1.

Of all the things Sarah had imagined since Jenny had been diagnosed with motor neuron disease, she had never been brave enough to allow her thoughts to stray past the point where Jenny was actually dead. Her children, Abbie and Josh, were deeply wretched with sadness. Today was a day that she hadn’t dared think about and it broke her heart to see them, huddled into themselves, tear-stained cheeks, red-raw eyes and shoulders slumped as though they were bracing themselves for impact, even though the impact had already landed and obliterated them on the spot like a mile-wide meteor.

She had spent the entire night with them in the hospital after Jenny had died and, when Liam left St Vincent’s for the Garda station to see Alex’s sister who was a detective there, she had volunteered to drive Abbie and Josh home. Josh had been awkward with her, which given what had happened on Friday night, was to be expected. When they didn’t invite her in as she pulled up on the street outside, she invited herself, following them down the pathway into the house. Sarah couldn’t help but notice the contemptuous expression on Josh’s face. There was a trace of impatience in the way he hovered uncomfortably in the kitchen as though he was un-inviting her to stay, as though if he didn’t sit down, she wouldn’t either so she made herself busy making tea instead, keeping herself out of his line of fire. Maybe she should have just dropped them off, waved at them from the driver’s seat as they opened the front door, sprouted the usual inane comments about ringing her if they needed her no matter what the time. Maybe she should have taken a step back… but that wouldn’t have felt right either. She knew what it felt like to feel lonely, to walk into your own home and know that you were on your own, that your mother was never going to be at home again. Besides, Jenny wouldn’t have wanted them to be alone and ever since Abbie had phoned her to tell her that her mum had died she had asked herself the same questions. Had she said enough? Had she done enough? Did Jenny know how much she meant to her? She wasn’t ready to be on her own either.

She watched from behind the kitchen island where she was busying herself making tea as Josh hauled the mustard throw from the back of the sofa in the kitchen and wrapped it around his sister’s shoulders before he sat beside her. She had seen him do this to his mum often too. She wanted to clear the air, find out what was going on in his head, but she couldn’t bring herself to. He was as awkward with her as she was with him, at least that much was clear. The note that he had left had said everything. As soon as she had read it, she’d crumpled it and flung it into the bin – the last thing she needed was somebody else reading it.

‘You’re shivering,’ he said to Abbie as he gathered the balled up wet tissues that were scattered on her lap. ‘You’re tired as well, the best thing you could do is get a bit of a sleep,’ he suggested, his voice low, unsure of himself with Sarah in the room.

‘I just don’t understand,’ Abbie sobbed, making Josh sit beside her while she spoke. She shook her head, her voice croaky, worn out from crying. ‘Like, how did we not know?’ She looked at her brother, tears rolling down her face. ‘How did she not tell us that this was what she was going to do?’ She shook her head again in disbelief. ‘I just don’t believe that she would leave us like this, I don’t.’ She buried her face in Josh’s chest and he held her there until her breathing settled and her eyes dried a little. ‘I’m okay,’ Abbie sniffled. ‘I might doze here for a while.’

Sarah could see that Abbie’s level of anxiety was as high as anything she had seen her experience before. Abbie had once said it felt like her heart was skipping every fifth beat and that her lungs felt as though the weight of a grizzly bear was sitting on her chest while she was trying to breathe. She watched as Josh looped his long arm across his younger sister’s back and sat beside her silently just like he always did when she needed that extra bit of comfort, reassurance that she wasn’t on her own. He was the typical big brother, the type that wouldn’t let anyone hurt her but he would gladly torment her himself.

‘And don’t worry,’ Abbie glanced over her shoulder and raised her voice so Sarah could hear her over the sound of the kettle boiling behind them. ‘I’m not all humpty dumpy.’ Sarah smiled at her reference. It was a reference that Jenny had used often. The inference to humpty dumpty and not being able to be put him back together again being the level at which Abbie’s anxiety was always gauged. ‘I promise,’ Abbie said. ‘I’m strong.’

‘Good.’ Josh tapped his sister with his elbow and leaned into her briefly, his shoulder touching hers as he sat beside her.

‘But if you do go all humpty dumpty, that’s fine too… I’ll be here to put you back together again, okay?’ He said.

‘Thanks, Joshy.’ She smiled, ‘you and all the king’s women.’ She grinned sorrowfully.

‘Ah yes.’ Sarah watched as Josh leaned further in to Abbie to answer her. ‘If the king’s women had been sent to put Humpty Dumpty back together again instead of the king’s men—’ he pointed his finger in the air ‘—first of all, they would have succeeded… and second of all, they wouldn’t have been immortalised forever more in a ridiculous nursery rhyme.’ He nodded triumphantly as he recited his mother’s words. ‘Women just get shit done and don’t need their egos celebrated.’

