Forgotten Girl

by Naomi Jacobs

  ‘Actually, it makes you hungrier; it’s your hunger hormone.’

  This was all brand new to me. ‘So . . . ?’ I hoped he had the answer.

  ‘So if you stop beating yourself up for every mistake you make and talk to yourself with respect, this will produce oxytocin and serotonin, your feel-good hormones, and these will help your brain deal with stress and, in turn, decrease your hunger and cravings.’

  ‘Okay.’ I was listening hard now.

  ‘And, of course, meditation or exercise produces those hormones as well. They are the most powerful stress relievers and effective antidepressants – way, way better than drugs.’ He looked at me proudly, as if he had just given me the answer to the meaning of life itself.

  ‘Okay and what’s this got to do with my ex-boyfriends?’

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest. Don’t ask me about relationships; I’m still figuring out why I’m getting married.’

  He picked up the leather boxing gloves and tossed them over to me.

  ‘Well, you said some of them smoked, right? Or drank excessively or took drugs?’ Gary asked.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve scraped the bottom of the broken barrel with some of my choices in boyfriends,’ I said, putting the gloves back on.

  ‘So, maybe if you took care of yourself a bit more and learned how to love being healthy, then maybe you’ll meet a man who does also, and if he does, then he’d be naturally happier, and in turn you would be too. Happy people are infectious.’ He grinned and held on to the punchbag.

  I thought for a moment, Learn to love being healthy. I knew people had been doing it for hundreds of years, but it was a completely new concept to me.

  ‘Exercise regularly, whether it’s a twenty-minute walk to the shop or a swim in your local pool and, well, watch: things will start to change, especially your mind.’ He pulled the punchbag over to me.

  And in that moment, I decided that the negative self-talk just had to stop. I wasn’t going to beat myself up anymore. Instead, as I punched the bag, I thought about the simple concept of learning to love being healthy. It was a light-bulb moment for me and it lit up my healing mind.

  I passed my final exams with flying colours and graduated with first-class honours. I finished my twelve steps and left Anna proud that I had completed the programme. I was ready to see what a life without drugs was like. Rosalyn noticed the positive changes in me and started to talk about discharging me, how I no longer needed support from social services. And I was making progress with Maria, examining my relationship with myself, the ways in which I was turning it from a dysfunctional into a healthy one. We spoke at length about my female relationships, particularly with Eve and Simone, and ways in which I could positively work through my feelings, reconciling past events with the present, finding healing in the work I was doing now.

  Life could be lived if I took small steps, one day at a time: little goals to focus on and small rewards if they were achieved. This was my existence and it was all I felt like I could manage.

  I began to believe that if I remained like this, then things would get better and eventually I would become the person Teen Nay knew I could be.

  The true me.

  And then, one day, I received a phone call that changed everything.

  Again.

  16

  Forgiveness

  Forgiveness is the fragrance

  that the violet sheds

  on the heel

  that has crushed it.

  MARK TWAIN

  It was a mid-October day and Leo was at Simone’s for the weekend. Although I still wasn’t speaking to her, I didn’t want to stop them seeing each other. I had decided to use the time to catch up on the housework and was elbow-deep in soapy water washing the dishes when Leo called me.

  ‘Hiya, mate,’ I answered. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Simone’s moving to Dubai,’ he blurted out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah, she said that she’s moving to the Middle East. To work in a school. And I can go and visit her anytime I want.’

  ‘Oh, wow.’ I was so shocked I hardly knew what I was saying. ‘Um, that’s so cool.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He seemed happy.

  ‘When is she leaving?’

  ‘Errr, hang on.’ I heard a muffled sound from the phone. ‘She said next week.’

  I almost dropped the phone. ‘Really?’ I strained my throat, trying to hide the lump forming.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s great, isn’t it, mate?’ I didn’t know what else to say other than to focus on how he felt about it.

  ‘I can’t wait to go.’

  ‘What are you doing now?’ I changed the subject.

  ‘I’m having my dinner and then I’m gonna go and play at Tom’s house.’

  ‘Cool. Well, I’ll see you when you get home tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay, Mum. Love you, bye.’

  ‘Bye, son, love you too,’ I whispered.

  I stared into the ‘soft as your face’ bubbles floating across the murky dishwater, three thoughts hop-stepping my emotions into a frenzy: I can’t believe she’s leaving me, I can’t believe she’s going so far, and How dare she leave Eve here alone in Manchester, with no other next of kin but me. The overwhelming sense of abandonment produced an anger that threatened to swallow me up and I wanted to smash every dish in the sink. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. In my mind, it was going to play out like the Sandra Bullock movie where she ends up in rehab, eventually reconciling her addiction and healing the damage she has caused. Eve was going to play Sandra’s character and I was going to receive a phone call from her therapist saying she wanted to have family therapy with me and Simone and we would get to air all our grievances and heal some of the wounds caused by her alcoholism and destructive behaviour.

