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  Leslie put her hand to her mouth and looked from the letter to Jim and back to the letter. She shook her head. “This is why you’re nice to me. It’s because Imelda asked you to be. You don’t have any feelings for me. You have feelings for her. I’m so stupid.”

  Jim looked confused. “I just found the letter. I thought you’d like to know how your sister felt about you, that’s all.”

  “Well, now I know,” she said, “and I’m actually quite tired, so if you wouldn’t mind I’d like to say good night.”

  “We were having a nice time,” he said, startled and dismayed. “I shouldn’t have given you the letter.”

  “No,” she said, “I’m really glad you did. It’s cleared something up for me, so thanks and good night.”

  Jim was standing outside Leslie’s apartment with the door slammed in his face before he had time to work out what had happened, and only when he was halfway home did the realization dawn that Leslie had totally misread his intentions.

  Leslie lay in bed with her cat and read the last piece of the letter.

  I know I say it all the time and in all my little notes and letters about this and that, but time is running out and I need you to know that it’s been a privilege to be your wife. And although I feel selfish for all the pain I’ve caused you, I know I’ve brought happiness too, so hang on to that and forgive me because even knowing what I know now I’d love and marry you again. I suppose Leslie would say I was a selfish truffle-sniffler, but I can die with that.

  Yours,

  Imelda

  Leslie let the letter drop from her hand and closed her eyes. I’m such a fool. Jim has no real interest in me. And why would he want me, anyway? I’m half a woman. I’m such a silly, silly fool.

  Tom opened the door and was surprised to see Jane, red-eyed and tearful.

  “Are you alone?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you to take me to bed,” she said.

  “Jane, I think you need to—”

  “Are we friends?”

  “You know we are.”

  “So please do what I ask and take me to bed.”

  He nodded and led her upstairs, and he kissed her mouth and took off her coat, and he took off his shirt and unbuttoned her blouse and kissed her neck, and when his face was wet from her tears he took her over to the bed and sat her down. He handed her a pillow to hug and asked her what was wrong. Jane told him about the time when Kurt was fourteen months old and hadn’t stopped crying in a week and everything she did hadn’t worked and she thought she was losing her mind and she hated him with a real palpable, seething hatred and thought about killing him more than once, she was so tired. Even when her eyes were black and she was zombielike and skin and bone, not once did her mother relieve her. Not once did she pick up the baby and tell her that it was okay and that she’d take care of the child while Jane got some much-needed sleep. Not once did she offer to babysit so that Jane could go out with her friends, and not once did she tell her that everything was going to be all right.

  Jane told Tom about that day she had walked into the police station with her son in her arms.

  “I wouldn’t have hurt him,” she said. “I just needed someone to help me.”

  “Ah Jane,” he said, and he took her in his arms.

  He lay down on his bed, and she lay on his chest, and she told him about what Rose had said about her dad and Elle.

  “I should have known Dad didn’t have a heart attack. I’m so stupid.”

  “You couldn’t have.”

  “And Elle—Rose has always been so protective of her, it used to drive me insane. I made one mistake and she punished me for years. Elle messes up time and time again and Rose always finds a way of making what she’s done seem normal and okay when all the time she knew it wasn’t and I should have known. How could I have been so blind?”

  “Because Elle seems perfectly fine. If you ask me, she’s just a little selfish and a little spoiled.”

  “No,” Jane said. “She disappears for weeks and weeks. She’s so exuberant sometimes and then other times she’s so pensive, so sad.”

  “We all get like that—it’s called life.”

  “Then there was China.”

  “What about China?”

  “She was in Hong Kong with her boyfriend. They were in some club and they had a big fight. He told her he wanted their relationship to end, that he wasn’t happy anymore and that it was over. He was flying home the next day. Right after that there was an accident. Elle was hit by a car and ended up in a coma for two days. By the time I got there she’d woken up, but she’d broken her left leg and arm. She was fine, but it scared the life out of us. Vincent, that was her boyfriend, he was sitting by her bed and so attentive I thought they were still love’s young dream, but one day when we were getting coffee he told me about their fight and said that she jumped out in front of the car on purpose.”

