The waitress arrives with our coffees and we both mumble a hurried thank you, then Sylvia continues as soon as she has gone.
‘My husband left me for one of my own friends,’ she says. ‘My very best friend.’
‘Oh God, Sylvia. I’m sorry.’
‘I came home from work one day with a migraine. My father had just died and my husband, Michael, had been nursing me through the grief that comes with losing a parent. He was the most adoring husband, the apple of my eye and we were trying for a baby.’
‘Sounds familiar… Jeff was so attentive and loving to me too.’
‘Well, exactly,’ says Sylvia. ‘I saw my life-long friend Christine in my kitchen as I pulled into my driveway and I will never forget the look on her face when I caught her eye through the window. At first I thought she had popped round to do some chores or shopping as she was so worried about me, but I knew she had no key to get inside.’
‘My God…’
‘I walked into my own home and my husband came down the stairs in his bathrobe. His look and her look said it all. I ran out of the house and I never went back. Will Powers Sr was a friend of Michael’s and he took me under his wing and gave me a new start, a fresh start. A chance to find the new me. But first I had to take some time out and rest my heart and mind.’
I take a sip of my coffee but it tastes bitter. Sylvia just stares at hers. I take a deep breath.
‘You are not the same person who worked for us a few months ago, Maggie, and you never will be,’ she says. ‘I see so much of myself in you. You need to take this time to readjust and decide what you want to do next with your life.’
‘Okay…’
‘Do it for you, just you,’ she says. ‘Don’t rush back and try and slot in to how it used to be. It is not how it used to be. Sure, your job can help distract you and get you by, but from my own experience, I think after such a shock and life-changing thing to happen, you should have a rest, have a holiday, go away and do something that’s just for you, something that will help you know if it’s here that you really even want to come back to. You might find that it isn’t, and you might find that it is, but give yourself a chance to find out.’
We sit in silence for a few moments.
Sylvia has said what she has had to say and I can’t really argue with her since she actually does know what I am going through.
‘I wanted to have a family,’ I tell her, and here we go with the waterworks. ‘I was trying to have a baby too and now she is having his baby. He was my husband.’
Sylvia nods in empathy and then smiles.
‘Lift that chin up, Maggie O’Hara,’ she says. ‘Look at you! You are beautiful, you are intelligent, you are funny. You have so much going for you. Don’t let one man kill your soul. Don’t give him that power.’
‘Please don’t say there are plenty of fish in the sea,’ I joke with her. ‘I never want to go fishing again.’
‘Well, I did go fishing again, eventually,’ Sylvia tells me with a shy giggle. ‘Sooner than you would have thought, actually, but then life has a funny way of leading us in different directions. Sean and I have been married now for ten years and our twins were born a year after we met.’
I want to tell Sylvia about Lucy Harte. I want to tell her about my brother, John Joe, and his grand entrance back into my life. I want to tell her about the bucket list and how I chickened out last night with Simon because I am so, so afraid of where it is going to take me.
But I don’t need to tell her anything more because she has already helped me more than she will ever know. I need to wise up and get back to Lucy’s list and let it take me forwards instead of going backwards.
I’m so sorry, Lucy, I say as I walk down the city street after our coffee. I am sorry for leaving you and for being such a self-centred asshole. I am taking your advice. I am not afraid of change and I am going to start with a mighty-fine new haircut.
Chapter 19
I am giddy with excitement as I check in for my flight at Belfast International Airport, especially when I don’t recognise my own reflection in the mirrored wall as I pass it.
I did what Lucy never got to do. I had a damn good haircut and it feels like a weight has been, quite literally, lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in years, I went to a strange salon in the city instead of going to Flo because I was so afraid of changing my mind.
‘I like your tattoo,’ the hairdresser told me and I held my thumb over the little heart and rubbed it gently as I breathed in and out in preparation for my new look.
