Blood And Water (10 page)

She imagined him that evening, in the rain, whizzing along in his flash arrogant Beemer, full of his own self-importance, satisfying his pompous, deadly need for speed. When he hadn’t turned up by eight, she’d called him to see where they were but he didn’t bother to answer, sending her a text instead saying they’d be back when he was good and ready.

“She’s got school in the morning, please try not to be too late,”
Enya pleaded in return, knowing that there was no point in arguing, especially not by text.

She never stood a chance. He swore he’d clipped her belt in. Vowed on his life that he had made her safe. She must have undone it herself, he argued pitifully but Enya didn’t believe him. Not for even a short, sharp moment. Lia never knew how to do that. When the car in front slammed on its brakes for whatever reason, Lia was beltless and thrown from the car through the windscreen. A traumatised witness spoke tearfully about seeing her limp and bloodied body skating fast along the slick, shiny black surface of the road. She didn’t have a chance. The doctors said she probably died instantly.
Probably
: a word that would haunt Enya for ever after.
Probably
. But what if she didn’t? What if the trauma of the crash didn’t steal her soul? What if there was life still in her, even a small, tiny breath? What if she had felt the pain of her shattered limbs and bruised flesh? The very idea of it hurt so badly that still to this day, every time she thought of her angel, Enya whimpered.

She had lashed out at Cathal in the hospital. He was lucky to be alive they told her, like she cared. But then
he
was wearing his safety belt.

“More’s the pity,” she swore at him with such venom it poisoned her heart.

And as always happened whenever she thought of that time in her life – the initial phone call, the urgent drive to the hospital, those horrible catastrophic hours and the night that followed – she cried.

Ciara put a hand on her quietly weeping sister’s knee and squeezed. No words were necessary.

When they eventually did take that final corner Enya felt nothing but a burning need to turn back and run. Had she been the one driving, she probably would have. But Ciara geared down firmly with her foot on the gas, pushing the car hard as it made its way up the final hill. Symbolic, they both thought independently of each other, listening to the engine of her bright yellow heap of a Citroën struggle, as if it too was reluctant to go the distance.

Enya watched the landmarks pass outside the window, their familiarity somehow comforting. The trees seemed fuller and the grass greener. Was it possible that the street was a bit wider than before? Recognising gardens and house names, pillars and posts, she felt her stomach churn furiously as they approached and pulled in at the kerb. An expensive white Mercedes Jeep was parked in the stubby cobblelock driveway, beside it a child’s purple bike with glittery tassels bursting from the handlebars was thrown casually on the lawn. It still looked beautiful, the house: so striking, a contemporary sculpture set in amongst the tradition of red brick on the street. But it didn’t jar or look abnormal in its setting; like true opposites the surroundings and house complemented each other perfectly.

Ciara turned off the engine. Enya didn’t move, but remained looking out her passenger window at the place she had once called home. She had put so much effort into this house, nurturing the warm, safe ambience to create a space where they could grow together as a family. It was designed that way, she thought sadly, looking at the bike strewn so unceremoniously in the grass, like it belonged right there. And it did. It just wasn’t Lia’s.

Curiosity lured her out of the car and, passing through the gates, she let her hand brush against the name painted in bronze on the column:
Tanglewood
.

Bracing herself mentally, she walked slowly towards the door. The house itself looked just as she had left it.

The day following Lia’s funeral Enya had turned to Seb.

“I can’t stay here. I have to go.”

“You can’t just up and leave,” he had argued.

“I have to, I can’t stay here!” she cried. “Everywhere I look she’s there. I see her in every room in that house – I see her, I smell her, I can almost hear her.”

Seb didn’t argue. He didn’t understand but he could see her distress and the urgency in her need to escape.

“Where will you go?” he asked, taking her into his awkward embrace.

“I really don’t know,” she sobbed into his shoulder.

“There’s a friend of mine from school,” he said. “He runs a vineyard in France. Amazing place. Why don’t I give him a call and you can start there?”

