* * *
People often wondered why Craig and I had never married, or even got so far as to get engaged. When my father was diagnosed with cancer and especially when we knew it was terminal, people had started to get extra edgy around us. I had called into Bake My Day one afternoon – just to check over the books with Elise and make a few plans for cover. She had been working on a wedding cake – a three-tier affair, each layer a different flavour, and she had looked at it and then at me.
“Would you not consider it?” she asked as I sat down on the stool across the workbench from her.
“Consider what?”
She nodded towards the cake and perhaps I’m particularly dense or exceptionally stupid but I didn’t catch on.
“Cake?” I offered. “I consider cake all the time. Sure cake is my business.”
“Wedding cake,” she offered again and still, because I am a dumb-ass, I didn’t catch on.
I looked at her blankly.
“A wedding,” she said, the frustration in her voice obvious. “You and Craig. Would now not be the perfect time?”
“While my father is fighting to stay alive just a little bit longer?” I asked, eyebrows raised a little, hackles raised even more. “I can think of better times.”
“But don’t you think that maybe he would like to see you settled? That it would give him a boost to see his only child marry? Do you not think he would get some joy out of it? He doesn’t have long left.”
She said ‘he doesn’t have long left’ as if it were news to me. As if that hadn’t been the only thought to cross my mind, over and over and over again, since his diagnosis. I had thought of all the things he wouldn’t see. He would never get back to California or see the Grand Canyon again. He would never write the book he always wanted to write. He would never hold any of his grandchildren. And among those thoughts was also the fact that he would never be there to walk me down the aisle. It had never occurred to me to make that happen – to arrange a wedding just for him. Something, I guess, had been holding me back. Still and all, I walked away from the bakery that day with nothing but thoughts of a wedding in my mind. We could do it – something simple, in Mom and Dad’s back yard with a pergola decked in flowers, a wooden dance floor hired in. White chairs lined together for our guests – a red carpet laid for me to walk on. I could get a dress, something simple. I wouldn’t quite go down the whole ‘hippy in the back yard in her bare feet’ routine but there would be no fuss or flounce or excessive frills. I would have a champagne fountain with old-fashioned champagne glasses – no fancy flutes – and I would bake my own wedding cake – or better still, cupcakes, just like Daddy liked.
I ran the thoughts through my mind and back again all the way home, trying to convince myself that it would be a good idea. And sure Craig and I were as good as married anyway so we might as well take the next step.
I was sure it was a great idea as I padded up the stairs to our porch and pulled open the screen door. I was almost, almost convinced – until I saw him.
I didn’t think anyone actually did it. I didn’t think anyone actually, actually, ever came home unexpectedly in the day to find their partner in bed with someone else. I thought it was something you saw in movies but was such a huge, massive cliché that it didn’t actually ever happen. And I suppose, to be fair to Craig, he wasn’t in bed with her. And thankfully both were, almost, fully dressed but the way they were kissing each other, grabbing each other and the way in which he was pressing her against the wall left me with no doubts whatsoever as to what their intentions were.
It was strange. I stood there for a moment and the world seemed to freeze-frame. My immediate feeling was not of disgust, or horror, or anger. My immediate thought was, there is Craig, passionately kissing another woman. Imagine that? I looked at the scene and it was as if my brain was trying to process what I was seeing. My second thought was not disgust, or horror or anger either – it was, Was this my fault?, and my brain strained to find some sort of acceptable explanation for it all and in doing so tried, in the passing of mere seconds, to see if there was any immediate way to make this all okay.
My thought process then segued quickly and painfully into a searing, almost physical pain of betrayal. I couldn’t speak in this time so I watched them – I watched him push her against the wall, watched his hand grope at her breast, heard him gasp and moan, saw him thrust his groin tight towards her showing her what he wanted. I saw her fingers entangle themselves in his hair, pulling him towards her, and I thought of all the times we had kissed like that – all the times I had thought those kisses were only, and would only ever be, for me. Something in the very pit of my stomach lurched and I felt myself stumble backwards, still unable to speak, still unable to tell them I could see them. Still unable to scream “Stop!”
I thought of the wedding I had been planning to spring on Craig – me walking through the yard in my simple dress, the simple bands we would buy – and I watched him move to unbutton her blouse and groan that he wanted her.
And still I couldn’t find the words, so I turned and walked out – careful for some reason I’ve yet to understand not to make any noise and not to disturb them and what they were at. I climbed into my car and drove until I reached the lake – the lake where we picnicked each and every summer when I was a child – and I sat on the grass, watching the water ripple and listening to the sound of people around me – enjoying their lives, getting on with things, just being together. I don’t think that I have ever before or ever since felt as utterly alone as I did in that moment and yet still I didn’t cry. My head swam and I played the scene I had just witnessed over and over again in my head but I didn’t cry. I had other things to cry about – bigger things. Was it numbness or indifference? That question, as it crossed my mind, shocked me more than seeing my boyfriend grinding against another woman. Did I have the strength to deal with this right now? And if I’m honest, did it provide me with some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card?