I love the new tattoo, now that I am sober enough to appreciate it. I have made my peace with Lucy again but I am more determined than ever to see this list through in a bid to find a new direction for me. I need her. I need her more than I thought I did and to let her go now would be foolish and would make me drift back in time to a life of misery and never-ending hangovers and returning to a job I am no longer sure that I really want to do.
‘Any luggage to check in?’ the stewardess on the desk asks me and I am delighted to tell her no. For this trip I am deliberately travelling one way, totally alone, with no baggage, not even in the most literal sense. I have a light rucksack that can hold my passport and a few pairs of shorts and vest tops and a light jacket, my make-up and that’s it.
She does a double-take when she looks at my passport photo. In it I am blonde and my hair goes down past my shoulders. In real life now I have a short, funky bob and I’m a feisty red head. Not ginger, not auburn – but red and I love it!
‘That’s you all checked in, then,’ says the lady with her lipstick smile and she hands me back my passport and boarding pass. ‘You will do a self-connection at New York for your connecting flight to Nashville. Have a nice trip, ma’am.’
It was like I handed my mother a million pounds when I arrived at her door last night. After my hair cut, I went to Tesco and bought the makings of a jam-and-cream sponge cake. I haven’t baked in years and had no equipment in the apartment, so I’d to start literally from scratch, but just like Lucy said, the feeling of doing something for someone when they aren’t expecting it was so rewarding and it felt so good inside.
I whipped the cream and I spread the jam and marvelled at the whole thing coming together, then I boxed it up and drove out into the countryside to deliver it personally to the two people who mean the most in the world to me.
Dad was on the tractor when I tooted the horn on the way past and he stood up and gave me the biggest wave. I could have cried at the joy on his face and how he hurried to climb down and come and greet me properly.
‘Jesus, Mary and St Joseph!’ my mother said, coming out to meet me on the driveway. ‘I hardly recognised you with that hair-do! I thought you were our Roisin from Dublin! Did she tell you to do it?’
I shake my head and it feels so different without the long, blonde locks. It feels young and wild and free and I love it!
‘No, another little girl told me to do it, what do you think?’
I do a twirl. We always do a twirl in our house to show off a new hair-do or a new outfit. It kind of goes without saying.
‘It suits you,’ said my darling mother. ‘It will take some getting used to, but it does suit you.’
My father’s opinion was, as ever, glowing. I think if I turned up with my nose, tongue and eyebrows pierced he would still tell me I was beautiful.
‘It will be the making of you!’ he said, putting his big strong arm around my shoulder. ‘And you’re well mended too. You must be on the way up. Didn’t I tell you you’d be fine? Look at Marilyn Monroe! You didn’t see her moping after men! They moped after her and they will after you one day soon too!’
I giggled at his latest dead-celebrity reference as we made our way into the farmhouse kitchen, where every smell and sound and sight holds a memory for me.
‘It’s good to be home,’ I said, inhaling the aroma of my mother’s home cooking. ‘Is my name in the pot? I brought dessert.’
‘It’s
always in the pot,’ said my mum and she set a place at the table for me. ‘Wait a minute, did you bake this for me?’
I nodded my head and watched them both admire it, like it was some award-winning masterpiece and I felt my heart swell inside.
‘I love you Mum. And you too, Dad. Thanks for being there for me always. I should show it more. I do love you.’
My father put his arms out and embraced us both, hugging us so tight that I feared for the cake’s future.
When he managed to let go, I sat down and looked across at the empty chair opposite, where my brother used to sit when we were little. I feel my stomach flip.
‘What part of America is John Joe in?’ I asked my parents.
‘He’s in Nashville with Vivienne,’ my mother told me. ‘I can give you his address if you want to write to him?’
It’s a very loaded question and we all knew it. Me, write to John Joe? To see both their children happy again would be the greatest gift I could ever give my parents and I have been too selfish to ever see past my own anger and remorse. They have no idea of his marriage and, more importantly, no idea of his illness. I owe it to them to follow Lucy’s advice.
