Season of Second Chances: an uplifting novel of moving away and starting over

by Aimee Alexander

  Des gets straight to the point. “What’s the best form of self-defence out there, Paddy, do you know?”

  The policeman looks at him searchingly. “D’you think he’ll be trouble?”

  “I honestly don’t know. He’s been leaving a lot of irate messages on Jack’s phone. Last night, he rang the house. I just want to be prepared. You know yourself.”

  “Of course, you do,” Paddy says like he’s seen it all before. “Was he very hard on her?” is a question between friends.

  Des sighs and looks out the window as he thinks about his little girl, his child, bearing the brunt of that man’s brutality. “She couldn’t tell me in any great detail. And I couldn’t push it,” he says looking at a car go by on the road outside. The dog rests his chin on Des’s lap and looks up at him with soulful eyes. Des rests a hand on his head.

  “It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Paddy says. “From a self-defence point of view, you’ll be wanting Krav Maga. A few of the boys have done it, here. Military units all over the world use it as well.”

  “Self-defence?”

  “Close combat. Counter assault. In Krav Maga, the attacked becomes the attacker.”

  “I might have a go of it myself!”

  Paddy takes out his phone and his glasses. He starts Googling. After a while, he looks up. “There’s a course next weekend in Dublin. Two full days, Saturday and Sunday.”

  “Dublin.” Des is unsure.

  “If you want to learn the techniques quickly that’s your best bet,” Paddy says, scrolling the site. “There are three places left.”

  Des scratches his head. Then remembers the voice of the charmer invading his home. “Sign me up, there, for the three.” Des gets out his credit card. He can always get a refund if Grace and the children are against it.

  In minutes, they have three courses booked.

  “She’ll probably kill me,” Des says.

  “She will not! I’m sure she’ll really appreciate it. She’s lucky to have you.” The policeman takes his hat from the dashboard and twists it in circles through his hands. “How are you, these days, Des?”

  “I’m well, Paddy,” he says thoughtfully. “It’s great to have the company. Before they came down, I was at a bit of a loss to be honest. Now, the house is alive. And I have a mission. I’m going to make up for not being there when they needed me.”

  “Ah, now. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Weren’t you way down here with a busy practice? And weren’t they way up there? And… you didn’t know.”

  “No. But if I’d gone up at weekends….”

  “He wouldn’t have made you welcome. Or he’d have organised for the family to be elsewhere. I know how these men work. You were the port in their storm. They’re here now with you, making a home.” Paddy glances at the dog. “How are they getting on?”

  Des cheers. “I can’t get over them, Paddy. After all they’ve been through, they’re great people. Just great. I get prouder of them every day.” His voice fills with emotion. “Jack is angry, of course, and worried his father will show up, but he’s managing it. Holly is the most determined little thing. She’s inspiring. I think they’ll be okay, Paddy. As long as that thug stays away.”

  “And Grace?”

  “Is my hero.”

  Paddy smiles. “How about an auld pint, one of these days?”

  “A pint would be grand – maybe when they’re up in Dublin at the self-defence.” If they go…

  “I’ll tell you what. Let’s pop in to the Coffee Cove for lunch before then.”

  Des smiles. “It’s a date.”

  34

  Grace is dashing out to the Coffee Cove for a toastie when, passing reception, she realises that she has never seen Myra take a break. She’s a permanent fixture at reception like the clock above her head.

  “Myra, aren’t you taking lunch?”

  The receptionist glances at Dr. O’Malley’s door and lowers her voice. “I have to stay in case the doctor needs me.” She holds up a brown paper bag. “I have a sandwich.”

  “You’re entitled to a lunch break, though. I’ll talk to Dr. O’Malley if you like.” He’s going to love that – Grace rocking the boat again.

  But Myra’s eyes widen and she holds up her hands. “Oh, no, no. He doesn’t ask me to stay. I just… should.”

  Wrong. “It’d be good to clear your head, though, wouldn’t it?” However much she wanted to, Grace herself, couldn’t keep going.

