If You Could See Me Now (23 page)

“Well, he could be here right now for all we know, eating olives or something.” She laughed. Then she realized that I was no longer smiling. “What are you talking about, Ivan?”

“It’s very simple, Elizabeth. You said that I disappeared when I arrived.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think that means that I’m Ivan and you just suddenly started seeing me?”

Elizabeth looked angry. “No, because you are a real person with a real life and you have a wife and a child and you—”

“I’m not married to Fiona, Elizabeth.”

“Ex-wife then, it’s not the point.”

“I was never married to her.”

“Well far be it from me to judge.”

“No, I mean Sam isn’t my son.” My voice sounded more forceful than I intended. Children understand things so much better. Adults always make things so complicated.

Elizabeth’s face softened and she reached out to put her hand on mine. Her hands were delicate, with baby-soft skin and long slender
fingers.

“Ivan,” she spoke gently, “we have something in common, Luke isn’t my son either.” She smiled. “But I think it’s great that you still want to see Sam.”

“No, no, you don’t understand, Elizabeth, I’m
nothing
to Fiona, and I’m
nothing
to Sam. They don’t see me like you do, they don’t even
know
me, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, I’m invisible to them. I’m invisible to everybody else but you and Luke.”

Elizabeth’s eyes
filled with tears and her grip tightened. “I understand.” Her voice shook. She placed her other hand on mine and clung on to it tightly. She struggled with her thoughts; I could tell she wanted to say something but couldn’t. Her brown eyes searched mine and after a moment’s silence, looking as though she had found what she was looking for, her face
finally softened. “Ivan, you have no idea how similar you and I are and it’s such a relief to hear you talking like this because I sometimes feel invisible to everybody too, you know?”

Her voice sounded lonely. “I feel like nobody knows me, that nobody sees me how I really am . . . except you.”

She looked so upset that I put my arms around her. Still, I couldn’t help feeling so disappointed that she’d completely misunderstood me, which was odd, because my friendships aren’t supposed to be about me, or what I want. And it had never been about me before.

But as I lay down alone that night and processed all the information of the day, I realized that for the
first
time in my life, Elizabeth was the only friend I had ever met who had completely understood me after all.

And for anyone who’s ever had that connection with someone, even if it only lasted for
five
minutes, it’s important. For once I didn’t feel that I was living in a different world from everyone else, but that in fact there was a person, a person I
liked
and
respected,
who had a piece of my heart, who felt the same way.

You all know exactly how I was feeling that night.

I didn’t feel so alone. Even better than that, I felt like I was
floating on air.

Chapter Twenty

The weather had changed
overnight. The past week of June, sunshine had burned the grass, dried the soil, and brought wasps in the thousands to swarm around and annoy everyone. Saturday evening the air changed. The sky darkened and the clouds moved in. It was typical Irish weather, one moment a heat wave and the next, gale force winds. It was predictably unpredictable.

Elizabeth shivered in her bed and pulled her duvet up to her chin. She didn’t have the heating on, even though she needed it, but she refused to put it on during the summer months out of protest. Outside, the trees shivered and were tossed around in the forceful wind. They cast wild shadows across her bedroom walls. The
fierce wind blowing sounded like giant waves crashing against the cliffs; inside the doors rattled and shuddered. The bench in the garden swung back and forth, squeaking with every movement. Everything swayed violently and sporadically, there was no rhythm and no sense of consistency.

Elizabeth wondered about Ivan, she wondered why she was feeling a pull toward him, she wondered why every time she opened her mouth the world’s best-kept secrets
flowed out. She wondered why she welcomed him into her home and into her head. Elizabeth loved to be alone, she didn’t crave companionship, but she craved Ivan’s companionship. She wondered if she should take a few steps back because of Fiona only living down the road; wouldn’t her closeness to Ivan, albeit only a friendship, be disturbing for Sam
and
Fiona? She relied so much on Fiona to mind Luke at last-minute notice.

As usual, Elizabeth tried to ignore the thoughts that were blowing around in her head. She tried to pretend that everything was the same as it always was, that there hadn’t been a shift within her, that her walls weren’t crumbling down and allowing unwelcome guests to step over the barricade that had now been reduced to rubble. She didn’t want that to happen, she couldn’t deal with change.

Eventually she focused on the only thing that remained constant and unmoved in the determined gusts. And in return, the moon kept its watchful eye on her as she eventually fell into an uneasy sleep.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

Elizabeth opened one eye, confused at the sound. The room was bright. She slowly opened the other eye and saw that the sun had returned for the day and was perched low in the cloudless blue sky, yet the trees were still dancing wildly, creating a disco in the back garden.

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

There it was again. Feeling groggy from her sleep, she wearily dragged herself out of bed and to the window. Out on the grass in the garden stood Ivan, hands cupped to his mouth, shouting, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

Elizabeth covered her mouth, laughing, and pushed open the window. The wind rushed in, desperate for some warmth.

“Ivan, what are you doing?”

“This is your wake-up call!” he shouted, the wind stealing the end of his words and bringing them north.

“You are crazy!” she yelled, laughing.

Luke appeared at her bedroom door looking afraid. “What’s happening?”

