There’s no change in his expression. His eyes remain closed, his mouth sagging. I feel self-conscious, but I squeeze his hand again. ‘Hi, Dad.’
Nothing.
We sit like that for a while. It feels wrong to see him like this. He’d be so embarrassed. He’s alive but it doesn’t feel like he’s really here, which makes me want to cry, but I’m still mad at him for being here and not contacting me, which then makes me feel guilty.
It’s been six months and nothing. I let go of his hand.
‘I know it’s hard,’ Nanny Bet says, dabbing a tissue on her cheeks.
‘What happened to him?’ My voice is a hoarse whisper.
She scrunches up the tissue. ‘He pushed too far.’
‘What?’
Nanny Bet closes her eyes and mumbles something to herself. Then she says, ‘He refused to accept the past, always did. What happened to my Frank – your granda. Jack was never able to live with it. It drove him to distraction.’
I want to shake him. Wake him up and make him answer my questions. ‘Is that why he was back? To deal with it.’
Nanny Bet gazes at Dad. ‘I don’t think he knows how to deal with it.’
‘And you do?’
She lifts her chin, her eyes hard. ‘Don’t speak to me like that. You’ve no idea what I’ve lived through.’
I stand up. ‘That’s because you won’t tell me.’
She looks towards the nurses’ station and narrows her eyes. ‘Sit down.’
‘Fine.’ The chair squeaks as I sit and she flinches.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘What was he doing back here?’
She’s quiet for a long time, but I don’t push her. Whatever the truth is, it won’t come from trying to force her.
She takes a deep breath. ‘He wanted to change the past.’
‘What?’ I check nobody is listening. ‘How? Why?’
‘To save a life.’
I look at Dad in the bed, so weak, so tired.
‘Whose?’ I hear the name in my head. ‘Brigid’s?’
She mumbles a ‘yes’.
‘Who was she?’ Nanny Bet closes her eyes and turns her head. ‘OK, fine. But how? Can we…’ I whisper, ‘change the past?’
‘No, we’re observers, storytellers.’ She looks at Dad. ‘But Jack…he was so frantic when he came to see me. He’d been reliving visions for weeks. He wasn’t himself, wasn’t making any sense.’
‘What did he say?’
She doesn’t move.
‘I’ve a right to know.’
