Abby
Abby
Abby curls herself into a ball, knees tucked tight against her chest, arms wrapped around her shins. Eyes firmly shut, she inhales deeply, tries to absorb the essence of her daughter from the pillow where Isla last laid her head three weeks ago.
The muscles in Abby’s throat constrict as though invisible hands are wrapped around her neck. Guttural sobs rise up in her chest, out through her lips. She sinks into her grief, as though being pulled deep into a vortex, water engulfing her, dragging her down. She does not try to fight it.
She has no conception of how long she lies there, on Isla’s double bed that has not been slept in now for twenty nights, or how many minutes pass as tears leak from her eyes as though from a limitless reservoir. Grief simmers within her: burning, smouldering, scorching her from the inside out, bewailing the injustice of it all. It is only when her throat aches and her body is depleted of energy that her crying finally stops.
There is a moment of panic as she wipes her tears, feels the dampness of the pillow, fears that perhaps she has diminished Isla’s scent from the bedding. Burying her head in the pillow, she breathes it in, smells her daughter, experiences a rush of relief. But the feeling is followed by a sharp stab of realisation that it will not always be so. One day she will come into Isla’s bedroom, and Isla will be gone: the smell of her erased from the world. The thought is untenable, and Abby banishes it to a corner of her mind.
Her eyes land on the unfinished novel by Isla’s bedside, a bookmark poking out two-thirds of the way through: Emma by Jane Austen. It is a book Isla will now never finish. She will never learn that Emma marries Mr Knightley, that Harriet finds happiness with Mr Martin, that Frank Churchill was not the man they believed him to be. Looking around the room, she sees the clothes that will never again be worn, the textbooks that will never be studied, the laptop that will never compose another essay or email.
It seems impossible to Abby that there is an entire adult life of Isla’s that will now never be lived. Decades of learning, love, work, travel. A plethora of experiences never to occur because they were part of Isla’s future.
Closing her eyes, Abby’s thoughts ramble through unanswerable questions. She has never been fatalistic, never subscribed to the idea that your destiny is laid out, pivotal moments predetermined. She has always been a firm believer that you forge your own path. And yet now she finds herself speculating about all the other lives that will unwittingly be affected by her daughter’s death. The students at university Isla will never befriend. The professors by whom she will never be taught. The men she will never kiss drunkenly on a nightclub dance floor in the early hours of the morning. The colleagues who will win promotions because Isla is not there to compete for the job. The man she will not marry. Who will he marry instead, Abby wonders, and what life will he lead? Will he be happy? Will he be as happy as if Isla had lived and he had married her instead?
She thinks about Stuart, and for a few short, perverse moments, envies her husband his untimely death. Envies the fact that he had a stroke at the age of forty-one, that he is not alive to endure this grief. That he does not have to abide the acute, inarticulable pain of losing their daughter.
The sudden slamming of a door makes Abby start. Glancing at the alarm clock beside Isla’s bed she sees it is almost five in the afternoon. Confused, she checks the watch on her wrist, is greeted by the same, disorienting time. It is not possible that it can be so late. She remembers Clio leaving for school this morning, remembers clearing away her daughter’s half-eaten bagel and glass of mango juice. She remembers coming up here, to Isla’s room, remembers lying down on the bed. But the intervening hours are a blur. She cannot, surely, have been here all day. Cannot have spent nine hours in Isla’s bedroom, in a fog of grief. But there is no other explanation to account for the missing hours.
Footsteps trudge up the stairs, and Abby swings her legs over the side of the bed, wipes the tears from her cheeks. As Clio reaches the landing, Abby pulls her face into something resembling a smile.
‘Hi, darling. How was your day?’
Clio eyes her suspiciously from the hallway that separates her bedroom from Isla’s. ‘What are you doing?’
Abby surveys the room as though she has only just realised where she is. ‘Just sorting a few things out.’ The forced smile aches across her cheeks.
Clio loiters in the doorway, chews on her thumbnail, seems to be waiting for something more to be said.
‘Did you have a good day?’ The words scratch at Abby’s throat. There is something perverse in these attempts at normality, as though it is a betrayal of Isla to continue with quotidian life.
Clio nods, evading Abby’s gaze.
‘Are you hungry? I could make you something to eat.’ Keeping busy, that’s what Abby needs to do. Everyone keeps telling her so. It is advice, she is aware, that she is failing miserably to follow.
Clio shakes her head. Abby waits for her to go to her bedroom, slip her noise-cancelling headphones on, pretend to get on with homework while watching mindless videos online. But Clio doesn’t move. She lingers at Isla’s bedroom door, and Abby doesn’t know if she is awaiting an invitation to come inside or if she wants to talk about Isla. For three weeks now, Clio has resisted all Abby’s attempts to share their grief, and Abby doesn’t know how best to console her.
‘Are you okay?’
Clio shrugs. ‘Fine. Just thought you might want to know the outcome of the art competition.’
Something jars in Abby’s head and then slips into place. The annual Collingswood Art Prize. Clio spent half the summer holidays preparing her portfolio: a series of self-portraits in oils, charcoal, pen and ink.
‘I’m sorry. It just slipped my mind. How did it go?’
Her daughter glares at her with naked fury. ‘I literally reminded you this morning.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. I’ve just... had a lot on today.’ She thinks of the nine hours she has lost to her grief, still cannot comprehend how it happened.
Clio continues to glower at her. ‘It’s fine. I mean, why should I expect Isla not to be the focus of all your attention just because she’s dead.’
The words detonate in the air between them. For a moment, Abby cannot speak, cannot move, cannot breathe. Violence lingers in the air, like vapour from a fire which, now lit, cannot be extinguished. A line has been crossed, a boundary traversed, and they both know there is no going back.
Before Abby can conjure any words in response, Clio emits a deep, frustrated sigh, turns around and storms into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
Shock paralyses Abby. Never before has she heard such venom in Clio’s voice. Never has she felt such intense heat from Clio’s rage, her rivalry, her sense of injustice.
Something opens up inside Abby: a chasm of abject failure. She has failed Isla, failed to fulfil the sole objective of a mother’s purpose: to keep her child safe, well, free from harm. Failed to ensure the correct order of things: not to outlive her own child. And she has failed Clio in ways she does not even understand: to help her feel every bit as loved, valued and cherished as Isla ever was.
She has failed both her daughters, and guilt ferments inside her, alongside her unassailable grief.