The First Time I Said Goodbye (6 page)

Chapter 6

Do you remember that first time we met? Maybe you aren’t in the mood for remembering. I still remember every detail. I was wearing a blue dress – you told me it accentuated my eyes. I wasn’t sure what ‘accentuated’ meant – so I asked Dolores and she laughed at me. She told me it was a nice thing. That you had complimented me. And I blushed so hard I thought my face might catch on fire.

* * *

My cell rang just after midnight
.
I was lying in bed, chilled out after a lovely dinner with Sam and the better half of a bottle of wine.

Sam and I had established several things. First of all, he had never been aware he had unwittingly stolen my name; he apologised profusely for his crime, but said that Sam was a boy’s name anyway.
“Samantha is a watered-down version and you don’t look to me like you could be a watered-down version of anything.”

Second of all, we established that he had reacted in the same way as I had when he had been told (not asked) that his cousin, whom he didn’t know, was going to stay in his house during her stay in Ireland.

“I don’t even know you,” he said. “And I’m pretty sure you have me on a limited profile on Facebook.”

“Guilty as charged, but then you have me on a limited profile too,” I challenged him.

“Can’t have randomers looking at my holiday snaps!” he laughed. “I’m very selective about who sees the Speedo shots.”

I laughed so much that I’m sure wine shot through my nose and we vowed to ease our privacy settings the next time we were online.

He told me he was jealous of my life in the States. He had always wanted to visit Florida (“Disneyland and
CSI Miami
, what more could you want?”) and I told him how travelling back to Ireland had never really been a topic of conversation in our house before now.

“It’s not that my mother stepped away from her roots. She has pictures of Ireland all over the house. She made me do Irish dancing – I still have weak ankles from a bad sprain I suffered in the process. But Dad never seemed keen on coming here and she kept quiet.”

“I can’t imagine moving so far from home and never looking back,” Sam said. “Well, actually I can. And there are times I do imagine it – moving away and starting a whole new life where no one knows your past, no one judges and no one has any expectations.”

His face had turned darker then and I nodded in agreement. There was something appealing about that – just walking away from it all.

“Anyway,” he said, adopting a bright tone, “you wouldn’t want to have been named after a Muppet anyway.”

“A Muppet?”

“Sam the American Eagle. You’re way cooler than he is.”

When my cell rang as I lay in bed, and I reached for it, the warm glow of the evening was still enveloping me. I smiled when I saw Craig’s name and answered with a bright, if sleepy, “Hello, stranger!”

“So you’re speaking to me now?” He had a tone of forced politeness about him – as if he was trying to keep things light when I could tell he was cross.

I felt my heart sink. “I’m sorry. I did try and call you earlier. I had no signal and then you weren’t answering.”

“I was busy,” he said, silence following. The pause was unsettling –
he
had phoned me after all – and yet he wasn’t talking.

“Well, I’m sorry to have missed you. Things have been hectic here. I don’t even think the jetlag has caught up with me yet. I was just drifting off to sleep.”

“Well, if it’s too much trouble for you to talk me,” he said.

I sat up, ran my fingers through my hair and took a deep breath. “I didn’t say that, Craig. Please don’t be like this. I know things haven’t been easy lately –”

“Well, that’s an understatement,” he bit back.

Unexpectedly, tears welled in my eyes. “Please, Craig. I’m tired. I’m a million miles away. I’ve had a long day and a glass of wine and I wanted to call you earlier because I went to the most beautiful beach and I wanted to share that with you. I’m sorry.” I felt the tears start to fall and although I tried to keep the sniffle from my voice I knew he would know I was crying.

“Don’t cry, baby,” he said softly. “I just miss you. I’m sorry for being a jerk. I just miss you and us. I miss what we used to be.”

I let his soothing words wash over me, trying not to think too much about the mess we were in. It seemed he was feeling the same.

“I just feel like I’m losing you,” he said. “And I couldn’t bear it if I did. God knows what I would do.”

“You’re not losing me,” I said. “I love you.”

We ended the call on a happy note, both agreeing we loved each other and that we were staying together. So I couldn’t quite explain why I felt a terrible tightness in my chest when I went to lie down.

* * *

My mother took me to the top of Austins, which laid claim to be Ireland’s oldest department store, for tea and scones, the following morning. Scones, it seemed, were de rigueur in Ireland. No morning was complete without one.

As we sat in the top-floor café and looked out at the skyline of Derry, I thought of Bake My Day and the wide range of pastries, cupcakes and speciality baked goods that would be stocking the shelves that morning. I momentarily wondered how Elise was getting on. I had every faith in her but it felt strange to be so far away from my business. Even in the last few months when I had abdicated almost all responsibility to my second-in-command I had still been able to call in. The control freak in me had liked the ability to do those little spot checks even if I didn’t care half as much about the business as I had done.

Watching my mother devour the scone in front of her, I wondered should we add some more traditional bakes to our menu, remembering the scones and treats Mom and I had baked together when I was a child.

I could remember the softness of her hands on mine. My mom. My mommy. Although a daddy’s girl through and through, Saturday mornings were our time. Mom and me. The heavy Mason Cash bowl would be taken from the kitchen cupboard and sat on the counter with reverence – the wooden spoons, the measuring jug, a whisk and measuring cups lined up beside it. I’d pull my stool up alongside the counter as my mother slipped my apron over my head – a match for her own.

“Well, Annabel, what shall we bake today? Something for supper? Something sweet? Or bread – will we bake bread?”

She emptied the cupboards of sacks of flour and in the hazy Florida sunshine a puff of dust would rise and be caught by the rays through the window. We felt, at times, we were standing in our own glorious little snow globe.

