“Dad thinks I look like Peter Pan.”
“So maybe this man remembers you from the hair salon,” Frankie reasons.
“No, it felt weird from the first time at the salon. There was a…recognition or something.”
Frankie smiles. “Welcome to the world of singledom.” She turns to Kate, whose face is scrunched up in disagreement. “When’s the last time Joyce allowed herself a little flirt with someone? She’s been married for so long.”
“Please,” Kate says patronizingly to Frankie. “If you think that’s what happens when you’re married, then you’re sorely mistaken. No offense, Joyce. No wonder you’re afraid to commit.”
“I’m not afraid, I just don’t agree with it. You know, just today I was watching a makeup show—”
“Oh, here we go.”
“Shut up and listen. The makeup expert said that because the skin is so sensitive around the eye, you must apply cream with your ring finger because it is the finger with the least power.”
“Wow,” Kate says drily. “You sure have revealed us married folk to be the fools that we are.”
I rub my eyes wearily and interrupt their bickering. “I know I sound insane. I’m tired and probably imagining things where there is nothing to be imagined. The man I’m supposed to have on the brain is Conor, but he’s not. He’s really not at all. I don’t know if it’s a delayed reaction and next month I’m going to fall apart, start drinking and wear black every day—”
“Like Frankie,” Kate butts in.
“But right now, I feel nothing but relieved,” I continue. “Is that terrible?”
“Is it okay for me to feel relieved too?” Kate asks.
“You didn’t like him?” I ask sadly.
“No, he was fine. He was nice. I just hated you not being happy.”
“I hated him,” Frankie chirps up.
“We spoke briefly yesterday,” I tell them. “It was odd. He wanted to know if he could take the espresso machine.”
“The bastard,” Frankie spits.
“I really don’t care about the espresso machine. He can have it.”
“It’s mind games, Joyce. Be careful,” Frankie warns me. “First it’s the espresso machine, and then it’s the house, and then it’s your soul. And then it’s that emerald ring that belonged to his grandmother that he claims you stole but that you recall more than clearly that when you first went to his house for lunch he said, ‘Help yourself,’ and there it was.” She scowls.
I look to Kate for help.
“Her breakup with Lee.”
“Ah. Well, it’s not going to get like that.”
“Christian went for a pint with Conor last night,” Kate says. “Hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course I don’t; they’re friends. Is Conor okay?”
“Yeah, Christian said he seemed fine. He’s upset about the, you know…”
“Baby. You can say the word. I’m not going to fall apart.”
“He’s upset about the baby and disappointed the marriage didn’t work, but he thinks it’s the right thing to do. He’s going back to Japan in a few days. He also said you’re both putting the house on the market.”
“Well, we bought it together, and I don’t like being there anymore.”
“But are you sure? Where will you live?”
As a tragicee and future divorcee, you’ll also find that people will question you on the biggest decisions you’ve ever made in your life as though you hadn’t thought about them at all before—as though, through their twenty questions and dubious faces, they’re going to shine light on something that you missed the hundredth time around during your darkest hours.
“Is your dad not driving you insane?” Kate asks.
“Funnily enough, no.” I smile as I think about him. “He’s actually having the opposite effect. Though he’s only managed to call me Joyce once out of every hundred times. I’m going to stay with him until the house is sold and I find somewhere else to live.”
“You know at the hospital he told the nurse to check my bag for poteen in case I gave you any,” Kate says grumpily. “He still hates me.”
“And he still loves me,” Frankie says happily.
“I’m going to tell him the truth about what happened, the next time I see him,” Kate says, and then turns her attention back to me. “That story about the strange man…apart from him, how are you really? We haven’t seen you since the hospital, and we’ve been so worried.”
“I know. I’m sorry about that. I really appreciated you coming, though.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Okay, I didn’t then, but I do now.”
I think about how to summarize how strange things have been since the hospital.
“I eat meat now. And I drink red wine. I hate anchovies, and I listen to classical music. I particularly love The JK Ensemble on Lyric FM with John Kelly, who doesn’t play Kylie, and I don’t mind. Last night I listened to Handel’s ‘Mi restano le lagrime’ from act three, scene one, of Alcina before going to sleep, and I actually knew the words but have no idea how. I know a lot about Irish architecture, but not as much as I know about French and Italian. I’ve read Ulysses and can quote from it ad nauseam, when I couldn’t even finish the audio book before. Only today I wrote a letter to the council telling them how their cramming yet another new ugly modern block into a traditional area means that not only is the nation’s heritage seriously under threat, but the sanity of its citizens too. I thought my father was the only person who wrote strongly worded letters. That’s not such a big deal in itself, but the fact is that just two weeks ago I was excited about the prospect of showing these new properties. Today I’m particularly vexed about talk of bulldozing a hundred-year-old building in Old Town, Chicago, and so I plan to write another letter. I bet you’re wondering how I knew about that. Well, I read it in the recent edition of the Art and Architectural Review, the only truly international art and architectural publication. I’m a subscriber now.” I take a breath. “Ask me anything, because I’ll probably know the answer, and I’ve no idea how.”
