Rae

 

As Rae walked through the door into the arrivals hall of Dublin airport, she scanned the crowd behind the barriers for one of her brothers. It didn’t take her long to spot Dara, who was now rushing toward her.

The moment she saw him, her eyes filled up with tears once more, as she hurried to her twin brother and let him wrap her in his arms.

“It’s okay,” Dara whispered, as he held his sister tightly. “You’re home, and I’ve got you.”

“Tell me this isn’t really happening,” Rae pleaded as she looked up at him. “Tell me that this is just a horrible mistake.”

“I wish it were,” Dara said as he looked down into his sister's eyes, and wiped her face with the back of his fingers. “How was your flight?”

“Long!” Rae exclaimed as she gave him a sad smile through tears. “How’s Dad?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Dara replied as he reached for the trolley with his sister’s luggage on it. “He has barely said two words since … I don’t think he can really believe that it’s true. None of us do.”

Rae nodded, as once more tears trickled down her face.

“Let’s get you home,” Dara said as he put one arm around his sister, and pushed the trolley with his other hand. “I know he is dying to see you.”

Rae didn’t reply. There were no words to describe the sadness inside her.

The drive back to their parents’ house seemed endless. Rae just wanted to get home and hold her father tightly. Dara made some small talk as they drove, but Rae didn’t really reply. Her mind was too busy thinking about how, in lest then forty-eight hours, her entire life had fallen to pieces.

“I thought that maybe you might be bringing someone with you,” Dara said, surprising her with his remark. She turned and looked at him, wondering how he knew about her and A.J. She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. The last thing she wanted to talk about right at that moment was what happened between her and A.J. Dara glanced over at her and gave her a questioning look. “When I was talking to Daisy, she said she was hoping to come with you, so I was surprised to hear you were coming alone.”

“Oh, okay,” Rae replied as she released the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. “She wanted to come, but we could only get one seat on the flight. She is going to try and follow me over as soon as she can. There is another flight this morning, and she was trying to get on that.”

“Cool,” Dara replied and gave her another glance. “Who did you think I was talking about?”

“No one,” Rae shrugged as she turned her focus back out the window. “I just…I think I am just tired. It’s been a long couple of days.”

“I know it has,” Dara replied as the car pulled to a stop at a set of traffic lights. He reached over and took hold of her hand, and gave it a squeeze. “But you’re home now, and we will get through this together. That’s what Mom would want.”

“I know,” Rae replied as she offered her brother a warm smile.

Ten minutes later, Dara pulled the car into their parent’s driveway; parking behind their father’s car. Rae released another deep breath before she unfastened her seatbelt.

“Are you okay?” Dara asked as he looked over at her once more.

“Yeah,” she sighed as she stared up at her parent’s house. “It’s just, once I go in there, this is real. Mom is really gone. She should be in there waiting for us, but she’s not. She never will be again.”

“I know,” Dara said, his voice cracking as he refused to give into grief. Rae could see that he was trying to be strong for her, and she loved him all the more for it.

Suddenly, the front door opened and Rae’s other two brothers came rushing out of the house, and down the driveway to the car. Before she had time to think, Colm pulled opened Rae’s car door, and Sean was right behind him, waiting for their little sister to climb out of the car.

“Hey Rascal,” Colm said, calling her the name he had called her from the time they were little kids. “It’s good to have you home.”

“It’s good to be home,” Rae said as she held her big brother tightly. “I’ve missed you guys so much.”

Next Sean hugged her, but he didn’t say a word, and Rae could feel the sadness pour out of her brother as she held him as tightly as she could.

“I’m home,” she whispered as she blinked back the tears that were stinging her eyes. “I’m here.”

Rae looked up suddenly and saw her father standing at the front door. She released Sean, and stared up at her father for a few moments. Tears trickled down her face as she started slowly towards the house; each step she took, her tears flowed freer.

