Chapter 44
CHAPTER 44
Maura
Five nights pass, and with each new day Josie grows more disheartened. I hear her in the bathroom every morning around the same time Christy leaves for work. She only ever emerges once he’s gone, and her eyes are almost always red-rimmed and puffy. Bags hang like purple hammocks beneath them, and despite a warm bed, hot water, and good food, Josie has barely slept since she arrived.
“I don’t understand,” she says, as we sit at the kitchen table drinking tea. She loves tea. I’ve never met anyone able to put away as many cups before 10:00 a.m. Sometimes she has a biscuit, but her appetite is slowly fading.
“Mrs. Stitch said it was foolproof. She said I just had to drink it all. I did, I swear. I drank it even though it smelt like toilet cleaner and tasted even worse. I drank every drop. She said I just had to sit back and wait. Things would happen. The baby would shift. How long do you think I’ll need to wait? Do you think it didn’t work? Should I get more?”
Josie is spiraling. She spills tea on her hand. It’s hot and leaves an instant red ring on her flesh but she doesn’t flinch or notice.
“I’m sorry,” I say, reaching for her hand to check how bad it is. “I know how much you wanted this to work. I know how much you want to go home.”
Josie takes her hand back. Thankfully, the burn isn’t too bad. I don’t think it will blister.
“Should I get more? I have some more money. I think I have enough for another bottle. Or maybe Mrs. Stitch will give me a discount because it’s a second try.”
I doubt that’s how Mrs. Stitch’s business model works. But of course I keep my mouth shut. Nothing I can say now will make this any better for Josie. I push my chair back and it screeches against the floor tiles. I check the cupboard where we keep our medicines. The burn cream is buried at the back and I have to roll onto my tiptoes to reach it.
“Wow. That’s like a pharmacy in there,” Josie says.
I smile and return to the table with the tube of cream. “A perk of being married to a doctor. We have just about every medicine for everything in there.”
“Have you something that could help me?”
We both know it’s a rhetorical question. “No. I’m afraid not.”
Josie shrugs. “Yeah. If only it was that simple.”
After breakfast Josie and I walk into town. I have to fetch some shopping and I’m afraid to leave her alone in case she wanders back to Mrs. Stitch, seeking more poison. I hope some fresh air might pick her up, but her problems are much too great for a sunny day to fix. She trails behind me as we visit the greengrocer and the butcher.
“Afternoon, Maura,” Dan says when we step inside McCarthy’s.
“Hello,” I say.
“Be with you in a minute.”
Dan finishes serving a nun who seems to set him on edge, and once she leaves, he turns his attention to me.
“That was Sister Sloan. The principal in Marie and Elizabeth’s school. God, that woman has a face that would stop a clock. My poor girls.”
“Well, I bet your lamb chops can keep her sweet,” I say.
“Hope so.”
“Got any lambs’ hearts or a bit of liver?”
“Sure thing.”
Dan hums a tune while he tips my meat onto the scales; then he places it on top of the counter.
“You must be Josie,” he says, catching her eye for the first time. “I’ve heard lots about you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Josie takes a step back, instantly skittish.
“I’m Bernie’s husband,” he says. “Dan McCarthy.”
“Is it time to go?” Josie asks me, turning her back toward Dan. Her voice is jumpy, as if the ground beneath her is unsteady.
“Yes. Yes. It’s time.”
I take the bag of meat and Dan mouths a silent “Sorry.”
I smile. “Thanks, Dan. See you next week.”
We bump into Bernie outside as she returns from school pickup with an exhausted little girl on each side of her pram. She opens the door of her flat as soon as she spots us and tells the girls to hurry upstairs, that there is a surprise waiting for them in the sitting room.
The children race up the steps without a moment’s hesitation.
“Hello again,” Bernie says.
Josie’s face lights up.
“It’s so lovely to see you. How are you?”
“It didn’t work,” Josie says.
“Oh.”
Bernie looks at me as if I should have the answer, but I don’t know what to say.
“What do we do now?” Bernie says.
“I’m not sure there’s much we can do. Give it more time, I suppose,” I say.
Josie’s face fills with sadness. Bernie hugs her. “Don’t worry. Sometimes these things just take time.”
“I want to go home,” Josie says. “I just want to go home.”
There’s a sudden commotion upstairs and Bernie’s girls are laughing and screaming. They come racing down the concrete steps, brimming with joy, and the contrast in mood is almost unbearable.
“A telly, Ma,” Marie says, flinging her arms wide to wrap them around her mother. “We really got a telly.”
“A telly, a telly, a telly,” Elizabeth chirps, fighting her sister for space in her mother’s arms.
“It was your da’s idea. He’s been working so hard. Why don’t you go and thank him?”
Marie and Elizabeth disappear into the butcher’s shop and there is more laughing and screeches of excitement.
“You have three children,” Josie says.
Bernie nods. “I do.”
“No more?”
“No more.”
“Why not?”
Bernie makes a face. “Erm. I’m blessed with the ones I’ve got.”
“How do you stop it, though? Do you not like your husband?”
