Aidan pulled up in the school car park and silenced the engine. In the distance on the pitch, he watched the rugby team as they gulped back water or some just squirted their bottles straight over their heads to cool off. The match was already over.
He had left his parents at Milly’s bedside while he drove to the school. He hadn’t wanted to leave her, still lost in the depths of her coma, but he knew he needed to be the one to tell the boys. His parents had promised to phone him if there was any change in her condition.
Aidan stayed in the car while the coach spoke with the team for a few minutes before they began to disperse and head over to the sidelines, where other parents had been watching. He took a deep breath, got out of the car and made his way over towards them.
Callum’s eyes narrowed as he spotted his father coming towards him in the distance. ‘Why did you say you’d come if you weren’t going to bother?’ he shouted. His face was red and his hair damp and sweaty.
Aidan reached for his son’s arm, but he brushed him off and stormed past him towards the car. Jack, his younger son, was following in the distance. Jack attended the junior school adjacent to the senior school that Callum went to, and Rowan had told Jack she would meet him there at the playing field that the schools shared and they would watch the match together.
‘Callum, wait—’ he called after him.
‘Hi, Dad,’ Jack said as he reached them. His eyes were looking around the car park and Aidan knew he was wondering where Rowan was.
‘Hi, Jack,’ Aidan said, before turning back to Callum. ‘Look, I’m really sorry, Callum. I wanted to be here.’ He thought back to that morning sitting in the boardroom, his only trouble back then had been worrying about making it to the match on time, but everything had changed beyond recognition since then.
‘Yeah, you got delayed in a meeting,’ Callum said sarcastically. ‘We get it.’
‘Where’s Mam and Milly?’ Jack asked, his nose wrinkled in concern. ‘Mam told me she would meet me here. She said she was going to come watch it?’
‘Come on, son,’ Aidan put an arm around his youngest son’s shoulders and steered him towards the car. ‘I’ll explain everything when we get home.’
The boys exchanged glances with one another as they threw their sports gear into the boot. As usual, they jostled to get the front seat; Jack was victorious, leaving Callum to climb into the back seat, which just served to darken his mood even more.
‘What’s going on, Dad?’ Jack asked as Aidan started the engine and began to drive out of the car park. ‘You’re acting really weird.’
He didn’t reply and the boys, picking up on his mood, fell quiet too. How on earth was he supposed to handle this? He was going to shatter their whole world. He just wanted to continue driving the car through the suburbs, going around and around the same streets surrounding their home, where they could stay protected from the awfulness that was hurtling down the tracks towards them.
Finally, he pulled up outside their house on Ledbury Road. His sister Gemma’s car was already there. She was four years older than him and lived across the city with her husband and three teenage sons. He had asked her to meet him at the house to help him face the mammoth task that was ahead of him.
‘Why is Auntie G here?’ Jack asked as he climbed out of the car, taking his school bag from the boot.
‘I asked her to come,’ was all Aidan managed to say.
He looked up at the biscuit-coloured, three-story over-basement Georgian house and all it represented. All the arguments it had caused. It was huge – even with three children, it was still too big for them. They would never have afforded a large family home like this in the affluent area of Ballsbridge without a nice helping hand from Rowan’s parents. They had argued a lot about it at the time, Aidan had wanted to pay his own way and buy a house in a less salubrious part of Dublin that was within their budget. He always felt that Rowan was too quick to run to her dad for money and it undermined him and his ability to provide for his family. Aidan had never felt good enough for Philip’s only child. It used to bother Aidan a lot; he had gone out of his way to impress his father-in-law over the years, he had even learned how to play golf and paid an extortionate membership to join the same golf club where Philip was a member, hoping they might bond that way, but he had learnt the hard way that he would never win Philip’s approval so there was no point even trying. Now, it all seemed so trivial. Aidan felt a pang of regret at how he had let his pride get in the way. Rowan had only wanted to have a beautiful home for their family.
Getting out of the car, Aidan climbed the granite steps, worn in the centre by generations of feet, and put the key into the lock of the door that Rowan had painted sunshine yellow the summer before. He could still see her standing there with the paintbrush in her hand wearing her cut-off denim shorts and one of his old hoodies, her hair kept back with a bandana folded as a headband. He felt himself choke back a sob at the memory.
He let the boys into the house, where sunlight streamed across the honey blonde floorboards that were partly covered in Persian rugs in rich jewel shades of sapphire and ruby. Rowan’s touches were all around this house; she had a great eye for interiors and could pull fabrics and textures together that ordinarily might clash, but somehow, she always made them work. She hated bland, minimalist, over-stylised houses; theirs was colourful and lived in and she took pride that anyone who walked through their door would know that it was a relaxed and welcoming family home.
As they made their way through to the kitchen at the back of the house, his ear automatically waited for Rowan’s sing-song voice calling out, ‘hey, I’m in the kitchen,’ and his heart stumbled as her loss hit him fresh again.
