Page 27 of A Part of Me and You
‘I moved here a year after you then,’ says Shelley, climbing onto a stool across from me. ‘I came here the first time when I was sixteen to stay with my aunt just after my mum died. I needed to get away for a while and I spent the entire summer here. The second time I came to visit, four or five years later, I met my husband and fell madly in love, as you do, and never went home. Oh, to be so young and in love once more … to have known what was ahead of me.’
A divorce. I knew it.
She twiddles her long, plaited hair as she speaks about her past and it’s the perfect opening for me to really explain how much her talk meant to Rosie yesterday.
‘Rosie has just turned fifteen,’ I tell her, my eyes darting back and forward to Rosie as I talk. ‘.. I am terminally ill, Shelley, and I want this holiday to be perfect for Rosie. I don’t want us to have to deal with my impending death just yet.’
‘I’m so, so sorry for you,’ says Shelley, biting her lip, still twiddling her hair. ‘I can only imagine how frightened you must be, knowing that you’ll be leaving such a beautiful child behind. I’m so sorry.. How are you feeling?’
‘Well, I’m hardly tap dancing on top of the world,’ I say with a tired smile. ‘But there is something strangely peaceful about it all. I’ve accepted it and I’m determined to make the most of the short time I have left.’
She looks like she doesn’t believe me. I don’t blame her.
‘Aren’t you angry?’
‘I’ve already been there,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve been through every emotion known to mankind since I was first diagnosed. The treatments, the sickness, the dependency on others to do the things I used to find so easy, then the hope and the glimmer of light when it seemed the treatments had been successful, then its blasted return, more chemo, same all over again and now here we are.’
‘That sounds like a living nightmare.’
‘Oh, it has been tough but even a warhorse like me knows when I’m beat and I intend to make the most of every second I have left,’ I say to her. ‘It’s back and I can’t fight it anymore but my only concern now is for Rosie and making the most of my time with her before I go. This is my last chance to give her some wonderful memories and I want to make every day special for her.’
Shelley shakes her head and shivers.
‘She’s got a lot ahead of her, poor thing,’ she says to me. ‘And a lot to get her head around right now. I would love to tell you she is going to be okay but it’s not an easy path for anyone to have to travel so young. We always miss our mum, no matter what age we are. It’s a sad club that no one wants to belong to, and I’m in it too, I’m afraid.’
We both look out at Rosie who is in another world with her phone and her new canine companion on the balcony. This is hard for me to hear but it’s straight from the horse’s mouth, from someone who has been through it all and if it comforted Rosie to hear that she isn’t the only one who lost their mum in their teens, then surely I should be comforted by that too?
‘I sometimes wonder if she had a brother or a sister, would it be easier on her, you know?’ I say to Shelley. ‘Did you have anyone to lean on when you lost your own mum?’
Shelley shakes her head knowingly.
‘I would have given my right arm to have a sibling, but no, I’m an only child too and it was horrendous. I think you are doing exactly the right thing by taking her on this holiday, Juliette,’ she says. ‘You have made a very conscious decision to give her the very best of you before you go and I don’t think there is anything more you can do than that. I wish I’d had that time with my mother.’
I feel a lump in my throat at the reminder that this is all really happening. I am here, in a stranger’s house in Ireland, asking for advice on how to prepare my daughter for my death.
‘And after I go?’ I manage to whisper.
Shelley’s eyes are glazed now and I’m afraid I may be probing too much.
‘Make sure she is with the people who love her most,’ she tells me. ‘Make sure she has someone to watch over her every step of the way – an aunt, a friend her own age, a father figure, anyone you can trust to make sure she has someone to turn to when she needs to. That’s really all you can do.’
I look out at Rosie as my heart breaks into millions of pieces.
‘And I suppose,’ says Shelley, ‘depending on whether you believe in it all, I think a reassurance that you will be with her in spirit, as clichéd as that may sound might help more than you know.’
Oh God.
‘I do believe in that,’ I tell her. ‘I have so much I want to do and say to her and I just hope that I have time to pack it all in.’
‘Do you know how long?’ she asks me.
I shake my head.
‘I don’t have a specific timeframe, but I know I don’t have long left,’ I tell her. ‘Weeks, maybe. Who knows? A few months, if I’m lucky.’
Shelley looks me in the eye and then looks away again.
‘Oh my goodness, I don’t know what to say to you,’ she whispers. ‘That is just heart-breaking for you both.’
