Page 62 of A Part of Me and You
‘But it’s not just a headache that is going to go away after some rest, is it?’ whispers Helen, her fear spilling out down the phone. ‘It’s not like you can take a painkiller and make it go away. You have a brain tumour. You have cancer. And let’s not forget, you got a pretty big shock when your dreams of bumping into Skipper were well and truly scuppered.’
Helen, I know, wants to scream at me for coming here, for all sorts of reasons, but I am too tired to argue with her or protest at anything she has to say.
‘Right,’ she continues. ‘I’m booking a flight and I’m coming over to you tonight, Juliette. Brian can take a few days off until you are strong enough to come home but you are not making that journey back here alone. Over my dead body.’
I sink into the pillow and close my eyes, my hand barely able to keep holding my phone to my ear.Over my dead body, you mean.
‘Just let me sleep it off, please, and I will call you later,’ I tell her, my voice slow and weary. ‘I mean it, I’m going to fight this until Saturday morning and then I will take the ferry home as planned. Give me a few hours and I will be back on my feet and annoying you with more pictures of loveliness, of good times and magic memories for Rosie. Just another little while, please. Just let it pass.’
Helen keeps talking but I can’t listen to her anymore. Her voice that was once so soothing and reassuring is now piercing my brain and sending shocks through every inch of my body. I have no idea what time of day it is but I need to keep my eyes closed. I manage to hang up the phone and I embrace the darkness and the silence at last. I need to sleep it off. I will be back on my feet in no time. I have to be. For Rosie. We are having such a good time and I can’t leave her yet. Last night was so much fun, thanks to Shelley who has really come to life in helping us and I don’t want this to end now. Please God, don’t take me just yet. I have so much still to live for. Please, give me just a little more time with my girl.
Shelley
Betty was acting weird again when I came to take over inLily Lovesand she couldn’t wait to get away from me, just like yesterday – but I’m not going to ask what her problem is. Maybe it’s because I already know what she is thinking, or maybe it’s time I let her go anyhow. I should be able to come into my place of work like other people do, at nine in the morning and take my lunchbreak and work until closing, just like I used to do before grief and its poison took over my very existence. I want Matt to be home already, for us to be taking the steps forward that he has urged me to for as long as I can remember now, and I want to be able to let him love me and for me to love him just as Lily would have liked us to.
Maybe we could start trying again for the family that we so crave, but the very thought of facing more disappointment through miscarriage, like we did before Lily, tears at my heart and my empty womb tells me no, begs me to please not go through that agony again.
I tend to my customers all afternoon on autopilot until Rosie bounds in through the door with Merlin on his lead and I want to tell her not to bring him into the shop as it wouldn’t look well should he shake his fur and spray the clothes with the smell of wet dog. It is raining again in Killara but Rosie doesn’t seem to mind at all and her cheeks are glowing having spent the entire afternoon outdoors with her favourite canine friend. She sits up on a high stool at the back of the shop and I chat to her from behind the counter.
‘Have you checked in with your mum this afternoon?’ I ask her, almost afraid of hearing her answer. I had waited last night until Juliette was asleep, and Rosie and I had spent some time chatting about boys and makeup and music before I slipped off and locked the door when she too was in bed. I promised her she could take Merlin today which has proven to be the perfect distraction for Juliette to get some rest and I fear that maybe the elation of the week so far and all that she has learnt about Skipper has taken its toll on her body, mind and soul. I, too, am feeling a dip in my mood but it’s probably from seeing Juliette suffer so much and battle against what is inevitably coming her way.
‘I popped by about an hour ago to check on her and she was fast asleep,’ says Rosie. ‘Aunty Helen rang me too to see if I’m okay and so did Dan but he sounded a bit tipsy as usual. I wish he would really wise up, Shelley. Mum needs him and so do I but all he seems to want is a bottle by his side instead of the woman who loves him most in the world. I’m never getting married. Ever.’
I want to put my hands over her ears and protect her from adult conversations and pressures and let her be the child that I was never allowed to be after my mother died.
‘Rosie,’ I say to her softly. ‘As an only child, the burden of loss you are going to face is multiplied with all that you have ahead but I really hope you don’t become hardened by life along the way. Dan is doing what he has to do at the moment to cope, and if your mum chose him and loves him like I know she does, I bet he is a good man despite his drinking?’
She shrugs and then smiles a bit.
‘He’s great fun, I suppose. Well, he used to be,’ she whimpers. ‘He used to make Mum laugh so much and I swear when he comes into a room Mum really lights up. I used to be jealous at the start but then I got to love hearing them laugh their heads off at the silliest things. She’s missing him a lot.’
‘See?’ I say to her. ‘I’m not saying marriage is right for everyone, but in life I always think it’s good to keep an open mind on absolutely everything thrown at you, no matter how hard it seems. I think meeting your mum and seeing how positively she embraces everyone and everything she meets has made me see that life is a lot easier when you look at the glass as half-full instead of half-empty, though at times it’s hard to see if there’s anything in the glass at all.’
I may have lost her somewhere in my metaphors as she is now checking her phone but if she even takes in some of what I have to say, I might feel that I have done right by Juliette in this conversation, and by Rosie too.
‘When my mum died, I felt I had to grow up overnight and drift out into the big, bad world all alone,’ I say to her. She puts down the phone. I’ve got her back.
‘Were you scared too?’
‘Petrified,’ I tell her. ‘Yes, I had my father to lean on but he wasn’t much use for the first few years and he did the same as Dan is doing now. He drank to block out the reality of being left with a teenager who was full of questions and despair and that’s how I eventually found myself here in Killara with my aunt who seemed to understand just a little bit more as to how to cope with me when he couldn’t.’
Rosie looks panicked now. Oh no.
‘I don’t want to live with Aunty Helen, Shelley,’ she says to me, shaking her head. ‘It just won’t be the same and even though she’s really nice, she does things differently in her house.’
‘She will look after you, I’m sure she will.’
‘And I don’t want to grow up overnight like you had to,’ she continues. ‘I want my mum. I want to hear her laugh with Dan again when I’m doing my homework in the kitchen and they are snuggled up on the sofa in the next room. I want to dance and be silly with her again just like we did last night in the cottage. I don’t want Mum to die.’
I take a deep breath. What on earth do I say to that?
‘You and Dan and Aunty Helen and everyone that knows your mum will come good because you won’t have to grow up overnight like I did, wait and see,’ I say to her. ‘I bet Helen knows you inside and out and thinks the absolute world of you?’
She nods. ‘I suppose she does. She says I’m the daughter she never had as a joke when the boys are getting on her nerves. I’ve sometimes told her things I couldn’t tell Mum, just to get some advice.’
I see a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes.
‘Well, then?’ I say. ‘That’s good you trust her like that. And do you talk to Dan in that way at all? Do you ever tell him things and trust him with your feelings like that?’
