by Ciara Smyth
“I think it’s for the best. It was going to end soon anyway, so what difference does a couple of weeks make?” I said, not really answering Oliver’s question.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” He shook his head. “You need to get over yourself.”
Those words flung me back into the car with Ruby and I bristled.
“Oh really? If we’re analyzing people tonight, tell me this, Mr. Quinn. Why do you have parties at your house—sorry, mansion—and then hide in the music room and avoid everyone? What’s the point?”
He didn’t seem hurt. Instead, he rubbed his chin with his hand.
“Funny you should ask. I’ve been wondering the same thing.”
He seemed genuinely thoughtful, maybe even a little deflated, and I felt bad for snapping.
“Any deep insights into your psyche that you want to share?” I teased, trying to bring us back to more lighthearted territory, where I was comfortable. I expected some kind of joke in response, but Oliver was serious when he spoke.
“I think I started having these parties so people would like me. I know that’s the most cliché thing in the world. But I thought if I had parties, people would come to me, and they’d associate me with having a good time.”
Oliver had always been that guy, the guy with the parties, the guy everyone talked to and chatted with at school.
“Well, it worked,” I said. “You can hardly walk down the hall at school without someone talking to you.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “People do talk to me. People say things like Lad, I was so battered at your party or Crackin’ night, lad.” He said these things in a deep bro voice. I tried not to laugh; Oliver trying to impersonate “the lads” sounded ridiculous. “They tell me about the things they did at my house. What a great time they had. And when they stop talking about it, I have another party.”
“OK . . .” I didn’t see where he was going with this.
“When you and Hannah and Izzy fell out, everyone noticed because everyone knew you were best friends. And you’re not popular or anything.”
“Aw, shucks, thanks.” I scowled at him.
“Who is Amanda Roberts friends with?” he asked.
“Eh, Christina Kelly and Rani Sullivan?”
“Right. And Chloe Foster?”
“Daniel Campbell. Although I think they’re definitely boning.”
“No, he’s gay.”
“What?! More gays? The top secret gay conversion plot is really working.”
“Who are my friends, Saoirse?” he said, and he didn’t sound maudlin, more like he was simply curious what I’d say.
I shrugged. “I dunno. Everyone?”
“Right, sure, but who would I go to if I had a problem?”
I couldn’t think of anyone. Oliver hung around with everyone; he never had one group of people or one best friend that I could tell.
“Exactly,” he said to my silence. “And now we’re all going on our separate ways and there isn’t anyone I can say I’ll stay in touch with.”
“No one will really stay friends. We’ll all have forgotten each other by Halloween.”
“Maybe that’s true,” he said, although it didn’t seem to make him feel any better.
I wasn’t used to this Oliver.
“Will you have another party before we all leave?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.” He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. “I think I’m tired of pretending. I don’t enjoy these parties. I always end up in here, and no one ever wonders where I am.”
I could tell he was done talking about it now. I sat beside him and I didn’t talk either. I reached my hand a few inches to the left and touched his hand. Our fingers interlaced. I sipped on my vodka and we didn’t talk until I reached the bottom of my glass.
I held our intertwined hands up in front of our faces.
“I’m still gay, though,” I said. “We’re not getting back together.”
“That’s good,” he replied thoughtfully. “You were cute when we were eleven, but I do not fancy you now.”
“Sure you do. I’m very fanciable. I wouldn’t blame you or anything.”
“Ugh, no. You’re like riddled with crabs and you’re way too butch for me.”
“Dude, I don’t think you know what butch means. Check out the hair. I’m a tomboy femme. I did a quiz.”
“Did the quiz makers see those boots?”
“No.”
“I demand a recount.”
My phone rang in my pocket, but I didn’t recognize the number on the screen.
“If this is another person asking me if I’ve been in an accident that wasn’t my fault I’m going off the grid,” I grumbled but answered anyway.
“Saoirse Clarke?”
“Yes?”
“This is Karen, I’m a night nurse from Seaview. Your mother is extremely distressed. She’s in an agitated state. I can’t get in contact with your father. I thought you would want to come down.”
32.
Oliver lingered in reception as Karen ushered me down the hall to Mum’s room, telling me matter-of-factly that Mum was being aggressive and violent. It happened sometimes. It was when she seemed least like the Mum I knew.
A month or so before she went missing, Dad was in Dublin at a meeting with clients and he’d promised to be back by five. I was home with Mum, making dinner. I mean I’d put frozen burgers under the grill, but that counted as cooking to me. Mum was getting in my way, though, fussing around the kitchen, trying to help. I had to leave to meet Hannah in half an hour and Dad wasn’t back yet even though he was the one who was meant to make dinner.
“No, Mum, give me that.” I tried to take a chopping knife out of her hand, but she had a tight grip on it.
“NO,” she shouted. “I can help, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed, frustrated. This was why Dad was meant to be back already. It was getting harder and harder to be with Mum and do anything else at the same time. If you left her alone you risked her trying to wander out of the house.
“I don’t need anything right now, Mum. Why don’t you go sit down?”
She stamped her foot and didn’t budge.
I took several deep breaths and reminded myself that she was more frustrated by the situation than I was.