  Simone’s decision to move abroad was a big wake-up call. That Hollywood Happy Ending was never going to happen. I felt like that helpless teenager again, whose sister had gone to Malta, leaving me to deal with Eve and our fractured relationship. Over the past few months, keeping my distance from them both had given me some sense of power or control over the situation. And now, within a heartbeat, that power had been taken away. Although I wasn’t speaking to her, I had thought at some point that things would eventually go back to normal. Now I wondered whether they ever would.

  A couple of days later I received an email from my sister explaining why she was going and that she loved me and would miss me, and because I was angry, I wrote back wishing her well, remaining resolute in my conviction that not speaking to her would be the best thing for me. But it seemed like a more powerful force was at work as the Internet crashed and the message wouldn’t go, so instead I sat with Maria, and cried to her about how abandoned and angry I felt being left with the ‘sick’ mother and how I felt as though I had no choice but to be there for her if she needed me. All sorts of extreme scenarios were crowding my mind. If Eve was sober now, I didn’t trust that she was going to stay that way for any positive amount of time. I envisioned her wandering the streets drunk and hurt like the last time I saw her and me being the only person left to deal with that. I didn’t want it. I did not want that to be my reality, but at the same time, felt such an immense guilt for not wanting to be there for my mother, even though the situation was so potentially destructive to me.

  In her calm and reassuring way, Maria helped me deconstruct my thoughts, to see my sister and my mother as separate entities and not this malevolent force that had always been against me since childhood, against me growing into the person I had always wanted to be. I also had – for the first time – to sincerely try and deal with, and work past, my feelings of envy towards Simone, especially her ability to just pick up and leave and travel the world or work somewhere new and exciting. Where I was left to deal with an unknown future.

  Why did she always seem to have it so easy? Opportunities just seemed to fall into her lap and
present her with amazing adventures. She had good credit, she held down a secure job, she had a pension, and a great group of friends that loved her for being her, and now she was going to work in a glamorous city and leave me to fend for myself.

  The amount of negative emotion entangled in these beliefs was going to take more than one therapy session to unravel. However, Maria helped me begin to see Simone for the human being she was, the compassionate woman and daughter who just wanted to help her mother as best she could and provide her with the help and support to get sober. She wasn’t just a sister, there for me to rely on in times of need, or an aunty to take care of her nephew when I needed a break. She was her own person, with her own fears and hopes and dreams, and she was trying her best, just as much as any other person, given the emotional tools she had accumulated in life.

  Maria allowed me to see that being a source of support and watching what I had been through all of her life must have taken its toll on Simone, providing her with no small degree of guilt at being the sister who didn’t experience it, but witnessed it nonetheless. For so long, I had been the one telling everybody my siblings hadn’t understood my upbringing because they hadn’t experienced the mother I’d had. They’d got the mother that played with them, baked cakes with them, treated them like children, and allowed them to enjoy their youth. This, in my opinion, hadn’t been my experience, and I had come to the conclusion that it was difficult – almost impossible – for them to reconcile such a marked difference in our experiences. I had always felt like the odd one out, the rejected child who got blamed for everything while they hadn’t even known or seen that side of my mother. That is, all of them except Simone. A sister who, for a long time, had dealt with the effects of that adversity and never really complained and now she, in her love for the mother she had, was trying her best to help and heal her own experience of the past.

  I’d never really thought about my sister’s side of things until Maria pointed this entire truth out to me. I left her room that day feeling at peace with my sister leaving, even though I knew I was heading for an intense period of grieving because we were finally coming to the end of an era I had wanted to end for so long. Eve, my sister and I had been struggling to let go of a pattern for so many years – the alcoholic co-dependant triangle. This was her bid for independence and leaving was a testament to her needing that as much as it was a reflection of me needing to work things out on my own. I had to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t only men I turned to, looking for rescue when I was in crisis, but my sister too, and I had to let go of her as well as the men. When I left my session with Maria, I realized that I was about to get what I had asked for. It just hadn’t come the way I’d expected it to.

  Still, I didn’t know what to say to Simone and found myself unable to pick up the phone. It had been eight months since I had heard her voice. But luckily she phoned me the night before she left for Dubai and our conversation confirmed everything that had come to light with Maria.

  ‘Hiya, babe,’ she said softly.

  ‘Hi, Sim.’ I couldn’t hide the sadness from my voice.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’ No, I wasn’t, and as much as I wanted to be happy for her, I needed to be honest and voice my unhappiness. ‘No, I’m not, Simone, but I will be.’

  ‘I know, girl. I just need to go, Naomi.’ Her voice wavered. ‘I need a break, Nay. I just wanted to go anywhere, a holiday cruise, just two weeks in a tropical paradise, anywhere where I could just look after me and focus on me for a while. You know, work out what I want for myself. And then this job came up and I got an interview and it’s my chance to get away, you know?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I thought back to Egypt and Teen Nay’s driving need to get away and find out who she, who I really was. I understood.

  ‘Not that there is anything wrong, per se, with the old me.’ She laughed. ‘You know, in essence, I am still the same person. Dizzy, loving, loud, opinionated!’

