No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [90]
She decided to title each paragraph and her diatribe went as follows:
Why?
Parents
My mother was on the pill, ergo my conception was as a result of a nasty case of the trots. Apparently my unlucky parents had decided against having children, even considering abortion, but then Catholic guilt set in and the fear of an angry God ensured that I would survive gestation to emerge into a world that didn’t give a fuck. Were my parents cruel? Certainly not intentionally – but being cruel requires giving attention, which is something neither could afford. Do I wish I was aborted? Yes. It would have been kinder. Did my parents love me? How could they? I was fed and clothed. I was educated and then nothing. They don’t even know me. I don’t know them. Aren’t parents supposed to know their kids? Aren’t they supposed to care? So I wasn’t abused. But was I neglected? Doesn’t it mean something when you feel closer to your best friend’s dad than you do to your own? Why didn’t they care? Was it me? Why was it that when I was born the change that occurs in everyone else’s parents didn’t occur in mine? Where was my unconditional love? How is it that I could be so alone from such a young age? Why didn’t they love me? Why didn’t they love me? Why?
Adam
He was my world. He promised me he would wait. He told me he loved me and I believed him. I believed him because he did love me. It was real, it just wasn’t enough. He picked his wife over me. He picked his kids over me. Funny how the man I love and who loves me would choose his children and misery over me, and my father would choose his stupid job. Is it me? It must be. There is an emptiness in me that is noticeable. I couldn’t make Adam happy. Just like his wife, I would be a letdown. That’s why he left: deep down he knows there is nothing to me. How could there be? That night when we danced in the garden and when he said goodbye, I wanted to die. I desperately wanted to die. Why? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I get over him? Why can’t I just feel normal? Why won’t he choose me? Why won’t he choose me? Why?
Mary
She gave me hope. That first day on the train to Dublin she sat beside me and when she looked at me she made me feel like I was special. Together we were popular and she brought out all that was good and funny in me. Her encouragement ensured that I would strive to be the entertainer. Now I am the consummate entertainer but to be that I needed help. Why? I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her laugh. And now she judges me. She got pregnant and I was there for her. She nearly died and I nearly died with her. She lost her son and disappeared but I stayed with her because I loved her through it all. How hard is it to stay with someone so destroyed? Fucking hard. How hard is it to witness desperation? It’s a nightmare. Watching the person you care about utterly decimated is tantamount to a knife cutting through bone. I didn’t desert her. Has she deserted me? Worse, has she deserted me for some prick she doesn’t even know? The girl who was once impenetrable now reduced to a sucker for an arsehole. Heroin is forgivable but alcohol is not? Why has she chosen him over me? Why has she deserted me? Why?
Me
I am nothing.
After that she stopped writing. She went to the fridge and pulled out a cold bottle of vodka, opened it and drank from the neck because she was thirsty, because she was desperate, but mostly because she wanted to vanish.
She lost track of time as the days blended into each other. She ignored the doorbell. One morning she woke to find a card on her mat. It was from Mary. She had written one word: Sorry. Penny tore it up, binned it, and then she cried until she was sure there was nothing left. A while later she began to feel hungry for something other than a bag of crisps, but she didn’t want to stop drinking long enough to sober up so she called a taxi to take her to a little pub