She closed her eyes and breathed in and out along with the gentle sighing of the waves. It was as though the sea were taking big deep breaths, pulling the water in while it inhaled and pushing it all back up onto the sand as it exhaled. She continued to breathe along with it and felt her pulse rate slow down as she became calmer. She thought about how she used to lie by Gerry’s side during his final days and listen to the sound of his breathing. She had been terrified to leave him to answer the door, to fix him some food or to go to the toilet, just in case that was the time he chose to leave her. When she would return to his bedside she would sit frozen in a terrified silence while she listened for his breathing and watched his chest for any movement.
But he always managed to hang on. He had baffled the doctors with his strength and determination to live; Gerry wasn’t prepared to go without a fight. He kept his good humor right up until the end. He was so weak and his voice so quiet, but Holly had learned to understand his new language as a mother does her babbling child just learning to talk. They would giggle together late into the night, and other nights they would hold each other and cry. Holly remained strong for him throughout, as her new job was to be there for him whenever he needed her. Looking back on it, she knew that she needed him more than he needed her. She needed to be needed so she could feel she wasn’t just idly standing by, utterly helpless.
On the second of February at four o’clock in the morning, Holly held Gerry’s hand tightly and smiled at him encouragingly as he took his last breath and closed his eyes. She didn’t want him to be afraid, and she didn’t want him to feel that she was afraid, because at that moment she wasn’t. She had felt relief, relief that his pain was gone, and relief that she had been there with him to witness the peace of his passing. She felt relieved to have known him, to love him and to be loved by him, and relief that the last thing he saw was her face smiling down on him, encouraging him and assuring him it was OK to let go.
The days after that were a blur to her now. She had occupied herself by making the funeral arrangements and by meeting and greeting his relatives and old school friends that she hadn’t seen for years. She had remained so solid and calm through it all because she felt that she could finally think clearly. She was just thankful that after months his suffering was over. It didn’t occur to her to feel the anger or bitterness that she felt now for the life that had been taken away from her. That feeling didn’t arrive until she went to collect her husband’s death certificate.
And that feeling made a grand appearance.
As she sat in the crowded waiting room of her local health clinic waiting for her number to be called, she wondered why on earth Gerry’s number had been called so early in his life. She sat sandwiched between a young couple and an elderly couple. The picture of what she and Gerry had once been and a glimpse of the future that could have been. And it all just seemed unfair. She felt squashed between the shoulders of her past and her lost future, and she felt suffocated. She realized she shouldn’t have had to be there.
None of her friends had to be there.
None of her family had to be there.
In fact, the majority of the population of the world didn’t have to be in the position she was in right now.
It didn’t seem fair.
Because it just wasn’t fair.
After presenting the official proof of her husband’s death to bank managers and insurance companies, as if the look on her face weren’t enough proof, Holly returned home to her nest and locked herself away from the rest of the world, which contained hundreds of memories of the life she had once had. The life she had been very happy with. So why had she been given another one, and a far worse one at that?
That was two months ago and she hadn’t left the house until today. And what a welcome she had been given, she thought, smiling down at the envelopes. Gerry was back.
Holly could hardly contain her excitement as she furiously dialed Sharon’s number with trembling hands. After reaching a few wrong numbers she eventually calmed herself and concentrated on dialing the correct number.
“Sharon!” she squealed as soon as the phone was picked up. “You’ll never guess what! Oh my God, I can’t believe it!”
“Eh no . . . it’s John, but I’ll get her for you now.” A very worried John rushed off to get Sharon.
“What, what, what?” panted a very out-of-breath Sharon. “What’s wrong? Are you OK?”
“Yes I’m fine!” Holly giggled hysterically, not knowing whether to laugh or cry and suddenly forgetting how to structure a sentence.
John watched as Sharon sat down at her kitchen table looking very confused while she tried with all her strength to make sense of the rambling Holly on the other end. It was something about Mrs. Kennedy giving Holly a brown envelope with a bedside lamp in it. It was all very worrying.
“Stop!” shouted Sharon, much to Holly and John’s surprise. “I cannot understand a word you are saying, so please,” Sharon spoke very slowly, “slow down, take a deep breath and start from the very beginning, preferably using words from the English language.”
Suddenly she heard quiet sobs from the other end.
“Oh, Sharon,” Holly’s words were quiet and broken, “he wrote me a list. Gerry wrote me a list.”