‘She really was so cool,’ Abbie added, her pale face and bewildered eyes making her look even more childlike than her fifteen years.

‘That she was, Abbie. That she was.’ Josh stood then, stretched his arms over his head and shook his legs, coaxing the crumples of denim that had gathered around his knees to fall back into place. When he looked up, Sarah was looking directly at him and he looked away. She knew he wasn’t trying to make her feel unwelcome, he was just awkward with her being there, which was perfectly understandable considering what had happened between them. ‘I’m just going to grab a shower.’ He patted his pocket, picked up the runners that he had kicked off earlier and headed for the door. Sarah was looking at him, but he made sure not to make eye contact with her again.

‘But the tea’s just made…’ Sarah swallowed uneasily. ‘I’m about to make toast.’ It was the most reasonable reason she could come up with in the awkwardness.

‘I’ll get some myself later.’ He kept his head dipped and his shoulders hunched as he left the room. She waited with her head in the open fridge door under the guise of looking for the butter, until she heard the hum of his shower through the bathroom door in the hall.

‘Don’t mind him.’ Abbie looked after Josh nervously. He’s just… you know, he just wants to be on his own, that’s all.’

‘Don’t worry, don’t even mention it.’ Sarah did know, and she also knew why Josh couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye, not that she was about to discuss that with Abbie. ‘Are you hungry?’ Sarah didn’t wait for Abbie to answer and slotted four slices of bread into the toaster. ‘Did I see…?’ She didn’t finish her own sentence and opened up the fridge door again to check if she had seen what she thought she had. ‘Olives?’ She took them out and shook them gently in front of Abbie before she replaced them beside the feta cheese that was marinating in olive oil and the jar of sundried tomatoes that Jenny wouldn’t have bought either. Jenny’s fridge was always stocked, thanks to the online weekly shop, but never with the amount of delicatessen containers that were on the shelf now. ‘Your mum hates olives, she’d never have bought them.’ Abbie pulled herself up from the sofa and made her way to the kitchen island to sit with her.

‘I think Dad might have bought them.’ Abbie answered.

‘I see.’ Sarah sniffed. ‘I was thinking that your mum wouldn’t have bought olives.’ She winced animatedly as though she was talking to a seven-year-old and Abbie obliged with a smile in return,’

‘Yeah, but Dad loves them.’ She said. They sat in relative silence then. It made Sarah furious to think of Liam moving back into Oakley Drive and taking up where he had left off as though he hadn’t done anything wrong. Life really wasn’t very fair. If Abbie hadn’t been sitting across from her, she would have taken the olives out of the fridge and dumped them, or better still, dipped them in the toilet, replaced them in the plastic container and left them in the fridge for Liam to consume. She tried to calm her temper and was relieved when Abbie appeared not to have noticed.

‘You know yesterday, when I brought your mum back home and me and your dad had a few words…’ She lowered her eyes in shame at the blow up that she had had with Liam in front of Abbie and Josh. It hadn’t been her intention to lose her cool, but when she had got back to the house with Jenny in the car to find Liam had parked in the driveway, she had just seen red. Normally, whenever they went out, Sarah would park in Jenny’s drive, run in for her walker, which they would have strategically left by the door, and Jenny would be able to transfer into the house without the need for her wheelchair and out of prying sight of her neighbours. However, yesterday, because Liam had parked in the driveway, their routine was messed up. Abbie and Josh had been sitting on the sofa when Sarah had stormed in to call Liam the most selfish prick alive. She wasn’t sorry she had had a go at him, she was just sorry that the kids had heard it. ‘Was your mum upset after I left?’

‘No, I think she was fine, she and dad had a chat and then they spoke to us.’ Abbie hesitated when she heard the bathroom door open in the hall and waited until she heard Josh’s footsteps on the stairs before she continued. ‘Why?’ She asked. ‘Why do you want to know?

‘No reason, I was just worried that—’ Sarah stopped herself, making sure to find the correct words. ‘I was worried that your mum was upset, that’s all.’

‘No, she was fine.’ Abbie smiled, trying to reassure her. ‘Honestly.’ She added, pulling herself down from the high stool at the island to load her mug and empty plate into the dishwasher, before she made her way to the sofa to fluff the cushions just like her mum would have done.

