After Forever Ends (65 page)

“How old were you when you met?”

“Seventeen,” He answered. His eyes were so far away it frightened me. He paused, the corners of his mouth twitching, “You look like her. I've always told you that. You do. You have her face right down to the crooked bottom lip. There have been times I thought you were her ghost. Your voice, too, sounds like hers.” He gasped and then let out a long breath, “I loved her, Silvia. I loved her more than life itself. “

He stared at me for a long time before he spoke again, “Being with her was like being caught in the wind. She had so much life. She was her own force of nature. She could do things that no girl I ever knew would even think of doing, like toss hand axes and hit marks stuck to trees twenty feet away. She was in the car during the accident that killed her mother. She never told me exactly what went on, but she was very close with her father after. They did everything together. His name was Darrel and he was a welding man. She knew how to make things from metal. She made lovely things. Wind chimes and little brass unicorns, holders that looked like hands and trees for her jewellery. She loved jewellery, anything that shined.”

I listened to him.

“I was too shy to ask her until we were eighteen. Shy and afraid of her old man. He was a big man! Still, I think I told her I was in love with her on our second date. She laughed right in my face. She nearly broke my heart, but then she kissed me. She was always affectionate, you know? She never passed a chance to tell somebody how she felt or to hold my hand. She made me feel like a man and I was just a boy,” I’d never heard him speak like he was. Usually so quiet, the words were rushing out of him and disappearing on the air like powder caught on a breeze, “I married her that year. Her dad knew. We had his blessing, but mine didn’t. My mother wanted me to finish university and have a degree. She didn’t want me working in the plants or the mills, but there was no way Sharon was going to wait.” He paused, shook his head and smiled again, “We got married in this little church called Saint Matthew‘s. It’s not there anymore, they pulled it down years ago. Sharon had a wobble because she didn’t want to wear white. She said it was drab, she wanted something pale pink, but her step-mother wouldn’t have it. Sharon threatened to run away then, but her dad bribed her with the dress Lucy wore at her wedding. He found it himself. Somebody had ordered it special, had it made, and called off their wedding. It had been sitting in a shop for nearly five years. Nobody wanted it. It was too flashy, too long when mini dresses were all the rage. But he knew it was all for Sharon when he saw it. It had sequence, you know, and pearls. It shined, so she lunged for it. She looked unbelievable at our wedding. She carried a single white rose.”

He licked his lips, and nodded off for a long while. The only sound in the room was oxygen gently hissing through the cannula. Just when I was certain he’d say no more, he turned his head back to me and picked up as if there had been no break, “One morning she announced you were on the way. I don’t know, Sil," He shook his head gently from side to side, “She named you Silvia for a book she’d read. Silvia was the name of a beautiful silver dragon that saved a medieval city in a fantasy story. Your middle name, Sophia, means Wisdom. She named you how she hoped you’d be one day. And you are. You are.”

He went on to tell me about my mother with us as babies, how she‘d hold us and talk to us, walk us about and show us everything there was to see. And then he began to tell of something that started a buzz deep inside of me.

“She loved animals, especially rabbits. No idea why, they’re filthy animals, but she had about fifteen of them. I made her a dozen hutches and set them on the side of the house in two rows. She’d take you out there, Silvia, and you’d walk along between them, feeding all the bunnies one by one…”

Something flashed through my mind. It was a memory I’d always had of walking between what I had thought were fences, but they weren’t fences at all. They were small wooden doors covered in chicken wire. It was snowing outside, big, fat flakes falling from the sky and sticking to my eyelids. I reached up with my mitten to rub one off when something from behind one of the screens lunged at me and banged against the door. I screamed and turned to run away, but I lost my footing on the slick snow and fell flat on to my back. A woman bent over me and lifted me to my feet.

“Shush, Love,” She used the same words Oliver always spoke when I was getting emotional. I could hear her laughing gently. I could see her black Wellies and purple tweed coat as she lifted me into her arms, “It’s just Cottontail! It’s just a bunny! He’s not going to hurt you!”

“Cottontail?” I said aloud. “Oh, my God!” I slapped my hand over my mouth. I was literally gobsmacked. My whole body was electric as if I’d been plugged into a socket. Hot, stinging tears filled my eyes and rolled on to my cheeks.