Sharon froze in her chair while she digested this information.
John watched his wife’s eyes widen and he quickly pulled out a chair and sat next to her and shoved his head toward the telephone so he could hear what was going on.
“OK, Holly, I want you to get over here as quickly but as safely as you can.” She paused again and swatted John’s head away as if he were a fly so she could concentrate on what she had just heard. “This is . . . great news?”
John stood up from the table insulted and began to pace the kitchen floor trying to guess what it could be.
“Oh it is, Sharon,” sobbed Holly. “It really is.”
“OK, make your way over here now and we can talk about it.”
“OK.”
Sharon hung up the phone and sat in silence.
“What? What is it?” demanded John, unable to bear being left out of this obviously serious event.
“Oh sorry, love. Holly’s on the way over. She . . . em . . . she said that, eh . . .”
“What? For Christ’s sake?”
“She said that Gerry wrote her a list.”
John stared at her, studied her face and tried to decide if she was serious. Sharon’s worried blue eyes stared back at him and he realized she was. He joined her at the table and they both sat in silence and stared at the wall, lost in thought.
Six
“WOW,” WAS ALL SHARON AND John could say as the three of them sat around the kitchen table in silence staring at the contents of the package that Holly had emptied as evidence. Conversation between them had been minimal for the last few minutes as they all tried to decide how they felt. It went something like this:
“But how did he manage to . . .”
“But why didn’t we notice him . . . well . . . God.”
“When do you think he . . . well, I suppose he was on his own sometimes . . .”
Holly and Sharon just sat looking at each other while John stuttered and stammered his way through trying to figure out just when, where and how his terminally ill friend had managed to carry out this idea all alone without anyone finding out.
“Wow,” he eventually repeated after coming to the conclusion that Gerry had done just that. He had carried it out alone.
“I know,” Holly agreed. “So the two of you had absolutely no idea then?”
“Well, I don’t know about you, Holly, but it’s pretty clear to me that John was the mastermind behind all of this,” Sharon said sarcastically.
“Ha-ha,” John replied dryly. “Well, he kept his word anyway, didn’t he?” John looked to both of the girls with a smile on his face.
“He sure did,” Holly said quietly.
“Are you OK, Holly? I mean, how do you feel about all this, it must be . . . weird,” asked Sharon again, clearly concerned.
“I feel fine.” Holly was thoughtful. “Actually I think it’s the best thing that could have happened right now! It’s funny, though, how amazed we all are considering how much we all went on about this list. I mean, I should have been expecting it.”
“Yeah, but we never expected any of us to ever do it!” said John.
“But why not?” questioned Holly. “This was the whole reason for it in the first place! To be able to help your loved ones after you go.”
“I think Gerry was the only one who took it really seriously.”
“Sharon, Gerry is the only one of us who is gone, who knows how seriously anyone else would have taken it?”
There was a silence.
“Well, let’s study this more closely then,” perked up John, suddenly starting to enjoy himself. “There’s how many envelopes?”
“Em . . . there’s ten,” counted Sharon, joining in with the spirit of their new task.
“OK, so what months are there?” John asked. Holly sorted through the pile.
“There’s March, which is the lamp one I already opened, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December.”
“So there’s a message for every month left in the year,” Sharon said slowly, lost in thought. They were all thinking the same thing, Gerry had planned this knowing he wouldn’t live past February. They all took a moment to ponder this, and eventually Holly looked around at her friends with happiness. Whatever Gerry had in store for her was going to be interesting, but he had already succeeded in making her feel almost normal again. While she was laughing with John and Sharon as they guessed what the envelopes contained, it was as though he were still with them.
“Hold on!” John exclaimed very seriously.
“What?”
John’s blue eyes twinkled. “It’s April now and you haven’t opened it yet.”
“Oh, I forgot about that! Oh no, should I do it now?”
“Go on,” encouraged Sharon.
Holly picked up the envelope and slowly began to open it. There were only eight more to open after this and she wanted to treasure every second before it became another memory. She pulled out the little card.
A Disco Diva must always look her best. Go shopping for an outfit, as you’ll need it for next month!
PS, I love you . . .
“Ooooh,” John and Sharon sang with excitement, “he’s getting cryptic!”