Gemma was standing beside the island waiting for them.
‘Hi, G,’ the boys chorused, walking past her and heading straight for the fridge.
‘Where’s Mam?’ Callum asked as he opened a smoothie bottle and flopped down onto the sofa that sat at one end of their open-plan kitchen.
‘Callum, Jack—’ Aidan began. ‘I need to talk to you both for a minute.’
‘What is it?’ Jack called over his shoulder as he searched the fridge.
Aidan looked anxiously at Gemma, who nodded at him. ‘Come over here, boys,’ he said. He saw worry flit across their young eyes as they came over and joined him at the island. ‘Sit down,’ he said, pulling out two stools for them to sit up on. Their faces searched his and he knew the time had come to tell them.
Aidan took a deep breath and braced himself. Once he had delivered this news, there was no turning back; a lifetime of pain stretched ahead of them. ‘I have some bad news…’ he began. ‘Your mother and Milly were involved in a car crash this morning… her car crashed into the back of a lorry.’ He recounted the details like he had been told by the Gardaí.
‘Is Mam okay?’ Jack asked, his eyes wide with fear.
He couldn’t get the words out to tell them. They felt stubborn and misshapen in his mouth.
‘Dad!’ Callum demanded. ‘Is she okay?’
Aidan shook his head. ‘Sh-she didn’t make it,’ he blurted as sobs overtook him. He walked over and pulled the boys in close to him; his wife was dead, his daughter was in a coma in the hospital, the boys were the only things that hadn’t been taken away from him today.
‘Are you saying she’s dead?’ Callum asked, his eyes were blazing with anger as if this was somehow Aidan’s fault.
Aidan nodded as Gemma came over and put her arms around all their shoulders.
‘No, Dad, that can’t be right,’ he shouted, pulling away from him. ‘You’ve got it wrong!’
‘I’m sorry, son, I saw her in the hospital, it’s definitely her.’
‘What about Milly?’ Jack asked, biting down on his bottom lip with trepidation.
‘She still hasn’t woken up yet…’ he heard a crack in his voice as he thought about her tiny body lying in that bed.
‘No,’ Jack said, shaking his head, his lips were trembling, and his eyes were blinking rapidly. ‘This can’t be happening…’
Aidan felt so helpless as he watched his sons crumple before his eyes, looking so young and dazed. What was he supposed to do or say to make this any better? Even though he knew that was impossible because this would never get better; this grief would be a shadow over them all for the rest of their lives. It would haunt them during every waking moment.
This is where he would turn to Rowan for advice; she always knew the right thing to say or how to comfort the kids whenever something was troubling them, and if she didn’t have the answers, she would read up online about how to approach things or ask her friends that also had children of a similar age. Guiltily, Aidan realised he had left most of that stuff up to her, but she had been good at it – she was always far more tuned into the kids’ feelings than he was. Yet now, the one person he needed to guide him through this awful landscape was no longer here. She was gone. In just a few hours, their whole world had been mangled, wiped out. She would never sit at their kitchen island, leafing through a cookery book as she searched for inspiration for their dinner, trying to keep everyone happy – nothing spicy for Jack, no tomatoes for Callum. She knew all their likes and dislikes intimately. She would never again stand baking with Milly in their matching ‘Mummy’ and ‘Daughter’ aprons. She would never shake her head good-naturedly as she reminded the boys once again to put down the lid on the toilet seat. All these tiny inconsequential details, that somehow were everything to him. They were the fabric of their home. He wanted to shout and rage and roar, throw something at the injustice of it all. How was any of this real?
‘But what will we do without Mam?’ Jack asked. ‘You’re always in work, who will take us to school? Who will make our dinner?’ His simple questions summed up everything.
‘I don’t know,’ Aidan choked, because that was the truth. What would they do without her?
The next few hours were a blur of shock, disbelief and awful, gut-wrenching sobs as the tidal wave of what had happened smacked into them again and again, whilst images of Rowan’s crumpled body, lying over the steering wheel, broken and bruised, haunted Aidan.
His phone was ringing and buzzing constantly with messages as word about the crash started to filter out. Her friends arrived at the door looking shaken and stunned, asking him questions about what had happened, even though he didn’t have any answers. His head was spinning. He was grateful to Gemma, who poured them tea, while he sat with the boys as they cried themselves to sleep. It broke his heart not being able to fix their pain.
When they were sound asleep, he left Gemma to stay with them, while he made his way back into the hospital. This was the way it was going to be from now on, he realised with sudden clarity – he would be doing it all on his own. He would have nobody to tag-team with or share the load with on the days when it all felt like too much. He felt torn, but as much as the boys needed him, he was aware of Milly, who was perilously close to slipping away from him too. He couldn’t bear to lose her as well; he had to do everything in his power to keep her here. He needed to be at her bedside, holding her small hand in his own, begging her to hold on. He needed to protect what was left of his family at all costs.