Mom always dabbed just a pinch of flour on the end of my nose and I can’t remember a time I didn’t laugh when she did it. And, when my giggling had passed, I would dab flour on her nose and side by side we would stand, laughing at this private, shared and often-repeated moment.

I don’t know why she always asked what we would bake . . . because we baked the same thing each week: bread, fresh and tasty; treacle scones, which my mother said reminded her of home; an apple-pie for my all-American father; and, because I loved playing with frosting, cupcakes, which were mine and mine alone to decorate. By age six I was a dab hand at piping, no Saturday complete without one of my creations, which my father would devour on the porch with a cup of coffee as he told me about his working week.

My mother would join us, sitting beside him on the swing, while I sat, kicking my legs on the porch steps, watching the sprinklers dance, and hoping Mom would say I could run through them.

I remembered her then, her head on his shoulder.

“You smell of freshly baked bread,” he would say.

“You smell of coffee,” she would answer.

The same conversation each week – there was a comforting rhythm to it – a calm and loving intonation in their voices, and I would close my eyes and feel the drops from the sprinkler mist across my face.

“Go on,” Mom would say and I would run, the warm grass tickling my toes, as I plunged into the sprinklers and danced in their rain.

Tea, after a soak in the tub, when Mom would lay fresh pyjamas out on my bed, was toasted chunks of the fresh-baked bread smothered in butter, as I sat on the couch and we watched television together.

Days like those were perfect. It wasn’t hard to understand why, from such a young age, owning a bakery had become my ambition. When my friends at school said they wanted to become teachers or lawyers, doctors or vets, I remained steadfast. All I wanted, forever, was my piece of heaven: my bakery where my parents could come and sit at the counter and where I could make my mother laugh simply by dabbing some flour on my nose as I worked.

I closed my eyes there in the restaurant in a strange country and wished with all my might we could have one of those moments again – just the three of us.

I smiled at my mother, seeing her younger, stronger for just a moment before seeing her as she was now – frail, tired.

“So did you sleep well last night, Mom? You looked dog-tired when you left.”

“I’m not used to international travel,” she said. “I forgot how much jetlag can knock you off your feet – not to mention the fresh air at Inishowen. I always told you it was a beautiful place, didn’t I? Isn’t it just gorgeous?”

“It is, Mom.”

“We will have to go again before we go home. I could go there every day and not tire of it.”

“Whatever you want to do on this trip, Mom, you say. It’s your trip – make the most of it.”

“I will, you know,” she said, spreading butter thickly on another half of scone. “But it’s your holiday too. You’ve been through the mill as well, my dear. Think about what you want to do. Is there anywhere you want to go? Anything you want to see? Just say.”

“I’ll think about it, Mom,” I promised, sipping from my strongly brewed tea and looking again out over the rooftops.

It all looked so different to Meadow Falls, darker and gloomier if the truth be told, but friendlier too. I had already noticed that: how people smiled at you, how people you had never met before in your life seemed genuinely pleased to see you – even those who were not obliged by genetics to do so.

I caught my mother’s gaze and she smiled at me softly.

“It’s amazing, sweetheart, how quickly the memories come back,” she said. “I thought this part of my life was all boxed away somewhere, but so much is coming back.”

I reached over and took her hand. “Tell me about it, Mom. Tell me about this city – all your memories. You know, I wish I had done that with Dad more – talked about things. Talked about his life more. We did at the end, but it was awful knowing that we were trying to cram all those memories into his last few weeks. I want to know more about you – about Auntie Dolores – and how you were together. I want to know all about your life.”

Mom brushed at a few crumbs on her skirt and looked at me, her blue eyes glistening. “My darling girl, I so want to tell you. I’d love to share my whole life with you . . . but . . . I’m not sure . . .”

My mind went back to our walk on the beach and her emotional reaction to whatever it was Dolores had said to her.

“Don’t hide anything from me, Mom. You’re the only family I have left.”

She smiled, polishing off her scone and remaining silent while I wanted to shake her and get her to talk to me. The frustration rose up through me, but I knew better than to try and make her talk to me. My mother was like that – the strong silent type. We were close as a family, the three of us – in a kind of Christmas-card way. We did things together – went bowling, or shopping. We ate Sunday lunch together. We went to Green Acres at least once a month for a family afternoon, even though I was now well grown and it wasn’t necessarily cool. I went to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving and Christmas – New Year’s I had spent with Craig, for the three years we had been living together anyway. But Mom and I? We didn’t really talk – not the deep stuff. We talked soaps and politics and recipes from time to time. She was my biggest cheerleader and my fiercest critic. But heart-to-hearts, we didn’t do those.

Not even when Dad was given his diagnosis. Not even on those nights when we sat up into the small hours mopping his brow and watching him sleep. I’m not sure what I had expected – perhaps my mother to regale me with stories of how she loved him, how he was everything to her, how they met and fell in love, but for most of those nights she sat in silence, staring at him. I imagined she was having some sort of silent conversation with him, that inwardly she was telling him all the things I hoped to be able to tell the love of my life someday. I even felt jealous on occasion and would go home, when morning came and the desire for sleep became too much, and curl up beside Craig as he slept off a nightshift and inwardly tell him I loved him and hoped that he loved me too – the way I deserved to be loved.

“Can we go for a walk?” my mother said, after she had finished her tea and visited the restroom.

“I thought that was the point of today,” I said, perhaps a little sharply.

She gave me a look, the kind of look which
would have withered me if I had been even mildly afraid of her – and still eight years old.

“Sorry,” I smiled.

“You’re not too old to avoid a clip around the ear,” she laughed, linking her arm in mine. “Let’s just go for a walk and I promise I will try and talk to you – but you have to let me take it slowly.”