The Story of Our Life

by Shari Low

  ‘It won’t always…’

  ‘Of course it will! Rosie, how could you think… what?’

  I realized that she was no longer looking at me. She was staring at my mum, or rather, at the doctor in the white coat, who was now speaking to her. The doctor put out his hand to help my mum stand and she did as she was beckoned.

  I stood too, went to follow, Rosie stayed put. ‘I’ll wait here. Can you tell me how he is?’

  My anger was tempered by the almost palpable anguish that seeped from her. How could she have been so foolish? So blind? So secretive. Yet, if I pushed aside the fact that he was my father, she was just one of my closest friends, utterly devastated because the person she loved was ill.

  Pity made me agree to her request, before I followed the doctor and my mum through a door that required an entry code, then into a side room. There were two small sofas, sitting at right angles, a small white plastic coffee table in front of them with a jar of cut peonies. My dad’s favourite flower. I don’t know how I knew that.

  He spoke to me first. ‘I’m Dr Wilson.’

  ‘Shauna,’ I replied. ‘Jeff’s daughter.’

  I had to spit out the words. Daughter? The man didn’t know the first thing about being a father. He was a conniving, odious manipulator who had cheated me out of a proper family and cheated Rosie out of fifteen years of her life. How would I ever come to terms with that? How could I ever start to move past it?

  The doctor’s voice brought me back to the moment.

  ‘Shauna. Mrs Williams,’ he said, his attention back on my mum. ‘We brought your husband in and it was clear there had been a cardiac event. We attempted to resuscitate him but I’m afraid we were unsuccessful. Mr Williams passed away ten minutes ago. I’m so very sorry for your loss.’

  I had no idea if I’d ever have forgiven him – but now I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to find out.

  42

  2010

  Another Hospital, Another Time

  I paced. Paced some more. Paced again. Fuck, how much pacing did a guy need to do? The hospital corridor stank of disinfectant and panic, the latter being all mine.

  I’d tried to stay inside the delivery room but Shauna was screaming, in so much pain, and I couldn’t do it. I was there, back there, all those years ago, with Jess, and the screams were attacking me, ripping me apart.

  I should have told Shauna about Daisy, the perfect, beautiful baby Jess and I lost. Of course I should have. But how? When? At what point do you say my wife and I split up because we lost our child and I couldn’t handle my wife’s grief, couldn’t be there for her, and the resentment between us grew until it suffocated our love. I could never pinpoint the right moment, so instead I just erased it from my history. The truth was I couldn’t tell anyone else because I was too busy lying to myself. Blocking it out. Today, I couldn’t lie. It was confronting me, right in my eyeline, front and centre in my world.

  I couldn’t do it. Every time Shauna screamed, I was back there, excited, hopeful, with absolutely no idea that everything was about to implode. Jess and I had held Daisy for hours, this perfect, peaceful, beautiful little girl who’d never had the strength to take a breath. I’d told her everything about our hopes and dreams and the life we’d so wanted to have with her. And then we said goodbye.

  The last time I lost my daughter and my wife and I couldn’t deal with the possibility of that happening again with Shauna. So yes, I’d tried to avoid the subject of having kids, tried to delay it in the hope that she’d change her mind or it just wouldn’t happen. The irony was that doing that to her nearly broke us anyway, yet I still couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t re-open the box that kept that nightmare contained.

  But now I was reliving it, watching Shauna lying in that bed, in so much agony, no idea what was ahead, knowing the worst that could happen and I could lose everything again.

  ‘Colm, go for a walk,’ Shauna said, between gasps. ‘Babe, I love you, but I can’t look at that face any more. You look like it’s you who’s in pain.’ From her amused, sympathetic grin, I could see she thought I was just being typically me. Hopeless in emotional situations. Crap at dealing with drama. Switching off from anything resembling pain or suffering.