I sat, picking strands of grass and running them through my fingers, wondering when life would start to make sense again, and then, when it was a time when I figured Craig would actually expect me home, I walked calmly back to my car, drove home and walked through the door and, as if nothing had happened, made us dinner and sat down to eat. If he noticed I was quieter than normal that night, he said nothing. He just ate his dinner and talked about his day – leaving out the obvious details – and after we finished eating I told him I had a migraine and so that I wouldn’t disturb him with my tossing and turning all night I was going to sleep in the spare room if that was okay.
He nodded, asked if I needed anything from the drug store and cleared the table for me. I told him I was fine, I just needed to sleep and then, without addressing any of what I had seen or any of the wedding plans that had seemed so important just hours before, I poured a glass of water, walked past our bedroom without even going in to get my pyjamas or my toothbrush or as much as looking through the door, and straight on to the spare room where I closed the shutters, pulled back the covers and lay down and wished a real migraine on myself to distract me from the multiple conversations going on in my head.
Thankfully I fell, quickly, into a deep sleep and when the morning came I went about my business as if nothing had ever happened. I visited my father and we sat together in his yard and I pushed aside all thoughts of him ever walking me down the aisle. I held his hand and vowed that for that afternoon we wouldn’t talk about cancer. We wouldn’t talk about the reality of what lay ahead. And, although he was my nearest, dearest and most beloved confidant, I wouldn’t burden him with what was going on. I would paint on the happiest of faces, as much as possible, and we would just be.
So we talked about Star Wars, and The Muppets and memories of my childhood. I told him how the memory of him dressing as Santa for my First Grade class still made me laugh – how I had defiantly told my classmates my papa was the “very real Santa Claus”. And I told him that, even though I was a w
oman with a life of my own, I would always remember the times when he thought I was sleeping, when he would come into my room to kiss me goodnight and call me princess as he switched off the nightlight.
“You always were the love of my life, Annabel,” he said. “And you always will be.”
My daddy, I realised, would never hurt me. Apart from dying on me, which was killing me slowly and piece by piece, but if he could have fought that I know he would have – I know he would fight as hard as was humanly possible and never stop. But some things you can’t change. I held his hand and tried not to think of how it was becoming weak and frail, his skin taking on a papery-thin quality, and I rested my head on his shoulder.
“Look at the clouds, Annabel,” he said and I glanced up, taking in the scene above us – soft wisps of cotton stretching across a blue sky. “The funny thing about living here is that, probably mid-afternoon, we’ll have a god-awful thunder storm. The rain will pelt down, the lightning will strike across that sky and, for all intents and purposes, if you let your imagination take it all in, for those few minutes it will look like the world is about to come an end. But you know what?” he laughed. “An hour later the skies will clear again and that sun will be shining just as brightly and the clouds will be just like that – streaking across the skies.” He squeezed my hand as he spoke and I knew he was talking about more than the clouds and the weather and the humidity of a Florida afternoon.
* * *
“You look like you’ve been dragged through a bush backwards,” Sam greeted me as I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of orange juice.
“Good morning to you too,” I answered, pulling myself up onto one of the kitchen stools and draining my glass in record time.
“Tough night?” he asked, sitting down opposite me and placing a plate of croissants between us. “Tell me, your mum is still alive, isn’t she? You didn’t stab her over the starters or anything over-dramatic like that?”
His teasing was gentle. I knew he genuinely cared about whether or not I was upset.
“Mom is still very much alive and, yes, it was a bit awkward, but it wasn’t hell on earth. I just . . . I’m just struggling to get my head around it all, that’s all.”
“More pieces of the puzzle?”
“Big fat pieces – but it’s a very big puzzle or else I’m very stupid because I can’t make them fit.” I lifted a croissant and bit into it, realising just how very hungry I was. “But then I haven’t read all the letters yet.”
I explained to him about the letters, handing him those I had already read and going over the minutiae of what was contained on the pages until he dragged me back into the bedroom and sat down to read them himself. If a part of me felt guilty that I was perhaps breaking some sort of confidence, I pushed it back down. I needed someone who could help me see this rationally and, as I was thousands of miles away from anyone I considered a friend back home and only had family to rely on here, he was the obvious choice.
“Jesus,” Sam said, looking up from the letters, “I wouldn’t normally consider myself to be a raging romantic but my heart is breaking for her – well, the ‘her’ she was in 1960. Seems like a whole other world.”
“I suppose it was,” I said, sitting back on the bed and picking up one of the letters to read it over again.
“How have you not read them all?” he said incredulously. “I want to read them all!”
“Because, I suppose, even though it is all very romantic and dramatic it’s still my mother – and this secret or guilt or other life she has carried around with her all these years. I just wanted a break from the intensity of it all before I read the rest.”
“What I don’t understand, unless these unread letters reveal something groundbreaking, is how she ended up in the States anyway? What took her there if the situation was as bleak as it was?”