“Sweetheart,” Gerry Sullivan cried sadly, as he welcomed his daughter with open arms. As her father held her, Rae finally allowed herself to let go of her grief, and cried in her father’s arms, as she had done so many times when she was a little girl. “I know, Angel. I know you’re hurting. We all are. But together we will get through this.”

“I should have come home sooner,” Rae sobbed sadly. “I should have come home a long time ago.”

“You’re home now, Love,” Gerry replied as he continued to hold his daughter tightly. “Your mom would be so happy to know you came back.”

As Rae walked into her parent’s house, it was almost like she was stepping back in time. Almost everything was as she remembered it, except for some new carpet on the stairs, and a new picture hanging on the wall. The old familiar feeling she got whenever she walked into her parent’s house came over her, and for the briefest of moments, Rae felt happy.

But when she walked into the living room and found her mother’s chair sitting empty in the corner, Rae knew that coming home would never be the same again. The most important part of the house was gone, and it could never be replaced. Her mother was the heart of their home, and now that heart was gone.

“The undertakers said we can go see mom tomorrow,” Colm explained as he joined Rae in the living room. “They said we can see her anytime after ten. So what we’re going to do is all head down there together in the morning.”

“Okay,” Rae nodded as she turned to look at her brother briefly, and offered him a smile before she turned back and stared at her mother’s chair.

“The funeral will be on Monday morning,” Colm continued, but Rae was not really taking in what he was saying now. Instead she was looking around the room that was filled with so many memories, and her heart ached for happier times.

Her eyes came to rest on a picture of her dancing on a stage that was on a bookshelf in the corner of the room. Rae remembered the day her mother had put it in the frame, and placed it on the shelf. She had been so proud of her dancing. She showed everyone that picture when they came into the house and would always tell them how proud she was of her one and only daughter.

“Rae,” Dara said softly from behind her, startling her. It wasn’t until she turned to face her brother, did she realise that she was actually crying. He quickly wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly as she sobbed.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he whispered, but his words offered her little comfort. Rae knew that nothing would ever be okay again. Her heart was completely shattered.

She had lost the man she loved, the man she knew in her heart that she was supposed to spend the rest of her life with, and the only person that she wanted to talk to about it was gone now too.

Her mother was dead, and she was never going to see her again. Rae felt like she was suffocating. Like she was drowning slowly, and there was nothing in this world now that could save her,

A.J’s face came crashing into her mind, and she knew that he would have been the one thing that could have gotten her through this living nightmare. She longed to have him come and hold her tightly, but she knew that was never going to happen. He was a million miles away, or at least that’s how it felt, and he had no idea what she was going through at that moment. She needed to face it. She was alone once more in this world, and if she was going to survive, she needed to take care of herself.

Rae sat on her bed and stared into space. It was hard to believe that she was back home, back in her old bedroom, after everything that had happened. She had excused herself to go and unpack, but the truth was, she just needed a little alone time after spending the day talking to the endless stream of people that had called to the house to offer them their sympathy. Rae knew it was the Irish way of doing things, but she just wished that her family could have been given a little space to grieve.

She had called Daisy to let her know she had arrived home safely, and Daisy told her that she was waiting to board her plane, and that she would see her the next morning.

Daisy had insisted that she was going to follow Rae home. She wanted to come with her, but they could only get one seat on the flight Rae caught, so Daisy insisted she would follow her the following morning, despite Rae telling her that she really didn’t have to.

Still, Rae was happy that her friend was coming, and she couldn’t wait to see her again.

After she had hung up from her friend, she pulled up her text messages and stared at all the unread ones from A.J. There hadn’t been any new ones since the night he had left for the retreat, and that hurt Rae more than she thought it would have. She held her finger over the first message and was just about to open it when there was a soft tap on the door.

“Come in,” Rae called out as she put her phone down, then looked up at the door expectantly. When it opened, Dara appeared around it, and he gave her a smile.

“Can I come in?” He asked her.

“Since when did you ever have to ask,” Rae replied, as she moved over on the bed to give her brother some room to sit down.