“Thanks, Seb,” she sniffed. “That would be great. I appreciate it, really I do.” And, looking up to him, she asked, “Will you look after the house for me?”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “I’ll take care of it.”

And he, it appeared, had been true to his word. She vaguely remembered an email from Seb telling her about the people to whom he had rented it, but there and then she couldn’t retrieve the detail.

Gingerly she took a sneak peek through the window of the sitting room. They had moved none of the furniture but the photographs had changed; now the house played host to someone else’s story. She stood for what seemed like for ever, remembering the copious amounts of colouring done at the table, books kept on the shelf, movies and CD’s on the organiser and little feet that meandered happily from room to room.

With a heavy heart and poignant emotions, she turned to walk back to the car.

“Can I help you?” a woman called from the side passage, her hands clad in soiled gardening gloves and her knees stained with mud.

Enya jumped, clutching her chest in fright.

“Oh. I’m sorry, do you live here?” she asked nervously, spying a young girl peeping out from behind the woman before legging it quickly to retrieve the discarded bicycle as if Enya might steal it.

“Yes, yes, we do,” the woman replied assertively. “Are you looking for someone?”

Enya paused, looking towards Ciara in the car, unsure how to answer, not knowing what to say.

This is my house
, she wanted to scream as loud as her voice would allow but instead she stepped back.

“No,” she responded, “I’m sorry, I must have the wrong house.”

The woman nodded, obviously thinking ‘How odd’ and, taking hold of her little girl’s hand, watched Enya go, making sure she actually left the property.

Enya got back into the car at speed. She didn’t know whether to feel anger, gratitude or grief.

“You okay?” Ciara asked.

“Yep,” Enya replied in no more than a whisper, “but can we just get the hell out of here? Please?” The quiver in her hands was making hard work of the seatbelt buckle.

With neither a word nor a second glance, Ciara put the car in gear and pulled off, driving away much faster than when she had arrived.

“Alright?” Ciara asked quietly once they were far enough away and she was sure Enya had stopped shaking.

Enya replied with a nod, her heart heavy but her resolve clear: it was time for change.

“I think I have to sell it,” she told her sister. “There’s no way I can go back there. Not without Lia.”

Ciara replied with silence. It didn’t need any verbal response.

“Do you think we could maybe go to the cemetery?” Enya asked, feeling the sting of her tears as they swelled once more.

Seeing her grave all tidied and perfect, with her name carved out of the grey granite with the delicate angels wrapped protectively at either end, was almost comforting. She knelt and placed her hand flat down on the grass and wondered if Cathal ever came to visit their daughter’s grave. If he did there were no signs of it. She hadn’t asked about him since her return and no one had made any mention as to where he was or what he was doing. She was sure they knew. She wondered if he thought about Lia or if he, like her, found it too hard to bring her to mind.

She wasn’t sure if she was making it so or if it was her mind playing tricks, conjuring up feelings that weren’t actually real, but she was certain she felt her, a presence and a spark that triggered a bizarre chemistry with nothing more than a memory and an ache in her soul. But she felt her there. It wasn’t a time for tears and there were none.

She had spent so much time focusing on her past she had forgotten that she still had a future. Lia might be physically gone but she was in her heart and would stay there forever.

Chapter 10

Ciara watched as her little sister faced her fears. She could almost feel Enya’s renaissance: kneeling for a last moment before slowly sweeping her hand across the cold stone then leaning in to kiss it. Standing. It was time to go. Ciara took her sister’s arm and, with Enya’s head on her shoulder, they walked towards the car.

It was impossible to ignore the ironic similarities in their emotions: Enya, grieving for her beautiful baby that lived for so few years, while she mourned every day for her tiny babies that never managed to take even a short breath on their own. The past weeks had been tricky. It seemed that everything was working against her, including Robert: “No more,” he had told her only days before. And despite the distraction of Enya’s arrival she was still trying to process the impact of this simple but extraordinary statement. Witnessing Enya take such a painfully brave step forward, so far out of her comfort zone, on the one hand made Ciara feel proud of her but on the other pierced her with a shard of jealousy somewhere deep in a bitter, twisted crevice of her sinking heart. Time to move on? Was it even possible for her to take example from her sister, she asked herself, hopeful but not convinced.