I shook my head. I suppose it had all been hazy in my head – a story of my mother nannying in the States, marrying my father, having me in her thirties when she had all but given up hope of ever having a baby and where she was asked if she was my grandma on more than one occasion – but the finer points, we hadn’t ever really discussed the finer points.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I honestly don’t know.”
Chapter 18
Dolores says hello. She says we should both stop being silly. I’ve told her I’m not being silly any more. I never was. I was stupid but I was never silly.
* * *
Derry, Christmas Eve 1959
Ray was a marine. He had been a marine for six years. He had been trained to be fierce in the face of any foe and yet he was sitting in The Diamond and his hands were trembling and his head spinning. His head had in fact been in a spin since word had come that his posting at the naval base in Derry – a place he had come to regard as home – was to end and he would be going home. The message had been delivered with suitable aplomb. “Great news for you, boys! You can tell your moms you’re coming home. What a Christmas present, eh?”
His mom would be delighted but yet he hadn’t found himself in the queue of men eager to phone home or send telegrams to break the happy news. He had found there was only one thought in his mind – one name, over and over again – Stella. His Stella. How could he tell her? How could he tell her they would be parted and so soon? Sure they had only been courting for a few months but it felt like a lifetime and he had become used to – and entranced with – their small bubble: their afternoons walking the Bollies, the evenings in their flat, the necking at the cinema. The thought that it was going to end – that they would be ripped apart – almost tore him to shreds.
He went back to his bunk, sat there and wondered how he could tell her. Tomorrow was Christmas – he had been invited to dine with the Hegartys and he had presents wrapped. He had bought Stella a brooch and he had been so looking forward to seeing her face when she opened it. Now it seemed pathetic, all of it seemed pathetic.
Having been told to stand down for the rest of the day and through to Boxing Day, he picked up his jacket, his wallet and his hat, and left the Base without so much as glancing back. He had been due to meet Stella anyway at the flat, if she could get away, but he had to hedge his bets. He had to assume that, as she had said, she would be unlikely to get away. It was already afternoon and the shops would no doubt be closing early – and the pubs too – and he had so much to do.
He was going to do this all wrong, he thought. It was just all wrong. Not how he imagined it at all. He glanced at his watch. Perhaps Ernest Hegarty would be in the pub now, sinking one last pint of stout before heading home to his happy family scene. If he was lucky he would catch him and if he caught him he could still perhaps salvage some of this day – of this whole year. If he could win Ernest Hegarty over, when the following day came he would ask Stella to marry him and set about making plans for her to journey with him to the States.
It was a lot to ask of her, he knew. He knew deep down that, no matter how she loved him, she adored her family and he would be taking her away from all that. But outside of the Marines, what was there for him here in Derry? Even the local men struggled to get jobs. He knew there was work waiting for him back in Boston and that they could have a good quality of life, away from the abject poverty he saw around him, all accepted as part of the Derry routine. He wanted more for Stella. He wanted to give her everything but he knew that when he spoke to Ernest Hegarty he would be asking this hardworking family man to give him his own everything: his daughter. He’d heard tales, of course – of marines chased from family homes, told they couldn’t take the girls with them. He’d heard of women wailing and screaming as the reality hit that they were actually boarding that ship and leaving their families behind, probably forever. He took a deep breath and pushed open the door of the bar, letting the warmth of the chatter, smoke and banter wash over him. The punters were clearly in great form, the thought of a short break from work at Christmas filling them with cheer almost as much as the stout was.
>
Ray scanned the room, trying to spot Ernest, half hoping he wasn’t there and half hoping to see him quickly and get this over and done with even faster – like pulling off a Band-Aid. He walked around the room until the sound of a loud peal of laughter caught his attention and he turned to see Ernest, pint in hand, listening to one of his docker friends relate a story which would make even a marine blush.
Ray was standing awkwardly, moving from one foot to the other and trying to build up the courage to try and get Ernest’s attention, when the older man looked at him, furrowed his brow as if trying to fit this jigsaw piece into a puzzle and broke into a smile.
“Well, Ray, son, what brings you here? Come and join us for a pint! I’ll have a second if you promise not to tell Stella and Kathleen.”
“Thanks, Mr Hegarty. I’ll get them – another pint of stout?”
“Ha, the boy’s trying to keep you sweet! He’s after something, I bet,” Ernest’s raucous friend shouted. “Hi, Yankee Doodle Dandy, what is it you’re after?”
Ernest looked at Ray and Ray was almost sure he felt the blood leave his face and pool somewhere around his feet. He realised it was now or never. It was strange that one moment – that announcement at the Base – could change everything. Now he had to make decisions and he had to make them fast . . . before he broke the news to Stella that he was being shipped home.
“Can I have a word, sir?” he asked to raucous laughter from Ernest’s friend.
“I bet no one has ever called you ‘sir’ before!” one of the dockers roared while Ernest held Ray’s gaze.
“Nothing wrong with a bit of manners – you could be doing with some yourself,” Ernest said, pushing past his friends and leading Ray to what may have been the only quiet corner of any pub in Derry that Christmas Eve.
The First Time I Said Goodbye Page 15