‘I plan to do better than that,’ I replied. ‘I’m going to visit him.’
‘You’re what? Oh my God, Robert, she’s going to visit him!’ said my mother, just in case my dad didn’t hear me the first time.
And that was enough to set them off again. It was like they had won the lottery.
I seem to spend a lot of my time these days travelling and thinking and doing so has given me a great insight into how much I owe to Lucy Harte and her family. Big things like this – like going to America at the drop of a hat to surprise my brother. Little things like getting a new hair cut or baking a cake, and it’s not just from Lucy’s list, it’s all the things I got to do before that, in the seventeen years of life she has given me so far.
I passed all my school exams; I had such fun at university; I graduated; I learned to ride a motorcycle; I went skiing; I worked at many things including in an ice-cream parlour, a dog-groomers, a restaurant, as an au pair, in a local stable, in the florists and I spent many years meeting people in many walks of life in my job in real estate. I have travelled, I have loved, I have lost, I have won, and it’s all because of you, Lucy.
I write this down and tuck it in along with my other notes to Lucy in the back of her notebook. I can feel her pushing me along, guiding me, making me strong again and I owe her so much.
Forgive your friends and family, she said. Surprise someone you love, she said. I actually can’t believe I am doing what I am about to do.
Please don’t leave me, Lucy, I chant to the heavens. I need you more than ever right now.
Chapter 20
Here I am, on my own, with just an address on a piece of paper, a small bag of luggage, my wallet and my phone in the country-music capital of the world and I am absolutely bricking it.
‘Where ya’ll off to, ma’am,’ asks the taxi driver at the airport and I read out John Joe’s address.
‘Is it far?’ I ask him. I am like a fish out of water and anyone who looks at me knows I am not supposed to be here. I keep getting overwhelming waves of doubt, an urge to turn and go back and forget it all but Lucy’s words to forgive, to surprise someone you love, to never be afraid of change all ring in my head and keep me going with each step forward.
The taxi driver mumbles something in response that I don’t understand and weaves through traffic until, just under an hour later, with a heavy heart and a much lighter wallet, I am outside my brother’s home and it feels like I’m meeting a stranger for the first time.
I stand at the gate and look up the pathway onto the white porch of the little pale-grey wooden house. The heat is stifling, it cuts my throat as I stand and stare at the place he calls home. The house is set on a neat boulevard of similar buildings and, to my surprise, a For Sale sign hangs in the garden. John Joe and his wife must be moving on already.
So this is his life. This is where he gets up every morning, goes to work – I realise I do not even know what he does for a living any more – kisses his wife, eats his dinner. I am like a snooping stranger looking in on a life I do not know.
‘Excuse me, ma’am? Can I help you?’
I jump and put my hand to my chest at a lady’s tart voice, which seemed to have come out of nowhere. She puts her hand on my brother’s gate as if to prevent my entry.
‘Vivienne?’
‘Oh my… are you Maggie?’
I nod and smile and shrug and she drops the grocery bags she is carrying and opens her arms out to embrace me like I’m some long-lost relative – well, I am a long-lost relative now, I suppose.
‘Come in! Come in and see your brother! This is just the best surprise ever!’
She picks up her bags and I automatically take one from her, despite her resistance, and we walk up the pathway towards the pretty little house. I’m not sure I have been this nervous ever in my whole life.
Seconds later, I am in my brother’s living room and Vivienne has gone to let him know I am here.
Oh, please God, let him be nice to me. Please, Lucy, tell me this is the right thing to do!
I use the time to try and focus on my breathing and as I breathe in and out I take in my surroundings. It’s a very cosy home and Vivienne certainly has decorative style. Or perhaps it’s John Joe’s taste? What would I know? The wooden floors are rustic and strewn with multi-coloured rugs, guitars hang on the wall and floating shelves show photos of the two of them in a variety of happy-couple poses. He looks so content with her and she looks… well, she doesn’t look like anyone I ever imagined him to be with. I want to get up and take a closer look around the walls but I’m a bit afraid to, to tell the truth. I don’t want to take anything for granted and be too familiar.
