The Last Goodbye (38 page)

Aoife nodded. “She’d hate it – I couldn’t do it to her.”

“And we can look at getting a home help too,” Dad said, “Y’know, maybe for a couple of hours a week? We’ll work it out anyway.”

I looked at the swirly pattern on the grey vinyl floor, feeling even guiltier if that was possible. I knew that no matter what care options they decided on for Gran, I wasn’t going to be a part of it.

Patrick and Seán came in a while later. They were visibly upset when Dad relayed what the nurse had told us.

Gran struggled to talk when she woke and what the nurse had warned us about soon became obvious. Her speech was difficult to understand. Her muscles were too weak to articulate what she wanted to say. I tried hard not to let my sadness at hearing her voice sound like that show in my face. I looked over at Aoife who had tears in her eyes. We sat chatting amongst ourselves and Gran fell in and out of sleep.

“Make sure you don’t tire her out now,” the nurse warned, coming back into the room.

“We’ll head on shortly,” Dad said.

Outside in the car park I said goodbye to Patrick and Seán before getting into our car.

“I hate seeing her like that, Ben.” My voice broke and gave way to tears.

“I know, love, I know it’s horrible seeing her looking so feeble – but you heard what the nurse said – it’s still early days. She might still make a recovery.”

“But she’s nearly ninety, Ben!”

“I’m sorry, Kate – I wish there was something that I could say or do to make it better.” He reached across for my hand.

I turned my head and looked out the window, where crumbling stone walls and knobbly fields zipped by outside and prayed that Gran would be okay.

When we got to the house Dad started to put on dinner for all of us. Aoife was there. She was helping to peel potatoes and carrots so I took a knife out of the drawer and started to chop them.

“Are you on your holidays now?” I asked.

“No, I still have one more exam left.”

“Ah right, well, nearly there now.’’

She nodded.

“What are you planning on doing for the rest of the summer?”

“Well, Seán said that Acton’s are looking for someone to do a bit of filing and other admin work so I might try and get a job there. The girls in college are all going off to Boston on their J1’s but I couldn’t leave Gran after all that has happened.”

We both fell silent then but there was a closeness in just peeling and chopping together – something we would never have done before.

Patrick brought Luisa and their children over. They seemed to have warmed to me a bit more. We all squashed in around the table, keeping our elbows tucked in neatly to make room for everyone, and helped ourselves to the food that Dad had served up for us. We chatted about the recession and Dad was giving out about politicians that never seemed to change. “Different face, same arrogance,” he said. We didn’t talk about Gran. Her presence was missed and it was like we were all too sad to speak about her. We sat watching TV for the rest of the evening.

Ben booked flights home for the following day. He was able to get one from Knock, which was a lot closer than driving back to Dublin. I hated walking out on Gran when she was like this but Dad told me I had to go, he was nervous of me being so heavily pregnant. And Ben had to go back to school. But I felt guilty all the same knowing that when Gran came home from hospital, the reality of the situation meant that Dad and Aoife were going to have to be her carers.

I woke up early the next morning. I couldn’t sleep in at all lately, which I thought was ironic because every second person kept advising me to sleep now while I still could. They meant well but, my God, it wasn’t like I could store up the sleep to tide me over for when the baby was born and giving us sleepless nights. I think this early-rising lark was the body’s way of preparing me for the lack of sleep that lay ahead.

Eventually, I decided to get up. I tiptoed past Dad’s bedroom door so that I wouldn’t wake him. I went out to the kitchen. Aoife had stayed over last night too but she must have been sleeping in. I flicked the switch on the kettle and waited for it to boil for what seemed like ages. I popped a teabag into a cup. While I was waiting I looked out across the fields. The grass was silvery with dew. It looked like it was going to be a nice day – the sun was out and it was one of those days that lifted you up and made you feel all was well with the world and you would forgive the weather gods for the poor summer that we’d had up to now.

I opened the back door and let the kitchen fill with fresh morning air. Walking over to the dresser, I picked up the family photo of my Confirmation off the dresser. I was wearing the hickest matching jacket and dress in an orange floral fabric – I will never forget how much I had hated that outfit. Mam and I had rowed for weeks beforehand because I did not want to wear a dress. You never would have guessed though with the smiles that we all had plastered onto our faces. Mam stood behind me with her arm on my shoulder – her candy-pink lipstick looked so dated now but she still looked good. I did a quick calculation and guessed that it was probably taken shortly before she had found out that she was expecting Aoife and then had the tumour.

There was something I needed to do before I went back to London. The last time I was home I still wasn’t ready to do it but now, as I found myself alone in the empty kitchen, I knew that I had to. I went back down to the bedroom. I would be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t nervous – my heart was racing in my chest.

I scribbled a quick note for Ben and threw on a pair of jeans and a jumper and set off.

The roads were quiet at that time of the morning as I walked along. At least I didn’t have to worry about bumping into anyone. I noticed more this time – things I had missed the last time. It was still raining though. I walked through the square, crossed the bridge and finally I reached the graveyard. The iron gate groaned as I pushed it back and let myself in. The last time I had been here was for my other granny, Dad’s mother’s funeral. I knew Mam was probably buried nearby. Overhead oak trees shaded the path beneath it and the lower branches wafted gently on the breeze. I walked along the path, cracked from the roots trying to push up underneath it. I had watched a documentary once where the roots of a tree had grown so large that they caused all four walls of a house to separate.