“Look.” I tried a more soothing tone. “Why don’t we have a cup of tea? If you give me two minutes we can go into the living room together and I’ll put on music.”
I wondered if I should take out the baby doll. She would hold it and feed it and pace up and down winding it. But it was one of my least favorite “therapeutic tools.” It creeped me out to see Mum thinking a lump of plastic was a baby when she couldn’t even tell the person next to her was her daughter. So I put on some of her favorite music and when I got her settled on the sofa and distracted her with her photo album, she let the knife drop. I picked it up and returned to the kitchen to flip the burgers over. They were a bit burned on one side.
I called Dad, my third call so far, but there was no answer. I was pouring boiling water into a pot with some broccoli when Mum returned to the kitchen.
“I need something,” she said.
My phone dinged with a text from Dad.
DAD
Sorry, love. Left late and now stuck in gridlock trying to get out of the city. Will make it up to you. How does a Ferrari sound?
I swore under my breath. I was not softened by his attempt at humor either. I started typing a furious reply. I could hear Mum in the background, but I wasn’t concentrating on what she was saying.
“I need something. I need . . .”
I texted Hannah to let her know Dad was not home yet. She would know that meant I couldn’t leave. The broccoli started to boil over and I lifted the pot, scalding myself with a splash of water. It wasn’t much, but the shock made me drop my phone. Tears of frustration stung my eyes.
“Hello?” Mum shouted, banging her fists on the counter.
&
nbsp; I snapped.
“SHUT UP,” I screamed back at her.
She froze, startled for a second, and a wave of guilt crashed over me.
I rushed toward her, to comfort her, but I’d scared her. She grabbed the salad bowl from the counter and smashed it to the ground.
Salad littered the floor, limp bits of lettuce scattered on the tile and tomatoes dotted here and there like an abstract painting. The glass bowl was split in two pieces. I didn’t want Mum to pick it up in case she got hurt so I shooed her away from the mess.
“It’s OK, Mum, I’ll get it,” I said, forcing myself to sound calm. I grabbed for the dustpan and squeezed carefully through the small space between the kitchen island and the oven door, which was open for the grill. Mum didn’t move and her eyes flashed at me when I came close. She was upset about the mess and noise and me shouting.
“Come on, why don’t you go sit in the living room for a bit.”
I thought it was time to get out the doll no matter how I felt about it. She’d fuss with it and it would give me enough time to clean up and finish dinner. I could smell the other side of the burgers burning now, and little tendrils of smoke were curling out from the grill. I put my arm around Mum’s back to guide her into the living room, but as I did she jerked out of my grip.
“Get away from me,” she yelled, and twisted away from me. Like slow motion I saw her foot slide on the floor; the oil of the salad dressing had made the floor slippery. I thought she was going to fall. In an instant, I could see her smashing her head against the tile floor. I reached out to catch her, grabbing her around the waist. But she didn’t slip. She screamed at me and wrenched out of my grasp.
“Get away from me,” she screamed again, and pushed me full force. I slipped on the greasy tiles and fell backward. Instinctively I reached out for something to grab on to to pull my myself up or to save myself. At the same time I felt a burst of pain as I landed on my back on the open oven door and my hand found the hot grill rack. I let go of it in less than a second, but it was still too long. A guttural scream ripped out of me. When I looked, I saw a bright pink, raw line of burned flesh across the palm.
I managed to get myself upright, my hand feeling like fire, and called out to Mum, who had fled at the commotion. I was afraid that she’d try to leave the house if she was upset. I couldn’t remember if I’d locked the front door.
Hannah arrived ten minutes later. She must have already been on her way to meet me when I texted her. She found me in my parents’ room, stroking Mum’s hair with my unburned hand, curled up on the bed like I was the mum and she was the child. My skin felt like it was still burning, a terrible sensation penetrating deep into my hand.
“Let me see,” Hannah said brusquely. She didn’t flinch when I held out my hand, which was shiny and raw. It looked wet almost and a layer of skin had peeled away.
“That’s going to need some attention. Antibiotics maybe. Have you run it under cold water? Taken anything for the pain?”
I shook my head. I looked down at Mum, who was clinging on to me. Hannah understood. I couldn’t leave her when she was like this. Even if it was to take care of myself. It wasn’t her fault.
Hannah left me with Mum and returned a couple of minutes later with a bowl of cold water, a glass of juice, and a packet of ibuprofen. She sat on the other side of Mum and we stayed quiet. I let my hand rest in the water until Mum let me go.
“Running water is better,” Hannah said, her voice barely a whisper. The way parents speak when they’re trying to make sure not to wake a child. “We might need to take you to the emergency room, though.”
Hannah distracted Mum, her voice, cheerful and comforting, drifting down the hall into the bathroom as I stood with my hand under the tap, the cool water soothing the fire burrowing into my skin.