She needed time to think, time on her own. Dropping Enya back to the house she was glad to see relief in her sister’s eyes when she suggested that she take a nap while she nipped into town to do a few things. They both needed head space: time to manage their thoughts.

Finally alone, lost in the whirlwind of her ruminations, Ciara drove aimlessly through streets and junctions. A blast of a horn dragged her from her cheerless introspection and back to the reality of her car. Taking stock of where she was, she parked and got out, not in the least bit surprised to find herself within walking distance of the entrance to the city zoo. This was
her
place. It was where she always seemed to end up when she needed time to herself and invariably it seemed to signify the end of one thing and the beginning of something else. This time however, by contrast, she wasn’t quite sure what that ‘something else’ needed to be.

Having paid her fee, she walked through the gates and immediately felt exorcised, as if the stresses and worries of the last few weeks that had weighed so heavily on her conscience had flittered gently away. Swaddled by the inexplicably tranquil and hushed atmosphere of the almost wild gardens, as if accompanied by an old friend, she followed the familiar path into the estate.

On a weekday, at this time in the early afternoon, the inner network of winding lanes was almost empty: she was as good as alone. And on such a beautiful day, with the sun shining bright and a cold bite to the air, she felt charmed and had no intention of wasting either it or her solitude. Opening up her lungs as she walked she sucked in as much of the chilly air as she could manage then released it slowly back to the atmosphere in a translucent puff of warmed vapour. Pulling the black fur collar of her coat tight around her neck she wandered along the narrow tarmac tracks. Here there was no rush, here she could think, her thoughts like cogs in a finely tuned clock slipped effortlessly, one by one, into their paired slots, untangling even the most complicated dilemma. Here she made sense even to herself.

Stopping at the kiosk beside the high top-viewing platform, she bought a coffee and took a seat in what had become over the years her usual spot, overlooking the flamingos. Wrapping her hands around the warm Styrofoam cup, sucking from it whatever warmth she could, she watched, intrigued by their pink elegant one-legged stance as they occasionally dipped their heads into the water, happy to huddle, happy to preen, happy to do apparently nothing.

It wasn’t an accident that she always ended up at the zoo. She had history here; this was now part of her story. It was in this exact spot that Robert proposed to her almost seven years ago. She shook her head as a gentle smile curved her lips – was it really that long ago? She remembered it as if it were yesterday: him on his knees dressed all in black, the blue velvet box that he offered up to her, presenting the ruby-and-diamond ring delicately placed inside, in return for her hand in marriage. She remembered his face and how it shone brighter than all the gemstones in the world when she finally, between gulps, said yes. He had completely surprised her – had she been asked about him before then she would never have described him as a romantic: passionate certainly, mysterious maybe, but romantic, not really. However, on that evening he had orchestrated the proposal so beautifully, right down to the timing of his proposition at sunset, that whatever his disposition she thanked her lucky stars that he had chosen her.

And there was no doubting that Robert was an incredible man, so kind, so patient. She knew he loved her, of that there was no question, and if she tried hard enough she could kind of see why he didn’t want to try again. But this could be their time. This time it might just work. This might just be the last chance they needed. This time, the time
was
right, she felt it in her heart. And what if it was and they didn’t try one more time? What if …? She would never know.

He had been adamant. “
No more.
”

Yes, there was the money and, yes, she didn’t react well to the disappointment: grief just didn’t suit her. But despite all the arguments and, yes, they all made perfect sense, there was a chance, a small chance but a chance all the same that this could actually be it: the one that worked, the one more they needed. How could they not take this one last chance? Then, if it didn’t work, she’d let it go, but she needed to try one last time. She didn’t dare dream of one day holding her own baby in her arms, that was too dangerous, but she knew what it felt like to have her baby growing inside her and it was that feeling that she returned to time and time again in her hope and dream of motherhood.