Elizabeth motioned for Luke to come to the window and he relaxed as he saw Ivan standing outside.

“Hi, Ivan!” Luke yelled.

Ivan looked up and smiled, lifting the hand that was holding down his cap to wave at Luke. His cap disappeared from his head as a sudden great big gust of wind lifted it off. They laughed as they watched him chase it around the garden, dashing to and fro as the wind’s direction changed. Eventually, he used a fallen branch to knock it down from a tree where it was caught.

“Ivan, what are you doing out there?” Luke yelled.

“It’s Jinny Joe Day!” Ivan announced, holding his arms out to display his surroundings.

“What’s that?” Luke looked at Elizabeth, confused.

“I have no idea.” She laughed.

“What’s Jinny Joe Day, Ivan?” Luke yelled.

“Come on down and I’ll show you both!” Ivan replied, his loose clothes
flapping around his body.

“We’re not dressed, we’re in our pajamas!” Luke giggled.

“Well then, get dressed! Just throw anything on, it’s six
a.m., no one’s going to see us!”

“Come on!” Luke said excitedly to Elizabeth, clambering off the windowsill, running out of her room, and returning minutes later with one leg in his tracksuit bottoms, an inside-out sweater on, and his runners on the wrong feet.

Elizabeth laughed.

“Come on, hurry!” he said, gasping for breath.

“Calm down, Luke.”

“No.” Luke laughed, throwing open Elizabeth’s wardrobe. “Get dressed, IT’S JINNY JOE DAY!” he shouted with a toothless grin.

“But, Luke,” Elizabeth said uneasily, “where are we supposed to be going?” She was looking for reassurance from a six-year-old.

Luke shrugged. “Somewhere fun?”

Elizabeth thought about it, saw the excitement in Luke’s eyes, felt the curiosity welling within her, went against her better judgment, threw a tracksuit on, and ran outside with Luke.

The warm wind hit her as she stepped outside, taking her breath away.

“To the Batmobile!” Ivan announced, meeting them at the front door.

Luke giggled with excitement.

Elizabeth froze. “Where?”

“The car,” Luke explained.

“Where are we going?”

“Just drive and I’ll tell you when to stop, it’s a surprise.”

“No.” Elizabeth said it like it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. “I never get into the car unless I know exactly where I’m going,” she huffed.

“You do it every morning,” Ivan said softly.

She ignored him and, despite her protests, she felt herself being brought along by Luke’s enthusiasm.

Luke held the door open for Ivan and, once they were all in, Elizabeth very uncomfortably set out on her journey to an unknown destination, feeling that she wanted to turn the car around at every turn and then wondering why she wasn’t.

After driving for twenty minutes through winding roads, an agitated Elizabeth followed Ivan’s directions for the last time and pulled up outside a
field that, to her, looked the same as all the others they had already passed. Except this one had a sea view overlooking the glistening Atlantic Ocean. She ignored the view and fumed in her side-view mirror at the mud splashed along the side of her shining car.

“Wow, what are they?” Luke leaped forward between the two front seats and pointed out the front window.

“Luke, my friend,” Ivan announced happily, “they are what you call Jinny Joes.”

Elizabeth looked up. Ahead of her were hundreds of dandelion seeds, blowing in the wind, catching the light of the sun with their white
fluffy threads and
floating toward them like dreams.

“They look like fairies,” Luke said in amazement.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Fairies,” she tutted. “What books have you been reading? They’re dandelion seeds, Luke.”

Ivan looked at her in frustration. “How did I know you’d say that? Well, I got you here, at least, I suppose
that’s
something.”

Elizabeth looked at him in surprise. He had never snapped at her like that before.

“Luke.” Ivan turned to him. “They’re also known as the Irish Daisy but they’re not only dandelion seeds, they are what most
normal
people”—he threw Elizabeth a nasty look—“call Jinny Joes. They carry wishes in the wind and you’re supposed to catch them in your hand, make your wish, and then let them go so they can deliver them.”

Elizabeth snorted.

“Wow,” Luke whispered. “But why do people do that?”

Elizabeth laughed. “That’s my boy.”

Ivan ignored her. “Hundreds of years ago, people used to eat the green leaves of the dandelion seeds because they are extremely high in vitamins,” he explained, “which gave it its Latin name which translates to the ‘official cure of all ills.’ So people see them as good luck and now make their wishes on the seeds.”

“Do the wishes come true?” he asked hopefully.

Elizabeth looked at Ivan angrily for
filling her nephew’s head with false hopes.

“Only the ones that are delivered properly, so who knows. Remember, even the post gets lost sometimes, Luke.”

Luke nodded his head, understanding. “OK then, let’s go catch them!”

“You two go on, I’ll wait here in the car,” Elizabeth said, staring straight ahead.

Ivan sighed. “Eliza—”

“I’ll wait here,” she said
firmly, turning on the radio and settling down to show them she wasn’t budging.

Luke climbed out of the car and she turned to Ivan. “I think it’s ridiculous that you
fill his head with these lies,” she fumed. “What are you going to tell him when absolutely nothing he wishes for comes true?”

“How do you know it won’t come true?”