But he views it with a first-time joy, a beginner, someone who has never seen it happen before.
In the last few weeks it has made me think, because I’ve had time to, and I wonder where was his wonderment, his absolute shock and awe, when Heather and I were growing up? If it was ever there at all, it was hidden by the mask of inconvenience and complete bafflement. Sometimes when he points out something wonderful that Zara has done I want to scream at him that other children do that too, you know, children like Heather and I, and how incredible we must have been to have gotten there first over thirty years ago. But I don’t. That would make me bitter and twisted, and I am not, and it would create an energy around something where there is nothing. I tell myself it’s the idleness that leads to these frustrating thoughts.
I often wonder, if Mum was alive, how would she feel seeing Dad as the man he is now – loyal, retired, a dedicated father and husband. Sometimes I hear her on her forgiving, wise days being all philosophical and understanding about it and other days I hear the tired voice of an exhausted single mother that I grew up with, spitting venom over him and his insensitivities. Which of her voices I hear may depend on what mood I am in myself. Mum died from breast cancer when she was forty-four. Too young to die. I was nineteen. Too young to lose a mother. It was most difficult for her, of course, having to leave this world when she didn’t want to. She had things she wanted to see, things she wanted to do, things she had been putting off until I was finished school, an adult, so that she could begin her life. She wasn’t finished yet; in many ways, she hadn’t even started. She’d had her first baby at twenty-four, then me the accident at twenty-five, and she had raised her babies and done absolutely everything for us and it should have been time for her.
After she died, I lived on campus and Heather stayed in the care home she had moved into while Mum was undergoing treatment. Sometimes I wonder why I was so selfish and didn’t decide to care for Heather myself. I don’t think I even offered. I understand that it was necessary for me to begin my own life, but I don’t believe I even thought about it for a moment. It’s not selfish not to want to, but it was selfish not to think about it. I look back and realise I could have been more helpful to my mother at the time too. I feel like I let her go through it all alone. I could have been there more, accompanied her more, instead of asking her about things afterwards. But I was a teenager, my world was about me then, and I saw my aunt being there for my mum.
Heather is my Irish twin: older by one year. She treats me as though I am the baby sister by many more years. I love her for this. I know that I was an accident, because my mum had no intention of planning another child so soon after the birth of Heather. Mum was shocked, Dad was appalled; he could barely cope with a baby in the first place, let alone one with Down syndrome, and now there was a second child on the way. Heather scared him; he didn’t know how to deal with her. When I came along, he moved further away from the family, seeking out other women who had more time on their hands to adore him and agree with him.
Meanwhile my mum dealt with reality with such strength and assurance, though she would admit later that she did it with what she called ‘Bambi legs’. I never saw that in her, never saw a shake or tremble or wrong-step, she always made it seem as if she had it all under control. She joked, and apologised, that I raised myself. I always knew that Heather was more important, that Heather needed more attention; I never felt unloved, it was just the way it was. I loved Heather too, but I know that, when Mum left this world, the one person she did not want to leave behind was Heather. Heather needed Mum, Mum had plans for Heather, and so she left the world with a broken heart for the daughter she was leaving behind. I’m okay with that, I understand. My heart broke not just for me but for the two of them too.
Heather is not happy-go-lucky, as people with Down syndrome are stereotypically thought to be. She is an individual who has good days and bad, like us all, but her personality – which has nothing to do with Down syndrome – is upbeat. Her life is tied up in routine, she appreciates it as a way of feeling in control of her life, which is why when I show up at her home or when she’s at work, she gets confused and almost agitated. Heather needs routine, which is something that makes us even more similar and not at all different.
Zara is hopping from one cobblestone to the other and trying not to step on the cracks. She insists Dad does the same. He does. I know this about him now and yet, seeing him, his Christmas belly hanging over his trousers and bouncing up and down as he hops from stone to stone, I still can’t help but not know who this man is. He looks up as I pull in.
‘I didn’t know you’d be here,’ I say, lightly. Translation: You didn’t tell me, you must always tell me.
‘We were taking a drive along the coast, watching the waves – weren’t we, Zara?’ He scoops her up in his arms. ‘Tell Jasmine about the waves.’
He always gets Zara to say things for us; I’m sure most parents do, but it infuriates me. I would rather have a conversation with Zara that isn’t dictated by Dad. Hearing her tell me things is hearing it twice.
‘They were huge waves, weren’t they? Tell Jasmine how huge they were.’
She nods. Big eyes. Holds her arms out to show what would be a disappointingly small wave, but an enormous stretch for her.
‘And weren’t they crashing up against the rocks? Tell Jasmine.’
She nods again. ‘They were crashing against the rocks.’
‘And the waves were splashing over on to the coast road in Malahide,’ he says, again in his childish voice, and I wish he would just tell me the story directly instead of relaying it like this.
‘Wow,’ I say, smiling at Zara and reaching out to her. She immediately comes to me and wraps her skinny long legs around my body and clings to me tightly. I do not have anything against Zara. Zara is lovely. No – Zara is beautiful. She is perfect in every way and I adore her. It is not Zara’s fault. It is not anybody’s fault, because nothing has happened and it is merely the annoyance of my dad making a habit of dropping by since I’ve been at home that is beginning to create something that is not there. I know this. I tell my rational self this.
‘How’s my spaghetti legs?’ I ask her, letting us into the house. ‘I haven’t seen you for an entire year!’ While I’m talking, I glance at your house. I do that a lot lately, I can’t seem to help it. It’s become a habit now, some ridiculous OCD thing where I can’t get into my car without looking across the road, or I can’t close my front door without looking, or sometimes when I pass a front window, I stop and watch. I know I need to stop. Nothing ever happens during the day time, not with you, at least; you barely surface, it’s just your wife coming and going with the kids all day. Occasionally I might see you pull a curtain open and go out to your car, but that’s it. I don’t know what I’m expecting to see.
‘Did you tell your dad that we made cupcakes together last week?’ I ask Zara.
She nods again and I realise that I’m doing exactly what Dad does. It must be frustrating for her, but I can’t seem to stop.
Dad and I talk to each other through Zara. We say things to her that we should be saying to one another, so I tell her that my electricity went off on New Year’s Eve, that I met Billy Gallagher in the supermarket and he has retired, and various other things that she doesn’t need to know. Zara pays attention for a while, but then we confuse her, and she runs off.
‘Your friend is in trouble again,’ Dad says when we’re sitting at the table with a cup of tea and biscuits left over from my enormous drawer of Christmas goodies that I’m consistently working my way through, and we watch Zara tip over the box of toys that I keep for her. The noise of Lego hitting floorboards takes away his next sentence.
‘What friend?’
