Heart of Us

by Emma Browne

  ‘All men are the same, though.’ Sophia shrugged. ‘Totally clueless.’

  ‘Well, as much as I’m not feeling particularly impressed with Jack right now, there are good men out there.’

  She looked at me, eyebrows high. ‘Oh really? Then you won’t mind if we set you up on a date?’

  ‘Ugh.’ I grimaced, and my hand reached to find the ring under my clothes. ‘Maybe give me a little while to recover first.’ I didn’t ever want to go on another date, but I didn’t want to tell Sophia that. She had enough issues with men and didn’t need mine added to her own.

  Julia gave me a sceptical look. She had been around Jack and me for long enough and could see through my facade.

  ‘I bet you’ll need longer than a little while,’ Sophia said. ‘Did he give any reason for breaking up with you?’

  ‘He said he’d come to realise he wasn’t ready to be in such a serious relationship. He did the it’s not you it’s me thing, but it doesn’t really matter. The outcome is the same, whatever reasons he might have.’

  ‘Mum said he’s already saying he’s going to stay in Asia for Christmas, so at least you won’t have to see him for a while.’

  I nodded. Karen had told me.

  I had avoided going over to the Reids’ for a few weeks after the breakup. There had been too much going on for me to also have to deal with the fallout of Jack’s break up with me on my other relationships. So, when Karen had come over and sought me out to clear the air between us, I had wanted to hide. She told me nothing had to change between her and me just because Jack’s and my relationship was over, and she had mentioned that he wasn’t coming home for Christmas. That had been a relief.

  ‘Anyway, tell me something that isn’t depressing.’ I said. ‘How is uni?’

  Julia smiled. ‘I’m starting placement in a couple of weeks, which feels a little overwhelming, but I’m trying to prepare for it.’ Julia was doing her third year of teacher training to be an English teacher.

  ‘Oh, yeah? Do you know where? Do you have to travel for it?’

  ‘It’s actually a school in Bruntsfield this time, so I can walk.’

  Despite her placement being close by, Julia going into placement would mean she would be even busier than normal, and I knew I would miss her.

  ‘We started a pretty intense statistics course just now,’ Sophia said on the way down the hill. ‘I know you’re on a break from uni, but if you want to have a look at it, I could really use your input. You’ve always been better at stats than me.’

  ‘Sure.’ I was always happy to look at numbers – they made sense to me even when nothing else in life made sense. I thought everybody should be required to take a basic statistics course – it might help people understand the world better.

  But most of all, I was thankful Sophia was reaching out to me. Though I wanted to make the most of my last few months with Mum, I knew I needed friendships.

  Some days, the extreme exhaustion I was feeling – coupled with the sadness I felt over so many things – was overwhelming. Maybe that’s why Julia and Sophia’s friendship meant so much. They had a way of containing all the sad I was feeling. They were safe.

  ***

  Dad showed up drunk a few days before Christmas.

  Though I could see how he wished everything was different, a part of me wondered why he didn’t just make a choice to be sober. If not for himself, then for Mum and me. If there ever was a time to man up and do the right thing – now was it. But instead, he squandered the little time he had left with Mum, lost in a bottle.

  I tried speaking to Mum about it the next day. At this point, she had her breakfast in the living room, as moving around needlessly seemed like a waste of precious energy. I sat on the couch next to her, watching as she slowly ate her piece of toast. Her hands looked old, and the skin was loose and transparent. She had lost a lot of weight, even though she was taking steroids, and physically, she looked like a frail shadow of her former self.

  I wondered how much longer she had left – she had already lived longer than the doctors had estimated when she was given her diagnosis.

  ‘What was going on with Dad last night?’ I asked.

  She looked at me over her cup of tea, eyes narrow as she scanned my face. ‘Your Dad is ill, Miranda. No amount of wishing differently will change that.’

  ‘No, I realise that, but surely he can see that now isn’t the time to be binge drinking?’