It’s obvious from the look on Bernie’s face that she doesn’t know what to say. A French letter could likely have prevented all of Josie’s heartache, but what rapist was going to use one, even if he could get his hands on it?
“Don’t lose hope, eh?” Bernie says, hugging Josie once more. “Another few days might make all the difference.”
Josie sighs. We say our goodbyes and leave the city center behind. Back at the house I offer to make tea and biscuits, but Josie refuses.
“Are you sure? You love tea.”
“No, thank you. I’m tired. Is it all right to go for a lie-down?”
It’s not yet evening. A girl her age should be full of life and vitality, not exhausted and ready for bed. But I understand. “Of course. It’s your bed to take to whenever you choose.”
Josie takes herself upstairs and I set about cleaning the house. I work up quite a sweat. Before I hop into the bath, I creak the door of Josie’s room open to check on her. She’s sleeping, and it’s the most peaceful I’ve seen her look since I’ve known her.
I wash quickly, hyperaware that I need to get Christy’s dinner on soon. I make a fish pie and the smell wafts through the house. Christy arrives home and I serve his dinner within twenty minutes as always.
“Where’s Josie?” he asks, not long after we sit to the table.
“Sleeping,” I say, spooning some delicious pie into my mouth.
“Sleeping through dinner?” I can see the flash of temper in his eyes.
“She was exhausted. I don’t think she’s been sleeping all too well—a bit homesick, maybe.”
“What happened to staying just one night?” he says.
“Do you mind?” I say. “I quite like the company.”
“If she finds her manners and joins her hosts for dinner, then no, I don’t mind.”
“I’ll call her,” I say, hating that I have to.
“You do that.”
I spot the burn cream on the shelf and open the press to put it away before Christy scolds me for the mess. I gasp when I notice the cupboard is barer than before. Several small brown bottles of pills are missing. I’m not sure which ones, but enough to set my heart racing.
Without another word I charge upstairs. I don’t bother to knock and I barge into Josie’s room. I freeze in the doorway, hating my eyes for what they see. Josie is lying on the bed. Still. Fragile. Full of youth. Her beautiful face is white like marble. The color is gone from her lips and her arm dangles over the side of the bed as if it’s hardly attached to her body at all. Her powder blue eyes are wedged open. I hold my breath and pray for her to blink, but she doesn’t flinch. The pill bottles are scattered around the floor. Empty. My scream echoes around me, coming back to hit me like a slap across the face.
“Josie. Oh Jesus, Josie, what have you done?”
I hurry toward her. I drop onto the floor, kneeling, and scoop her small body into my arms. Christy’s feet pound up the stairs and he comes to a sudden stop in the doorway behind me.
“Out of the way, out of the way,” he says.
His urgency gives me hope. I scarper aside and he stands over her, placing one hand over the other and pressing down on her chest.
“What did she take?”
He’s shouting and demanding an answer, but I cannot form words.
“Maura. Listen to me.” His voice is breathy and matches the rhythm of his forceful pumping on her chest. “What. Did. She. Take?”
“You’re hurting her,” I sob. “You’re hurting her.”
“What did she take?”
There’s a fog in my head. My thoughts are hard to see, but I manage something about paracetamol and sleeping tablets.
“Oh Christ,” he says. “Oh Christ.”
“Should I call an ambulance? The Clancys next door have a phone,” I say.
I pick myself up and I’m racing toward the door without waiting for Christy’s answer when he calls out to me.
“It’s too late,” he says. “She’s gone.”
My knees buckle and I hit the floor.
“She was just fifteen,” I cry. “Fifteen. She’d barely begun to live at all.”
Christy picks me up and cradles me in his arms.
“I’m sorry, darling,” he says. “I know how badly you wanted to build a relationship with her. And your mother. My God, your poor mother. This will break her heart.”
I bury my face in his crisp blue shirt. The one Josie had ironed for me this morning.
“Why did she do it? What was troubling her so?” Christy says.
I can feel his deep emotion. It sits in his chest and comes out as heavy, tearless sighs. He, like me, had dared to grow fond of her. If only she had known. Why didn’t I tell her? Why didn’t I make sure she knew how much I wanted her to stay? Forever, if she needed to. She could have been our daughter. We would have loved her like a daughter. And the baby too. I didn’t tell her, because I knew that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She was a child, and every child wants to go home.
“Oh, Josie,” I cry. “Oh, Josie. Oh, Josie.”
I’ve never known pain like it before. Not when Christy has hit me or when I lost my unborn babies. This pain is great. I think I might die trying to bear it.
After a long time, Christy lets me go and walks toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To the Clancys’ house. I need to use their phone.”
“But you said it’s too late.”
Christy’s voice breaks when he says, “I need to call the police. They’ll have questions.”
I watch him leave and when he’s gone, I drag myself to the bed once more and hold Josie in my arms. Christy will undoubtedly unravel all my lies. Once the police become involved, he will learn that Josie is not my cousin and he will know that I deceived him. I should be scared. I know what’s coming, but I am not frightened. There is no room for anything inside me now except sadness. A wound deeper than Christy’s hands could ever inflict.