Anna
NOTHING IS WORKING OUT THE way that Tom promised it would. The person I used to be never gave way to the person I am supposed to be. My trouble was supposed to run off me, instead it has run to find me.
Betty wants space from me. Like everybody always wants space from me.
Like you and Milly and Catherine and all the rest of them.
Why isn’t anybody happy to be close to me?
Why doesn’t anybody seem to love me on the same frequency that I love them?
I want to get it right. I want to move on and live a nice life, like everybody else.
All I do now is block out the thoughts of you.
Of what happened. The heat with which I needed you.
The reasons you are gone. I block them all out, and yet they crawl unnamed across my skin.
All the time. Creeping across my eyelids, your hair and body and hands, always just out of sight.
Felt but unacknowledged. As though you are still struggling through your last breath. As though I could stop it all.
Tom coughs, attention seeking. I am brought back to the table, where I didn’t realise I was sitting. Peggy leaning against my chair, biting her nails. He has something sad to say, I can see by the sad smile on his face.
‘I was saying my prayers last night, and I forgot Daddy.’
He almost laughs when he says it, as though it’s the only way he could force it out of his throat.
Peggy blesses herself. Just for a second, I am grounded.
I am sitting with my brother as he tells me something painful, as he tries to make it into something that he can swallow.
I forget whatever I was just thinking about.
We are together. He forgot to pray for Daddy.
Another person wouldn’t care much about that sort of thing, but I can’t imagine all the ways that it would kill Tom. He hangs onto Daddy’s death the most.
‘I said my prayers twice last night, don’t worry.’
I say, smiling, lying and hoping he will accept it. Better that than to tell him that I haven’t said a real prayer in donkey’s years. Maybe that’s my problem.
That’s the sort of admission that would send Tom into shock. The sort of thing you go to hell for, I’m sure. Then, I’m sure I’m heading to hell anyway. Probably myself and Jack and Tom will all end up down there, still looking up at you and Mammy and Daddy. Nothing will really change.
I would never tell Tom this, but hell is of no real concern to me.
It’s heaven and its furies that I am most afraid of.
Never once have I been made to feel like god is decent or clear-thinking.
As far as I can tell, god is impossible to please.
If I get to heaven, I fear I would perpetually feel like an unwanted guest in his house.
No, you’re not there at all. You’re somewhere altogether better.
Somewhere with soft music and honeyed lights.
Without rules and without worship. I imagine you are somewhere very free.
Ah, but poor Tom. He’s mad for god and praying and all. And once he’s happy, who cares? It’s probably not a bad thing to have somebody praying for me.
‘Can we make some decorations now?’
Peggy asks, leaning into me further. Jack has spent every evening since Saturday down in Doyle’s. It’s taking a toll on her, not to have him around. It’s taking a toll on me, to have to look after her so much more.
‘There’s paper in the dresser, and Sellotape.’
She goes to fetch them, and against my will I spend the evening with her, making decorations for Tom’s thirtieth birthday party. A party that he decided to throw, and which I will do all the cleaning and baking and decorating for.