”Are you all right, Silvia?” Dad asked sincerely.

“I’m fine,” I told him, still stunned, “I just….I thought I didn’t remember anything. I thought I couldn’t remember her, but I think I do. I remember a rabbit anyway. His name was Cottontail. I named him after that silly Easter song. I’d forgotten about the rabbits. I thought they were at Gran’s house. I thought they belonged to her.”

He laughed out loud, “No, she didn’t even like them! She agreed to take them, though, after Sharon died, because I couldn’t take care of them and you and Lucy, too.” He stopped and winced. “Just give me a moment,” He whispered.

“Please. Take your time. “

After a moment he began again. “She loved music as well,” He said, “Bagpipes! She loved bagpipes and pan flute! And had such a crush on David Bowie!” He laughed, “It made me so damned jealous!”

David Bowie. Another wave of heat and electricity washed though me. I had always loved David Bowie. I loved him with a dedication and passion that I’d never understood. I’d always felt like I somehow knew the man, as if he’d been a neighbour or an old sitter that had moved away and made the big time and I’d never seen again, but if I did the two of us would throw our arms around the other and be so relieved to be together after so long. Something about his voice, something in his face, in his eyes, had always made me feel safe. He was familiar.

I remember feeling like the room had suddenly disappeared and I wasn’t with my father any longer. I was in a different place all together. I was small, standing just in front of a doorway on a brown rug while a woman closed the door behind us. Sun was pouring in through one of the windows, filling the bed with a giant square of yellow against a grey-blue duvet. She put a record on a player. Above the bed was a picture of David Bowie in a frame. I climbed on to the bed and reached up with my little hand to trace the shape of his face with my finger. His eyes bored into mine. “Hello," I whispered, “How are you today? “

The woman lie across the bed on her side. Her red hair fall across her face. She reached out for me, “Come on, Silvia, lie down with me. We’ll have a little kip.”

I wasn’t tired, but I lie down and crawled up beside her. I put my hands against her swollen tummy. I could feel a baby move inside. Lucy. It was Lucy. I rolled away and stared at a dressing table, stained in a dark brown. It had a pink tea cup and saucer on top of it and a large mirror with a black and white photo of a man taped to it.

“Dad,” Suddenly back in the moment, I interrupted him, “I remember something. Tell me where this was.”

He nodded his head as I described the room. “That was her bedroom when she was a girl at your Gran’s house. The photo was of her father.”

I listened to him keep taking, telling me what she liked, what she ate, what her favourite colour was. I could finally see her. I still couldn’t make out her face, but I saw her body as she lifted me up. I could feel her. I could feel how soft her hair was as I buried my face into her neck. I could feel how strong her arms seemed as she cuddled me close. “It’s all right, Silvia,” She whispered, “They’ll be brighter days, Darling. Always remember that there will be brighter days.”

With a swirl of lavender and vanilla, sitting on a wooden chair next to my dying father, I remembered my mother. I heard her voice. I could smell her. I could feel her. Not just in a memory, but in the room with me, all around me.

Soon after, he drifted off to sleep again. It was all right. He’d given me what I had come for. I let him rest. I wasn’t angry anymore, not really. I’d never understand why he’d made the choices he had as a parent, but there was nothing either of us could do to change any of it now. After a time when he didn’t wake, I stood and kissed his forehead.

“Thank you, Daddy,” I whispered, “Thank you for giving her back to me.”

I drove back to my father’s house and told Oliver alone.

“She would have come back to you in your time, ,but I’m glad he reminded you” He told me, “The ones who share your heart never go very far, Sweetie. They never go very far at all.”

As before, Dad tried to send us packing. He was doing just fine, he told Lucy and me. We needed to go home, but every time he told us, his voice would be a little weaker, a little less convincing.

Finally, in the middle of the night, the hospital rang. It was a nurse doctor telling us that he’d slipped into a coma and it would only be hours until he was gone. The cancer had metastasized into his brain and it had taken him quicker than anyone had expected. Oliver and Alexander put us into Alex’s truck and we left off almost immediately.

Our father died at hospital less than three hours after we arrived.

