Chapter 40
40
FAMILY MEETING
Niamh – Three Days Later
The four Cassidy children are looking at their parents expectantly. Niamh looks around at each of them, taking in their features and their personalities. She marvels at just how different all four of them are. They all have a certain familiarity in their appearance, of course. The Cassidy high forehead is a curse they all have to carry, but when it comes to their personalities they are all unique to themselves. Jodie has always been fiercely independent and very much boss. That she had almost five years as the star of the Cassidy family show before the first of her siblings came along meant she developed an unshakeable belief in her own brilliance. Niamh hopes it never leaves her.
The boys may share the same poor hygiene standards and obsession with gaming, but Ethan has always been the more boisterous of the two. Verging on feral at times, if Niamh is honest, but hilarious enough to get away with it.
Cal is the more contemplative of the pair. A sensitive soul who thinks deeply about the world and everyone in it. He does his best to hide his occasional bouts of anxiety behind a mask of teenage rebellion but Niamh recognises herself in him only too much. She wants to pour all the love and resilience into his world so he can protect himself from those who would make it tougher – people like her Year 11s.
And Fiadh? Fiadh is the princess. Spoiled by everyone in the house, including her brothers. Every day Niamh thanks her stars that her daughter has turned into a loving and caring, if exceptionally nosy, child and not a carbon copy of Verruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . Right now, it is Fiadh who is wriggling in her seat, clearly dying to know what has resulted in them all being called together in such a manner. These days, it’s rare that all six Cassidys congregate at the kitchen table at the same time. It’s usually a Christmas-dinner-only event these days.
‘What’s going on?’ Ethan asks. ‘I want to get back to my game.’
‘You spend enough time on that game that it won’t kill you to give it up now for a wee bit,’ Paul says, and while it is clear Ethan isn’t exactly enamoured with that reaction, he knows better than to start kicking off.
‘Are we going to Disneyland?’ Fiadh asks.
‘What?’ Cal says. ‘That’s for babies.’
‘No. It’s not. It’s for everyone,’ Fiadh says, defiantly. ‘Are we going, Mammy?’
‘No, love. Not at the moment, anyway,’ Niamh says.
It’s clearly now her youngest child’s turn to look dejected. ‘Can we get a puppy then?’
‘We’re not getting a puppy,’ Paul says. ‘But we do have some very important things to talk to you about.’
Niamh is so grateful that Paul is taking control because even though she feels so much better than she did even this morning, she still feels more than a little emotionally fragile.
Paul came with her when she went to see her GP . He offered to actually come into the consultation with her but she had said there was no need and she was happy just to know he was in the waiting area.
She had written down exactly what she wanted to say to the doctor. Over the course of several drafts, her message had changed from ‘I think I am losing my fucking mind’ to a list of symptoms and a description of how she felt her mental health was taking a battering. She was so glad to have done that because as soon as she saw the kindly face of her GP she burst into tears and struggled to regain her composure. It was much, much easier to just hand over her neatly folded sheet of paper and let the doctor read it for herself.
When the doctor had looked up, her brow furrowed with sympathy and concern, Niamh had cried some more, but then as they started to pick through each symptom and discuss treatments and medications, as well as the availability of talking therapies, she had felt the weight start to lift from her shoulders. It might have been in tiny, pebble-sized chunks, but it was lifting all the same.
Life was starting to come into focus again. The doctor warned her it would be a long process, with a healthy amount of ups and downs, but it would be worth it.
‘There are lots of things we can try,’ the doctor said. ‘Don’t ever be afraid to come back and say that we’re not quite there yet. Menopause, and even depression – well, they aren’t exact sciences. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. So just because this HRT has worked brilliantly for your friend, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you because you don’t feel the same.’
Niamh could’ve kissed her. Like properly snogged her. She felt validated. Believed. Sane even. Apart from wanting to snog the doctor, that is.
By the time she had left the health centre and got back into the car with Paul she had in her hand a prescription for HRT gel and for some top-grade antidepressants, as well as a referral to a counsellor. She also had a Get Out of Jail Free card, otherwise known as an ‘Unfit to Work’ certificate that would give her some breathing space before she had to face Jayden, Ella et al. again.
But work and medication are the not the only things that have to change.
‘Right, kids,’ Paul says, ‘the thing is we have all been guilty – me included – of putting too much on your mum’s shoulders. You are all getting older now and you need to start acting your age.’
‘I’m only seven,’ Fiadh says, clearly sensing that extra housework responsibilities are incoming. ‘I’m only a little girl,’ she adds, batting her eyelashes.
‘That’s true, love,’ Paul says. ‘But even little girls can put their dirty clothes in the laundry basket and their dishes in the dishwasher.’
‘Ha! Burn!’ Ethan shouts, which Niamh thinks immediately was a very, very foolish move.
‘I’d not be mocking anyone if I were you,’ Paul says. ‘See that cesspit of horrors you two share? It’s getting gutted this weekend. Every manky discarded item of clothing, every empty crisp bag, every dirty cup and every alien life form… you guys will be picking it all up and bringing it all downstairs where you will learn how to use the washing machine, the dishwasher and how to put rubbish in the bin and not just sit it on top of it instead.’
‘But we’ve a gaming league at the weekend,’ Ethan moans, and Cal, who clearly knows when they are fighting a losing battle, reaches out his arm in front of his brother as if to signal that he should stop before he makes things worse.
