life is a clear, high-pixel image and the next, it’s grainy, less focused.
The day it happened, the seventh of December 2014, had been a normal day – nothing unusual about it. A band of low Arctic pressure produced the sort of cold that froze my fingers through gloves and numbed my toes through sheepskin-lined boots. The winter sky – a perfect, crisp blue – was marred only by wispy white plane trails latticing through it.
Theo and I were on the Irish coffee stall at the Christmas fair all afternoon – the most dreadful baristas, unable to produce a straight line of cream along the top of the coffee and a little too liberal with the alcohol. It was the season of goodwill. Fairy lights flashed: home-made crackers with loo-roll centres were snapped; high-pitched carols were sung; crumbling, puff-pastry mince pies were trodden into the polished parquet floor of the school hall, and the heady scent of festive cinnamon and cloves filled the air.
I remember it being a fun-filled afternoon.
When I got home, I flicked the kettle on and turned the thermostat up. I sat a while, my hands wrapped around a cup of black tea, staring into the garden in the fading light, my feet tucked up underneath me. Much as I loved her, days without Rose were precious. I had so little time to myself that merely sitting, being, just the act of doing nothing was a joy. Right up until the moment the doorbell rang, it’s the ‘ordinary-ness’ of that day that I recall.
When the door pinged, I still didn’t stir – not until I heard Doug’s voice through the letterbox. Then I leapt from my seat.
‘Jess. It’s Doug. Can you open the door?’
I made my way to the hall, heard him moving about in the porch; foot to foot. Doug has not come to my door for a very long time.
From my jacket pocket, my mobile phone trilled. Seeing his number, I realized he would have heard it ring too.
‘Open the door, Jess. It’s important.’
I answered the phone and hung up immediately.
‘What do you want?’ I spoke through the four solid panels.
‘I need to speak to you. Please.’ His voice seemed to break on the last word and I opened the latch.
Doug, my ex-husband, the man whom I apparently ‘strangled with my love’ was standing there, shivering.
‘Can I come in?’
I looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Carol, his wife, there.
‘What do you want, Doug?’ I repeated.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked again.
And that was the moment. I made the mistake of looking in his eyes; the cobalt-blue eyes that Anna, our only child, had inherited from him. One generation later, Rose has those same eyes too. That was the split moment – between what was, and what would be. His next words tapped a slow, rhythmic beat in my head; each one etching itself on my brain like a permanent tattoo. And something happens when the body is forced to hear unwanted tidings; life-changing, cruel words. Adrenaline charges to the extremities, willing the frame to stay standing, despite the urge to fold; willing the heart to keep beating, despite the urge to snap into hundreds of tiny fragments.
My knees buckled at right angles – my entire body felled. An instant sweat oozed from my pores, seeping through to my fingertips. Fear choked me, as I fell into Doug’s arms, as his familiar scent washed over me. And, in an instant, the world, as I knew it, was different.
Ten Weeks Later – Friday, 13 February 2015
I wake to the taste of salt on my lips. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the early morning light; my mind takes a little longer to realize that I’ve been crying in my sleep. With a glance at the neon clock by my bedside, my damp lashes blink. It’s useless – I won’t fall asleep again.
My limbs stiff, I climb slowly out of bed before crossing the landing to check the room opposite. She’s there, fast asleep. I resist the urge to touch her, to rest the back of my fingers on her forehead. It’s a habit; a throwback, I think, to when she had pleurisy as a baby and we failed to spot the temperature early.
Her breathing is soft, regular and rhythmic as a slow beat on a metronome, her chest rising and falling under the duvet. She turns onto her stomach, faces away from me, one hand stretched in a curve above her head, the other falling over the side of the bed. I take her arm and tuck it in beside her.
Next along the landing is Anna’s room. I grab a pillow from her bed and, clutching it tight to me, take the stairs down slowly. Soon, the coffee machine clucks, promising my morning nectar.
I fill Rose’s lunch box. It’s the last day of school before the half-term break and something tells me she’ll wake early, excited at the fact that today means no lessons, lots of playtime fun, not to mention the holiday … School closes early, so it’s just a snack; just one slice of bread, lightly buttered and sliced in two, a piece of ham inside. Crusts removed. She hates crusts. A satsuma – the easy-peeling sort – and a bottle of water.
I stop my hands moving; wonder, if I turn the television on, will it halt the onset of what I just feel in my bones is a bad day. Before I know it, my hand is on a nearby photo frame. I don’t even look at it, instead raise my arm and hurl it across the room. It takes on a Frisbee-like flight, landing, where I must have hoped it would, on a sofa three metres away. I walk from the kitchen to the other side of the room that stretches across the back of my narrow house. There should be a dining table here. Instead, there’s a leather armchair and a frayed, unloved, tatty two-seater that Anna and I rescued from a skip with great intentions of reupholstering it. Slumping down into it, I run the palm of my hand over its ancient fabric, feel its bobbly surface. I reach for the tossed frame, clutch it to my chest, before releasing it to my lap – image facing down.
I pick up the phone and dial a familiar number. ‘Tell me not to smash the photos. Remind me I would really regret it.’
‘Jess, it’s six a.m.’
‘I’m sorry. Tell me. Please.’
‘Ok-ay.’ Leah clears her throat and I imagine her sitting up in bed, Gus grunting an objection beside her. ‘Leave the photos alone, do not break anything; you will regret it.’
‘Right.’ I clutch the silver frame tighter. I don’t need to look. It was taken on a camping holiday in France the summer Anna was fourteen, the summer she discovered boys.
Leah tries hard to stifle a yawn. ‘I would’ve called you in another hour.’
‘I know.’
‘Happy Birthday, big sis. You going to be okay?’
I giggle, a small ironic sound. ‘Sure I will. I’m sorry for waking you. Apologize to Gus. See you later.’
I hang up the phone, stroke the back of the picture frame. Today is my forty-eighth birthday. It is also her twenty-fifth birthday. Twenty-five years ago, she shot into this world with the speed of a firing gun. But for a midwife with advanced catching skills, she would have flown off the bed, hanging by the cord that still joined us.