It was so bizarre. Just bizarre. Lucy fell apart immediately, but I couldn’t even cry. My father had kept me at such a distance my whole life that his passing was almost a relief. I know how awful that sounds, but it’s the way I felt, like some sort of bondage had been lifted. I went home I made all the phone calls to my uncle and some of Daddy’s friends. Three days later, as he had made his own arrangements, Lucy and I buried him quietly beside our mother.

“I’m so sorry,” His friends told us, “You two were his pride and joy.”

I thanked them and told them truthfully that was a comfort.

Months after he left us, Lucy and I sat alone in the kitchen of the house where our father had lived for fifty years. Everything had been taken out of it, every corner had been scrubbed. It was ready to go on the market and I was ready to leave it behind. It wasn't any sort of home to me anymore. It was a place where I had lived, but without Dad there it was nothing more than an empty shell.

“It’s so strange,” Lucy told me, looking around the room, “Knowing that I’m never coming back here again.”

“Not to me,” I told her honestly, “I was never much attached to this place.”

She seemed surprised, “This was home.”

“For you maybe,” I looked at my sister, “I didn’t have a home until I met Oliver.”

“What?” She seemed offended. Her pale face was suddenly flushed, her full lips twisted sideways, “What are you talking about?”

“Dad never wanted me here,” I explained, still feeling the ice that surrounded his place in my heart, “He was always too busy to take any time for me.” I could feel myself becoming angry again and the look on her face, like she wanted to slap me, only made me angrier. She really didn't understand. She really didn't get it. He'd always treated her differently than he did me. Babied her. Spoiled her. Kept her close while he sent me away, “I just stayed here,” I continued, this time challenging her, “The same as I stayed at my schools. I wasn’t really wanted anywhere. Not until I met Oliver.”

Lucy's expression changed. She stared at me with a look I’d rarely seen on her face. I couldn’t place it. She didn't say a word, but her eyes smouldered.

“Lucy, are you upset with me?” I played innocent.

“God damned right I’m upset!” She shoved herself back in her chair and huffed, “Do you really believe that he didn’t want you here?”

“He loved you better,” I responded. “I know he loved me, but he loved you better.”

“Like hell!” Lucy’s face went bright pink. Her brown eyes brimmed with tears, “You are so stupid if you believe that! For all your brains, Silvia, you are so god damned STUPID!” She made a move like she was going to stand up, but didn't, “Do you realise you were all I ever heard about?” She slapped her palm against the table, “YOU! All he ever talked about was YOU! Friends would come over to visit and he’d tell them all about his Silvia!” She snorted, “‘Silvia got the highest marks in her class this semester!’ ‘Silvia won the science competition!’ ‘Silvia looks so much like your mother, Lucy! So much it takes my breath away sometimes!’ He never said a thing about me! Not to me, not to anybody...”

“He always pampered you!”

“I’m not saying he didn’t!” She was still shouting, “He did! Poor stupid Lucia who couldn't do a thing for herself! She needed looked after! Either by him or her big sister! I never even COMPARED to you!” Her face was bright red now, wet with the tears that were pouring down it. Whether they were tears of rage or sorrow I had no idea, “But you are so fucking selfish and so arrogant and so BLIND that you never saw he tried to do the same thing to you! You needed something, he saw you had it, didn't he? Train tickets and clothes and all your books and your extra classes! You told him you needed ten quid and he gave you fifty! And you never came out of your bloody bedroom!” Lucy threw a crumpled serviette at me, “He tried, Silvia, to be good to you and you shut him out!”

“He gave me things! Things! I didn't want things!” I screamed, chucking the serviette back at her. It hit her in the breast and fell to the ground. She was bent over reaching for it as I laid into her, “I wanted a father! I wanted a home and a family and I got a school! I got a fucking school because he didn't want me here! He wanted to work and he only wanted you! I was too much bother!”

She lobbed the serviette back at me, but I deflected it with the back of my hand and it sailed into the sink, “Shut up! Just shut up! He did what he thought was best for you! You were so bright, Silvia! So bright that your teachers didn't know what to do with you! Put you up a year? He gave you professors when all you had before were dimwits!”