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 much 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 seeing 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.
‘I can’t help it, I’m so scared,’ she sobs to me. ‘I’m so scared that I’m going to have no one to turn to no matter how much Aunty Helen and Dan try. My grandparents are old and my Nanna is too sick to even worry about Mum. I lie in bed at night and worry that she might have the same sickness as Mum does and Aunty Helen has enough on her plate with her own family. Who’s going to be there for me? I don’t want my mum to die. Please God, don’t let her die.’
I rush to Rosie’s side and I put my arms around her and hold her tightly into my chest, then I let her cry and cry and cry and as she does so, I do too for Juliette and for this dear little girl that has so much loneliness and grief ahead of her.
‘I know you’re scared, baby,’ I whisper to her. ‘You don’t want to lose your mum and your mum doesn’t want to lose you. This is the most terrifying thing you will ever go through. You will be angry, you will be so angry that you want to tear the place down and run away and hide and scream and shout and you will see other girls with their mothers at all stages of their lives and you’ll think ‘why me? Why my mum?’ It will burn you and it will kick you in the stomach and it will hit you like a ton of bricks just when you think the pain has gone. It will never go away, Rosie but if you can, and I know it’s going to be really hard to think this way, just try and think of all this pain that you are going through as a big storm that happens every time you remember how much you love your mother.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you didn’t love each other so, so much, the pain would be a lot less, wouldn’t it?’
She shrugs. ‘I suppose.’
‘If you didn’t care for her, you wouldn’t feel this pain, so when you have a really hard day and all that anger and gut-wrenching pain takes over, see it as a sign of how much you really love each other and always will. It’s like the floods after a storm, or the damage done by a hurricane. It’s a sign of something so big that no one or nothing could control it. That’s how much you love your mum and you will find that when you need her, she will be near, because she is in here.’
I put my hand on my heart.
‘No one can ever take her away from there, Rosie. She will never, ever leave your heart and once you realize that, you will feel just a little bit better, day by day, week by week. You have a strong woman in your heart and that’s where she will always stay.’
I have to look away when Rosie puts her own hand on her own heart and takes a big deep breath in and then out again.
‘I feel her in here already,’ she says. ‘No one can ever take that away from me.’
‘That’s exactly it,’ I say, fighting back tears. ‘And you know if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m always just a phone call away.’
‘Thanks Shelley. You’ve been so kind to us and I will definitely phone you lots and lots,’ she sniffles. ‘I dread when I can’t walk in here and chat to you like this. I can’t talk to anyone like I can talk to you.’
And now I do shed a tear. To think that this little girl feels even a little bit better by talking to me makes me fill up inside.
‘Well, we have to make every moment count then, don’t we? I know, why don’t you walk up to my house and leave Merlin back there and by the time you walk back here, I’ll be finished and we’ll both go see your mum, how’s that?’ I suggest to her, thinking the responsibility of seeing to the dog might just distract her for a little while. Plus, Merlin is becoming irritable and restless and I can sense he has had quite enough of being out and about for one day. He is a home bird, old Merlin and we need to think of him too, if only to help ourselves.
Rosie nods to me as her tears subside and she pats the dog. I give her the key to my house and hold her hand for a moment.
‘Take a big deep breath, Rosie,’ I say to her. ‘You’re doing so well. Let’s try and make the most of the next few days and keep having fun, eh?’
‘Yes, yes I will,’ she says. ‘I am so glad we came here now. It’s been the best time ever, mostly because of you.’
‘And you’ve helped me too, don’t forget. Now, when you get to the house, just open the door and let old Merlin in to the hallway and hopefully he won’t follow you from the dog flap and you can make your escape back here,’ I tell her. ‘In fact, put him in the kitchen and that will give you enough breathing space to make your move because he loves being in there and by the time he notices you are gone, you’ll be at the bottom of the driveway at least.’
Rosie takes the key from me and manages a smile.
‘Oh, and here’s the alarm code,’ I remember. ‘It’s really simple. Hold him on the lead until you punch in the six numbers, and then walk him to the kitchen and you’re done. Is that okay?’
She takes it all in.
‘I feel like I’m in Mission Impossible with all those instructions,’ she says and the way her little face lights up tugs at my heart until it’s sore. ‘It’s one of our favourite movies. Mum just loves Tom Cruise.’
‘Well, we might just have a good old Tom Cruise feast tonight then while your mum puts her feet up,’ I suggest. ‘I think that sounds good, don’t you?’
I wipe away her tears with my thumbs and tilt her chin up, just as Matt does to me when I’m having a tough time coping with all that I have been dealt with. It always makes me feel better to have that physical touch and direct eye contact when I need to pull it together.