I finally came upon her headstone. I was glad to see it was neat and well kept. Flowers were planted and I could see someone had weeded it recently when I looked at some of the other graves whose plants were overgrown by weeds. Seeing her name there etched in gold paint on the cold granite slab made it very real. There it was written in front of me.

I began to speak to my mother. The words, although whispered, came out loud in the quiet graveyard.

“I’m sorry I lost your letter. I tried my best to get it back. I really did. I’m so glad you wrote it for me, Mam. It meant a lot to have that little piece of you. And I’m sorry I was such a bitch before you died – I regret it so much. If I could take back those words, believe me I would.” My bump was starting to weigh me down so I lowered myself on to the edge of the kerbing. “I miss you, Mam. Every day. Even the Hoover banging off the bottom of the door on a Saturday morning – I’d let you do it every day for the rest of my life, if it would bring you back.”

I looked around at the other headstones, each with their own story and loved ones left behind. The cycle of life, it was the one thing guaranteed, but human nature was a funny thing because even though we knew it had to happen sometime, we still found it so hard to accept when someone belonging to us passed over to the other side.

“I wish you could be here to meet Ben – and Baby Pip. Can you believe I’m having a baby, Mam? Sometimes it scares the life out of me that I’m going to be entirely responsible for a little person and that they’re going to call me ‘Mammy’. To be honest, I’m a bit scared, Mam – a lot scared actually, so please stay close to me, yeah?”

I stayed like that for a while, listening to the birdsong on the cool morning air. It was such a peaceful place. I now understood why people liked to visit graveyards. I always thought, whenever I had heard someone saying that before, that they were loopers, but there was something soothing about being here and for some reason I definitely felt closer to her.

When I went back to the house everyone was up eating breakfast.

“Kate, where were you?” Ben said.

“I just went for a walk to get some fresh air – it’s a beautiful morning out there.”

“Well, pull up a chair – get some breakfast into you, love,” Dad said.

I sat down at the table and helped myself to the fry that Dad had cooked.

We headed into the hospital then. It was hard saying goodbye to Gran. I leant in to hug her and I could feel her trying to hug me back as best she could but it was obvious she wasn’t able to. The good news was that they said she’d be able to come home soon.

We had a few hours to spare before we drove to Knock to catch our flight. I chatted with Dad and Aoife and we pored over old photo albums together and recalled long-forgotten anecdotes from my childhood. I felt at ease in their company. It was such a relief, after years of tension, to finally just relax together. I could see Aoife was enjoying hearing more about the mother she never had the chance to know. I noticed that she and I had some of the same mannerisms – she would scrunch up her nose when she smiled broadly and she had the same habit of wrapping her hair around her index finger and rolling it onto the middle finger and back and forth again too. I invited her over to stay with Ben and myself for a weekend to do some shopping or maybe even to catch a show. It was a big step in our relationship. I hoped we were ready for a whole weekend with each other but she said she might and I really hoped that she would.

They made me promise to bring the baby back to see them when she was born and I knew that I would – it wasn’t just an empty promise. I had decided that I was going to be a regular face in the house now and Pip would know where her mother came from.

“Dad?” I said with a lump in my throat as we said goodbye.

“Yes?”

“I love you.” And for once I didn’t cringe as I said it.

Chapter 53

I was exhausted when I sat down onto our sofa that night. The emotional rollercoaster of the last few days was after catching up with me. Seeing Gran like that, then talking things through with Dad and then Aoife had taken its toll. Twenty years of emotions had been thrashed through in one weekend. Although I was glad to finally have talked to Dad and Aoife properly, it had been difficult dredging it all up again.

Ben plonked down beside me so the sofa gave a little poof under his weight.

“I’m proud of you Kate, you know that?”

“Thanks Ben . . . look, I think I owe you an apology for how I’ve acted over the last few weeks.”

“Don’t worry about that now – I’m sorry for not really getting how hard all this still is for you. Your mum sounds like she was a lovely woman.”

“She was, Ben – I loved her so much. I know I might not show it, but I miss her every day. Every single day. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t wish that I could talk to her just once more. Even just for five minutes.”

“Oh Kate, of course you do, love. But why didn’t you talk to me about her before?” He hugged me close against his broad frame so I could smell the fabric softener on his T-shirt.

“And especially now that I’m pregnant – that’s when you really need your mum to ask her all those questions, y’know, about her own pregnancies or how her labours were. And then when the baby is born I’m sure I’ll have millions more to ask her.”

“Well, you know my mum thinks the world of you and she would be delighted if you ever needed her help or to ask her something.”

“I know that, Ben, and don’t get me wrong – your mum is great – but it’s not the same as having your own mum there, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Do you think she knows that I was hurting and that I just didn’t know how to express how scared I was?” I regretted so much not seeing her before she died and that our last words were words full of anger. It was something I could never make up for. I could never take those words back.

“Of course she does – I bet she’s watching you right now with a big smile on her face.”

“She was so much fun as a mother. She always spoke her mind. I remember one time in school when my teacher in third class, Mrs Maloney, sent a note home in my journal because I hadn’t learnt my nine times tables off by heart. I thought Mam was going to go through me for a shortcut but she came into the classroom behind me the next day and told her off, saying that in all honesty weren’t there more important things in life than nine times tables and sure couldn’t I always use a calculator if I ever found myself in the unfortunate situation of having to multiply something by nine when I got older! You should have seen the look on Mrs Maloney’s face. It was priceless.”

Ben started to laugh then. “Your mum sounds like a right old character. I’m glad the pupils I teach don’t have parents like that!”