Kate and Frankie are too stunned to even exchange looks.
“Maybe with the stress of constantly worrying about you and Conor over with, you’re able to concentrate on other things more,” Frankie suggests.
I consider that before continuing. “I dream almost every night about a little girl with white-blond hair who gets bigger every time. And I hear music—a song I don’t know. When I’m not dreaming about her, I have vivid dreams of places I’ve never been, foods I’ve never tasted, and strange people that I seem to know well. A picnic in a park with a woman with red hair. A man with green feet. And sprinklers.” I think hard. “Something about sprinklers.
“When I wake up, I have to remember all over again that my dreams are not real and that my reality is not a dream. I find that next to impossible, but not completely so, because Dad is there with a smile on his face and sausages in the frying pan, chasing a cat called Fluffy around the garden, and for some unknown reason hiding Mum’s photograph in the hall drawer. So after the first few moments of my waking day, when everything is crap, I try to focus on all those other things. And a man I can’t get out of my head, who I don’t even know.”
The girls’ eyes are filled, their faces a mixture of sympathy, worry, and confusion.
I don’t expect them to say anything, and so I look out to the kids again on the gymnasium floor and watch as Eric takes to the balance beam. The instructor calls out to him to do airplane arms. Eric’s face is a picture of nervous concentration. He stops walking as he slowly lifts his arms. The instructor offers words of encouragement, and a small proud smile starts to form around the boy’s mouth. He raises his eyes briefly to see if his mother is watching, and in that one moment, he loses balance and falls straight down, the beam quite unfortunately landing between his legs. His face is now one of horror.
Frankie snorts again. Eric howls. Sam starts to cry lightly in his stroller. Kate looks from one son to
the other.
“Joyce, can you take care of Sam for me?” she says in a panic, rushing to the child, who’s rolled in a ball on the floor, surrounded by the teacher and the entire gym class.
I look into the stroller at Sam, at his bright red lips wobbling with fright, tears starting to form in his worried eyes.
“He better not start screaming.” Frankie puts her hands over her ears in preparation.
I move toward Sam and begin fidgeting with the clasp on his safety straps. My heart is banging in my rib cage, and my hands are trembling so much, the buckle won’t open. Sam becomes more impatient and squirms about like a worm, his cries getting louder and attracting the attention of the other mums, mums not like me, who know exactly what to do, who watch on judgmentally.
“Oh, please stop him,” Frankie moans. “Does he want a breast or something?”
I finally manage to unlatch the straps, and Sam looks at me, tears spilling from his blue eyes, his arms up in the air, looking to be pulled out. But I can’t do it. I just can’t.
I leave.
Chapter 16
DRIVING BACK TO DAD’S, I try not to glance at my former house as I pass. My eyes lose the battle with my mind, and I see Conor’s car parked outside it. Since our final meal together a couple weeks ago we have talked a few times, each conversation varying in degrees of affection for each other. The first call came late at night the day after our dinner, Conor asking just one last time if we were doing the right thing. His slurred words and soft voice drifted in my ear as I lay on my bed in my childhood bedroom and stared at the ceiling, just as I had years ago during those all-night phone calls when we first met. Living with my father at thirty-three years of age after a failed marriage, with a vulnerable husband on the other end of the phone…it was so easy right then to remember only the good times together and to doubt our decision. But more often than not, the easy decisions are the wrong decisions, and sometimes we feel like we’re going backward when we’re actually moving forward.
The next call was a little more stern—an embarrassed apology, and a mention of something legal. The next, a frustrated inquiry into why my lawyer hadn’t replied to his lawyer yet. The next, his telling me his newly pregnant sister was going to take the crib, something that made me fly into a jealous rage as soon as I hung up and throw the phone across the room. The last was to tell me he’d boxed everything up; he was leaving for Japan in a few days. And could he have the espresso machine?
Each time I hung up the phone, I felt that my weak good-bye wasn’t a good-bye. It was more of a “see you around.” I knew that there was always a chance to back out, that he’d be around for a little while longer, that our words weren’t really final.
I pull the car over and stare up at the house we’ve lived in for almost ten years. Doesn’t it deserve more than a few weak goodbyes?
I ring the doorbell, and there’s no answer. Through the front window I can see everything in boxes, the walls naked, the surfaces bare, the stage set for the next family to move in and tread the boards. I turn my key in the door and step inside, making a noise so as not to surprise Conor if he’s here. I’m about to call his name when I hear the soft tinkle of music drifting from upstairs. I make my way up to the half-decorated nursery and find Conor sitting on the soft carpet, tears streaming down his face as he watches the musical mouse chase the cheese. I cross the room and reach for him. On the floor, I hold him close and rock him gently. I close my eyes and drift away for a moment.
He stops crying and looks up at me. “What?”
“Hmm?” I snap out of my trance.
“You said something. In Latin.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. Just there.” He dries his eyes. “Since when do you speak Latin?”
“I don’t.”
“Right,” he says sharply. “Well, what does the one phrase that you do know mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must know, you just said it.”
