Chapter 39
DOUBLE CHRISTMAS
Laura
I do not have to have all the answers now. I am allowed to figure this out as I go along.
Laura is journaling. It’s something she has done since Kitty got ill and which she has become obsessed with since the Free Your Inner Goddess retreat she attended with Becca and Niamh earlier this year.
There are certain rules she has to follow. Obviously, she needs a nice notebook. That goes without saying. The notes have to be handwritten with a gel pen. There has to be a smooth glide of the nib over the paper. It has to be pleasing on a sensory level.
Yes, she has bought those little timed candles that burn for a few minutes so that her journaling sessions are timed and do not extend into an overlong pity party on paper.
Laura has gone home. She stayed in the hotel for three nights until she decided that she was now avoiding her problems rather than escaping for some much-needed space.
There had been a lot of thinking done. Between lectures and visiting Mrs Burnside and practising her singing in the car. (She is determined to be Karl’s teacher’s pet next week.)
She’s come to accept that there is little of merit to her marriage any more.
It’s not that it has been awful. It’s not that she hates him.
But they have grown apart, and there is no doubt that resentment has set in.
Niamh has told her not to be too forgiving of his bad behaviour because whatever has happened between them, he has actively disrespected her and made little effort to understand and appreciate the person she really is.
She’ll need to untangle that in therapy – probably a lot of therapy – but for now she knows that she feels done.
It seems there is too big a gap between them to try and bridge.
Somehow, they have evolved into two very opposing creatures.
Somehow, bit by bit and without her really realising it was happening, he has morphed into someone who does not understand her on a fundamental level, and who seems to have no interest in doing so.
If she’s honest, she feels the same about him – but she hasn’t disrespected him. Not until now. Not until she walked out of the house and checked into a hotel and ignored his messages. But is it disrespect if it’s deserved?
I need to find a good therapist, she writes in her journal, underlining it three times.
And she also has to pull the plaster off and make that decision on how they move forward.
From the way he looked at her when she got home, she suspects he already knows what she is thinking.
It didn’t stop him going out to play golf though – although given that she has just spent three nights in a hotel she accepts she is not in a position to be annoyed about it.
Her house was relatively clean and tidy when she got home. The dishwasher was loaded, but not switched on. The drier was filled with clothes still be to be taken out and folded, but the worktops were clean and clear and it looked as if the hoover had been used at least once.
She had loaded her own washing into the machine, switched on the dishwasher, grabbed a can of crispy cold Diet Coke and gone upstairs to her bedroom.
Aidan had made the bed, opened the curtains and the windows so it was more than a little arctic in feel.
She’d closed the window, pulled on her big, chunky cardigan and taken out her journal to write.
And so far she has written just those two lines, and is staring into the void. They need to have a conversation. A big one.
‘You’re back,’ Robyn says, making Laura jump.
Her daughter is standing in her pyjamas and a pair of thick woolly socks.
Her dyed black hair is sitting at all angles, but with no make-up on her face she looks young and vulnerable.
More like the little girl who used to greet her so eagerly when she came in from work.
‘I am,’ Laura says, gesturing to her daughter to come and sit on the bed beside her.
Robyn does so, and lays her head in her mother’s lap where Laura not only revels in feeling so close to her child but also enjoys stroking her daughter’s hair.
‘What’s going to happen?’ Robyn asks.
‘What do you mean, pet?’
‘Are you and Dad going to get a divorce?’
The ‘D’ word hangs heavy in the air. The hurt Laura feels at its mention, she realises, is not for herself but her daughter, who really deserves better.
‘Why do you ask that?’ Laura asks, trying not to choke on her words.
‘Mum, I’m not stupid. Things aren’t great. When I thought about it, and talking to my friends, they seem to think that you are going to get divorced.’
‘And what do you feel about that?’ Laura continues to stroke her daughter’s hair.
‘I don’t like it,’ Robyn says, with a slight shake to her voice. ‘But you both deserve to be happy.’
‘You deserve to be happy too,’ Laura says, tears glistening in her eyes as she thinks of just what that word ‘happy’ means.
No, happy isn’t sustainable all the time.
Life isn’t inherently sunshine and rainbows, but surely it should be more frequent than sadness.
Or loneliness when you’re married. Or feeling as if the person who should see you and love you for who you are the most, doesn’t.
‘We all do,’ Robyn says. ‘Even if it means you and Dad splitting up.’
This girl, who at times seems so clueless, appears to have it worked out much more simply than Laura does.
‘Has Dad said anything to you about wanting to split up?’ she asks, immediately feeling guilty. Is she putting her daughter in an awkward position?
Robyn rolls onto her back and looks up at her mother. ‘Mum, he doesn’t have to, does he?’
‘I suppose not,’ Laura admits, and a tear rolls down her cheek, landing with an unceremonious plop on her daughter’s face.
‘There’s no need to cry you know,’ Robyn says. ‘It’s okay. I’ve spoken to my friends. They’ve said I’ll get guilt presents and double Christmas. It will be fine.’
If Laura wasn’t looking at her daughter in that moment, she would just think the same old ditzy girl who has been driving her mad this past week with her teenage selfishness was back.
But she saw the look on Robyn’s face. The same ‘be brave’ expression her daughter had worn when Kitty died and she had to walk with her mother behind her granny’s coffin.
There might be more of Kitty O’Hagan in this girl than Laura had thought.
Still, she thinks, she’s still going to go ahead with her plan to make sure her daughter understands, respects and even adopts more of her granny’s fire – the same fire that is burning bright in Laura now.
‘Next week,’ she says. ‘On Saturday. Don’t make any plans. We’re doing something together. Me and you.’
‘Is it something nice or something that is absolutely zero craic like cleaning? Because I’m going to pull the child-of-divorce card in that case and cry off it.’ Robyn’s humour impresses her mother, as does her maturity. Maybe she isn’t that different to Abby after all.
‘It’s something nice,’ Laura says. ‘I promise. I mean, you’ll have to keep an open mind, but it’s nice. It’s fun even. And I’ll take you to Starbucks after.’
‘It’s a deal,’ Robyn says, rolling back onto her side. She doesn’t jump up and scarper back to her room, as she normally would. She stays with her head on Laura’s knee and lets her mother continue to stroke her hair.
Both of them thinking about the impending changes in their lives.