A Thousand Roads Home

by Carmel Harrington

  ‘She’s alive. Barely.’ He pulled out his phone and dialled 999 for the second time that day and prayed for a second miracle. Keep this child alive, please. Because that’s what she was. A child herself.

  ‘Will she be OK, Doc?’ Bones asked as he paced the room. Sheila reminded him of his own daughter, one who didn’t want to know him any more, but was never far from his mind. ‘She never took drugs before, Doc. Never. I swear, she was clean!’

  Tom knew exactly what had happened. He’d seen it hundreds of times on the street. Sheila had given in to the hopelessness of her situation. And took the only way out she could think of.

  41

  TOM

  When the ambulance took Sheila away, Tom’s body began to tremble. The day had almost done him in and he felt every bit of his sixty-odd years. And no matter how hard he tried, Sheila’s overdose and the little baby sent Tom into the darkest part of his mind. Memories, dreams of a time in his life that he fought to avoid, overcame him. This was a home he did not want to revisit, but his mind found its way there all the same …

  Tom dropped his toothbrush to the floor when he heard Cathy’s voice scream out. He wiped the foam from his mouth as he ran towards her voice, terror, horror, heartbreak laced in every scream.

  It only took seconds for him to reach Mikey’s room, but it felt like an eternity. As he pushed open the white door, as it swung open wide, Tom had the urge to slam it shut once more. To run away from whatever horror lay on the other side causing his wife to howl like she did.

  Nothing prepared him for the truth on the other side. Cathy lying on the ground holding Mikey in her arms, kissing his face over and over, begging him to wake up. ‘He isn’t moving. He was on his tummy face down when I came in, Tom. Why isn’t he moving? I need to warm him up; he’s so cold.’

  Tom’s mind screamed No! over and over. Yet somehow he managed to calmly say to Cathy, ‘Give Mikey to me, love. Let me do my job and see what’s wrong with him.’

  In the end, he had to peel her hands away from him. She couldn’t let go. Tom laid his son down gently on the floor. His tiny body was cold and lifeless.

  No!

  He refused to believe that he could not help. He was a doctor. This was his job, to save people. To save children. To save his son.

  ‘Do something. Please, oh, please, do something …’ Cathy was on her knees, as if in prayer, sobbing hysterically.

  ‘Call 999,’ Tom instructed. Then he began CPR, blowing gently into Mikey’s mouth.

  Time stood still and they waited for a miracle.

  God damn it, Mikey, breathe. Don’t you dare leave us.

  Cathy watched him with hope and fear stamped onto every nuance of her face.

  Mikey did not move. No answer to their prayers. No miracle.

  The paramedics arrived within fifteen minutes. They found Tom still trying to resuscitate his son. Gently they asked him to move aside. And to Tom’s shame he felt relief that he could now hand over the responsibility to someone else. Let the paramedics perform a miracle that he could not muster. They continued CPR and they injected Mikey with adrenalin.

  Tom fell back and leaned against the white cot that only a few short months ago he had put together. His mind refused to accept the reality of the nightmare that was in front of him.

  Over and over he screamed inside, No! No! No!

  The silence in the room thundered around them. Tom closed his eyes, unable to watch as the paramedics began to shock his baby’s heart.

  Cry, Mikey, cry for your mama and dada. Cry …

  But all around them was that thundering, fucking sound of silence.

  ‘We need to bring Mikey into hospital now,’ the paramedic said kindly. She had tears in her eyes and this made Tom cross. No tears, no crying for their son allowed. He was going to live. He had to live.

  They picked him up and wrapped him in a blanket, walking out of the house to the waiting ambulance. Tom and Cathy ran behind them, clutching onto each other. Horror unlike anything they could ever have imagined ripping them into shreds.

  ‘They’ll put him on a drip or something. A life-support machine to help him breathe. Won’t they?’ Cathy shrieked at Tom.

  Tom lied and said yes. Of course they would. But he knew all was lost. Because even if by some miracle they managed to bring Mikey back, all that time without oxygen to his brain would leave him severely brain damaged.