  ‘Of course he can see that. Doesn’t make a difference, though. Some things are what they are, and all we can do is pray for him. This alcoholic person isn’t who he is on the inside. You know that. It’s just his way of handling the pain.’ She looked away. ‘We’ve all got our ways of dealing with pain, don’t we?

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what she meant.

  ‘I used to think like you,’ she went on. ‘If he can’t sort himself out for himself, then couldn’t he at least try for our sake? But all that will give you is bitterness. Instead, you’ve got to remember who he is – he’ll need you to remind him later. He’s a good man, your Dad is.’

  Throat clogged, I could only nod. Mum looked out the window, lost in her thoughts. We sat there for a long time, neither of us talking.

  I tried remembering who Dad was without the alcohol, and though I had many memories, I found it difficult. So many of my childhood memories of him were clouded by the alcoholism and by the mental health problems he had struggled with. To be fair, I had been relatively sheltered from it all, as he tended to leave when he drank.

  And yet, the memories rushed through me of Dad being hung over, or a little merrier than normal, or of the times when he was slurring his words and clearly didn’t have a handle on himself.

  I sighed.

  Mum tilted her head and gave me a thoughtful smile. ‘Your Dad loves us as much as he is able to.’

  I snorted. ‘He obviously loves alcohol more than he loves us, so that’s not saying much, is it?’

  ‘I think of it more like the alcohol has made him its slave. He’s bound there until he next is able to escape.’ She smiled. ‘And in the meantime, we can be resentful, or we can keep loving him – as hard as it might be – and showing him that escaping will be worth it. That life is worth living and that there is hope. Even for him.’

  Chapter 23

  Miranda

  A couple of months later, when Mum died, people told me it was probably for the best, and at least now she didn’t have to suffer any longer. I would nod and smile stiffly, while everything in me wanted to scream at how insensitive they were. I would have given anything to have her for just a few more days. Looking back, I can see that perhaps they were right. Maybe it was a relief for her to die. But at the time, as far as I could see, there was nothing for the best about my mum dying.

  I just missed her.

  Jack sent a note a couple days after she died. I read it over and over again, hoping the note would change into a sensitive, kind – even loving – note.

  It didn’t.

  Miranda,

  I don’t know how to express how sorry I am about your mum. She was always such a big part of my life and it kills me to know she is no longer around to tell me off, offer unasked-for advice, or cook spaghetti. I’m sorry I wasn’t around for her this year and that I’m not able to come to her funeral. Lisa always meant a lot to me, and I will miss her always.

  Jack

  I hadn’t read the note in years, but I remembered every word of it. The formal tone of it was so far away from the Jack I knew, and I had wondered why he would send such a stilted note. Julia had told me he couldn’t come home for the funeral, and I was thankful he didn’t. Jack being formal and distant with me to my face would have been way worse than him not being there at all.

  Instead, my Dad was there. He had been drinking for days, throughout the funeral preparations, but he managed to be sober for the day of the funeral. And John and Karen, Julia, Sophia, Nick, and Michael were there too. Mum didn’t have sister
s or brothers, but people from church and from the hotel where she had worked were there.

  When it was over, I took the necklace with Jack’s ring off. Any hope of us ever getting back together was gone. I hung the necklace on the mirror in my bedroom as a reminder not to open myself up to the pain of relationships ever again. Then I went to the supermarket and bought weeks’ worth of tinned tomato soup, noodles, and bread rolls for the freezer, went home and locked the front door, closed the blinds and went to bed.

  I didn’t feel like eating, but I forced down a tin of soup, a pack of noodles and a bread roll every day. I spent my time sleeping, crying, and reading old books, curled under a blanket with Mum’s pillow, which smelt like her. At least to begin with.

  Julia and Sophia texted every day, but I didn’t want to see them. I didn’t want to see anyone at all. I needed to be entirely wrapped up in my grief.

  After a week, Julia and Sophia came by and made me shower. They cleaned the house whilst I sat, broken, on a chair, watching them. They talked about anything that wouldn’t make me think of Mum and took me to Portobello for ice cream on the beach, even though it was February and freezing cold.