‘I wish we could just stay here and it could always be like it has been since we met you,’ she says to me and I shake my head slowly.
‘I will always be here for you, Rosie,’ I tell her. ‘You’re a special girl to me and I think you and I have become buddies, what do you think?’
‘I’m afraid that we’ll never see you again once we leave,’ she says to me, and my heart warms up so much I feel it might burst that she might want to keep in touch. ‘You know, after everything.’
‘I have a feeling we’ll keep in touch, so don’t even think about that now,’ I tell her. ‘You know you can talk to me whenever you want and that’s a promise. Now, go and let your other old pal there get home for a rest and I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.’
‘Thank you, Shelley,’ she says to me, wiping fresh tears with the back of her hand.
‘No, thank you, Rosie,’ I whisper as I stand at the door and watch her make her way up the hill onto the outskirts of the village where my house stands on the highest point of Killara.
Rosie doesn’t realize it, but I dread the day that she leaves here just as much as she does. I fear that if I don’t see her again I might spiral back into that deep dark hole of grief and I can’t even dare to think of going back there again. Juliette has given me tough love when I needed it to face the world again and see the good in people like Sarah and Leo. She’s forced me to realize how I have been doing myself no favours by shutting the people out who really do care for me. She has shown me that, just like she has done, I am pushing the man I love away when all I really want to do is pull him closer. She has shown me the beauty of laughter and good food, of fresh air and of spontaneity, while her daughter has filled me up inside by just letting me be there for her as a shoulder to cry on when she needs it because we have so much pain in common.
Betty’s scribbled piece of paper still lies scrunched up in the wastepaper bin so I take it out the back to the wheelie bin and drop it in, feeling relief at getting rid of it. I need to keep going forward, like my dad says, one day at a time.
I have just about enough time to call him before Rosie gets back here. I need to hear his voice to keep me going, one day at a time.
Juliette
‘You’re an angel, Shelley,’ I say to my Florence Nightingale friend when she hands me a steaming bowl of tomato soup as I lie on the sofa, snug as a bug with a comfy blanket around me and my favourite pyjamas on. ‘I could get used to your cooking. I hope I don’t look too scary, do I?’
I have taken the liberty of not wearing my wig this evening as I can’t bear it with the headache and it’s making me itch. Shelley shakes her head.
‘You look like Marilyn Monroe, wig or no wig,’ she jokes. I must have told her my nickname for the wig at some stage. I can’t remember. Oh God, there are so many things now that just slip in and out of my memory and it makes me lose my breath. Little things, like where I put something or something I said or didn’t say. I don’t want to forget the big things. I need my memories to keep me going on bad days like this.
It’s like a winter’s evening outside and I honestly don’t know what I would do without Shelley here to keep us going and distract Rosie a little. They are setting up the living room for a movie night with the fire lit and Shelley has brought along some Tom Cruise DVDs which is so kind of her. She is such a sweetheart.
‘So, what do you fancy then, first, Madame?’ Shelley says to me. ‘We have Top Gun for a bit of phwoar factor, Cocktail for some good old retro cheese, or the action of Mission Impossible which I believe to be one of your favourites. You choose?’
Rosie pulls the curtains closed and lights some scented candles (also supplied by Shelley) and I revel in the warmth of being looked after so well.
‘I think some phwoar factor is what is needed right now,’ I say to them both and Rosie rolls her eyes.
‘I knew you were going to say that,’ she says.
Of course she did, I laugh to myself. Teenagers know everything, don’t they? How could I possibly forget that?
Shelley works out the DVD player and we snuggle down to watch the movie as I drink my soup and thank God for letting our paths cross in this way. There are reasons for everything in life, I really believe that more than ever now. I may have hit a roadblock with my search for Rosie’s biological father and my dying wish that she might have some direct blood relative who would learn to love and look after her for me, but instead I have met a true friend in Shelley and I have a strong feeling that she will always look out for my little girl, even from afar.
She has fitted in with me and Rosie so easily, though we have only known each other for a few days. I can see her mending before my very eyes, not because I am doing anything in particular, but because she feels she is helping us and she is. Home-cooked meals, horse-riding on the beach, dancing to ‘80s cheesy pop and letting my daughter into her world by letting her walk Merlin, and talking to her about grief is more than I could ever have imagined I’d find in the kindness of a stranger. In turn, we are filling some sort of void in her life I think. She sees in Rosie the little girl she once was and she also sees the daughter she should have had in the future. And I hope that by making her face her own fears, by confronting those gossips, by going out for lunch, by talking to her old friends and just by getting out and about again, that I may be helping her too. But I am weakening fast and I don’t know if I have much more to offer anyone in this life other than my very fragile presence. The painkillers are becoming less effective and I know it won’t be long until I have to give in and see a doctor to help me manage this force that is eating me up inside and taking me further and further away from any quality of life. It is rapid, it is fearless and it is much stronger than I could have ever imagined. If I can just make it to Saturday so I can see Dan and Helen and my parents …
I finish my soup and set the bowl on the coffee table that Shelley has moved so it sits right beside me, within arm’s reach. Then I settle down to watch Tom Cruise strut his stuff, but I barely get past the opening soundtrack when I drift off into a deep and badly-needed sleep.
