A Part of Me and You

by Emma Heatherington

  ‘What the …?’

  Juliette looks confused and when Rosie presses play on her iPod and Prince’s ‘Kiss’ rocks through the living room, we are all in stitches laughing. Rosie is dressed in neon pink leggings, a ‘Choose Life’ t-shirt which I had kept from my days at roller discos in the north, obligatory yellow leg warmers and a Toyah Wilcox style spikey wig. She takes her mother’s hands and gently pulls her up off the sofa.

  ‘Come on, Mum!’ shouts Rosie. ‘This is another of your favourite things!’

  ‘Man, I loved Prince!’ shouts Juliette. ‘Turn it up!’

  And I do just that.

  You don’t have to be rich they sing at the top of their voices and as they dance, I take in the joy on their faces and my heart melts when they hold hands. Finally, I take notice of their feet as they dance together to the music, laughing and singing and dancing like no one is watching. The music booms through the air, leaving no room for any other sound and Juliette, as physically difficult as it seems to be after such a long day, is really giving it her all as she boogies along with her baby girl.

  ‘Kiss!’ they shout together and punch the air as if it was rehearsed, then Juliette pulls Rosie in for a hug. She gives her a big kiss on the cheek and Rosie does the same back.

  Once again, I feel that old familiar twinge when I think that this could have been me with my own mother a few years into the past, or me and my Lily a few years into the future, if life wasn’t so cruel. And life is being cruel here too, I remind myself. As happy as this moment is, every day I see them together will always be tinged with sadness at what is still to come.

  The song choice moves on to some retro Madonna with ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ and Juliette whoops with delight, then swaps her own wig with Rosie’s more exciting version and they beckon me to join them with Juliette taking the TV remote control as her makeshift microphone.

  ‘I had no idea what this song was about when it was released!’ she bellows over the music. ‘But I freakin’ loved it!’

  Rosie bops along beside me, enjoying every moment whether she knows the songs or not.

  ‘Good job, DJ!’ I mouth to her with a thumbs-up and she looks up at her mum who is totally lost in the music and I see the tears glisten in Rosie’s eyes.

  They are dancing together with sheer freedom, this dying woman in her pyjamas and a punk style wig and her teenage daughter who has totally jumped into character just to make her mother laugh and sing out loud.

  She is seeing Juliette as a person in her own right now, and not just her dying mother. She is seeing a person with a past, with old memories that came before Rosie existed, a person with hopes and dreams that were formed before she was even born. I wish I had taken the time to recognize my own mother as just that.

  But most of all I wished we had danced together just like Rosie and Juliette are doing right now here in front of me. And even better, I wish that someone would have captured it on camera so that I could treasure it forever, just like I have done for these two beautiful people who have done more for my healing than they will ever know. I hit record and catch every moment of it and I can’t wait to see their faces when they look back on it. A perfect memory of happy times, for Rosie to hold on to and cherish forever and for Juliette to smile back on for however long she has left in this life.

  Chapter 19

  Juliette

  WEDNESDAY

  ‘It’s just a headache; I really don’t want any fuss, Helen,’ I say to my sister.

  ‘It’s not just a headache, though is it!’ she replies. ‘Tell me the truth. When did this start? Yesterday? The day before? When?’

  I knew she would panic.

  ‘We’re on holiday and I probably just got over-excited yesterday, wanting to make the boat trip special for Rosie, and it was special,’ I say to Helen who has phoned to find me curled up in bed in the cottage with the blinds and curtains closed. Rosie has gone to take Merlin for a walk as was agreed with Shelley when she left us last night after our hilarious ‘80s disco, which was so much fun. As much as I don’t want to admit it to anyone, the headache that started on the boat yesterday is now getting worse and it’s scaring the life out of me.

  ‘Should I ring Michael?’ my sister asks me, her voice trembling with panic from across the Irish Sea. ‘He could maybe arrange for a doctor there to see you. Oh, Jules this is a nightmare with you being so far away like this.’