Ever since her parents had renovated the beautiful Victorian terrace seven years ago, the kitchen had always been her mum’s favourite place, with its custom-made, antique-white kitchen cabinetry and matching built-in shelving units on the opposite wall. The shelves spanned the entire length of the extension and were stuffed to the brim with everything her mum had loved. There were hundreds of books in every colour, size and shape, souvenirs from special family trips, homemade presents that both she and Josh had given her and what looked like hundreds of photographs that had been taken over the years. Anything that her mum had treasured had been put on display.

‘Yeah, especially in the evenings,’ Sarah answered, clearing away the remnants of their brief breakfast together. ‘We spent many an evening in here, drinking wine, putting the world to rights… and before that, it was the front room. Sarah could remember the day in 1996 when Liam and Jenny had been given the keys. Up until then, Jenny had been living with her in her house in College Grove. ‘She absolutely loved the timeworn flamboyance of all the old things like the ornate cornices.’ Her eyes flickered towards the hall. ‘And the original tiled entrance porch, she was mad about that. But then one day she just woke up and said it felt like the house had shrunk overnight and that she was going to have to build on… I think that Barbie collection you had had something to do with it.’ She grinned at Abbie. ‘I honestly didn’t think the contrast between all the old out there and all the new in here would work, but your mum knew better… then again, she always had an eye for stuff that had value, she could always see the potential in things.’

‘She could,’ Abbie agreed.

‘Do you remember the house the way it used to be?’ Sarah asked.

‘Bits of it, not really though. Did we stay with you while the work was being done?’

‘Only for about a month of it,’ Sarah said. ‘You would only have been eight, and Josh about ten.’ Her eyes glanced to the sounds of Josh’s movements upstairs. She remembered the kids had slept in the box room, Abbie in the bed and Josh on a mattress on the floor. Jenny and Liam had taken the front room, where Jenny used to sleep when she lived there, and Sarah had stayed in her own room at the back of the house. Things were so easy then, so ordinary and uncomplicated.

‘It feels odd being here, you know, without her,’ Abbie’s voice croaked a little, making Sarah want to race to her, hold her like she was her own child, like Jenny would have if she were still alive – but she didn’t. ‘Everything just feels different.’

‘It will feel odd for a while, but you’ll…’ Sarah wavered, looking for the right words. Get used to it had been on the tip of her tongue, but it sounded too crass. She knew only too well that you never really got used to your mum not being at home, you only got better at not caring, or at least better at pretending not to care. She scrambled for something more positive to say. ‘You’ll become stronger and more able to deal with the fact that your mum is no longer here, honey.’

‘Actually, Mum used to say that about you, that you were strong…’ Abbie paused, not knowing how to phrase what she wanted to say. Her mum had told her bits about Sarah’s childhood, but she had never spoken to Sarah directly about it before. The main parts, or the parts that Abbie could remember were that Sarah’s mum got sick with cancer when Sarah was very young and then died when she had just turned eleven. Then when she was eighteen her dad died, of what she wasn’t sure, or maybe she was never told. According to her mum, having to be on her own and fend for herself from a very young age was one of the main reasons Sarah had become so capable, so strong and so in control.

‘She did?’ A small smile settled on Sarah’s lips at the thoughts of Jenny talking to her daughter about her.

‘She told me about your mum dying when you were very young… and then your dad…’ Abbie didn’t have the heart to finish the sentence, it felt too cruel.

‘You know, you do what you have to do to get by… but you’re right, real life does have a habit of getting in the way of childhood sometimes.’ Sarah scrunched her lips together in a half smile and squeezed Abbie’s arm with no intention of elaborating. She was confident Jenny would have given Abbie the PG version of events and she was happy with that. Abbie didn’t need to know that her dad had been so emotionally inept and completely incapable of being anything other than a drunk. He was useless before Sarah’s mum had died, but he was even more useless afterwards. She had watched him as he withered away, year after year, on the inside of a whiskey bottle and she was relieved when, at the age of eighteen, she had found his cold rigid body at the end of the garden among the overgrown hydrangeas that her mother had planted when she was only a baby. It wasn’t long after that that Jenny had moved into College Grove with her. ‘So at least you know that I know what I’m talking about when I tell you that you’re going to be okay.’ Sarah allowed a real smile to form on her lips as the memory of Jenny’s formidable character came to mind. ‘And, as your mum liked to tell us from time to time, she was always right or at the very least—’ Abbie joined in and finished the sentence in unison with her ‘—seldom wrong.’ They giggled quietly together, both of them shook as they remembered the most important person in both their lives.

‘You really are the carbon copy of your mum.’ A strand of Abbie’s auburn hair slinked from her ponytail and swung across her face and Sarah reached to hook it back before she took a photograph that stood in a silver frame from the second shelf. It was a photo of Sarah and Jenny that had been taken on their first day in school. Jenny’s auburn curls bounced around her shoulders and the side of her hair was pulled back with an oversized royal blue bow to match the school jumper they were both wearing over their navy pinafores. She was acutely aware that Abbie was looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to say something. ‘Good old days,’ she managed.

