The Last Days of Us

by Caroline Finnerty

  I knew I should stop this. I should stop this right now because I didn’t need any more drama in my life, but I couldn’t. I wanted to touch and be touched, I needed someone to pull me out of this pain, before I sank underneath it all.

  Harry

  Santa didn’t bring me what I asked for in my letter. Mam asked me why I looked sad when I opened my presents. She thought that I didn’t like my new Liverpool jersey with ‘Harry’ printed on the back, but I didn’t want to tell her, so I pretended to smile and said I was happy and I told her that this was the best Christmas ever. I know it was very nice that Santa came early just for us and that he brought me the new Liverpool jersey (Santa, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU VERY MUCH) and Dad even had a sleepover last night, so I do think that he read my letter, but he forgot one thing because he didn’t bring the medicine for Robyn. That’s the present I really wanted the most. Santa was the only person who could fix her. Dad said I’m very lucky because not everybody gets two visits from Santa in the same year, but I know it’s only because Santa feels sorry for us because Robyn is going to die. Even though I have the new jersey I’d give it back to Santa if he could make her better the way she was before.

  Loads of people came to our house for our Christmas dinner today. I didn’t eat my vegetables, but no one minded. Mam just said to eat what I wanted so I only ate a small bit of dinner and then a big bit of ice cream for dessert. I think Robyn is going to die soon because they were all crying when they were going home.

  I’m trying really hard to be brave, but sometimes when I’m in bed on my own and Mam thinks I’m asleep, I cry then because I’m really sad. I know everyone else is sad too that’s why I don’t want them to see me crying because I don’t want to make them sadder, but if the doctors and Santa can’t save Robyn then I don’t know who will. I don’t want her to go to heaven because I can’t see her there and I’m really going to miss her lots and lots.

  38

  The next morning, I lay awake in bed as the morning sunlight cast shadows across the ceiling. I felt mortified. I couldn’t believe I had allowed it to happen. What the hell were we doing being intimate while our daughter was dying in the bedroom upstairs? In that moment, we had both needed to let our guard down and be vulnerable. We had both needed to hold and be held, and it had felt so good to melt into his familiar embrace, but in the cold light of day I realised I should never have done it. Afterwards, as shame had flooded through me, I had told JP he could sleep in the spare room while I had climbed into bed beside Robyn. How was I supposed to look him in the eye when we saw each other this morning? Everything would be strained and awkward now just as we were starting to get back on an even keel again. I groaned at my own stupidity.

  I got out of bed, left Robyn to sleep on and I went downstairs to make myself a coffee in the solitude of the kitchen, but after a while I heard JP’s footsteps descending the stairs and my heart started to ratchet.

  ‘How was she last night?’ he asked when he came through the kitchen door.

  ‘She was good, she’s still asleep,’ I replied, unable to look directly at him as embarrassment wormed its way through my body.

  Silence cloaked the air between us. I got up and made him a coffee and I couldn’t help but recall how my whole body had been left tingling as his stubble had brushed against my cheek. I felt my face blush as I remembered it. Stop it, Sarah, I tried telling myself, praying that he didn’t notice.

  When the Nespresso had finished spurting out coffee, I placed the mug down in front of him. Despite the awkwardness I felt, I knew I needed to say something to clear the air and remove any lingering tension. We needed to be 100 per cent together, without even a trace of awkwardness, for Robyn’s sake.

  ‘About last night…’ I blurted. ‘We shouldn’t have done that…’

  He exhaled. ‘Look, I know… I think it was just the emotional toll of the day… we’re both feeling a little all over the place right now, so let’s just forget it ever happened.’

  I nodded, grateful that he was willing to move on from it.

  We both fell quiet as the weather reporter on the radio in the background was saying that the recent heatwave was set to continue.

  ‘Do you want to head to the beach for a walk when she wakes up?’ I suggested. ‘It’s a great day out there.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  The day was balmy and bright as JP lifted Robyn from the car into her buggy. Although the weather was warm, the strong onshore wind meant it was much cooler by the coast. The wind was blustery and blew through the dunes in silvery waves, so we wrapped a blanket around Robyn to protect her from the elements.

  Portmarnock beach was quiet that day, but come the weekend it would be packed with families sitting on rugs and eating picnics from baskets. Gulls arced and soared and cawed hoarsely through the brilliant blue sky above us. I breathed in the briny air and felt it fortify me with goodness. Fresh sea air was like a medicine. I felt alive and invigorated under the sunlight.

  JP pushed the buggy with difficulty as the wheels sank in soft sand, but, eventually, we managed to get to the part left smooth and flat by the outgoing tide.

  Harry ran down towards the water, where foamy waves rushed up along the sand making an angry hiss before retreating cowardly again. The school year had finished up and he was now on his summer holidays. We watched as he found a piece of driftwood and began writing our names along the strand as his T-shirt flapped in the breeze. He dragged the stick through the sand which was crumbly like demerara sugar, to write Mammy, Daddy, Harry and Robyn. Then he ran along the outside of our names to ring a heart around them all.