  He felt sorrow begin to seep into him, working its way through his body, poisoning everything. Causing a lasting fracture in his mind that would one day snap in two.

  42

  RUTH

  Now

  Despite the fact that Kian could now read his newspaper in the new hotel Library he preferred to hide out behind the palm tree in the lobby. Knowing he was getting one over on Erica, on the system, on life, made him happy. And he had to get his kicks wherever he could.

  And this was a good thing, because today he overheard Erica placing an advert for a temporary part-time cleaner at the hotel.

  He was waiting for Ruth in the kitchen when she got back from her early morning run to fill her in.

  ‘My track record with employment is abysmal,’ Ruth said.

  ‘I’ve been a bit hit and miss myself, won’t lie,’ Kian replied.

  ‘Over the past five years, since DJ started school, I have worked in and been fired from over a dozen jobs. Inadvertently, I always manage to do something that causes my employers to lose patience with me.’

  Ruth remembered her most recent jobs. The owner of the boutique in Swords Village at first loved her quirky style of dress, saying she was a perfect addition to their team. She changed her mind when Ruth’s honesty backfired. A customer asked her if her bum looked big in the tube dress she had squeezed herself into. ‘Yes’ was the wrong answer, but Ruth did not know that. When the woman left without spending a cent in the store, her manager took Ruth to task. Apparently she should have lied and let the woman leave with a dress that did her no favours.

  Neither was stacking shelves in her local supermarket a success. It was the noise that bothered her the most: Tannoys booming announcements without warning. On the third occasion her manager found Ruth locked in a bathroom cubicle wearing her headphones to block out the noise, he sacked her.

  ‘Maybe you have been in the wrong jobs before,’ Kian said. ‘You’ve been cleaning the Library every day for free. This kitchen, too, I’d wager. That mark has disappeared from the wall, the cooker has never been as clean and these cupboards have you all over them.’ He pulled open a cupboard to reveal neatly stacked plates and cups. ‘If you apply for that job, at least you’d be getting a few bob!’

  With Christmas rushing towards her at breakneck speed and DJ growing an inch by the week, Ruth needed to bring in some cash. Luck was on her side because at the very moment she walked into the lobby to talk to Erica, the chef stormed out, refusing to cook another meal until someone came in and sorted out the mess in the dining room.

  ‘It’s highly irregular. I’m not sure I’m allowed to hire you!’ Erica said.

  ‘Why ever not?’ Ruth was puzzled. ‘It is not on the …’

  Erica held her hand up to stop her finishing the sentence. ‘So help me, Ruth, if you mention the rules one more time …’

  ‘You wrote them,’ Ruth pointed out.

  Erica sighed and said, ‘You may be on our social housing list, but you are still a resident.’

  ‘But I am not one of your “normal” residents. Plus, at the speed the list moves I will be here for at least a couple more months. You saw what I did with the Library. I am a good worker. I like to clean. I like to organise things,’ Ruth pointed out.

  Erica glanced towards the bar and the restaurant that should both be serving lunch in less than two hours, but were still in a mess from breakfast. She needed to get her chef back. Pronto.

  ‘If you can bring order to that dining room before lunch, we can talk.’

  ‘I’ll start in five minutes.’ Ruth went bac
k to her room to grab her headphones. She was going to need Westlife to get through this. DJ was with Cormac and Anna in the park. They’d left after breakfast, giggling about some story Cormac was regaling them with. Like father, like son.

  Ruth worked fast, diligently moving from one section to the other, until order was restored with half an hour to spare. When Erica came in to check her progress Ruth could tell she was impressed. The chef returned to his kitchen, too, singing her praises.

  ‘Minimum wage. 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., six days a week, take it or leave it,’ Erica said.

  ‘10 a.m. to 1 p.m., five days a week. Double time if you need me at weekends. Take that or leave that,’ Ruth said. She had the school run to think about.

  Erica looked at her with respect. White as a ghost and could barely look you in the eye, you’d think she was a pushover. But there was steel in this one. ‘Done. You start Monday.’

  Ruth threw her head back in delight. She called into the kitchen to have a celebratory ice-cold glass of milk.