‘I used to love it when you two got a few glasses of wine into you and started talking about the good old days.’ Abbie sniffed.

‘You know, it was your mum who was the strong one,’ Sarah said, sifting through each and every memory as though she were perusing books on a library shelf. ‘It was her who got me through everything I had to go through, so now it’s my turn to do the same for you, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Abbie said and as they sat in silence together, Sarah’s eyes wandered around the room. Abbie was right, it did feel odd to be there without Jenny. When they had first come home after six that morning, the sun was just peeping up from the horizon, colouring the kitchen in a hazy kaleidoscope of pinks and yellows, but now with the sun a little higher in the sky and the haze lifted, the kitchen looked bland, grey and almost empty. The surfaces had all been cleaned and the normal hustle and bustle of function had been cleared away and in its place was order and organisation, the type that Sarah had only ever seen in Oakley Drive years ago, before a planned event.

‘Someone’s been busy,’ she said, her eyes were drawn to the order of the normally disordered console table by the kitchen door. ‘I presume it wasn’t you or Josh?’ She lifted a ruby-red apple from the oversized wooden bowl on top of it. Normally it housed an impressive array of items that had yet to reach their destination, like charging cables intertwined like spaghetti, bunches of seldom-used keys, an armful of bangles that Abbie intended to put back into her jewellery box four weeks ago or a packet of indigestion tablets that were never found when they were needed. ‘Who did all this?’ she asked, but she didn’t need Abbie to answer. The changes were subtle and almost invisible to the naked eye, but they had Liam Buckley written all over them.

‘Me and dad did, over the weekend.’ Abbie was almost proud as she told her. ‘We just wanted everything to be nice, be a new start for…’ She was overcome with tears before she could squeeze out the word Mum.

‘That’s lovely, honey.’ Sarah’s words didn’t match how she felt. She wanted nothing more than to change the lenses in Abbie’s rose-tinted-daddy-glasses for her. If she hadn’t made a promise to Jenny, she would have done it by now. Liam Buckley was a prick, a prick who shoved his hand into her best friend’s rib cage and ripped her heart clean out. He knew that Jenny was sick, he knew that she needed him, that the kids needed him, but he left anyway, all so he could shack up with his girlfriend of two months without any care in the world. What type of man did that?

It had been Sarah who’d picked up the pieces after Liam had left, who sat night after night, when the kids had gone to bed, reassuring Jenny that things were going to be okay, that she would be by her side every step of the way, whatever the future held. She listened to her crying herself to sleep with fear about her illness and what would happen to the kids if she passed away before they were old enough to fend for themselves. Liam leaving, coupled with the diagnosis of motor neurone disease, was like Hurricane Katrina leaving her in ruins just like it had New Orleans. Sarah had been the one to painstakingly sift through the rubble, salvage what she could and do everything she could to rebuild her. They had been through the storm together and there wasn’t anything that she wouldn’t have done for her. They had the deepest, most unbreakable friendship.

‘Your mum would’ve loved that,’ she said, the words stuck in her throat as she realised she was already referring to Jenny in the past tense. Nothing in Jenny’s home would be the same again and there was nothing she could do about it now. Liam Buckley had only been back in the house two days and already things had changed, all evidence of the life that had been there before him erased. He had tidied away Jenny’s very existence so that all that remained was for him to swan back into 26 Oakley Drive as though he had never left.

‘Do you think Dad will be home soon?’ Abbie didn’t heed the tear that weaved its way down her face as she spoke. ‘It’s already eight o’ clock.’

‘I’d say so, love.’ Sarah followed Abbie’s gaze to the clock on the wall and then wrapped her arms around her. ‘I’d say he won’t be much longer,’ she spoke softly into Abbie’s hair and waited for her breathing to settle and her stiffened body to soften. She had no idea how long Liam would be but that was nothing new; Liam Buckley only ever thought about what was important to him and how he was going to get it. Why was she the only one that saw it?

‘I’m going to go grab a shower then, if that’s okay?’ Abbie asked.

‘Of course, I’ll wait for your dad to come home and then I’ll head off too. You know,’ she smiled at Abbie, ‘your mum loved you very much.’

‘Every much,’ Abbie corrected her, smiling back. ‘Mum always thought that very wasn’t enough,’ she explained.

‘Every much,’ Sarah repeated and watched Abbie make her way into the bathroom in the hall. She waited until she heard the hum of the shower before she wandered into the front room where all of Jenny’s things were.