I hated myself for feeling fearful as I approached Mum’s door. I wasn’t afraid of being hurt. I was afraid of how I felt when I saw her that way. Like I just couldn’t deal with her anymore. I was afraid I couldn’t be the calm, soothing person she needed. I was afraid I made it worse. When I entered her room she was shouting at a girl in a care worker’s uniform, screaming so loud I couldn’t make out what she was saying. Her pillows and duvet had been wrenched from the bed and tossed in a corner. I spied her memory book overturned in the middle of the floor, and clothes and other bits and pieces were liberally strewn around the room.
As if transported straight from my memory into the present day, I saw Hannah standing in front of my mum in that uniform. At first, I thought I was imagining it and then I realized she really was the girl in the uniform. After everything, in the middle of everything, my stomach still flipped over when I recognized her. She didn’t look scared by Mum screaming in her face. She didn’t look surprised to see me.
“Liz, I want to help you. Let’s find it together, OK?” Hannah said, her firm, clipped tones authoritative and still somehow warm.
“Mum.” I spoke as softly as I could given she was shouting over me.
She hesitated when she noticed me.
“Mum, are you OK?” I asked.
“She stole my wallet.” Mum pointed at Hannah.
Mum didn’t have a wallet. She didn’t need one. She had no cash. She had a handbag, though, that she carried when we went out, and sometimes I gave her my wallet to put in it.
“I’m going to look for it now, is that OK?”
“She stole it.” Mum pointed at Hannah again and kicked her bedside cupboard. I winced, thinking she was going to break a toe, and quickly I went to her handbag, discarded on the floor near the bed. On my hands and knees, I slipped my own wallet out of my bag and stood up with it in my hand.
“Is this your wallet, Mum?”
Mum looked at it for a minute and I held my breath.
“That’s my wallet. Give it to me,” she said. I held it out and she snatched it from me.
“It must have fallen on the floor,” I said.
Mum stuffed it under her pillow. I’d be waiting a long time to get that wallet back.
“Why don’t we play some music, Liz?” Hannah suggested. I nodded more to myself than to anyone else and went to turn on Mum’s speakers. They were missing, though. I scanned the floor for them, but Hannah was already taking her phone out of her pocket. Her fingers slid across the screen and in a moment a song started playing, a bit thin and tinny but loud enough. Mum’s face crumpled up like she might cry, the fight dissipated but the energy still swirling around inside her. I picked the photo album off the floor and sat with it on the couch.
“Who’s this, Mum?”
“That’s my dad,” she said. And she snuggled in next to me, though she cast an evil eye at Hannah as she slipped out the door. “That’s the day my sister was born. She’s ten years younger than me. Mum and Dad didn’t think they could have a baby.”
We turned the pages and I let Mum tell me stories. Some more coherent than others, every one I’d heard before. We got to the picture of Claire and Mum, the one at Claire’s wedding. I normally closed the book there, but I hesitated and Mum turned the page. I reached out to stop her, but then for some reason I didn’t.
“There’s you and Rob,” I said. She touched his face in the photo.
“That’s me and you, on my first birthday.” I pointed to the picture on the opposite page. I was wearing a pair of cotton stretchy dungarees and I didn’t have much hair yet.
On the next page was my first school picture. Then a photo of Mum and Dad kissing. I still didn’t know who’d taken it. They looked happy, though.
When it was time to go, Mum asked me if I’d be back tomorrow.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, “I promise.”
I stretched my arms overhead. I was tired and so sober I’d forgotten I’d been drinking earlier. In reception I was surprised to see Hannah talking to Oliver, their heads close together, serious looks on their faces. They stopped talking when they saw me.
“Hi,” I said, suddenly shy.
“Uh, I really need to go . . . somewhere else for a minute.” Oliver stood abruptly and walked around the corner. I had a feeling he would just stand there waiting.
My hands dangled at my sides. Without saying anything I sat down next to Hannah in a molded plastic chair. My shoes were suddenly fascinating.
“Mum’s OK now.”
“Good. She’s been upset all night. The wallet was only one of the things. When Karen called you it was something else entirely. She was shouting for ages. Throwing things. The minute she saw you I think it calmed her down.”
I waved this absurd suggestion away.
“She doesn’t even know who I am.”
Hannah shook her head.
“You’re wrong,” she said simply. “She might forget your name or exactly how she knows you, but she loves you. You being there made her feel safer.”
“You can’t love someone if you don’t even remember their name,” I said. In my head, it had sounded like a simple statement of fact. Out loud, I was embarrassed when my voice wavered over the words.
“I really don’t think that’s true at all. If you truly love someone, if they were ever important to you, it doesn’t disappear. What it looks like might change, but that’s only the surface.”
I looked at her. Her face was so familiar, but it didn’t sound like her at all. When had she changed? I felt the twinge of something, like a nudge against a tender bruise, at the reminder that Hannah would continue to change in little ways and I wouldn’t be there to see it. It still hurt somehow, even after all this time.
“I see it all the time working here. Your mum, she looks at your pictures. She points to your photograph. She asks me about you. She knows somewhere in the core of her that you’re important.”
I ignored the ache in my chest and focused on the hum of the fluorescent lighting.
“Why are you here?” I asked after a few moments. I had to squeeze the words out of my throat and they sounded thick and tight.
“I work here,” she said blankly, as if it was a stupid question. That was the Hannah I knew. Literal to a fault.