  ‘Don’t say I told you so,’ I warn her amicably. ‘I don’t need any lectures right now.’

  ‘I won’t lecture you but I am going out of my mind now with worry. How bad is the pain on a scale of one to ten?’

  I can sense my sister’s urgency but I really don’t want to raise the alarm. It has to pass. It can’t be happening so fast, not like this, not here, not now when I’m on my own with Rosie. I need to see Dan. I need to see Helen again and my mum and dad and my nephews. I can’t just die here alone with my daughter, no, please don’t make it happen like this. I’m terrified. Perhaps I’m over-reacting? Dr Michael said it wouldn’t happen so fast, didn’t he? He wouldn’t have told me to go away for a few days otherwise. I can’t be dying so quickly, no. It’s just a bad day. I’m just having a bad day after all the excitement of being here.

  ‘Seven right now, but let me see how I feel after a few hours’ rest,’ I tell my sister, adamant not to let this get to me or admit to her what might really be happening. ‘It could just be seasickness and exhaustion. We’ve packed a lot in so far but I so wanted to take Rosie into Galway today and do some shopping. I just know that she would love to hear the buskers and buy some nice new clothes. I can’t ruin this for her, Helen, not now when she is enjoying herself so much. I’ve never seen her so animated and she’s really taken to this place just as I hoped she would. She loves it.’

  I can hear Helen’s boys in the background and I get a pang of homesickness that is almost worse than the pain going through my weary mind. I long for Dan, for how he used to be when he was strong and caring and loving and able to cope with my down days, when my illness would take over and he’d have to down tools and tell me that I was going to be okay.

  ‘But it’s not just a headache that is going to go away after some rest, is it?’ whispers Helen, her fear spilling out down the phone. ‘It’s not like you can take a painkiller and make it go away. You have a brain tumour. You have cancer. And let’s not forget, you got a pretty big shock when your dreams of bumping into Skipper were well and truly scuppered.’

  Helen, I know, wants to scream at me for coming here, for all sorts of reasons, but I am too tired to argue with her or protest at anything she has to say.

  ‘Right,’ she continues. ‘I’m booking a flight and I’m coming over to you tonight, Juliette. Brian can take a few days off until you are strong enough to come home but you are not making that journey back here alone. Over my dead body.’

  I sink into the pillow and close my eyes, my hand barely able to keep holding my phone to my ear. Over my dead body, you mean.

  ‘Just let me sleep it off, please, and I will call you later,’ I tell her, my voice slow and weary. ‘I mean it, I’m going to fight this until Saturday morning and then I will take the ferry home as planned. Give me a few hours and I will be back on my feet and annoying you with more pictures of loveliness, of good times and magic memories for Rosie. Just another little while, please. Just let it pass.’

  Helen keeps talking but I can’t listen to her anymore. Her voice that was once so soothing and reassuring is now piercing my brain and sending shocks through every inch of my body. I have no idea what time of day it is but I need to keep my eyes closed. I manage to hang up the phone and I embrace the darkness and the silence at last. I need to sleep it off. I will be back on my feet in no time. I have to be. For Rosie. We are having such a good time and I can’t leave her yet. Last night was so much fun, thanks to Shelley who has really come to life in helping us and I don’t want this to end now. Please God, don’t take me just yet. I have so mu
ch still to live for. Please, give me just a little more time with my girl.

  Shelley

  Betty was acting weird again when I came to take over in Lily Loves and she couldn’t wait to get away from me, just like yesterday – but I’m not going to ask what her problem is. Maybe it’s because I already know what she is thinking, or maybe it’s time I let her go anyhow. I should be able to come into my place of work like other people do, at nine in the morning and take my lunchbreak and work until closing, just like I used to do before grief and its poison took over my very existence. I want Matt to be home already, for us to be taking the steps forward that he has urged me to for as long as I can remember now, and I want to be able to let him love me and for me to love him just as Lily would have liked us to.

  Maybe we could start trying again for the family that we so crave, but the very thought of facing more disappointment through miscarriage, like we did before Lily, tears at my heart and my empty womb tells me no, begs me to please not go through that agony again.