  “And you didn’t believe him.”

  “She swore she didn’t see the car.”

  “So you believed her.”

  Jane nodded. “Who jumps in front of cars?” She was crying again. “I should have known. After all, her father hanged himself with jump rope, and me, well, Jesus, I threatened to kill my own child.”

  “You were just crying out for help.”

  “And what was she doing?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  She raised her head and looked at him. “How does it feel not to be the most messed-up person in the room?”

  “Pretty good.” He smiled at her and wiped away a stray tear.

  “Well, that’s something, then,” she said, and he leaned in and kissed her, and they made love twice before they fell into a sound sleep.

  Elle answered her front door expecting it to be her mother, who had been up and down to her cottage harassing her since Jane had stopped talking to her.

  Jane was standing there, pulling her coat in close to her chest.

  “Can we talk?” she said.

  “Yes, please.”

  Jane closed the door behind her, and for the first time in her life she had no idea what she was going to say to her sister.

  15

  “Happy Death”

  A happy death is all I want,

  to feel that I have loved someone

  and did the things I said I’d do

  and lived my life true.

  Jack L, Universe

  November 2008

  Breda died on a Tuesday morning at nine o’clock, and she was alone. Ben was in the toilet next door, and the rest of her family was in traffic. Eamonn arrived ten minutes after she was pronounced dead, with Frankie running in two seconds later, panting and in need of oxygen. Kate followed five minutes later. But it was too late. Their mother was gone.

  “She waited until I left the room,” Ben said. “Your mother never liked to make a fuss.”

  Kate hugged her dad. “I know, Dad.”

  Kate took Ben outside, and Eamonn sat with Breda for a while. All the pain was gone from her face, all the ravages of time melted away; her spirit had moved on, and she looked thirty years younger than her years.

  “Are you with Alexandra, Mam?” Eamonn said. “Is that why you had to go?” He left soon after, and Breda’s body lay in silence.

  Tom got off the phone with Kate and rang Jane.

  “Breda’s gone,” he said.

  “What can I do?”

  “Come to the funeral.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” If she hadn’t slept with Tom she wouldn’t have had a problem with it, but now attending his mother in-law’s funeral seemed in bad taste.

  “She liked you.”

  “Making me feel worse.”

  “Please come,” he said, and Jane knew he badly needed the backup.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  Kurt came in, threw his bag in the hallway, and stormed into his room. Jane followed him and knocked
at his door.

  “Go away,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just want to be left alone.”

  “Okay.”

  She walked down the hall and into the kitchen.

  “Jane, Jane, Jane, it’s your mother! Jane!”

  She picked up the receiver. “Yes, Rose.”

  “Come down.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Five minutes.”

  “You have two.”

  Jane sat on her mother’s sofa, and Rose poured herself a large glass of wine.

  “What did Dr. Griffin say?” Rose asked.

  Jane had made an appointment to see him in his office the previous day. She sat in his waiting room for well over half an hour because it was flu season, and a few times she thought about bolting. When his receptionist told her to go in, her feet felt like blocks of cement and she had to drag herself to his door.

  Dr. Griffin smiled at her, and she sat down.

  “What can I do for you, Jane?”

  “You can tell me how my father died.”

  He sat back in his chair and looked at his hands before rubbing his knuckles. “When did she tell you?”

  “Twelve days ago. I can give you the hour and the minute too if you’d like.”

  “I’m sorry, Jane. It must have been a shock.”

  “You could say that. Why have you never told me?”

  “It’s not my place, Jane, you know that.”

  “You were there. You saw him. Rose said you took him down.” Tears were welling, but she was refusing to let them fall.

  “Your dad had a lot of demons.”

  “And Elle—does Elle have demons, Dr. Griffin?”

  Dr. Griffin sat up. “What do you mean?”

  Although Dr. Griffin had been the Moore family’s general practitioner for thirty-five years, the family member he’d had least contact with was Elle. In fact, the last time he had seen Elle with any kind of ailment was when she was twelve, so as far as Dr. Griffin was concerned Elle was fit as a flea.

  “Rose thinks Elle is like my father.”

  “In what way?”

  “Temperament.”