  Myra looks like she’s in pain. “Yeah but if he needed to go out, there’d be no one holding the fort.”

  “Couldn’t he ring you if he’s desperate? Anywhere in the village and you’d be back in five minutes.”

  Myra starts pinging the hairband around her wrist. “What about the patients who’d arrive in? Who’d sign them in?”

  It’s a novel concept but: “Themselves?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be comfortable,” she says, looking… uncomfortable.

  Grace is starting to feel like this is one she’s not going to win. She’s just stressing Myra out. “Okay. Well, you know what to do if you change your mind. Just pop the list up on the counter with a note.”

  Myra breaths out in relief looking as if the very thought of a break would be torture.

  Wayne Hill’s swab has grown staph aureus, the bacteria most commonly associated with wound infections. This is good news. It means that the antibiotic Grace prescribed on Tuesday has been working away and he won’t need to take the ferry across to Killrowan for a new script. Grace could just text him the news. Given his experience of the practice, though, she needs to go one better. A call with the scientific name of the bug might reassure him he’s not dealing with amateurs. Anyway, she wants to check how he is managing with the wound care.

  He answers after three rings.

  “Hello?” he shouts over the sound of the wind.

  She should just have texted. “Hi, hi. It’s Dr. Sullivan.”

  “Not Grace?”

  She smiles. “Grace. Can you get out of the wind at all? I can hardly hear you.” She realises she’s shouting herself.

  “Sure. Hang on.” There’s a (wind-filled) pause. Then blissful silence. “Any better?”

  “Much.” She gives him the staph aureus news.

  “Best news I’ve had all day. Only news I’ve had all day.”

  She finds herself smiling again. “How are you getting on with the dressings?”

  “Good. I’m calling myself Nurse Hill. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself when it heals. It’ll be like not having to make up babies’ bottles anymore.”

  A silence falls as they both remember what happened to that baby, that little boy.

  “So. Yeah. Steady as she goes,” he rushes to fill the gap. “The swelling has gone down. So has the redness. And it’s not as sore.”

  “That sounds very good alright. Why don’t you come back to me this day week and, all going well, I’ll remove the sutures.”

  “Can’t wait,” he deadpans.

  “I’ll give you a Disney Band-Aid.”

  “Can I have two?”

  “If you’re good!”

  He laughs. And she is so, so glad.

  “I better go, here.”

  “Okay, I’ll get back to the wind and the bleakness and the solitude.”

  “Just stay away from barbed wires.”

  “Mention barbed wires one more time….”

  “And?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  Smiling, she hangs up.

  35

  Saturday morning, Grace wakes with the rising sun. A sky of pinks and blues calls to her. She hurries into her clothes and down the stairs. Benji jumps to his feet, wagging his tail as if to say, “Wherever you’re going, I’m coming too.” Grace takes out her phone and googles: “Do border collies like water?” She follows that up with, “Do border collies retrieve?”

  “Wow.” Not only do they love to do both but they can be trained to rescue people from drowning,
even jumping from rescue helicopters to do so. “We are going to Barleycove, my friend!” she tells Benji.

  She places an old towel in the back of the Jeep. She looks at Benji wondering if he’ll jump or if he needs to be lifted. With a bark of excitement, he leaps right in.

  “Good boy!”

  The drive to the beach, alone, is a treat. So much sky. Inlets of Caribbean blue. Headlands of green with grey, limestone edgings. Tiny fields dotted with black and white cows. Occasional sheep. Windy roads. Soaring birds. All bathed in a pinky glow.

  In the deserted carpark, Grace jumps from the Jeep with the energy of a child. Facing the sea, she closes her eyes and inhales the uplifting air of this place. There is something very special about Barleycove. It’s food for the soul.

