“You weren't here when they arrived. You were always somewhere else, travelling, or you’d moved out. You were just living your life. And then you met Ciara and I thought maybe it wouldn't help to see them. I thought after the first few, she would stop. Jenna, I mean. But no, she sent you a postcard every year, on your birthday.”
I dig my fingernails in the flesh of each palm and bite down on the flesh of my cheek. Staring at the postcards in my mother’s hands, my tongue lies limp in my mouth.
“And I know this summer is when you said you'd reunite, back in Crete.”
“It's next week, Ma,” I say. The date has been ingrained on my brain for five years. I have no plans to go but that doesn't mean I've not been thinking about it.
“I know, son,” she says. She flattens her hands on the table, over the postcards which are face up. I see then there's something else with them; an envelope. “I think you should go.”
“Oh, do you?” I splutter. “I have your permission?”
“It's not like that.” My mother holds my gaze, doesn't shrink like maybe she would have once. “Not at all. You can do what you want, but I want to give these to you now.”
“Why now?” I say my throat dry and hoarse. It's a miracle I'm not shouting. That or the years of therapy finally paying off. “Why not a few months ago? Give me more time to think and make plans, for Christ's sake.”
“You'd only just broken up with Ciara. You needed to heal.”
“This could have helped!”
“That wouldn't have been fair to Jenna. You would have been rebounding.”
“I don't think hiding her post to me for five years is very fair to her, Ma.” My voice is louder but still I'm not shouting. Now the shock has worn off, I know yelling won't help. I just want to read Jenna's words. I want to touch something she has touched.I want to have whatever scraps of information I can about her, and about how the last five years have treated her.
“That's probably true,” Mum says. “But Iamtelling you. Aren't I? I always intended to tell you.”
“So now you want me to go to her? Why, Ma? You hardly encouraged it five years ago.”
“You were younger, and you were grieving. And Jenna... when she said she wanted you to take this time, I think it was the right thing to do.”
“Well, that only makes two of you.” I feel something like pain flood back. It doesn't sting or ache as such, it's more muted or softened than that. It's almost nostalgic, like I am tapping into a painful memory that still means something and while it's not comfortable, it's not totally unpleasant.
“And you survived,” she says. “Look at you, Marty. Look at what you've done and enjoyed in the last five years. Ciara may not have worked out, but you had happy times together. That counts for something.”
I rub my hands over my face, my beard scratching my fingers. “Can I... can I just read the postcards please?”
Mum coughs, clearing her throat. “There's something else,” she says.
“Jesus, what now?”
“It's a letter,” she says, and her voice is lower, her gaze more earnest. “From Arnie.”
Whatever breath I have in my lungs evaporates now. The wobble in my chin and the heat in my eyes come from nowhere.
“He wanted me to give this letter to you, when you had fallen in love again,” she says.
I hold my hands up in a stop action when I see her fingers twitch. I'm not ready for this. Not yet. I need to gather my emotions and my thoughts, even if my tears are now a lost cause.
“Why didn't you give this to me when I was with Ciara?” I ask as steadily as I can. “Last year, when we moved in together?”
Mum nods and there are tears in her eyes too. “I nearly did. When you took her to Costa Rica, I thought maybe you were going to propose, but your father told me to wait. He didn't say why, but now I wonder if he knew all along it wouldn't work out.”
“Dad's as bad as you,” I say, trying to smile but failing.
“Your father thinks you should go to Crete.”
“How? I don't have flights. The resort will be all booked up. I have AJ to think of.”
“We'll have him, you know that.”
