavily and the smell of stale air, a combination of rich food and alcohol, was pungent in the air. In the corner, underneath our Christmas tree, lay the toys they had listed in scrawled handwriting in their letters to Santa, all wrapped up, waiting to be opened. But instead of rushing over to open their presents, they both turned back to me with a mixture of worry and fear filling their eyes.

  ‘Why is Dad sleeping here?’ Harry asked, looking up at me for answers.

  I noticed that JP was still dressed in the same trousers and sweater that he had left the house in the day before. His shoes lay kicked off in the middle of the floor. A short glass with a residue of amber-coloured liquid sat on the rug beside them.

  ‘Should we wake him up, Mammy? He’s going to miss opening the presents,’ Robyn said.

  The same refrain kept shooting through my mind: this wasn’t how it was meant to be. It was Christmas morning – it wasn’t supposed to be like this. In the run-up to Christmas, I had imagined this moment a thousand times in my head and it had never been like this.

  I stepped over his coat, also thrown on the rug, and shook his shoulder. He grunted and turned over. I shook him again.

  ‘JP,’ I called. ‘Wake up.’

  There was no sign of life.

  ‘JP,’ I tried again, sterner this time.

  He woke with a start. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ He shook himself and began rubbing his eyes.

  ‘Santa came, Dad!’ Robyn announced, looking at me in confusion.

  ‘Santa!’ He sat up theatrically and looked over to the tree. ‘Well then, we need to see what he brought for us, don’t we?’

  My heart broke to see relief wash over their innocent little faces. Their eyes darted to me for reassurance and I quickly arranged my face into a smile.

  JP jumped up and scooped a giggling Robyn off the floor before hurrying over to the tree with her. Harry ran behind. I followed after them, marvelling
at his ease. How he could just turn it on. How could he just switch into ‘Fun Dad’ mode, while my heart was reeling, and my mind was racing with so many questions? Where had he been? What was going on?

  As the children began unwrapping presents, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness. I knew my expectations were too high – I blamed the beautifully orchestrated marketing campaigns. In the adverts and films I watched on TV, happy families hugged each other tightly after exchanging their perfectly wrapped gifts. Of course, I knew that life wasn’t like a Hallmark movie.

  ‘Look, Dad, Santa brought this one for you,’ Harry said, thrusting the gift towards him. I watched as JP ripped off the paper decorated in holly leaves that I had wrapped the night before. I had carefully chosen bows to complement the colour of the paper, while he had been god only knew where. He untied the ruby-red grosgrain ribbon before tearing open the paper. He pulled back the box that was inside to reveal a watch.

  ‘Wow… thanks, Santa.’ He looked over at me.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ I said. We locked eyes briefly before his darted quickly to the floor. Why couldn’t he look at me? He closed the lid of the box and placed the watch back down on the floor.