  Grace opens the door for Benji, who leaps out, sniffs the air and barks. She half-expects him to bolt for the sea. Instead, he trots obediently by her side as she takes off along the wooden beach path. Feeling a new energy, she breaks into a run. Reaching the pontoon footbridge that crosses the small estuary, Grace slows. She has always loved this bridge, which rises and falls according to the height of the water. Halfway across, she jumps up and down so that it bounces. Benji barks, making her laugh. She feels years fall away.

  Over the dunes, pockmarked with rabbit holes, they go. And then it is there in all its glory, her favourite beach in the world. White sand stretching left and right. And the sea coming in between two headlands.

  She runs down the dunes to the beach. Benji decides it’s a race and takes off, barking. She glances around for a stick for him and has to walk a bit before finding one. She’ll have to buy him a ball.

  She takes off her shoes and socks and rolls up her jeans.

  The water is like ice on her feet. Which just makes her feel alive. Would it be crazy to go for a swim? She didn’t bring her togs. The towel is for Benji. And the water is Arctic.

  She starts to undress. Swimming was a passion curtailed by the strategic placement of bruises. Her thighs were his favourite. He didn’t want her to venture anywhere in a state of semi-undress, especially without him. She could have met and gone off with anyone. (If he actually knew her at all, he wouldn’t have worried; the last thing she’d have wanted was to risk life with another man.)

  One by one, she drops her clothes onto the sand like a mini-rebellion. The old her would have folded them.

  Looking at her thighs, she promises them: “From now on, you’ll be two colours only – white or tan. If you go blue, it’ll be from the cold.”

  Down to her underwear, she scans the beach, then the road in the middle distance. For now, they’re empty. She thinks of how appalled Simon would be if she stripped naked, then does exactly that and runs into the sea, screaming at the cold. Benji races alongside her, barking and leaping through the water until he is out of his depth when he swims beside her, glancing at her every so often, like a canine bodyguard. Then she is swimming too with great strong strokes, plunging her face into the water and out again. She can’t remember when she last felt so alive.

  Finally, she has to come out or die.

  Opting for dog hair over hypothermia, she swipes up Benji’s towel with an apology, shakes off sand and wraps herself in it. Semi-dry, she hurries into her clothes. Raising her fists to the sky, she calls to the horizon, “Go me. Go me. Go me.” She laughs.

  Benji is looking up at her and barking, then looking at the sea. He wants more?

  Fully dressed, partially numb, Grace fires the stick out as far as she can. He bounds in after it, jumping waves until he’s swimming. He snatches the stick out of the water, turns and comes paddling back to her.

  “Where did we get you?” He really does feel like a miracle. She worries that he’ll get too cold, though. “Ten times, max,” she promises.

  Finally, she dries him off with the damp towel. And they sit together staring out to sea. Her teeth are chattering. Her fingers are blue. But Grace is not moving from this spot. Right now, staring at the horizon, she feels so free. Her headaches have gone. Her breath is easy. Her body no longer feels like it’s going to snap with tension. Her jaw is relaxed again and she has stopped grinding her teeth at night. Grace is shocked to realise the full effect that Simon has had on her body alone.

  Little things about him start to flood her mind. The vigorous way he brushed and flossed his teeth. The way he farted when he woke. The way he peered into his illuminated magnifying mirror as he plucked his eyebrows. He chomped. Why is she only realising now how much she hated all those things?

  The answer comes easily. When she was with him, it was all about what she was doing wrong, how she was irritating him. He made her feel lucky to be with him. There were actually times when she believed that she didn’t deserve him. Now, she wonders if all his putdowns were a smokescreen to distract her from his own faults. Did he knock her to elevate himself? She’d believe that of him – easily – if he wasn’t so in love with himself.

  Why is she still thinking about him?

  Because she has to figure it all out. Why he did it. Why she stayed. She was a confident person when they met. How did she let him erode that away? It started with looks, looks that began with pregnancy, looks that implied she was no longer attractive, no longer desirable. In public, he cut across her, talked over her, answered for her. At first, she called him on it as soon as they were alone, but his anger was such that it became easier to say nothing, to let things go. She didn’t want to distress the baby she was carrying, the baby she was responsible for.