  I did all of those things. It was who I was, but only because I knew just how bad it could be. So I left, went out into the corridor and I paced. One hour. Two hours. Every step anther stab of torment, of sheer terror that on the other side of that door, my whole world could be about to come crashing down.

  ‘Mr O’Flynn,’ the nurse said, her head popping out the door. ‘It’s almost time.’

  She looked at me expectantly, but my legs wouldn’t move, my feet rooted to the spot.

  ‘Mr O’Flynn?’

  I had to go, had to move, couldn’t miss this moment. I had to be with Shauna and if the worse happened…

  ‘Colm! Get. In. Here.’ Shauna was gasping, panting, yelling through gritted teeth.

  I moved, one foot in front of the other, steady does it, keep going.

  ‘Right, Shauna,’ the midwife said, ‘Let’s meet your baby.’

  No. Panic took a sledgehammer to my chest. I wasn’t ready for this.

  The midwife was still speaking to Shauna. ‘I want you to push when I say. Okay?’

  Shauna nodded, her blonde curls soaked, stuck to her pale, waxen skin. She’d never looked more beautiful. I stayed by her head, the view of what was happening at the other end blocked by her knees and gown. Her hand gripped mine, my knuckles cracking under the pressure. Even my frigging joints were spineless.

  ‘All right, Shauna, here we go. Now… push.’

  The roar was deafening, blood-curdling, excruciating.

  And then… nothing. Silence. Oh fuck. Not again. Not again. Not again.

  The loop of thought was suddenly pierced by another wail, and there she was, full of life, being lifted towards us, placed on Shauna’s chest, skin on skin, still attached to her mama, arms and legs trembling as they felt the rush of air in her new world. A nurse quickly covered her with a blanket and she was quiet again, at peace, contented.

  She breathed. One tiny breath after another. Every rise and fall of her chest making my heart thunder with the joy I couldn’t even describe.

  ‘Hey, little one,’ Shauna whispered, tears coursing down her face. ‘I’m your mum. And this is your daddy. He’s a bit of a weakling around hospitals, but you’ll love him.’

  Laughter mingled with the tears as I leaned over and stroked my daughter’s face. ‘I have good points too, beautiful girl,’ I told her. ‘I’m great on a skateboard. I’ll be a pushover if you want anything. Anything at all.’

  Anything. Because this time my girl had made it and I’d never stop being grateful.

  Shauna’s smile couldn’t have been wider.

  ‘She’s perfect,’ I murmured. ‘Thank you.’ I had to clear the blockage in my throat before I continued. ‘You know what this means? You’re down the list. She’s number one in our house now.’

  ‘I think I can handle that.’

  I knew she could. How many times had she told me that she could only be with a man who loved his child more than anything else in the world? She wanted to give our daughter the father she never had. Break the cycle.

  I wouldn’t let her down. For the rest of my life I’d love and protect her, make her laugh and shoot any boyfriends that came to the door. I was going to stand by her side every day and never, ever leave her.

  Shauna was gently stroking our daughter’s face, mesmerized by every line and curve. ‘What are we going to call her then?’

  I’d refused to discuss it before now. I told her it was superstition, but I knew it was fear.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘Any ideas?’

  She carried on stroking that perfect face. ‘Tomorrow is Annie’s birthday.’

  ‘There could never be another Annie, m’darlin.’

  ‘I know. But Annie’s full name was Bethany. How about… Beth?
’

  ‘Beth,’ I repeated, realizing immediately that it felt right. ‘Okay, Beth,’ I spoke to my daughter. ‘How do you like the sound of that? I’ll take silence as a yes.’

  She didn’t make a sound.

  43

  2016

  Going Back

  It was dark by the time the cab pulled up at the house. I could see a dim light radiating from the side of the building, so that meant Shauna was in the kitchen. If I thought there was any chance he wouldn’t have called the police, I’d have ignored the taxi driver’s cheery, ‘There you go, mate,’ and just sat there, eyes straight forward, killing an hour, maybe two, before I had to go in there.

  I had to tell her.

