Betty
THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT I cannot forget.
Even when things have worked out quite beautifully, there are things I cannot make peace with.
The false smile smeared across Jack’s face when he dropped Peggy up to us.
The maroon dirt that stayed under Tom’s nails for a week. Hard to look past, aren’t they?
Bill painted the walls of the spare bedroom pink, and it became Peggy’s bedroom.
He bought her a new bed, and she came with me to Flannery’s to choose her bedding.
And still, those first few weeks, she cried, wanting to sleep on the floor.
But she is settling. When Bill sits in his armchair by the fire in the evenings, she sits on his lap, and she likes his help with her lessons.
We took one of Ciara’s puppies for her, she has a new fiddle and we’ll get her whatever she wants for Christmas.
She comes home to me every evening after school.
She needs me. I suppose I got what I wanted.
There was a little while when Tom would call in to see her after work.
Peggy would be feverish to see him, and half afraid to see him.
Last week, Bill dropped him to the boat.
He will write to us when he meets Declan, Michael and Joe.
Although he promised that he will send parcels to Peggy when he can, a part of me hopes that he won’t.
The odd weekend, Jack and Teresa come back from Clare to see Mary and the baby, and Ger Doyle.
When they call to us, Jack stands back from Peggy, mostly.
His eyes glossed, making small talk as though he doesn’t know us.
Asking her about school and her friends as though she isn’t his.
Politely complimenting her manners as though she is mine.
Each time they call, I expect him to usher her into the car and take her away with them.
It’s clear by the way he looks at her that he wants to do nothing more.
And yet, he leaves without her every time.
Anna has never come back. For a while, I was on constant alert, nervous to walk into the kitchen in case she was sitting at the table.
Every knock on the door, every letter through the postbox, every flash of red in town was Anna in my mind.
Peggy has been asking about her less and less.
One day, when she is older, she will stop asking about her altogether.
By then I might be able to explain things to her a little bit better.
I might have been able to make some sense of it myself.
By then, I might have stopped mistaking the car headlights for Anna’s glowing eyes.
I might look out the window without expecting to see her headscarf. I might have recovered from her.
When tucking Peggy into bed tonight, she catches me off guard with a question.
‘Will Tom ever come back from America?’
She looks so small in her bed. Based on my own experience, brothers that go to America don’t ever come back. I wish that somebody had told me a long time ago not to expect their return; I might have been a little less disappointed by it all.
‘I don’t think he will come back, pet.’
And she surprises me by smiling, and turning away to fall asleep.
‘That’s good.’
She sighs. Once more, I have a burning urge to ask her what exactly happened to Lillian Kealey. To ask whether she was afraid of Anna, and if she ever trusted Tom. But her breathing is evening out. She is falling asleep. I’ll ask her when she is older.