“That’s true,” he said as he came in and sat down on the bed next to her, but he didn’t talk for a few moments. Neither of them did. Rae just rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

“I know this is going to sound like a stupid question,” Dara said after a few minutes. “But is everything okay with you? You seem, I don’t know…sad, which I know seems like a stupid thing to say because we’re all sad. I just feel like, there is something more.”

“It’s nothing that really matters,” Rae replied honestly as she lifted her head and looked at her brother. “Not anymore. Right now, all I care about is Dad and you guys, and getting through the next few days.”

“Are you sure?” Dara asked, giving his sister a worried look. “Because you know you can talk to me, right?”

“I know,” she replied with a smile before she rested her head on his shoulder once more, and once more silence fell between them both.

“Do you think Mom knew?” Dara asked after about five minutes.

“What do you mean?” Rae asked as she sat up once more, and gave her brother a confused look. “I thought it happened in her sleep.”

“Yeah, it did,” he confirmed before he added. “I mean, before.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Rae replied.

“She called us all the night before,” Dara explained as he turned to face his sister. “She rang me and told me she loved me. Which I know is nothing new from Mom, but this was different. We had been talking earlier that day, and she seemed fine. But then she called me that night and said that she loved me and she was proud of me. I had asked her if she and Dad had been drinking, and she just laughed. It turns out she rang Colm and Sean too.”

Rae looked at her brother, and she thought about what he had said.

Suddenly, she remembered the phone call she had ignored from her mother, the morning before A.J had left. She was upset and hadn’t been in the mood to talk to her mother, so she let it go to voice mail.

Rae picked up her phone from the bed, and sure enough, there it was. The missed call from her mother.

“She called me too,” Rae whispered as once more tears spilled down her face. “I was having a crap day, and I was not in the mood for a lecture from Mom, so I didn’t answer it.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Dara said as he got up from the bed. “You do not blame yourself for not answering the phone. There was no way you could have known what was going to happen. None of us saw this coming.”

“But if I had just talked to her,” Rae sobbed as she looked up at her brother.

“You weren’t to know, Rae,” Dara insisted, but Rae just sobbed harder. Dara quickly took her by the hand and led her back to the bed. “Look, she knew how much you loved her. She didn’t need for you to tell her that. Please believe that.”

“I just wish I could have talked to her once more,” Rae sniffed as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I just miss her so much.”

“Maybe she left a voice mail,” Dara suggested, and he gave Rae a hopeful look.

Rae didn’t respond. Instead she looked at her phone, then quickly went to her voice mails.

“I will leave you alone,” Dara said as he went to get up from the bed, but Rae quickly took hold of his hand.

“No,” she said as she looked up at him. “Please.”

He slowly sat back down, as Rae tapped in the code for her voice mail, then hit the speaker button.

“You have seven new voice messages,” the automated voice said, and Rae realised that if there was one from her mother, the rest were most likely from A.J, but right now, there was only one that mattered to her.

The first message began to play, and Rae held her breath the moment she heard her mother’s voice.

“Rachel, it’s Mom. I guess you’re probably asleep right now. Anyway, I just called to tell you that I love you. I love all my kids, but you are my special girl. I was just looking at some old photos, and it got me thinking. Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. I’m so proud of you. I know life has been hard for you, but you have just proven that you’re so much stronger. You amaze me every day. Love you, Pet. Talk to you soon.”

The line went dead then, and Rae hung up the phone.

“She’s really gone, Dara,” Rae whispered as the realisation of what had happened finally hit her. “She’s gone, and I just don’t get it. I will never talk to her again; I will never get to tell her that I love her too. She won’t be here the day I get married or be here to help me when my first baby is born. I… I can’t do all these things without her here; I don’t want to. She’s Mom. She is meant to be here. I need her to be here. But she is gone, and no one will tell me why…”

Dara wrapped his arms around her and held her as she began to sob uncontrollably.

“NO ONE WILL TELL ME WHY!” She cried out as she buried her face in her brother’s chest, feeling so consumed by grief, she didn’t know if she would ever stop crying again.