  ‘Did you get the job?’ Kian asked.

  ‘I most certainly did. Thank you for the tip. Incidentally, do you ever leave this kitchen?’

  ‘You are welcome. Don’t let Erica lord it over you too much. And ha ha, yes I do,’ he said.

  ‘I have worked for much worse,’ Ruth replied. She opened the fridge and began to rearrange the contents until everything was in the correct order. Once they were back where they should be, she pulled out the milk.

  A beep signalled the end of the dishwasher cycle so Ruth decided to empty it.

  ‘A free sauna, eh?’ Kian said, making her laugh, when the steam hit Ruth in the face.

  She unloaded the dishwasher, then placed the delph and crockery in piles, colour co-ordinating them as she went.

  ‘What happens if you mix the colours up?’ Kian asked, mesmerised by her routine.

  Despite a quickening of her heart rate Ruth shrugged. ‘Nothing happens. It is just I like it this way. It pleases me to have things where they need to be.’

  Kian said, ‘Cool. I get it. It’s all about control for you, isn’t it?’

  Ruth looked at him in surprise.

  ‘There are things that drive me mad too if they are not the way I like them,’ Kian said.

  ‘Like what?’ Ruth was curious. She didn’t know this about him. She supposed she didn’t really know him at all.

  ‘I like doors closed. The problem is I spend a lot of time getting up and down like a blue-arsed fly, because Cormac thinks he lives in a barn with a bleeding swinging door! Door closing is my thing. Cleaning is yours. Or rather, creating order.’

  Ruth closed the door of the dishwasher, winking at Kian as she did, then picked up her milk. She sat opposite him and took a sip. ‘Have you ever felt like you were free-falling?’

  Kian nodded. ‘Fuck, yeah.’

  ‘That is how I feel at some point, most days. But when I clean a surface, or colour co-ordinate my plates, then I eliminate some of the chaos in my life. It helps.’

  ‘I get that. I do. Listen, whatever gets you through the day, I say. What’s the gig with the food, though? I can’t put my finger on it. You have some weird stuff going on there, too. Am I right?’

  Ruth smiled at him. ‘You are an observant man.’ He knew and understood her better than her family ever had. ‘I try to only eat and drink white things. These calm me. Other colours bother me. Bright ones, like reds or oranges, are particularly irksome and hurt my eyes.’

  ‘Fuck them, whoever they are!’ Kian said. ‘I take people as I find them. And you, Ms Ruth Wilde, are all kinds of all right.’ He stood up, pulling his jeans back up to waist level. ‘Laterz.’

  Ruth made a couple of rounds of sandwiches and headed to the park. She found DJ sitting on Tom’s park bench on his own. ‘Where are Cormac and Anna?’

  ‘Gone back to the hotel,’ DJ said.

  ‘Any sign of Dr O’Grady?’

  DJ scowled and said, ‘I saw him for a minute, but he said he didn’t have time to stop and talk. He looked in a bad mood.’

  ‘I made him lunch.’ Ruth felt a jolt of disappointment. She wanted to tell him about her new job. She knew he would be happy for her.

  DJ’s stomach growled, so Ruth passed him the lunch box. ‘Chicken sandwiches.’

  DJ pushed the box back to her.

  ‘You are not hungry?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘I am sick of chicken sandwiches. I am sick of potatoes. I am sick of pasta!’ he shouted.

  Ruth put the lunch box back in her bag, her own appetite lost now, too.

  ‘I got a job,’ Ruth said. ‘The money is not much, but it will help coming up to Christmas. And I can get you a new pair of joggers. Some new trainers. We could go shopping now if you like.’

  ‘What job?’ DJ asked.

  ‘At the hotel. I’m their new cleaner.’

  He jumped up and kicked a stone out onto the path, his face scrunched up in anger.

  ‘What is wrong now?’ Ruth was at a loss.

  ‘Why do you have to be the cleaner?’ DJ asked.

  ‘They need a cleaner. I need a job. Why not me?’ Ruth replied.

  ‘This will give everyone something else to laugh about,’ DJ said.

  ‘Who is everyone?’ Ruth asked, puzzled.

