She knew her sister was trying her best and yet her tone alone was enough to make the situation almost comical.
‘He looks like he did before he got sick. He looks really well, a couple of years younger, actually. And spruced up, but not fancy, the way he dressed on a Sunday afternoon. And it’s not a presence or a feeling, it’s actually him: Jonathan my husband. And he’s always wearing the same thing.’
She looked over to the window where he often stood, in his jeans, the blue and white checked shirt he favoured beneath his navy V-necked sweater, dark socks, no shoes, hair recently cut, clean-shaven, and that expression that he wore, a happy face that said all is right in my world, because it was in the time before...
‘I see. And does he, does he talk to you?’
‘No. No he doesn’t. But I talk to him all the time. I tell him what’s going on, I ask him what to do and I share my worries and I like it.’ She looked up at Angela, whose expression was serious, concerned almost. There was no sense of a comedic one-liner looming or that she was cueing up the next thing she wanted to say. Her sister was listening. ‘He doesn’t ever reply. He doesn’t say anything. But he smiles at me, and he frowns sometimes. And I imagine his response in his voice and it’s like chatting.’
‘So come on, what do you think, Enya, why do you think Jonathan is loitering in your house?’
‘Not only the house,’ she explained, ‘I see him in the car too, he sits on the back seat. Which is weird, because he was always either driving or in the front seat.’
‘Why do you think he sits in the back?’
Enya shrugged. ‘I think because I can see him there in the rear-view mirror, and it gives me comfort to know I’m not alone in the car on a long journey or driving home in the dark. It’s like he’s still looking after me.’
‘Is that what this is about, do you think? Is he hanging around to look after you because, what, he doesn’t think you can look after yourself?’
‘Possibly. I mean, I think I’m doing okay. I think Icanlook after myself, but I must admit I get lonely. I miss him.’
Her voice broke. It was uncharacteristic and embarrassing for her to show this level of emotion, even with Angela. She thought she was over this, past it, but no. Her grief was a fluid thing, a shape-shifter that changed daily, hourly, even after three years of dedicated practice. One minute she could put his death to the back of her mind for a while and sing along to a song, or smell a flower, or sip coffee, and in that moment she felt bubbles of happiness float to the top of her life soup. How she relished those moments. At other times, her grief grabbed her by the ankles and pulled her so far down and down that she knew there was no further she could go. It was all she could do not to sink to the floor and weep. Weep for all she had lost and weep for that cold kernel of loneliness and despair that had taken root in her stomach.
‘I don’t know what to say to you, love. Apart from, three years is no time really, and it will get better.’
‘Do you think I’m mad, Angela?’ Enya asked softly, wary of the response.
Her sister took her time. ‘Mad, no. Grief-stricken, yes. In shock, yes, probably, still. Confused, hell yeah! Trying to makesense of it all, definitely. And I think our minds are clever and complicated and do things to bring us peace and to help us get through. That’s what I think.’
‘Yep, I think you’re right. And with Dominic,’ she didn’t want to lump the two men together in one topic, but it was almost impossible not to, not when they were, in recent days, so inextricably linked, ‘it was like being shown through the keyhole of a door that has been locked for the longest time, a glimpse of a life that could be mine, if I had the courage to step inside. If things were different.’
Angela shook her head. ‘I hear you, and it sounds lovely, sailing off into the sunset...’
It made her smile, that Angela should pick this particular analogy.
‘But you’re right, those kids are going to have enough to deal with without you pulling slats out of the fragile bridge that unites them.’
‘I know.’ She tried out a smile; the pain in her throat made it hard to swallow. Her sister spoke only the truth, not that she was any happier for hearing the obvious. ‘It was nice to see that other life though, just get a taste of that golden feeling, for a second or two. You know the feeling I’m talking about.’
‘Not really.’ Angela shook her head.
‘You can’t have it all the time. It’s too rare and precious and therefore all the more valuable for it, but it’s like a, a golden moment that takes you by surprise. Like being at a great party or watching a sunset or when you were young and drunk or with a smashing boy or you’d stolen your sister’s platform shoes, or a million other moments. Like when a song plays and you don’t just hear the music, youfeelit.’ She placed her hand on her chest. ‘You feel it and you close your eyes and you’re part of it. A song that transports you, and makes you catch your breath and it’s almost too painful to listen because it reminds you, not only of the personyou were, or how you looked, and how you loved, but it reminds you of a time when you were full of hope.’ She swiped at the tears that now coursed freely down her face. ‘Full of hope that over the, the years gets chipped away by the knocks, and dulled through experience, and hidden under rocks that weigh you down. And just for a moment, in his arms, Ifeltit, Angela! I felt it all and he felt like mine. He did, he felt like mine.’
‘And was Jonathan there then? Did you see him?’
Her sister’s question wasn’t barbed or harsh, but rather curious, asked gently.
Enya shook her head. ‘No. And that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, that when Dominic left out of the front door,’ she paused, knowing how ridiculous it was going to sound, ‘I felt Jonathan leave out of the back.’
‘Because you don’t need him to keep an eye on you anymore, or...’
‘Because I forgot to remember him.’ She spoke the truth that was raw and painful to admit. ‘I forgot to remember him.’
Chapter Twenty-One
It was rare for Enya to have slept badly. Rarer still that she’d watched the hands of the clock go around until the early hours. Her mind, apparently, intent on forcing her to live the day about to dawn in a thousand different ways, predicting a thousand different outcomes, all with the most dramatic, terrifying, and humiliating of endings. The least scary scenario was her being run over by Trish, who chased her in a car. Once or twice, she enjoyed the luxury of brief slumber before a nightmare ensued, this time with Trish hauling her out of her house and inviting her to a duel. It would have been comical, the thought of the two of them, mothers of the bride and groom, to so debase themselves, had it not had its feet in the merest hint of possibility.
She had taken an uncharacteristic age to choose what to wear, desperately wanting to strike the right tone betweenhaven’t bothered at all, I just rolled out of bed looking this wayandI tried too hard and stand here in sequinned evening wear having totally misjudged the situation.In the end, she opted for her comfy jeans, turned up above her ankle, new stone-coloured Converse that were gloriously fresh, and a short black and ecru checked smock from Toast that was cut generously and fell away from her body at thewaist. It was as much about comfort as it was her look, knowing that to feel happy in her skin meant she was more likely to feel in control. Her curls were behaving and that alone was something to feel thankful for.
