Shelley
Killara, County Galway, Ireland
FRIDAY
The apple tree sways in our garden and I stare at it through the window until it blurs, unable to decide if its three-year growth heals or hurts me more. Right now, it scoops out my very core just to see it standing there, alive and proud, oblivious to what it represents and so ignorant to the agony I am still going through since I first planted it there in her memory.
Matt’s arms snuggle around my waist from behind and I feel his soft stubble on my neck, his familiar smell easing the hurt just a little as I close my eyes tight and fight back the tsunami of tears building inside me.
‘Breathe,’ he whispers, doing it for me as he speaks. ‘You aren’t breathing properly, Shelley. Let it out if you have to. Cry hard if you have to. I’m here. I’m right here.’
He rocks me gently before I push him away, and when I finally let go the release of tears is overwhelming, stronger than ever as I recall this time three years ago.
‘It’s just so unfair,’ I manage to say to my husband between choking sobs but he doesn’t reply because he too is broken still. I can tell by his own breathing that this is killing him. The cruelty of it all, the deep-rooted pain that will never go away as we struggle to come to terms with the loss that has ruined our lives.
‘At least you had her for three precious years,’ they said.
‘At least you got to hold her and say goodbye …’
‘At least … at least … at least …’
But there is no ‘at least’ when it comes to loss.
There will never be an at least. Tomorrow we should be celebrating her sixth birthday with balloons and bouncy castles and princesses, but instead all I have is an empty house, boxes of stowed away photos that I can’t bear to look at and a tree in the garden that is supposed to remind me of her. There is no at least.
‘Fancy a walk on the beach before I go?’ asks Matt, turning me round and wiping my eyes with his thumbs. We hold eye contact for a few seconds then he leans in and kisses my forehead so softly and somewhere within, I find the strength to thank God for this glorious man I’ve been blessed with. I lean on Matt’s chest and let him hold me close just one more time, feeling his warmth and the sound of his heartbeat, which reminds me that we both are still alive. And then as always, just before it makes me feel better, I let him go – because I don’t deserve to feel anything but pain.
‘I’d like that,’ I reply to him.
He always knows what’s best when we find the clutches of grief becoming too much to bear. Or when I am too much to bear, I should say. I know that the cracks in our marriage are slowly starting to show, no matter how much I deny it and no matter how patient Matt tries to be. I fear I may be running out of time and I will push him away once too often.
Moments later, we are walking along the sandy Killara beach in silence, with nothing but the lapping of the waves for company and the splashing of our golden retriever, Merlin, as he bounds in and out of the water alongside us.
This place truly is heaven on earth. It is absolute paradise, with the village harbour dotted in the distance and the white sandy beach that our house, Ard na Mara, looks directly upon. We designed it, we built it and we named it carefully, choosing ‘Ard’ as the Gaelic for height and ‘Mara’ which means ocean or sea. It sits overlooking Galway Bay on a hilltop that only Matt could have secured with his planning contacts and skills that came from years in his profession.
The coloured shop fronts of the village sit like a smiling rainbow in the distance and seagulls swoop above us as the evening sun sets on the sea. It is paradise indeed and it is home, but for me, it’s now a home with no heart or soul. It is empty and so am I.
I close my eyes as we walk, leaning on Matt for guidance and wanting to cling to his body just in case I fall again, or worse, in case he finally lets me go.
‘I do still love you, Shelley,’ he tells me and the rush I get from his perfect timing almost stops my heart from beating. ‘I know this is a nightmare, but I love you so much no matter what we are going through.’
I inhale a smile and but inside I feel nothing. I wish I could say the same back.
‘I don’t know how you put up with me sometimes,’ is all I can tell him and I take his warm hand in mine. We have a private joke between us, one we have repeated often throughout our ten-year marriage when the going gets tough, and his answer is always the same.
‘You put up with me too, so we’re even,’ he replies and kisses my forehead, but we both know that is far from true. Nonetheless, it makes me feel better already. But … I do know that his love has been tested to the very depths in the past few years as I have gone through every emotion known to mankind and lashed out at him when he didn’t deserve it. Our marriage has survived so far and sometimes I don’t understand how.
‘Do you think this will ever get any easier?’ I ask him with a scrunched face, and he shakes his head.
‘We have to make it so,’ he says to me. ‘Yes, she was our whole world and we will always miss that, but we have to learn to live again, Shelley. We still have a lot to live for and I want my wife back. I need my wife back.’