  She thought that things would improve once Jack was born. In fact, they got worse. And she was so tired. So shattered, really, that she turned into herself, focusing on her little chubby-cheeked, round-eyed boy – who loved her unconditionally. After that, it became about the children and keeping her husband from exploding. Slowly but surely, the person that Grace was began to slip away.

  What she doesn’t understand is that he wanted kids. And he loved them. Why did her becoming a mother turn him against her? Was he jealous that he had to share her? Just as he had always been jealous of other men. Maybe it wasn’t just the pregnancy. Maybe that’s just when he ramped things up – when she was at her most vulnerable. Before that? Yes, he had been controlling. But he had never physically hurt her. She’ll have to read up on this. Buy books online – not at the local bookshop or library. The main thing is, she needs to know, needs to understand, and maybe someday forgive herself.

  Benji nuzzles into her like he senses her pain. He smells like wet dog. Which makes two of them. She kisses the top of his head, treasuring his comforting presence and unconditional love. Her throat burns, remembering her other beloved Benji. Dogs are simply the best.

  Finally, aware that Des and the children will be getting up soon, she drags herself away.

  Coming out from the carpark, heat blasting, Grace waits for a car to pass. It’s a muddy Volkswagen Passat Estate. She raises her hand in greeting. But Fred Cronin doesn’t see her, laughing as he is with the person beside him. Wait! Was that Myra? Grace slaps the steering wheel with a, “Ha!”

  36

  Arriving back in the village, Grace lowers a window for Benji, then nips into the Coffee Cove for scones for Des. The estate agent next door is opening up when she hurries out, armed with confectionary. She glances at the properties in the window, then at the Jeep. She really needs to start looking at what’s available. Benji will be okay for a few more minutes.

  The door pings as she scoots inside.

  An attractive woman in her thirties comes up to the counter and smiles. “How can I help?”

  Grace leans on the counter, accidentally sprinkling it with grains of sand. “I’m looking for somewhere to let… three bedrooms,” Grace says, working out her priorities as she goes. Here’s a big one: “Nowhere too isolated. Ideally, something in the village.” Surrounded by people.

  “Hmm,” the estate agent says, tapping her pen against the counter like this is a big ask. “How soon would you need the p
roperty?”

  “Well, I have a few weeks yet.” Unless the unexpected happens and a maintenance payment comes in.

  “Let me take your details in case something comes up. In the meantime, I’ll give you a few brochures for the closest properties I have to what you’re looking for.”

  Grace leaves with five brochures, all for homes at least five miles outside the village – and all isolated. She tries to be positive. At least, she has started to look. She breaks off a piece of scone and lobs it back to Benji who snatches it out of the air like a pro.

  She arrives home with scones, brochures and a damp and sandy dog. Everyone’s at the table having breakfast, the children still in their pyjamas.

  “Were you at the beach?” Holly asks. “You should have woken me up!”

  “I will next time – now that I have your official permission,” Grace smiles.

  “Did you actually swim?” Jack asks, glancing at her damp hair.

  “Yup,” she says proudly. “Who’s for scones and croissants?”

  “Ah, a woman after me own heart,” Des says.

  She flings the brochures down on the worktop, pours water for Benji, washes her hands and puts the scones out on a plate.

  Jack’s hand moves at supersonic speed.

  Des looks at him fondly.

  Grace makes a coffee and joins them at the table.

  “Will you make sure I’m up early for Mass tomorrow,” Holly says to her, sounding borderline anxious. “I’ve joined the choir.”

  Jack laughs.

  “Good woman!” Grace says, hiding her surprise. Holly has only ever sung in the shower. And not very often. There wasn’t much singing in their house of tension. “Jack are you coming to Mass to hear your sister?”

  “I’ve hurling training,” he rushes.

  “I thought that was today,” Grace says.

  “It is – with the school. Club hurling is tomorrow. My coach said to show up.”

  “You’ll probably need a stick.”