  I tend to my customers all afternoon on autopilot until Rosie bounds in through the door with Merlin on his lead and I want to tell her not to bring him into the shop as it wouldn’t look well should he shake his fur and spray the clothes with the smell of wet dog. It is raining again in Killara but Rosie doesn’t seem to mind at all and her cheeks are glowing having spent the entire afternoon outdoors with her favourite canine friend. She sits up on a high stool at the back of the shop and I chat to her from behind the counter.

  ‘Have you checked in with your mum this afternoon?’ I ask her, almost afraid of hearing her answer. I had waited last night until Juliette was asleep, and Rosie and I had spent some time chatting about boys and makeup and music before I slipped off and locked the door when she too was in bed. I promised her she could take Merlin today which has proven to be the perfect distraction for Juliette to get some rest and I fear that maybe the elation of the week so far and all that she has learnt about Skipper has taken its toll on her body, mind and soul. I, too, am feeling a dip in my mood but it’s probably from seeing Juliette suffer so much and battle against what is inevitably coming her way.

  ‘I popped by about an hour ago to check on her and she was fast asleep,’ says Rosie. ‘Aunty Helen rang me too to see if I’m okay and so did Dan but he sounded a bit tipsy as usual. I wish he would really wise up, Shelley. Mum needs him and so do I but all he seems to want is a bottle by his side instead of the woman who loves him most in the world. I’m never getting married. Ever.’

  I want to put my hands over her ears and protect her from adult conversations and pressures and let her be the child that I was never allowed to be after my mother died.

  ‘Rosie,’ I say to her softly. ‘As an only child, the burden of loss you are going to face is multiplied with all that you have ahead but I really hope you don’t become hardened by life along the way. Dan is doing what he has to do at the moment to cope, and if your mum chose him and loves him like I know she does, I bet he is a good man despite his drinking?’

  She shrugs and then smiles a bit.

  ‘He’s great fun, I suppose. Well, he used to be,’ she whimpers. ‘He used to make Mum laugh so much and I swear when he comes into a room Mum really lights up. I used to be jealous at the start but then I got to love hearing them laugh their heads off at the silliest things. She’s missing him a lot.’

  ‘See?’ I say to her. ‘I’m not saying marriage is right for everyone, but in life I always think it’s good to keep an open mind on absolutely everything thrown at you, no matter how hard it seems. I think meeting your mum and seeing how positively she embraces everyone and everything she meets has made me see that life is a lot easier when you look at the glass as half-full instead of half-empty, though at times it’s hard to see if there’s anything in the glass at all.’

  I may have lost her somewhere in my metaphors as she is now checking her phone but if she even takes in some of what I have to say, I might feel that I have done right by Juliette in this conversation, and by Rosie too.

  ‘When my mum died, I felt I had to grow up overnight and drift out into the big, bad world all alone,’ I say to her. She puts down the phone. I’ve got her back.

  ‘Were you scared too?’

  ‘Petrified,’ I tell her. ‘Yes, I had my father to lean on but he wasn’t much use for the first few years and he did the same as Dan is doing now. He drank to block out the reality of being left with a teenager who was full of questions and despair and that’s how I eventually found myself here in Killara with my aunt who seemed to understand just a little bit more as to how to cope with me when he couldn’t.’

  Rosie looks panicked now. Oh no.

  ‘I don’t want to live with Aunty Helen, Shelley,’ she says to me, shaking her head. ‘It just won’t be the same and even though she’s really nice, she does things differently in her house.’

  ‘She will look after you, I’m sure she will.’

  ‘And I don’t want to grow up overnight like you had to,’ she continues. ‘I want my mum. I want to hear her laugh with Dan again when I’m doing my homework in the kitchen and they are snuggled up on the sofa in the next room. I want to dance and be silly with her again just like we did last night in the cottage. I don’t want Mum to die.’

  I take a deep breath. What on earth do I say to that?