Shelley
Matt calls me halfway through the movie, and with Juliette out for the count on the sofa, I slip out into the kitchen and close the door to chat to him. Rosie is on her phone as much as she is watching the movie so she hardly notices me as I go past her on my way.
‘Hi honey,’ he says to me. ‘Sorry, were you asleep?’
I look at the time. It’s only just gone nine in the evening.
‘Gosh, no, not at all,’ I say to him. ‘I’m at the cottage with Juliette and Rosie. Oh, Matt she isn’t so good today. I think our trip around the cliffs yesterday was just all too much, or maybe she’s been struggling for a while and she’s kept it quiet. I made her some soup and she’s fast asleep now.’
I finally managed to tell Matt briefly about some of Juliette’s backstory, last night after our boat trip. I told him how she’d come here looking for Skipper to tell him he had a daughter, and how I’d had to break the news to her.
‘It’s such a sad situation, really, isn’t it?’ he says to me. ‘Imagine the thought of leaving your child alone in the world like that. Maybe Skipper’s family will step in and get to know her when they find out. Like I said to you last night, Shell, I will do whatever I can when I get home to try work out a way to track them down.’
‘That would be a good thing to do,’ I say to my husband. ‘It’s such a pity they’re going to be back in England when you get home. It would be so comforting to Juliette to hear that directly from you but I’ll pass it all on when she’s feeling a bit stronger. Maybe she just needed a day off. Even I’m exhausted from it all and I’m not the sick one.’
I keep my voice low in case Rosie can hear me but I’d very much doubt it as she is too engrossed in her phone to listen, and the TV is up loud enough to drown out my voice.
‘You need to take it easy too, Shelley,’ Matt says to me. ‘I know you’re doing a wonderful job by reaching out to these people, but I’m afraid you might crash when they go and you don’t have them to look after anymore. You need to look after you too, honey. I can’t wait to get home to see you.’
I close my eyes and a deep longing to have him here hits me in the stomach.
‘I really need you right now,’ I say to my husband and his silence echoes his surprise. It has been so long since I have admitted how much I really do need him. ‘I can’t wait ‘til you get home too.’
‘We’re going to be okay, aren’t we Shelley?’ he says to me. ‘You know how much I love you. I hope I tell you that as often as you deserve to hear it and most of all, I hope I show you in what I do and say.’
I bite my lip and look to the ceiling, then exhale.
‘I love you too, Matt,’ I say and a tear rolls down my cheek. I can sense his overwhelming relief down the line and I sit there, relishing in the moment and the sheer joy of being able to feel my heart again. ‘I love you so much.’
‘You deserve good things, Shelley,’ he whispers to me. ‘I’m going to get some sleep now but I want you to know I’m so proud of you for looking after that little girl and her mum. You’ve come a long way this week. Our beautiful Lily is still with us, Shelley. She will always be our baby girl and you are the best mummy in the world.’
‘Thank you, Matt,’ I say, sniffling now as the tears flow. ‘I’d better get back to Rosie and see Juliette to bed. You have no idea how much it means to hear you saying that I am a good mother. Thank you.’
‘You will always be Lily’s mother,’ he says to me. ‘She may not be with us in the way she used to, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t her mum and I am still very much her dad. I miss being her dad.’
‘I know you do,’ I say to him and when I close my eyes I see him with her like it used to be, how she’d snuggle in with him on the sofa in the evenings or on lazy Sundays and how she’d call for him in the night just as often as she did for me.
‘You’ve come so far, Shell,’ says Matt and his voice breaks a little. ‘I love that we can talk about Lily now and maybe someday we can remember things she used to do that made us laugh and how she made our life so complete for the short time that we had her. It’s good to talk about her, to remember her.’
‘I can’t wait to see you,’ I whisper, cradling the phone and not wanting him to go. I am so ready now to love him again and to love the memories we have of our daughter instead of fearing them.
We take our time to hang up and I go back into the living room to find Rosie fast asleep just like her mum. I go to over to the armchair and turn down the TV, then I pull a fleecy throw around me and join them, closing my eyes. Maybe we are all just exhausted. Maybe Juliette is going to be okay after a good rest tonight. I won’t leave her side until morning, until I know that she is strong enough to face another day.