And he is right. He does need his wife back and I so want to be his wife again. I want to be his lover, his girl who laughs with him until I am almost sick with giggles, the one who feels like home to him, who is fun and interesting and who loves jazz, who runs a book club, who is a bit of a hippy and who cooks up a storm and hosts the best parties at any excuse. The one who dances barefoot in our kitchen with him when we are tipsy and feeling in love, the one who curls up to him when we watch a scary movie, the one who would suggest at the drop of a hat that we book a holiday or convince one of our sailor friends to take us on a boat trip or throw a party just because it’s Saturday and life is so good. I want to be that person again, but she is gone and I can’t seem to figure out how to find her again.
I think of my business, the vintage boutique near the waterfront that attracts locals and tourists all year round and the one thing that has stopped me from tipping over the edge in recent times. I named it Lily Loves long before our daughter was conceived. Lily has always been my favourite girl’s name – it was the name of my maternal grandmother who was the most stylish woman I have ever known, so I always felt like I knew our own Lily before we even met her. Harry is the boy I never had. Harry or Jack. I often imagine life with the babies I lost through miscarriage before we were blessed with Lily and it soothes me to just picture their little faces. Who would they have looked like? I hoped they would look like Matt. He hoped they would look like me.
I think of Matt’s talent, the talent that has made him one of the country’s most sought after architects. We only get to see so much of the world because of his job. In fact, he travelled the world for years before we met, researching and studying his art, and when he popped the question just months after we found each other, we knew that this was where we wanted to live and bring up our family. Matt has designed skyscrapers in the Netherlands, hotels in London and homes in some of Ireland’s most prestigious locations and I am lucky enough to get to travel with him sometimes to see the fruits of his labour. I am so lucky in so many ways and sometimes I need to remind myself of that.
We have a beautiful life here by the sea on Ireland’s famous Wild Atlantic Way, but it still kills me inside that I can’t give my husband the one thing we both want the most – a family.
‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay when I’m gone this time?’ Matt asks, just as Merlin jumps up on me, his wet paws covering my top in muddy sand. ‘I could ask Mum to come and—’
‘No, please, Matt, don’t even go there,’ I reply with a pinch. ‘You know I’d rather be alone.’
‘But, Shelley—’
‘No buts, Matt. I don’t want your mother here,’ I say to him, my voice sharp with purpose. ‘I don’t want Mary or Sarah or Jack or flipping Jill, or whoever it is you’re going to suggest next, to pop in and check on me, or take me out to lunch or go shopping with me. I don’t want anyone, okay. Now, please don’t go behind my back arranging things. I will be perfectly fine and much happier left alone, just as I like it.’
The tears are coming, I can feel them. Matt takes a deep breath and kicks the sand.
‘I’m only trying to make sure you’ll be alright,’ he says again, and I can hear the hurt in his voice. I have nothing to give him back.
‘I’m fine,’ is all I can say.
‘But I’ll be gone for a week this time and what are you going to do for seven whole days while I’m away? Mope around here on your own in that empty shell of a house and cry until you’re sick again?’
I can feel my lip tremble at the thought of how ill I can make myself since Lily died.
‘Stop it Matt, please. I just want to be on my own,’ I tell him again. ‘It’s better that way, please.’
Matt’s face crumples with worry but he knows I won’t change my mind. I have developed a routine to get through this heartache; it centres around working at my boutique shop during the day, where I partake only in small talk about clothes or the weather with customers, and then preparing and cooking my evening meal, with which I might have a glass of wine to fill the void I constantly feel. I might then read for a while or take a walk on the beach before bed but I don’t mingle, I don’t mix and I don’t want to. Not yet.
The sun drifts down in the distance and the orange and gold light shines on my husband’s face as he looks at me with despair.
‘We’d better get back home or you’ll miss your flight,’ I tell Matt, ruffling the dog’s head as he obliviously bounces around in excitement. ‘I know you mean well, but I’d rather be alone, Matt. Please don’t worry. Plus, I have this big guy to look after me, don’t I, Merlin?’
The dog barks and jumps higher at the sound of his own name. Matt just shrugs.
‘Sorry for losing it,’ I say to him.
‘Again,’ he says. ‘You mean sorry, for losing it again.’
And again I know I am pushing it. I can see in his face that he is weary and tired of trying so hard, only to be always told no. God, I dread if day when he has had enough of tiptoeing around me.
‘Yes, I’m sorry, again,’ I say, but we both know it won’t be the last time I turn down his offers of help, or the last time I will push him away.
I may have figured out how to exist without Lily, but I have a long, long way to go before I can learn to live without her and my marriage is crumbling under all the pressure and pain that her loss has left behind. I don’t want to live like this anymore.
But least we’re still clinging on.