“Conor, I don’t recall saying anything.” He glares at me then, a look of something pretty close to hate, and I swallow hard.
“Okay.” He gets to his feet and moves toward the door. No more questions, no more trying to understand me. He no longer cares. “Patrick will be acting as my lawyer now.”
Fantastic, his shithead brother.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He stops at the door and turns round, grinding his jaw as his eyes take in the room. A last look at everything, including me, and he’s gone.
The final good-bye.
I have another restless night at Dad’s as more images flash through my mind like lightning, so fast and sharp they light up my head with an urgent bolt before they’re gone again. Back to black.
A church. Bells ringing. Sprinklers. A tidal wave of red wine. Old buildings with shop fronts. Stained glass.
A view through banisters of a man with green feet, closing a door behind him. A baby in my arms. A girl with white-blond hair. A familiar song.
A casket. Tears. Family dressed in black.
Park swings. Higher and higher. My hands pushing a child. Me swinging as a child. A seesaw. A chubby young boy raising me higher in the air as he lowers himself to the ground. Sprinklers again. Laughter. Me and the same boy in swimming togs. Suburbs. Music. Bells. A woman in a white dress. Cobbled streets. Cathedrals. Confetti. Hands, fingers, rings. Shouting. Slamming.
The man with green feet closing the door.
Sprinklers again. A chubby young boy chasing me and laughing. A drink in my hand. My head down a toilet. Lecture halls. Sun and green grass. Music.
The man with green feet outside in the garden, holding a hose in his hand. Laughter. The girl with the white-blond hair playing in the sand. The girl laughing on a swing. Bells again.
The view from the banisters of the man with green feet closing a door. A bottle in his hand.
A pizza parlor. Ice-cream sundaes.
Pills in his hand now. The man’s eyes seeing mine before the door closes. My hand on a doorknob. The door opening. Empty bottle on the ground. Bare feet with green soles. A casket.
Sprinklers. Rocking back and forth. Humming that song. Long blond hair covering my face. Whispers of a phrase…
I open my eyes with a gasp, heart drumming in my chest. The sheets are wet beneath me; my body is soaked in sweat. I fumble in the darkness for the bedside lamp. With tears in my eyes that I refuse to allow to fall, I reach for my cell phone and dial with trembling fingers.
“Conor?” My voice is shaking.
He mumbles incoherently for a little while until he awakens. “Joyce, it’s three a.m.,” he croaks.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, it’s just that, well, I—I had a dream. Or a nightmare, or maybe it was neither. There were flashes of, well…lots of places and people and things and—” I stop myself and try to focus. “Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim?”
“What?” he says groggily.
“The Latin that I said earlier, is that what I said?”
“Yeah, it sounds like it. Jesus, Joyce—”
“Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you,” I blurt out. “That’s what it means.”
He is quiet and then he sighs. “Okay, thanks.”
“Somebody told me that once. Tonight, they told me.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
Silence.
“I’m going back to sleep now.”
“Okay.”
“Are you okay, Joyce?”
“I’m fine. Perfect.” My voice catches in my throat. “Good night.”
Then he’s gone.
A single tear rolls down my cheek, and I wipe it away before it reaches my chin. Don’t start, Joyce. Don’t you dare start now.
Chapter 17
AS I MAKE MY WAY downstairs the following morning, I spy Dad placing Mum’s photograph back on the
hall table. He hears me approaching, whips out his handkerchief from his pocket, and pretends he’s dusting it.
“Ah, there she is. Muggins has risen from the dead.”
“Yes, well, the toilet flushing every fifteen minutes kept me awake for most of the night.” I kiss the top of his almost hairless head and go into the kitchen. I sniff the smoky atmosphere again.
“I’m very sorry that my prostate is bothering your sleep.” He studies my face. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“My marriage is over, and so I decided to spend the night crying,” I explain matter-of-factly, hands on hips.
He softens a bit but sticks the knife in regardless. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Yes, Dad, you’re absolutely right, the past few weeks have been every girl’s dream.”
He moves up and down, down and up, to the kitchen table, takes his usual seat in the path of the sun’s beam, props his glasses on the base of his nose, and continues his Sudoku. I watch him for a while, mesmerized by his simplicity, and then continue my sniffing mission.
“Did you burn the toast again?” He doesn’t hear me and keeps scribbling away. I check the toaster. “It’s on the right setting, I don’t understand how it’s still burning.” I look inside. No crumbs. I check the bin—no toast thrown out. I sniff the air again, grow suspicious, and watch Dad from the corner of my eye. He fidgets.
“You’re like that Fletcher woman or that Monk man from TV, snooping around. You’ll find no corpses here,” he says without looking up from his puzzle.
“Yes, but I’ll find something, won’t I?”
His head jerks up, quickly. Nervously. Aha. I narrow my eyes.
“What’s up with you?”
I ignore him and race around the kitchen, opening drawers, searching inside each one of them.
He looks worried. “Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?”
“Did you take your pills?” I ask, coming across the medicine cabinet.
“What pills?”
With a response like that, there’s definitely something up.
“Your heart pills, memory pills, vitamin pills.”