Seven
HOLLY LAY ON HER BED like a demented woman, switching the lamp on and off with a smile on her face. She and Sharon had gone shopping in Bed Knobs and Broomsticks in Malahide, and both girls had eventually agreed on the beautifully carved wooden stand and the cream shade, which matched the cream and wooden furnishings of the master bedroom (of course they had chosen the most ridiculously expensive one, it would have been wrong to spoil tradition). And although Gerry hadn’t physically been there with her as she bought it, she felt that they had made the purchase together.
She had drawn the curtains of her bedroom in order to test her new merchandise. The bedside lamp had a softening effect on the room, making it appear warmer. How easily this could have ended their nightly arguments, but perhaps neither of them wanted to end them. It had become a routine, something familiar that made them feel closer. How she would give anything to have one of those little arguments now. And she would gladly get out of her cozy bed for him, she would gladly walk on the cold floor for him, and she would gladly bruise herself on the bedpost while fumbling in the dark for the bed. But that time was gone.
The sound of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” snapped her back to the present as she realized her mobile phone was ringing.
“Hello?”
“G’day, mate, I’m hooooome!” shrieked a familiar voice.
“Oh my God, Ciara! I didn’t know you were coming home!”
“Well, neither did I actually, but I ran out of money and decided to surprise you all!”
“Wow, I bet Mum and Dad were surprised all right.”
“Well, Dad did drop the towel with fright when he stepped out of the shower.”
Holly covered her face with her hand. “Oh Ciara, you didn’t!” she warned.
“No hugs for Daddy when I saw him!” Ciara laughed.
“Oh yuck, yuck, yuck. Change the subject, I’m having visions,” Holly said.
“OK, well, I was calling to tell you that I was home, obviously, and that Mum’s organizing dinner tonight to celebrate.”
“Celebrate what?”
“Me being alive.”
“Oh, OK. I thought you might have an announcement or something.”
“That I’m alive.”
“O . . . K. So who’s going?”
“The whole family.”
“Did I mention that I’m going to the dentist to have all my teeth pulled out? Sorry, I can’t make it.”
“I know, I know, I said the same thing to Mum, but we haven’t all been together for ages. Sure when’s the last time you’ve even seen Richard and Meredith?”
“Oh, good ol’ Dick, well, he was in flying form at the funeral. Had lots of wise and comforting things to say to me like, ‘Did you not consider donating his brain to medical science?’ Yes, he’s such a fantastic brother all right.”
“Oh gosh, Holly, I’m sorry. I forgot about the funeral.” Her sister’s voice changed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.”
“Ciara, don’t be silly, we both decided it was best you stay,” Holly said briskly. “It’s far too expensive to be flying back and forth from Australia, so let’s not bring it back up, OK?”
“OK.”
Holly quickly changed the subject. “So when you say the whole family do you mean. . . ?”
“Yes, Richard and Meredith are bringing our adorable little niece and nephew. And Jack and Abbey are coming you’ll be pleased to know, Declan will be there in body but probably not in mind, Mum, Dad and me of course, and you will be there.”
Holly groaned. As much as Holly moaned about her family she had a great relationship with her brother Jack. He was only two years older than her so they had always been close when growing up, and he had always been very protective of her. Their mother had called them her “two little elves” because they were always getting up to mischief around the house (this mischief was usually aimed at their eldest brother, Richard). Jack was similar to Holly in both looks and personality, and she considered him to be the most normal of her siblings. It also helped that she got along with his partner of seven years, Abbey, and when Gerry was alive the four of them often met up for dinner and drinks. When Gerry was alive . . . God, that didn’t sound right.
Ciara was a whole different kettle of fish altogether. Jack and Holly were convinced she was from the planet Ciara, population: one. Ciara had the look of her father, long legs and dark hair. She also had various tattoos and piercings on her body as a result of her travels around the world. A tattoo for every country, her dad used to joke. A tattoo for every man, Holly and Jack were convinced.
Of course this carry-on was all frowned upon by the eldest of the family, Richard (or Dick as he was known to Jack and Holly). Richard was born with the serious illness of being an eternal old man. His life revolved around rules and regulations and obedience. When he was younger he had one friend and they had a fight when they were ten, so after that Holly could never remember him bringing anyone home, having any girlfriends or ever going out to socialize. She and Jack thought it was a wonder where he met his equally joyless wife, Meredith. Probably at an anti-happiness convention.