  We sat huddled together, our backs against the cement wall, facing the sea, as we ate our ice cream.

  ‘Do you think sadness existed in the Garden of Eden?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘Is that the same question as, does sadness exist in heaven?’ Julia replied.

  I sighed. How did they have energy to have a philosophical conversation about God?

  Sophia bit the inside of her cheek in thought. ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Then no, I don’t think so.’ Julia sounded decisive.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I think heaven is a happy place where emotions like sadness are superfluous.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, how would it be heaven if people were sad? Doesn’t sound like heaven to me. At all.’

  ‘Huh,’ Sophia frowned. ‘Maybe my question was wrong then. Maybe I should have asked, how do you define heaven?’

  My head was tired – the grief overwhelming to the point where thinking hurt – and here they were defining heaven. I wasn’t sure heaven existed at all. If it did, it felt far far away. Out of reach.

  I hoped it did exist.

  I hoped there was a place where Mum was happy, free from pain and full of joy.

  I did know hell existed though. Whether it was an actual place you could be sent to after death, or not, I couldn’t say. But there existed hell on earth. And as much as I ached in pain and grief then, I knew I was barely scratching the surface of the hell some people went through.

  ‘Oh, I know the answer to this one,’ Julia smiled, and I sighed at how simple everything seemed to her. ‘Heaven is where God is.’

  ‘Okay, in that case,’ Sophia frowned as she talked, as though she was working out what Julia’s answer actually meant. ‘You don’t think the Garden of Eden and Heaven are the same? Because there were times in the Garden of Eden when God was not present. So much so, he had to go looking for Adam and Eve when he wanted to spend time with them.’

  ‘Huh.’ Julia narrowed her eyes. ‘I guess?’

  ‘Also, if you say Heaven is where God is – and I guess you’d say God is here – then would you say Heaven is here too? Or where is Heaven?’

  Julia brushed at the hair in her face before licking her ice cream. ‘Yes, I think Heaven is here too.’ Julia seemed to have no idea what she really thought – she was just regurgitating a bunch of pat answers she had been told in church. Or by her Mum.

  I scrunched my face into my scarf and tried to ignore the annoyance I felt at her glibness.

  ‘But we have sadness here, so…’ Sophia pushed back again.

  ‘Okay, maybe I mean that Heaven is available to us here.’

  I rolled my eyes and, unable to stop myself, I joined the conversation. ‘Then how do we access Heaven here? By dying?’

  Julia frowned. ‘No, I think…’

  ‘Huh. Actually, maybe you’re both right,’ Sophia cut in. ‘Maybe Heaven is available to us here, but only if we’re truly dead.’

  I snorted. ‘Well, I feel pretty dead, but it doesn’t at all feel like what I imagine Heaven might feel like.’

  Sophia smiled wryly. ‘No, I don’t think that’s the kind of dead I mean. What if the way to access Heaven is to truly die to ourselves, and allow Jesus to live through us?’

  ‘Huh,’ Julia said. ‘I’m not sure, though. I’m a Christian in that I’ve given my life to Jesus, but I still don’t know how to access Heaven. If it actually is available to us here.’

  ‘Hmm, I’ve got to think some more about that.’ Sophia said.

  We sat in silence, eating our ice creams and watching the waves. Julia agreeing that she didn’t have a clue made me relax a little. I had found that people liked to give me simple, unthought-through absolutes since Mum became ill. As though a glib sermon heading could come close to providing any comfort.

  Instead I wished people would be a little more real. A little more willing to see me and my feelings, rather than paint over them with an at least Lisa’s in heaven now.

  I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. Maybe this defining heaven conversation wasn’t as stupid as I had first thought – at least it reached below the surface.

  After a while Sophia shook her head and said, ‘I like what you’re saying, Jules.’

  ‘About Heaven?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sophia frowned. ‘But I also like the idea of sadness existing in Heaven. I want for sadness to exist there. I think in Heaven we will be capable of holding our emotions in a way where we can feel enormous sadness, and therefore we will also be able to experience utter joy.’