  I looked down and saw Robyn was smiling at him from the buggy. She looked radiant, as if the sunlight was shining right through her. This was the image of her that I wanted to come to mind in the darker days that lay ahead. If I sliced my life with a cheese grater, the wire cutting through it in perfect even slices – then this slice was utterly perfect. Don’t think, I told myself. This day is too precious to waste it being sad. It was me and my husband, our son and daughter all together in the sunshine. My unit, my world. In this snapshot, I could forget the hurt and pain. This slice of my life was perfect.

  ‘Do you remember that summer when we all went to Lahinch?’ JP asked as we watched Harry. We had headed down with JP’s parents. We had rented a holiday home and the kids had spent a glorious week running wild and free on the beach.

  I nodded. ‘Robyn spent the whole time running around chasing the seagulls. Remember she tried her best to catch one while all the other children on the beach were terrified of them?’ I said, smiling at the memory.

  ‘She was so full of life – out of all the kids on the beach that day, she definitely had the most energy. I was so proud of that, y’know, when people would tell me that she was a real little livewire, I loved her spirit and secretly would think “that’s my girl”. I always imagined that she would grow up into the kind of woman that never took shit from anyone. She could be the President of Ireland if she wanted to.’

  I nodded. ’She could,’ I agreed.

  ‘I can't believe these are the last days of us,’ he said, shaking his head sadly, his eyes turning cloudy as he looked out over the horizon. The rocky terrain of Lambay Island was on our left, and Ireland’s Eye and Howth Head on our right. Some people said if you climbed Howth Head on a clear day, you could see the white peak of Snowdon in Wales.

  JP lifted a stone and skimmed it into the water. My eyes followed it for a moment until it sank without a trace. The sun disappeared behind a cloud and I shivered in the nippy wind. I was always cold lately and the cardigan I had brought with me, which had seemed a sensible option when leaving the house earlier, now offered little in the way of warmth.

  ‘Here,’ JP said, noticing. ‘Take my sweatshirt, you’re freezing.’

  ‘But you’ll be cold…’

  ‘I won’t feel it, I promise.’ He draped it over my shoulders.

  Our eyes met and for the first t
ime in a long time, I felt that he could see me. I realised how invisible I had been feeling for the last few years as a stay-at-home mum. I couldn’t remember the last time that he had looked at me properly, instead of looking sideways, avoiding my eyes. I thought it was something that came with long-term marriage, but now I realised it had been because he couldn’t look me in the eye. He now heard me too. Whereas previously I could see a glaze come over his eyes as I recounted something that had happened in my day – now he really listened to what I was saying.

  Recently, I had come to the realisation that during the course of our marriage, I had lost a part of myself, but over the last few months, I had started to uncover the old me again, not the person I had become after all those years spent with JP. Once more, I was the woman who knew her own mind and could make her own decisions without questioning herself constantly. It wasn’t JP’s fault – I guess I had allowed it to happen during the years of IVF and then having young children. Somehow, I had crept into a shell and taken a back seat in my life where everyone else was more important than me. And I had been happy with that, nothing had made me happier than our family unit, but when that is so cruelly swept away from you, it leaves you with no choice but to start all over again. I had gone back to my foundations and was trying to rebuild myself up brick by brick, but this time my walls were much stronger.

  ‘JP, I’ve been thinking…’ I began. There had been something on my mind that I had wanted to ask him. ‘Now if this isn’t a runner for you, that’s fine. I just thought it would be good for Robyn – and Harry too…’

  ‘What is it?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Well… you saw how happy they were when you were there at breakfast this morning and, well, I was thinking… maybe you could move back in for a while… so we’re all together as a family for as long as we have left…’

  He looked shocked.

  ‘Really?’ he asked. His eyes met mine and I found myself looking away as I had a sudden flashback of those same eyes searching my face the night before.

  I nodded. The wind whipped my hair around my face, and I had to pull it out of my mouth to talk. ‘I don’t want you to miss out on any precious time we have left with her.’ Robyn deserved to have both her parents around her for the short time she had left in this world, and I knew I could do with his support too. He was the only other person who got how painful this all was. With everyone else, I felt I had to keep it together and keep my good side out because they didn’t know what to do or say whenever I got upset. It was exhausting. But with JP, I didn’t have to do that. He was the only person I felt I could fall apart in front of, I didn’t have to put on an act or a brave face.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, I don’t want to put any more burden on you than I already have…’

  ‘I’m sure. Anything that puts a smile on my baby girl’s face is good. No matter what has happened between us, this is about Robyn and Harry too. I want to make this time as special as I can for them, and I think this is a good way.’ Despite everything that had happened between us, he was a good dad. I couldn’t take that away from him. He had adored his children from the moment they were placed into his arms with their round pink faces peeping out from their towelling blankets.

  A smile broke out across his whole face and his eyes glistened with tears. ‘Thank you, Sarah – thank you so much – you don’t know how much this means.’

