Chapter 2
2
Maybe if my love for Angelo was all that had soured, my life in New York could have been salvaged.
The second warning sign, like the first, was just one short conversation. But it was the most recent of a tower of almost identical conversations, stacked one on top of the other. That particular Tuesday, it reached critical mass.
As soon as Angelo had stalked off with his gong, I’d reached for the landline to call Mum. In those terrible days, trapped in the US while my parents and four sisters were three thousand miles away in Ireland, I rang home every few hours.
My greatest terror was of my parents catching Covid, because from all the evidence, they were unlikely to survive. Daily, I wasted countless hours doom-scrolling. The dangers kept changing, becoming a different version of the same disaster. There was always something new to panic about: extra symptoms, different variants, allergies to the vaccine…
Often I’d wake in the middle of the night, so choked with fear I’d have to make a quick call to one of my sisters, usually Claire (the eldest and most controlling), asking, “Are they sanitizing their shopping properly?” Or, “Any idea when the vaccines might start?”
At that stage, thanks to various rules and bans, it had been eight months since I’d visited Ireland. The biggest impediment was having to quarantine for ten days on my return to the US; I couldn’t get that long off work. But there had been recent intimations that this requirement would be dropped—so hopefully soon I could fly home for a much-needed visit.
I could not wait to get on that plane.
Which goes to show that life really is full of surprises! It wasn’t so long since I’d hated planes, all airports, even the word “gate.” Overhearing “Tray table” and “upright position” filled me with tearful fury. All because my job made me go to Switzerland every six weeks.
May I pause here to offer some unsolicited advice? If your job involves air travel, never complain about it. Oh, how expressions curdled when I bemoaned my lot. How angry everyone’s response. “Boo fucking hoo, Anna! Flying business class to the land of crystal air and excellent time-keeping. You want me to play the world’s smallest violin?”
“But my carbon footprint is horrifying and my circadian rhythms are shot.”
“Carbon footprint? Circadian rhythms? Wow, Anna, is there nothing you don’t have?”
“Listen to me.” (Usually uttered through clenched teeth.) “I land in Zurich at six a.m. on a Monday morning, my body convinced it’s midnight on Sunday—because back in the US, it is . I’m ferried straight into the Lucerne Bio HQ, where I work two thirteen-hour days, fly back to New York, directly to the office, staying late to catch up on my other accounts. I live on coffee, melatonin, adrenaline and unbearable guilt about the planet.”
“That so?” (Often accompanied by a pugnacious jut of the chin.) “I live on lost dreams. My life story could be called The Flights Not Taken .”
But having been grounded for eight months, my attitude had changed. As soon as the draconian restrictions were lifted, a magical plane would take me to Ireland, perhaps even in time for Christmas. I hit my parents’ number and heard it ringing.
There was a click, then with a heavy sigh, Mum said, “What now ?”
She didn’t have caller ID.
“I might not have been me,” I said. “I could have been someone else.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Well? Any news?”
“Since you rang six hours ago? Hold on, actually, I have—you’re banned! You can’t come into Ireland!”
“What have I done?”
“Not just you, you gomaloon, all ‘persons from the US.’ New rules from the government; that eejit was on the telly again. If you came, you’d have to quarantine for two weeks in a rotten oul’ hotel and be charged a small fortune!”
“Mum.” I felt absolutely sick to hear this. “Why are you so excited?”
“Because it’s exciting.”
“…But it’s bad exciting.”
Suddenly gloomy, she said, “I’ll take what I can get.” Then, “Lookit, I’ve no symptoms, neither has your father, we’ll do our best not to catch Covid before your next call. Talk cha!”
Desolate, I hung up. Mum was making light of something terrible, but it hit me like a train that I might never see her or Dad again. People died, I knew it for a fact.
That was when something began to turn, a retreat from the life I had and a circling back towards the place I’d come from. Why was I trapped in this city when, with the exception of Angelo, everyone I loved lived in a faraway place?
Even before the pandemic, a drift had begun from New York. My friend Nell fled to rural Kentucky, to a life with hens, chicken wire and barky dogs. Another friend, Maira, relocated to Nevada and my beloved colleague Teenie returned to her native Oregon. Without exception, they insisted they were happier. Obviously anyone brave enough to leave New York had to talk a good game, but I believed them.
That particular morning, as I frantically googled “Latest Covid Restrictions Ireland,” and discovered that Mum hadn’t been exaggerating, I vowed that once this ended—if it ever did—I was moving my life back home.