  ‘So, you’re saying you don’t believe joy can exist without sadness? Because I think it’s the other way around. I think joy is the absence of sadness.’

  ‘Huh.’ She frowned. ‘No. Or yes. No, I’m not sure what I believe about that.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, Soph,’ I said with a smile that felt weird on my face. I hadn’t smiled in a long time. But as weird as it felt, it also felt relieving to know that I wasn’t alone in having nothing figured out.

  She snorted. ‘I wish.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t know what I think about that, but whether sadness exists in Heaven or not, I like the idea of God experiencing sadness.’

  ‘Does he, though?’

  ‘How could he not?’

  I turned my face to the sea, staring unseeingly at the waves. She continued, ‘His infinite sadness when he sees our pain must be heart-breaking for him. I think he cries when we cry, and I think there’s nothing he’d rather do than take away the pain.’

  I wasn’t sure what I thought about God in general at the time. I hadn’t been too impressed with him and his way of predestining me for all these hardships lately. But her words touched something deep in my soul, and I found myself wishing – hoping – that what she was saying was true.

  ‘I like that.’ I said and wiped at my damp cheeks. ‘And I’m thankful for how you guys have taken care of me today, but can we go home now? My butt is sore, and I can’t feel my fingers.’

  Julia smiled and tucked her hair behind her ears as she stood up. ‘Yeah, it’s freaking cold here. Let’s race to the car.’ She reached out and pulled Sophia and me up before taking off at a run.

  Sophia shook her head and smiled at me. ‘She always cheats.’

  ‘Ever since we were kids.’ I agreed, and we followed Julia back to the car at a slower pace.

  They dropped me off at my house after I convinced them I would be fine to stay on my own.

  And I was fine that evening.

  I had a cup of tea as I wrote in my journal and listened to David Bowie’s Sound and Vision on repeat. It was one of the songs Mum used to have me put on in those last few months of her life to dance to in the kitchen. At the time, I had danced to make her last few months mean something to her,
but now I wondered if maybe her song choices had been more about reminding me life was worth living than about her. There was something deeply comforting about the song, and though I felt sadness and grief, I also felt an enormous peace. It was as if I was covered not in sadness, but in comfort. Then I went to bed and slept the whole night for the first time in months.

  The following months were rocky. There was more grief fog than there were good times, but as time wore on, I found that not everything in my life was wrapped in grief anymore. I redid the kitchen and had a clear out of the contents of the house. I saved special things and gave away things I no longer needed. Soon the house wasn’t just Mum’s house, painfully full of memories of her, but it was mine, and I started to enjoy being there again.

  When autumn came, I went back to university and – with some adjustments – I taught myself how to live again.

  Chapter 24

  Present

  Miranda

  Jack’s reasons for breaking up with me made sense. And seeing how painful it had all been for him made it easy to forgive him. Maybe I had forgiven him a long time ago.

  Still, forgiveness was one thing, but trust was another. And though I no longer held anything against Jack, I knew I would never trust him again.

  It was great that he had gone to counselling, but if I knew anything about people, it was that they don’t change. If I had a pound for every time Dad had stopped drinking, apologised and told us this was it – he would never drink again – only to see him fall off the wagon a few months later… I might have been able to afford to put him into rehab now.

  No. People didn’t change.

  Still, Jack’s eyes went hopeful when I told him it was ok and, though I had gone on to tell him this wouldn’t change anything, I knew he thought it was a matter of time before he would be able to change my mind.

  I didn’t know how to be clearer about where I stood without being unkind. Instead, I just told him to leave me alone so I could have a shower and get dressed.

  He was back a few hours later and spent the rest of the day doing little projects around my house whilst I sewed more bags for the period cups. And as much as I wanted to tell him to go away, I also wanted to keep him around for as long as he would let me. Not just because of all the odd jobs he did, but because I let myself pretend that he belonged there.