‘Nope. Not until that place is clean as a whistle and fumigated of all noxious odours. It’s bad enough that your room is that messy to begin with, but the smell? Dear God, lads. Have a bit of dignity,’ Paul says.
‘And what are you going to do, Dad?’ Ethan asks, defiantly.
‘Whatever it takes to make sure your mum doesn’t want to walk out that front door to go and live in a witchy cottage by the sea all on her own,’ he says, and Niamh smiles. He’s listening too.
‘Well, then, what about Jodie? What is Jodie going to do?’ Cal asks.
‘Well, that’s another thing we have to tell you,’ Niamh says. ‘Or at least it’s something Jodie wants to tell you all.’
All eyes in the room move immediately to Jodie, who grasps hold of her daddy’s hand.
‘Well, I know that you’ve noticed I’ve been a bit sick recently. And Adam stayed over too.’
‘Are you going to be dead?’ Fiadh asks, filled with alarm.
‘Oh, God, no! I hope not, anyway. No. I’m not ill. Not properly ill anyway. The truth is, I’m going to have a baby.’
The room erupts with questions, cheers and the occasional quiet moment as Fiadh takes in the news she won’t be the baby of the family for much longer. Niamh just sits and watches it and she has to hold on to hope that this is the start of good things happening for her family.
Even as Jodie explains that it’s still early, and there’s a chance something might go wrong, Niamh just gets this overwhelming feeling that everything will be okay.
‘What are you going to call the baby?’ Fiadh asks. ‘I think Taylor or Sabrina for a girl.’
‘No. No. We’re thinking of Ella, maybe?’ Jodie says, her hand going to her stomach.
‘No,’ Niamh says, that name striking fear deep into her heart. ‘No. I will give you ￡500 if you call the baby something other than Ella. And for the record, Jayden is also off the table. Totally.’ She’s only partially joking, of course.
* * *
The following day, Niamh meets Laura and Becca at the Green Cat Bakery café for a debrief and chocolate cake session. In a quiet corner of the coffee shop with an extra-large slice of chocolate cake in front of her, she feels no guilt at all not being in the classroom and instead enjoying this leisurely afternoon with her girls.
‘This tastes so good,’ she says, taking the time to enjoy the texture and taste of the cake and not, as she has been doing over the preceding weeks, simply shoving vast quantities of chocolate down her throat in a bid to give herself an energy boost, or to fill the void that seemed to be opening up inside of her. It hadn’t been a particularly effective method of either – any energy boost she got was quick-lived and accompanied by a sugar-rush headache and a severe bout of nausea, while any void it was supposed to fill just widened to now include self-loathing into the mix. ‘I think I’d forgotten how to just enjoy and appreciate food, you know?’
Becca and Laura both nod. ‘I get it,’ Laura says. ‘Always rushing from place to place. Not sitting down to eat and relax. Then after Mum died, I just lost my appetite altogether.’
‘I wish I was the kind of person who lost my appetite when I’m stressed. I go the other way. I could eat everything in sight, then I get annoyed with myself,’ Becca says. ‘It’s only Adam being home and having to cook him a proper dinner that has kept me on track these last few weeks. When he goes back, I’ll have to be extra careful not to fall back into my old habits.’
‘When is he going?’ Laura asks, delicately.
Niamh already knows the answer. Just as she already knows that Jodie is also going back to do her exams in Belfast next week. She’d tried to encourage her to take a little time off to rest. She can always resit her exams in the summer. But Jodie is as stubborn as her dad and, Niamh is coming to realise, as stubborn as her mum too. She wants to do her exams and has been studying for them. She swears she’ll do nothing more strenuous than walking for the bus to get to the exam hall or to the library to study.
‘Sunday,’ Becca says. ‘Saul will meet him at the airport and if I know my boys, and Saul in particular, it will be straight to the pub.’
‘I suppose they might as well,’ Laura says. ‘Things will change soon enough when he has a baby to consider.’
‘That’s what I think,’ Niamh says. ‘Because he’ll not get away with that nonsense when he’s a daddy.’
Immediately she looks to Becca, wondering if threatening her son might have been a bad move. Becca just laughs. ‘Bloody right! I’ve him warned. His granny has him warned too,’ she laughs. ‘Did you know she is now on to crocheting a second baby blanket? If she keeps up at this rate, there will be a new one for every day of the week.’
‘That’s so lovely of your mum,’ Niamh says. ‘I remember her crocheting stuff when mine were wee. I’m pretty sure I still have some of it up in the attic.’
‘Me too,’ says Laura. ‘Actually, Robyn still has one of her baby blankets at the bottom of her bed. I think it’s like her security blanket or something. It’s definitely seen better days, but she’ll never part with it.’
All this chat is making Niamh feel fuzzy and warm, but she accepts that might just be down to the new antidepressants swimming around in her system.
‘In all seriousness,’ Becca says, ‘Adam is already talking about how determined he is to be a good dad. He’s a good lad.’
‘I know,’ Niamh says. ‘Sure, look at his mammy. How could he be anything but?’
She’s about to take another bite of her cake, which she swears might be the nicest cake she has ever had in her entire life, when her phone rings. Glancing at the screen, she smiles as she sees Deirdre’s name illuminated.
‘Give me two mins,’ she says to her friends as she gets up to go outside where she will have a better chance to hear Deirdre on the other end of the phone. ‘It’s Deirdre. I’d left her a message earlier.’