  This morning, Jess had begged me not to, listed all the reasons I shouldn’t do it. It would wreck our lives. It would destroy Beth’s childhood. Affect the boys. Devastate Shauna. Snatch away any shred of happiness that we would have from now until…

  As always, I didn’t finish that thought. Maybe acceptance of this illness would come soon, but it wasn’t here yet so I wasn’t going to let it eat into my life even a day sooner than it had to. Shauna couldn’t understand that, but it was honestly how I felt. I’d read more on brain tumours than I ever wanted to know. Yes, I was looking at a high probability of a year, maybe two, but that wasn’t a fixed sentence. It came with exceptions. ‘Statistic outliers’ they call them. People who survive longer than the odds, for no specific reason. They just do. Right now, I was feeling fine, so I was going to trust that I was a statistic outlier until something or someone told me otherwise. I was going to believe that I’d live to see my girl sing in ten Christmas shows, finish primary school, high school, get married…

  A huge mass formed in my throat. I wouldn’t give up on the future. Fuck this disease.

  But I couldn’t focus on staying positive and willing myself to live if I was drowning in guilt.

  Jess was probably right. I should wipe it from the memory and move on.

  But I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t look Shauna in the face, kiss her, make love to her, and know that I’d been with someone else. My phone had been out of charge all day. That’s what happened when you stormed out of a house without packing a charger. It was probably just as well because I’d thought about phoning her a dozen times. Coward’s way out, I know. Now I was going to have to man up and confess everything, and watch her face as I obliterated our entire lives.

  It was a familiar mantra, but fuck, I was an idiot.

  I wasn’t even sure what I was hoping to achieve. Her forgiveness? What were the chances of that? And if she did find a way to forgive me, would it be because of the tumour? We couldn’t live like that. The only thing worse than her leaving me would be her staying with me out of pity.

  What the fuck had I done?

  I just had to hope that she could find a way to love me after this. I couldn’t lose her. For whatever time we still had, whether it was one year or ten, I needed her to be with me – not because she felt sorry for me, but because she loved me enough to overcome it.

  ‘Mate?’ The taxi driver was getting restless.

  ‘Sorry,’ I blustered, thrusting forty quid towards him. It was probably his biggest tip of the day, but I wasn’t above buying karma anywhere I could.

  I walked slowly up the path. Dead man walking. In more ways than one. It was after nine p.m, so Beth would be in her bed. I desperately wanted to see her, but at least this way there would be no distractions, no little face running towards me, her life about to be decimated by the fact that daddy had been a cheating bastard. I’d open that door, Shauna would be there, I’d tell her.

  Suddenly I was back in the doctor’s office, waiting for the next conversation, one that I knew had the potential to change my life. That one hadn’t gone well. I had no reason to think this would be any different.

  The cold metal of the door handle stuck to the palm of my hand as I paused, took a breath, then pushed it open.

  ‘Hey, m’darlin, how…’

  I stopped.

  I’d expected her to be bustling around the kitchen, cooking or cleaning. Or perhaps sitting at the table, doing paperwork with a huge mug of coffee by her side.

  Instead, she was curled up in the armchair in the corner of the room, her chin resting on the knees that were pulled up against her chest, her skin pale, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

  She knew.

  Shit, she knew.

  How had she found out? That didn’t even matter.

  She knew.

  ‘Shauna?’ I dropped my bag, crossed the room in two strides and then I was on my knees in front of her.

  ‘Shauna, I’m so…’

  ‘My dad died,’ she whispered.

  44

  2016

  No Going Back

  I could see it in his face the second he opened the door. He was going to tell me.

  God damn his inherent honesty and screwed up integrity.

  I couldn’t decide if he was the bravest or the most foolish man I’d ever met. Probably both.

  And yet, I understood how he was feeling. I’d wrestled with telling him about Vincent for a long time after it happened. A few times, the words had almost spilled out, but I’d stopped them just in time, desperate to give us a chance to make it work. That doubt ended the moment I discovered I was pregnant.