  ‘Everyone at the hotel.’

  ‘They are laughing at me?’ Ruth asked. Doubts started to creep in. Her hands began to twist and turn as they often did when she was upset or worried. And the only way to stop that was to …

  Pop, pop, pop.

  ‘Everyone always laughs at you,’ DJ said. He looked up and saw the shock and hurt flood his mother’s face. But he didn’t care.

  Ruth picked up her things and turned to go back to the hotel. She didn’t want him to see her cry. ‘Are you coming with me?’

  DJ stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers and followed her, because he had nowhere else to be.

  Mother and son walked in silence, both in pain and both unable to say what they really wanted. Or the unspoken words they should say.

  43

  TOM

  Tom saw the disappointment on DJ’s face when he told him he was too busy to stop and talk. He felt guilt weigh him down. Just like it had after Mikey died. Guilt that he could not save his son. Guilt that he could not reach his wife and bring her back from the horror she now lived in. He felt like he would drown under the weight of the guilt he felt. Now that he had opened a door in his mind to the memory of Mikey’s death, he could not stop memories pounding at him continuously. He tried to keep moving, to keep busy, to stem the flow, but they came, no matter what.

  Tom and Cathy sat opposite each other at the kitchen table. A new notebook and pen, the kind with the spiral top, sitting in front of them.

  Beside the notebook sat a small white box.

  A whole life was contained in that box. Mikey’s birth cert. His first curl, snipped carefully by Tom, because Cathy was too afraid to cut him, her hands shook so much. The small identity bracelet from his birth: ‘Baby O’Grady. Parents: Cathy and Thomas O’Grady.’

  His first babygro. Simple plain white. Pure and innocent like their boy.

  One more item was now added to the box. A death certificate: ‘Cause: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. SIDS.’

  The silent killer with no explanation. Children should outlive their parents by decades. What is the actual point if not?

  The point was a life too short, cruelly snatched away.

  The remains of that life lay in one small white box.

  If Mikey had been sick they would have been prepared for the loss. But instead they had no answers. And just the one question.

  Why?

  They had not been the only ones asking questions. When Tom and Cathy returned home from hospital, parents without a child, their home had become a crime scene. Cathy’s mum and dad awaited them, her mother stammering, ‘They’ve … sealed off Mikey’s nursery … I’m so sorry, I couldn’t stop them …’

 
And even though Tom knew the authorities were following procedure, standard practice following the sudden death of a child, he was angry. Crime-scene yellow tape barred them from their own child’s nursery and mocked them, accusing them of something truly terrible.

  There was no foul play. The room was not too cold, in fact they were having a mild winter. Mikey wasn’t co-sleeping with them, so there was no issue of either parent smothering him by mistake. No air pollution. No cushion or pillow in the cot that blocked his airways. No answers to that same fucking question. Why?

  Their baby boy’s heart had just stopped beating.

  ‘There was no way you could have known.’ That’s what the coroner said.

  But Tom should have. He was a doctor and he had somehow missed something. He should have saved his son’s life. He saw the way that Cathy looked at him. She knew it, too.

  They sat on opposite sides of their kitchen table, staring at a blank notebook page. Trying to find the words to go on Mikey’s headstone. Words that conveyed to the world how much his life was worth.

  Tom reached over to touch Cathy. His need to feel the warmth of her hand in his was overwhelming.

  I need you. Please Cathy. Please …

  His silent plea went unanswered. She pulled her hands back and placed them under the table. Cathy hadn’t spoken a single word since their baby died. And he wasn’t sure she ever would.

  44

  RUTH

  Now

  Ruth was dusting the front desk, trying to block out Erica’s rant, which was now in its tenth minute.

  Erica held up her newspaper and pointed to a headline, ‘One in four in social housing reject the houses offered to them. Disgraceful.’

  Ruth lifted the guest register and wiped the counter under it.

  Melissa from room 131 walked into reception. ‘We need more toilet roll, please.’

  Erica sighed loudly, ‘You go through toilet roll like nobody else in this hotel.’

  Melissa replied, ‘There’s five of us in our room. More arses to wipe.’