Chapter 22
On the anniversary of her death, Mum, Dad and me went to the chapel that she used to go to.
It was the most festive feeling I’d had all Christmas since we hadn’t decorated our house.
The chapel’s tree was tall, fat and bright; the stained-glass windows had poinsettias on their sills, holly wreaths along the walls; the wooden crib in front of the altar was filled with hay and people took a strand of it at the end of Mass.
Mum said that the crib was exactly the same as she remembered it from when she was a little girl when Granny took her to Mass at Christmas time.
At the foot of the Christmas tree stood the painted figures of the three wise men.
The Feast of the Epiphany is all about them; the journey they embarked on following the star to Bethlehem.
During Mass the priest called out the names of the people whose anniversary it was and we bowed our heads when Granny’s was said.
After Mass we went to the graveyard behind the chapel to put a candle on Granny’s grave and say silent prayers.
I prayed for her forgiveness. To forgive me for leaving her and Mum in the hospital that night one year ago, for not being brave enough to stay.
I asked her to help keep Mum on the right track towards healing in the year to come.
I told Granny that I missed her and wished she could be here for me at a time when I needed her most. I always felt I could talk more to Granny than I could to Mum or Dad.
But I knew that even if she couldn’t be there for me, she would definitely be with me.
There hadn’t been a day the whole year that I hadn’t thought of her; I didn’t want there ever to be a day where I didn’t.
As we drove home from the chapel I looked up into the clear night sky wondering if the star the wise men followed was still there amongst the constellations. Guidance. It’s what the stars once were. Guidance. I looked up the whole way home.
Later, Mum and me sat at the dining room table. Dad had gone upstairs to get ready for bed; it was nearly midnight.
‘It’s hard to believe it’s been a year,’ Mum said.
If she had shed any tears that day I hadn’t seen them.
I knew it had been a tough year for her, especially on birthdays, on Mother’s Day, Christmas and now the anniversary.
But Mum was beginning to change for the good.
She said she was going to put in a request at work to do less night shifts in the new year and how excited she was for my Buddy Times with Ronan to start.
It felt like the beginning of her getting back to the whole of herself again.
I was gripping Granny’s rosary beads in my hand inside their little pouch; I had kept them in my pocket all day, remembering being in the hospital when she had pressed them into my hands and told me she loved me.
That night exactly one year ago when I knew Granny would die but I didn’t stay, remembering how I ignored the dark feeling in the pit of my stomach and how much it hurt when Mum hugged me in tears the next day and asked where I had been and why it had taken so long for Dad and me to drive back.
Why had we left her on her own for so long?
The truth was something I’d been ashamed of. It burdened me all year.
‘Mum?’
We had been sitting in silence after the floorboards stopped creaking above our heads from Dad climbing into bed. She looked into my eyes.
‘When you phoned from the hospital that morning and told us Granny died, Dad came upstairs and told me and said he was going to start the car, that we needed to get to you right away. He was outside in the car waiting for me and it was my fault that it took us so long to get back to the hospital. Dad was waiting for me.’ She was looking at me, I could see she remembered and that it was still something that hurt her, the loneliness she must have felt that morning.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘He was waiting for me because …’ she was still staring at me, ‘because I was in the kitchen. He told me Granny had died and I went downstairs and I went into the kitchen and I started to make a sandwich. It was the only thing I could think to do, I don’t know why.
I just needed to make one. I could hear Dad with the engine running outside and I knew he was waiting but I just kept getting everything together to make a sandwich.
Dad came into the kitchen and saw me and asked what I was doing.
It was like I didn’t even know but I couldn’t stop myself.
Dad was asking me how I could be doing something like that at a time like this – he was trying to get me to leave, but I had to keep doing it.
He said he’d leave without me if I didn’t hurry up; he went outside and left the front door open and I could hear the engine running, but I kept making the sandwich.
Then I put it in a bag and took it with me. I didn’t even eat it.’
I couldn’t read the expression on Mum’s face. I felt so stupid and embarrassed.
‘What kind of sandwich?’ she said.
‘What?’
‘What did you put in it?’
As if it was the memory of a surreal dream, I saw myself in the kitchen that morning one year ago; peeling the banana, slicing it, spreading peanut butter on the bread.
‘Peanut butter and banana,’ I said.
‘Your favourite.’
She had a tiny smile on her face. She got up and went into the kitchen. I heard the cutlery drawer open. I heard plates set down. I heard the plastic crackle of the bread packet.
Minutes later, Mum and me were sitting at the table eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich each.
I think it was the best sandwich I’d ever tasted.
Before bed that night, I looked out my window and, once again, up into the night sky. Clouds had formed and I couldn’t see the constellations anymore. But I knew they were there.