  I wasn’t going to rob my child of her father because of my mistake. If that meant I lived with the guilt, then that was what I’d do, because she mattered so much more than I did. My child deserved to be with the father who I knew would adore her every day of her life.

  Colm and I loved each other, and we could make an incredible home for her, create the family I’d never had. I had no right to take that away from her.

  So I never told him, and honestly? I never regretted that for a single moment.

  Maybe that made me a terrible person, but I would rather live with the consequences of my choice, than blow up my family by doing what other people would consider to be the right thing.

  I still believed it was for the best. It hadn’t tainted our marriage and it hadn’t complicated Vincent’s life either. The last I heard, he’d married Carole, they were living in New York and happy. It may have taken a twisting path, but he’d found his love.

  And so had I.

  It was Colm who was on his knees in front of me now, his arms around me, holding me while I sobbed. Not for the father I had lost, because the truth was I’d never really had one. I cried for the dad my daughter could lose. The man I could lose.

  I couldn’t let that happen. At least, not before his illness took that out of our hands.

  I wanted every day from now until then to be as perfect as it could be. If he told me, yes, of course, I’d forgive him, but it would always be there, a wedge between us. I knew him. He thought it would ease his guilt but it wouldn’t erase it completely, and he’d always wonder whether I stayed because I loved him or because he was dying.

  The doubt and regret would drown our days and shadow our nights.

  ‘Shhhhh,’ he soothed me, stroking my hair. Only when my shoulders stopped shaking and my trembling hands were still, did he ease back from me, take Beth’s blanket from the back of the chair and wrap it around me.

  He stayed on the floor, his face so earnest that I wanted to reach down, caress his cheek.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Shauna. What happened?’

  ‘He had a heart attack. He was with Rosie.’

  I saw the confusion, then he went with the most obvious conclusion. ‘He was at the café?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. He was…’ My lungs ran out of breath and I had to pause to refuel them. ‘He was having an affair with Rosie – has been for as long as we’ve been together.’

  His initial reaction, like mine, was overwhelming disbelief. ‘What? No. No way. Rosie wouldn’t.’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘They were together this afternoon when he collap
sed. She phoned an ambulance, took him to hospital, called my mother…’

  ‘Your mother knew about Rosie?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘Jesus wept. I’ll never understand them.’

  ‘I won’t either,’ I said. The sorrow was choking me but the irony was hard to miss.

  My parents had spent their lives ignoring their indiscretions, an aspect of their behaviour that I’d always despised. Now I was choosing to do the same.

  Perhaps it should make me feel more compassionate towards them, but it didn’t.

  They choose to ignore the infidelities for themselves, I was choosing to do it for the family I loved and the child that I cherished. If that made me a hypocrite, I’d take it.

  ‘How do you feel about Rosie?’ he asked, still astonished.

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. This afternoon I was furious. Raging. How could she do that? How could she be with him and also be the friend I spoke to every day, yet those two lives were separate? But if I put the fact that he was my dad to one side, she sacrificed years of her life for a man she couldn’t have. That’s beyond tragic. Now I just feel… sorry for her. She’s lost fifteen years on someone who wasn’t worth her heart.’

  I pulled the blanket tighter around me to stop the shivers. He reached over, pushed back my hair, stroked my face.

  ‘Losing him must hurt,’ he said softly. ‘I know you weren’t close, but he was still your dad.’

  Emotional preconceptions. My father had died so I should be grief-stricken. Colm had been told he had terminal cancer, so he should be inconsolable. Yet, neither of us was playing by the rulebook. Maybe nobody ever really did.

  ‘I’m sad that someone’s life has ended,’ I told him honestly. ‘But I don’t feel like I lost a father, because I can’t mourn something I never had. Does that make sense?’

  Colm nodded wordlessly, just listening, letting me talk.

  ‘I feel… angry. I know I shouldn’t, that probably makes me a heartless bitch, but I do.’