No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [17]
“She didn’t want me to.” His eyes rested on his feet.
“She didn’t want you to?” Penny repeated, the combination of confusion and abandonment becoming a little too much for her.
“She wants us to start afresh. There’s a business opportunity in Cork. Her dad’s there and she has some friends.”
“She didn’t want you to!” Penny repeated.
“Did you hear what I said? I’m moving to Cork!”
“You hate Cork.” She heard herself sounding childish.
“It’s not a choice. She’s going to take the kids. If we don’t make a go of it, she says she’ll go back to Holland. I can’t lose my kids. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re weak,” Penny said, with a trace of anger.
“Yes.”
“You make me weak,” she said, softening.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s really over.”
“Yes, it is,” he said.
Oh, God. She closed her eyes. Sinéad O’Connor’s version of Elton John’s “Sacrifice” played around them; she hadn’t been able to escape Sinéad lately.
And suddenly they were dancing, holding each other tight under a half-moon, moving in circles that symbolized their relationship, both afraid to let go, both willing the song to continue while silently their insides tore.
When the song ended Adam reluctantly returned to the party, leaving Penny to get into her bed with a bottle of vodka.
It was after midnight when Mary found herself in the part of the forest she rarely visited. Just once a year, on 19 March, and that was enough. She’d brought a teddy she’d picked up two weeks previously before she’d allowed herself to lose track of time. She carried Ben’s favourite cloth, and a flashlight to navigate her way through the darkness. The tree stood tall and strong, aside from the broken limb, which had been amputated long ago. She took out the cloth and began to wipe the plaque bearing the name of her son, in the place he had died but, more importantly, the place where he had lived, laughing on the makeshift swing. A swing that every child in town had swung on at one time or another, until 19 March 1999 when the limb had given way, catapulting Mary’s baby high into the air before gravity pulled him back to earth in such a way that he’d landed on his neck, snapping it instantly. She laid the teddy by the flowers her father had put there earlier that day. At least he could rely on you, Dad.
She touched the clean plaque tenderly, then looked around to make sure she was alone. It was cold enough for the mud beneath her to crystallize and she could see her breath forming a trail in the night air. She stood with a hand up each opposite sleeve, shivering despite her many layers of clothing. “I can’t believe it’s been six years,” she said.
“It seems like only yesterday,” came a whispered reply from the darkness.
Mary weed herself a little. “Hello?” she asked, in a voice that suggested mild hysteria.
“Is that you, Mary?”
The voice was muffled but more distinct and coming from behind her. She turned quickly and pointed her flashlight in a take-charge-while-shitting-it manner that reminded her of Dana Scully in The X-Files circa 1993 before Dana’d lost the weight and was still a sceptic.
“Hello?” she said again, scanning the foliage with her flashlight, which was of little use because her eyes were closed.
“Mary, girl, if you don’t help me up I might freeze to death.” The voice was suddenly familiar.
“Tom?”
“I can’t get up,” he said, from the ditch that hid itself behind a large rhododendron.
Mary parted the bush to reveal Tom on his back, much like an upturned turtle, too drunk to negotiate his way onto his feet. She sat him up. “Jesus, Tom, you nearly killed me with the fright!”
“Sorry, pet,” he said sheepishly. “I just thought I’d call upon our boy on the way home and mistook that bush for a chair and the rest, as they say, is history.” His skin was frozen.
“How long have you been out here?” she asked, worried that her son’s paternal grandfather would fall victim to pneumonia.
“Not long,” he said, patting her shoulder.
“I’ll take you home,” she said.
“In a minute,” he said.
“OK.”
She’d always been fond of Robert’s father, and he and his wife had been good