“It’s just – God this is hard – it’s just … I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing anymore, love. I’m finding it so much harder to make ends meet too, and you know I’ve never been the best with money anyway. It’s difficult to keep up the repayments on my own. I know how much you loved our home and I love it too but, Shane, I don’t know if I have the strength left in me to fight for it.”
She stooped low beside the grave and leaned her head on the headstone, fresh tears dropping onto the cold marble.
“If you were here, I know you’d encourage me to keep going, and I will if you want me to. But if you could just let me know somehow, give me a kind of sign or whatever, that I have your support. Please love, could you? Because I just don’t know anymore. I’m doing my best to keep your dream alive but it’s just so … hard.”
Hearing a sound from nearby, Karen swallowed the lump in her throat and stifled a sob. Her eyes widened for a moment until she looked behind to see someone standing at the next grave over.
The woman sneezed again, and head bent low, held a handkerchief up to her mouth. Karen exhaled a long breath, the unexpected interruption calming her a little, then turned back.
“I’d better go, love,” she said softly. “Looks like it’s about to rain.” She gazed up at the clouds about to unleash a torrent.
Gathering her jacket tightly around her shoulders, Karen hurried back towards the car and had just reached it and was struggling to find her keys when she felt heavy raindrops on her head. She was soaked within seconds, unable to locate the offending keys, and then swore under her breath as she realised they’d been left in the ignition.
The car wasn’t locked and a sodden Karen removed her drenched leather jacket and flung it onto the back seat. Luckily, there was a spare fleece in the car. In an attempt to get dry, she put it on, then looked miserably out the window up at the rain clouds. There wasn’t a streak of blue in sight.
Despite herself, she chuckled.
If this is supposed to be a sign from Shane, Karen mused, starting the ignition, she was more confused than ever.
63
“Thanks, appreciate that – see you soon.” Jenny hung up the phone. “She said I can take the exam some other time, thank goodness,” she told Karen, who was trying her best to stay calm having been given the job of feeding Holly while Jenny called the bank HR department.
Clearly enjoying herself, the baby giggled and shook her head from side to side whenever a spoonful approached her mouth.
“Um, Jen – I don’t think she’s hungry,” Karen said, hopeful of being relieved from her duties.
“What? Oh, she can be a bit fussy sometimes. Just keep trying, she’ll eat it eventually.”
Karen couldn’t be sure, but she was almost positive that she saw Holly wink at her just then. Encouraged, she tried feeding her again but to no avail. Eventually, she put the food back down on the kitchen table andfolded her arms across her chest. As soon as she did, the baby began to whine.
“Oh, I get it,” she said with a sardonic smile, “you don’t like it when the shoe’s on the other foot, do you? Well, Missy, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and now you won’t get it until I’m good and ready.”
Holly gave her a look that conveyed utter disbelief.
“Karen, she’s a baby!” Jenny tut-tutted. “She doesn’t understand guile.”
“Oh really? I reckon that wide-eyed innocence thing is all an act and they know well how to play the game. We’re the fools.”
“Give it here, you idiot,” Jenny grabbed at the bowl, a smile playing about her lips. “God help us all if you ever have kids.”
“If I do, they won’t get much past me. And no, let her wait now,” she refused, still locked in a showdown with the infant.
“Yes I’m sure they’ll be perfectly behaved – model children even. Before the age of two, they’ll be able hold full conversations, change their own nappies and feed themselves, because Mammy won’t let them get away with ‘the innocent act’. I really can’t wait to meet these kids.”
Karen laughed. “Well, you’ll have a long wait since there isn’t even a daddy on the horizon.”
“What about Aidan?” Jenny asked carefully. “You two have become very close.”
Karen felt herself flush. “He’s been a great friend.”
“And?”
“And what? It wouldn’t be right. We’d feel as though we were betraying Shane.”
Jenny was about to start a spiel about wanting her to be happy, but she had put her foot in it too many times before. She didn’t want to risk upsetting her friend, who seemed in much better form since visiting Shane’s grave this week.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Karen continued, “and there’s a side of me that understands I should move on. But there’s a lot that needs sorting out. I wouldn’t be able to deal with seeing someone else and all the complications that entails.”