  I smiled and wiped my tears.

  ‘But I still care; I’m still compassionate and empathetic, although I can be a gob shite.’ I burst out laughing at this. ‘And I know I can be indecisive, moody, and honest . . . sometimes too honest.’ She laughed.

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed, but it was also one thing I loved about her; you always needed one person in your life who wasn’t afraid to be honest with you and that person for me was Simone.

  ‘But you’re going.’ More tears started to form.

  ‘I know, hun, but when I was driving back from dropping my friends at the airport early one morning I was overwhelmed with panic, trying to figure out how I would get the money together to go on a break somewhere on the other side of the world. I prayed for God to please give me a sign. I started the car and the radio came on and that song came on, you know?’ And she started singing the Crystal Waters song about leaving her job, her car and home and going to a destination unknown, in a high-pitched, off-key voice.

  I continued to laugh. I knew the song, so I sang along as if the X Factor judges themselves were watching me. She joined in, and we both sang the whole song together down the phone to each other and then creased up laughing. It reminded me of when we were little and we’d sit in the bathroom (we thought the acoustics made us sound like Whitney Houston) and belt out songs. The tears stopped and I realized wherever she went in the world, we would always have a true unbreakable sisterly bond that, no matter how much time had passed or how much distance between us, would always be there.

  ‘Babe, it’s just that I’ve been supporting you from a young age, and I feel like I need to do something for myself now. We’ve fought like cats and dogs and annoyed each other forever, but I always have and always will love you throughout our ups and downs.’

  ‘I know.’ She was right, even if it hurt to hear it.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, if God came to me today and said, Simone, if you like, you can go back and change anything about your life in regard to supporting your sister and nephew, I would say no and thank him for tasking me with loving and guiding you and Leo. But I just have to have some time out mentally, emotionally and physically. There are so many people out there who are unofficial carers, who don’t recognize themselves as a carer because they support their husband, wife, sister, brother, cousin, aunt, uncle, or parent, you know? And I’ve been a carer providing support in all forms without involving hospitals or mental health services, and I’ve done this from a place of love, but I have to start looking after myself without feeling guilt and frustration. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Sim, I do.’ I thought about the conversation Maria and I had had and knew she was right. She needed to do this for herself, and I identified with her because I knew I needed the same thing.

  ‘So Dubai, then?’ I wiped my tears again. I was happy for her and I wanted my voice to reflect it.

  ‘Yep. I’ve got a job teaching young girls emotional literacy.’

  ‘Tree hugging. YAY!!’ I squealed.

  ‘I think it will give me the time out I need; it’s come at the right time. I know you and Mum are healing and my nephew is developing and growing into an amazing young man. I can move away, knowing he is now big enough for me to continue to love and support him mentally, emotionally and spiritually and be Aunty Simone from anywhere I am in the world.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So, will you come to the airport and say goodbye tomorrow?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Nice one and, Nay . . .’ She paused. I knew what she was going to say. ‘I love you very much.’

  ‘I love you too, Simone.’

  I put the phone down, sad but happy that she had been able to say what she needed to say and I’d got to say what I needed to say. Through tears and sobs, underneath everything, I’d just wanted her to know that I loved her. And although it was going to take me time to figure it all out, I’d been able to wish her all the best on her journey and let her know I understood why she needed to make it.

  I also ne
eded to thank her for all of her support, for everything she did for Leo and me throughout the amnesia. I didn’t for a minute think what that must have been like, to be at work one day and have your sister’s friend call you and tell you your sister had lost her memory and was fifteen again. Maria had pointed out that Simone had dealt with it ‘very maturely’ and that maybe I needed to practise a little compassion for her experience. I also needed to let go of all of the times I’d called her the ‘Golden Child’ when I was younger, always seeing her life as so much more privileged than mine. With Maria’s help, I was coming to realize that when you start to see your own worth, you stop comparing yourself to others, seeing instead their humanness and their own pain and their need to heal it as well.

  The next day Art drove over from Liverpool. It was nice to see him, and I gave him a big hug when he stepped through my front door.

  ‘You okay?’ He was a man of few words, my dad (Simone got her stoicism from him), but I knew from the look on his face that he was concerned about me.

  ‘No . . . I mean, yeah.’ I was conflicted: on the one hand I was still sad about Simone leaving, but on the other hand seeing my dad made me realize that I wasn’t on my own in all of this.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’ He pulled out his bag of tobacco from the pocket of his windbreaker coat and beckoned for me to follow outside. When I used to smoke it was a ritual of ours to have a cigarette together outside while putting the world to rights. Even though I’d stopped smoking I missed those snatched times together and joined him anyway.

  ‘Aren’t you gonna miss her, Dad?’

  ‘No, I’m glad she’s going, getting out of this country.’

  ‘It’s not that bad here!’

  He pursed his lips, shook his head and took a pull of his rolled cigarette. ‘I don’t know, Nay, we’re heading into a recession; she’s leaving at the right time.’

  ‘But it’s the Middle East; why does she have to go so far? I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.’