  ‘You and Dan and Aunty Helen and everyone that knows your mum will come good because you won’t have to grow up overnight like I did, wait and see,’ I say to her. ‘I bet Helen knows you inside and out and thinks the absolute world of you?’

  She nods. ‘I suppose she does. She says I’m the daughter she never had as a joke when the boys are getting on her nerves. I’ve sometimes told her things I couldn’t tell Mum, just to get some advice.’

  I see a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes.

  ‘Well, then?’ I say. ‘That’s good you trust her like that. And do you talk to Dan in that way at all? Do you ever tell him things and trust him with your feelings like that?’

  She shrugs and thinks.

  ‘I suppose I do sometimes,’ she says, ‘though in a different way, I think. He sticks up for me always if I ever feel in trouble.’

  ‘That’s good!’

  ‘Yes, not that I get into trouble much but you know what I mean – I mean when I am worried about something he reassures me, like once he went to my school because I was being bullied by a girl in the year above me and he spoke to the headteacher, demanding it never happened again. And it didn’t.’

  She sits up a little straighter when she tells me this and I feel better for her already.

  ‘Oh Rosie, darling, you see? You have so many people who love and adore you,’ I say to her. ‘And on top of all that, your mum has given you the very best she can in every way so you can be the strong, independent young woman that I have no doubt you will be.’

  ‘But she won’t be able to guide me for much longer, will she?’ she states.

  I bite my lip. Do I be honest with Rosie that her mum is deteriorating? Do I try to prepare her for what is coming, but then again, how can I possibly do that? There is no preparation for grief when someone so young is getting ready to say goodbye. I think of my own mother and how the gaping hole of loss felt like someone had ripped out my very core and I couldn’t breathe as I was so buckled with the shock even though I knew it was coming.

  ‘Your mum will always guide you, Rosie,’ I say to her. ‘Not in the way she has been when you can see her and hear her every day, but she’ll always be near you in a very special way. Look, I know it’s not the same and it’s the most awful thing in the whole world, but wait and see, when you need her you will feel her near you, I promise. I know that’s what gets me through each day without my mum and Lily. I have a place I go to and if I close my eyes I can see them and it makes me feel just a little bit better.’

  I realize this much more now when I think of my own loss. Call it an awakening, call it a moment of change or maybe it was seein
g someone like Juliette stare death in the face but I have opened my mind and heart over the past few days and it has made me feel my loved ones so much nearer. I see how Juliette doesn’t want to leave Rosie, and I know my mother didn’t want to leave me, so how can she be very far away? She is with me in everything I do, she is guiding me and watching me and I now know that she is looking after Lily and urging me to make the most of my days here just like Juliette is before her time is up.

  ‘I should probably go back and check in on her, shouldn’t I?’ says Rosie, fiddling with Merlin’s lead in her hands. ‘She’s tired today and I hate watching her when she’s so weak. I am so afraid of something happening ….’

  She takes a tissue from her sleeve, dabs her nose and slides off the stool.

  ‘I think that’s a good idea, yes, plus I’m sure you’re fed up by now with Merlin,’ I say trying to lighten things a little. ‘I’ll call down on you both as soon as my shift is finished and I’ll make you something nice to eat, how’s that for a plan?’

  ‘That’d be cool, yeah.’

  ‘We could watch a movie, all three of us and let your mum just take it easy. She’s done so much to make this holiday special and it has been special, hasn’t it, Rosie?’

  Rosie’s lip begins to tremble and she doesn’t notice how much Merlin is tugging at the lead, trying to get out of the restrictions of my little workplace. He starts to bark and as he does, Rosie gives into her emotion and lets her tears fall.

  ‘It’s been amazing because we found you and you’ve made me feel so much better and you make Mum feel better too,’ she says. ‘I just don’t want it to end. Not yet. Not yet, Shelley.’

  I look into her beautiful eyes and the fear in them takes my breath away. I know exactly what she means. She doesn’t want this holiday to end because it means she will have to start preparing for life as she knows it to end.