  39

  Days crept past and all around us were little signs that the egg timer counting down Robyn’s life was running out of sand. A palliative care team from the hospice now visited daily to stay on top of her pain medication and to make sure she was comfortable. The team had also organised for a night nurse called Julia to come to help us. Although unspoken, we knew it meant that the end was near.

  Julia was like an angel. You never heard her when she came into the room, she moved quietly and unobtrusively. She knew our family time was precious and she melted into the background as much as she possibly could. She kept Robyn’s pain levels in check and, if there was any breakthrough pain, she immediately remedied it. Robyn seemed to be sleeping peacefully most of the time. I still wanted to have Robyn sleep beside me in my bed and, when she wasn’t nursing Robyn, Julia sat quietly in an armchair in the corner of the bedroom. As much as she was a nurse to Robyn, she was a support to JP, Harry and me. Her role was more than a nurse; there would be a warm coffee waiting beside you when you felt your eyes burn with tiredness. She took family photos of us all surrounding Robyn in bed, she even played a game of draughts with Harry when he couldn’t sleep one night. Other times she just talked to us, reassured us about what was to come. Often, JP would join us during the night, I knew he wasn’t sleeping great – I was the same and whenever my eyes did finally succumb to tiredness, my sleep was always feather-light, the slightest noise or movement in the room would cause me to startle wide awake again. I could never switch off completely.

  One afternoon, we took Robyn for a short walk around Malahide Castle and when we came home and put her to bed, she fell asleep for the rest of the evening. I rubbed the soft skin on her arms as she slept and as the hours crept past and she still wasn’t waking up, I started to worry. I was watching her like a hawk, I was terrified she was just going to slip away from me. When Julia arrived through the door that night, my shoulders sagged with relief. I was so glad to have her nearby, her presence was reassuring when everything was so terrifying.

  ‘She’s very weak,’ Julia announced to JP and me, after she had listened to her breathing and checked her pulse. But she didn’t have to tell us, I could see it with my own eyes. We were watching for the signs. I knew her life now balanced precariously on a knife-edge; she was so near to tipping over. I wasn’t ready to lose her yet. We were close though and that frightened the life out of me.

  I could tell that Julia was concerned when she still hadn’t woken several hours later, so we were all relieved when, just as the sun rose on a new day, she woke up once more.

  ‘I thought we were going to lose her,’ I whispered as I lifted a teaspoon of apple purée towards her lips.

  ‘She’s hanging in there,’ Julia said. ‘She’s a tough little cookie.’

  I said a silent prayer of thanks for giving me another day with her.

  Harry got up soon after, climbed up on the bed and hugged his sister. His hair was tousled with sleep and I was glad that at least one of us had slept well.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ he announced after a while.

  ‘Come on, son, I’ll take you down and make breakfast,’ JP said as the two of them left the room.

  ‘Something smells good,’ Julia said to me a few minutes later as the smell of breakfast wafted up the stairs to us. ‘It’ll be time for me to go soon, so I want you to go downstairs and get some food into you,’ she ordered. ‘You need to keep your strength up.’

  I did as I was told and, even though I had no appetite, I left the room and headed downstairs.

  JP and Harry were sitting at the kitchen table eating.

  ‘I’ve left you some bacon and eggs in the oven,’ JP said. ‘I hope they’re not too rubbery now. I’ll go on up to sit with Robyn, while you eat.’

  We were taking turns to stay with her even though Julia was there with her and she spent most of time asleep anyway. Sometimes if I got up to use the bathroom, I would come back to find Harry had climbed in beside her and was rubbing her back gently. One of us was always with her and that gave me peace of mind.

  I was so glad to have JP’s presence in the house again. He could help me lift Robyn or bathe her or he could play with Harry, so he didn’t feel overlooked. We were united in our care for our children and I knew I couldn’t have done it on my own. I couldn’t believe how easily we had slotted back into our old lives together; it was almost as if JP’s affair and the time spent apart had never happened. We had been shaped by the scars we bore together, and somehow, we had emerged stronger. We were now kinder and more considerate of each other, like housemates who feel the ne
ed to put out their best selves. Instead of making a cuppa for myself like I might have done in the past, we now would offer to make the other person a mug too. I cringed thinking back to it. The little acts of unkindness that had built up as normal over the years. When had our marriage changed? Maybe if we had been more caring towards one another all along, the affair would never have happened. It seemed obvious now in hindsight, but we should have been giving one another our best selves all the time.

  That morning after we said goodbye to Julia, who was going home to get some much-needed sleep before returning to us later that night, JP helped to carry Robyn downstairs. He brought her into the kitchen and sat down onto a chair with her. It felt nice, like the way it all was before, just the four of us having a lazy morning together. Suddenly, Robyn’s right index finger twitched, the last bit of movement she had left. She was trying to point at something beyond the patio glass.

  ‘What is it? What do you want?’ I asked, getting up.