Maybe I’m just jet-lagged. I still can’t believe I’m here.
I want to go back. I want to go back and envelope myself in the comfort of Lucy’s words and write to her that I tried to find him and lie that he was on ‘vacation’, but at least I tried, right?
Give me a sign, Lucy. Give me a sign that I am doing the right thing.
I look around and see another photo on one of the shelves.
Is that… is that me?
I get up to take a closer look. It is a photo of me in my teenage years, about two years after my operation, and it was the first day I got back on our family pony. It was such a big moment for me, and here it is, on the other side of the world, staring back at me like a ghost from my past.
There is another of us all as a family beside it which shows me, John Joe, Mum and Dad on my graduation day and I take it down and look at it closely, biting my lip as the memories come flooding back. I remember being so jealous that John Joe had turned up that morning, back from Switzerland, I think, and I realise how utterly selfish I have been for so many years against my own brother. Instead of being thankful that he made the effort to come home for my big day, I was always too wrapped up in him stealing my thunder. I feel very sad. And very, very sorry.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper and slowly put the photo back in its place.
Have I been living in a selfish bubble all this time? The photo was the sign I needed that I am doing the right thing. Yes. I want to see him and tell him I’m sorry and ask him can we please start again? Can he please give me one more chance?
My insides are riddled with the most horrid guilt and there is no room for anything else.
I would die to lie down somewhere, anywhere, right now. It’s so hot and my eyes are dropping with exhaustion.
‘Hello?’ I hear him call from the top of the stairs and the room closes in on me. ‘Maggie?’
I hear his footsteps across the little hallway and then I turn and see him and I think my heart might collapse when I look into his eyes.
‘Maggie!’ he says, ‘My God, Maggie, come here till I see you! This is… this is just the best surprise in the whole
wide world!’
I go towards him until I fall, quite literally, into my big brother’s arms and I hold him so tight and I feel like I am home.
‘I think I’ve covered you in snot,’ I say when we finally let go of each other. ‘I didn’t mean to just call unannounced. It was a very last-minute decision.’
I take a deep breath and look directly at him, into his big, soft brown eyes.
‘It wouldn’t be the first time you did that!’ he says, wiping wet from under his eyes. ‘My eyes are sweating. Remember you used to say that when you didn’t want to admit you’d been crying?’
I nod my head and sniff back the emotion.
‘I believe you have just met my wife,’ he says and puts his arm around me, then leads me to the sofa, where I sit down beside him.
Vivienne comes into the living room behind him, protectively watching his every move.
‘Maggie! It really is so good to have you here!’ she says in that glorious accent I last heard on the phone but was too stubborn to appreciate. ‘You have made your brother very, very happy! And that makes me happy too.’
I stand up again and she gives me a warm hug and I am very conscious of getting tears and snot on her nice silken blouse.
‘I’m sorry to land on you like this,’ I explain, ‘but I was so afraid I’d chicken out if I didn’t just go for it.’
‘Sit down, Mags, and don’t dare apologise,’ says John Joe. ‘Do Mum and Dad know you’re here? You look really tired. Are you okay? Are you sure you’re okay?’
He sounds like Dad, he fusses like Mum, but he looks like me. I am not sure which question to answer first, but I know he means well.
‘Can I get you a hot drink?’ asks Vivienne. ‘You have had quite a journey.’
‘No, no please, I’m fine,’ I tell her. ‘Thank you so much.’’
‘I’ll get you some tea, then,’ she says. ‘You look like you need some tea.’
Vivienne already knows me through my brother, it seems. We O’Haras always did love our cup of tea and no always means yes.
The Legacy of Lucy Harte Page 15