‘Of course you do!’ he says. ‘You might not feel it now but you will. My goodness, David, fight for her. Prove to her that you are the man she fell in love with. It might take some time but I believe in you. I always have. The students here adore you. Try and remember who you are inside and why you are so loved. You are needed and you are loved.’
I look up at the older man and my eyes widen at his compliment. His very few, simple but effective words mean more to me right now than anything I’ve heard before; words that I’ve longed to hear from my father all my life.
I swallow and absorb what he has just said.
‘I believe in you.’
The only other person who ever believed in me was Kate, but now I know it’s time I started to believe in myself. I will have to do my best to get a grip and I will do just as Andrew Spence has advised me to.
I’m going to deal with my shit, mop up all the drips from my overflowing cup once and for all and, when the time is right, I’m going to prove to Kate that, no matter what, I won’t let anything else destroy what we have, even if it takes time on my part too.
NOVEMBER 2012
22.
KATE
My father’s death eight months ago choked me, and it has changed me in ways I could never have predicted.
I returned home back in March with the intention of seeing the funeral through in a respectable manner like he deserved, but instead I was met with a hornet’s nest, a tangled-up mess in a world that I’d turned my back on for far too long. I had always been the fixer in my family, the glue who kept us together through hard times and good times, but being away meant I hadn’t noticed the many cracks that had been appearing.
My mum was verging on deep depression and alcoholism as the stresses and trauma of her time in prison haunted her deeply, Mo had been sucked in to becoming the lapdog my mother had once been to Sean McGee and his posse, believing everything he told her and taking her on a road to nowhere, but the biggest shock of all was Shannon, who had gone from being an ambitious, focused teenager to anunruly, rebellious young adult who had moved into a flat on her own and was throwing her life down the gutter in a way that broke my heart.
And then there was David. I was stumped when I heard he had known of my father’s inner fears and kept them from me. I was horrified that he had a secret that could have saved my father’s life if I had been able to step in and pull him out of danger, just like I’ve spent the past few months doing with my sister, my niece and my mother.
‘You don’t have to be everyone’s guardian angel,’ he told me in one of our earlier conversations, when I decided to take a twelve-month career break from nursing and spend some time at home to try and pick up the pieces of my family’s very broken life, using up all the money I’d saved to put down as a deposit on my first property I’d planned to buy with David.
‘You have no idea of any type of life outside your own pampered privilege,’ I spat at him, knowing I was taking out most of my anger and grief on the person I loved the most. ‘I can’t just turn my back on them and pretend it isn’t happening. This is real shit and it’s my shit and you should have told me!’
Gradually my family began to pick itself up. My mother grew stronger by attending AA meetings and taking up some new voluntary work at the community centre, which gave her a purpose and a sense of belonging; Mo slowly began to see sense, recognizing Sean McGee’s true colourswhen he was imprisoned for his part in the break-in to my father’s house that had triggered his fatal heart attack. Shannon too, thankfully, straightened herself out and moved to Belfast to begin a course at art college for which I’d helped her apply. Meanwhile I focused on building up my charity work again, and Silent Steps began to gain a higher profile on both a local and national level.
I’ve worked hard at becoming the voice of trauma, where I use my experience as an example of how to turn hard real-life issues into positives. I’m invited to speak in schools, to community groups, and even to the media, where I’ve secured a weekly column on a local newspaper. I’m fast becoming recognized and admired for the hard work I do to improve lives on so many levels.
But no matter how much I bandage over my heart with work, and in my daily efforts to keep my mum, sister and niece on the straight and narrow, I just can’t shake off the knowledge that a huge part of my life is missing. And that part is David.
I cry for him every single night, I yearn for the strength of his arms, I long for our life in England again where we’d go to work, greet each other afterwards like we hadn’t seen each other in weeks, and where we’d cook and cosy up on the sofa, dream and plan our future, and believe that the world stopped at our front door as soon as we closed it.
I want to go back to the day before my dad died when we were planning on buying our first house, and when wewere browsing through bridal magazines and doing our financial homework on how and what we could afford in order to make our immediate future the best it could be. I want to stop punishing myself and David for my father’s death, but I can’t forgive myself for not listening to my inner voice, which warned me there’d be trouble if we insisted on being together.
For eight months we’ve talked, we’ve argued, we’ve cried, we’ve given each other space, we’ve acknowledged the huge hurdles we’ve had along the way and we’ve both said we’re not quite ready yet to try again as we accept that us being together played a part in my father’s death.
The wounds are weeping still, but I can’t stop loving him, and I miss him so much.
The simple everyday things are what made what we had so special. God knows I’d love to get those simple times back again.
‘I’m seeing a therapist,’ he told me on a phone call a few months ago. Those calls, though very infrequent, are heart-wrenching and desperately painful, but have strangely helped me stay grounded and focused and not totally derail when the tug and pain of missing him becomes unbearable and I want to jump on a plane and forget everything else, only us. ‘I’m trying to be the best I can be, Kate. I need to be sure I can be as emotionally strong as I possibly can be before I see you again.’
And that’s exactly what he has been doing. He spent thesummer on a retreat abroad to heal from all the darkness he has had going on in his head. I admire that and, from afar, I don’t think I have ever loved him more, even if our last conversation was challenging and almost ripped me apart.
‘You can’t put your life on hold for other people for ever,’ he told me before he left for India. ‘Maybe you need to accept that you don’t need to change the whole world, Kate. Maybe you should work on yourself a bit more. While you’re fighting to save everyone around you, there’s someone right here who is the only one who would ever fight for you. That person is me.’
His words hit me hard as I know them to be true. I know I always feel I’m the one who holds my family together, and when I’m away they all fall apart, but can I – should I – babysit them for ever? I’m missing David. I’m missing all we had and I’m scared now I might have left it too long.
‘I’m so tired of fighting, David,’ I told him, rubbing my forehead. ‘I honestly don’t think I can take any more grief or upset, but when I’m here I feel I’m in control.’
‘Well, maybe I need time now too,’ he said, which pierced me right in the heart.
‘What?’