  He laughed a little. “Well, that’s natural. We all inherit aspects of our parents. You are sometimes like Rose.”

  “I am not!” Jane said with the greatest alarm.

  “The last time I was in your house you threatened to kill her.”

  “That was just talk.”

  “Yes, but familiar talk,” Dr. Griffin said. “Just because some of Elle’s behavior is reminiscent of her father doesn’t mean there is a problem.”

  “She stole her boyfriend’s car and burned it out. Then she packed her bags and disappeared for a while. She often disappears. She puts a sign on her door to tell us that she’s gone fishing and we just wait for her to come back—sometimes it’s days, sometimes weeks. She drinks a lot. Two years ago she nearly overdosed on cocaine, and she promised faithfully she wouldn’t do it again. A few months ago my son found her asleep in a freezing-cold bath—she was blue. She said she fell asleep. She throws money away. She has sex with stranger after stranger, and recently she had an affair with Kurt’s dad, yet for years she barely tolerated him. Sometimes she behaves like there’s no tomorrow and other times she acts as though she can see eternity laid out before her and she can’t stand it. She lives her life according to a letter she writes once a year to the bloody Universe. And then there was China.”

  After Jane had finished telling Dr. Griffin about the incident in China, he was adamant that Elle needed to be referred to a psychiatrist who specialized in diagnosing the kinds of conditions he suspected Elle suffered from.

  “Rose doesn’t want that,” Jane said.

  “Rose shouldn’t have a say.”

  “She said that it was only when doctors got involved that Dad hanged himself.”

  “Your dad was very sick and, no, he didn’t get the help he needed in time, but times have changed and I promise you that if you get Elle to agree to see someone, it will help—maybe not immediately, but it will help.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “That’s perfectly normal.”

  “How could I have been so blind?”

  “Because we see what we want to see.”

  “Vincent tried to warn me,” Jane said. “All the times I called him names and thought he was shallow and stupid, and he was the only one who really saw her.”

  “It’s easier when you’re on the outside.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Talk to her.”

  “And say what? ‘Hi, Elle, we think you’re insane’?”

  “No, Jane, talk to her, listen to her, tell her that you care.”

  “Oh yeah, thanks, she’ll love that, bearing in mind she threw a shoe at my TV the one time Dr. Phil was on. The Off/On button still sticks.”

  Jane sat in Rose’s basement apartment, and for over an hour they debated what Jane should and shouldn’t say to her sister. Rose was adamant that no doctor go near her girl.

  “They only make it worse, Jane,” Rose said, “and you are so good with her.”

  “I can’t be responsible for her mental well-being, Rose.”

  Rose slapped her thigh. “Which is exactly why I didn’t say anything before. You had enough on your plate. Bloody Dominic! The first time I saw his sniveling face I should have knocked his bloody teeth out. He wouldn’t have been so cute then.”

  “You know, Elle isn’t the only one with mental problems in this house.” Jane stood up and walked to the door.

  “Darling, we are all mad—you, me, stupid bloody Dominic, precious Tom, that poor titless woman, the woman next door, Paddy the postman. There isn’t one of us that someone hasn’t thought mad at least once.”

  “Yeah, well, this madwoman is going upstairs.”

  “Just talk to her, just be good to her!” Rose shouted after her. Please mind her, Janey, please don’t let them take her, because when they come, it only gets worse.

  The funeral took place on Friday. Leslie made her way to Jane’s and arrived in time to see Kurt running down the steps with toast in his mouth.

  “Hi, Kurt,” she said.

  “Hi, Wezwee.”

  I’ve been called worse, she thought.

  He left the door swinging open for her, and she walked inside and called out for Jane. Jane came down the stairs in black. Leslie looked at Jane and then at herself. She was wearing red.

  “Is this inappropriate?” she asked.

  “No, you’re fine.”

  “Are you sure? We were never particular about wearing black at family funerals, but other people are funny about it, aren’t they?”

  “You’re fine.”

  She looked up the street outside for Kurt, but he was gone.

  “I missed Kurt,” she said, following Leslie into the kitchen. “Did he look okay?”

  “He was running and spoke with his mouth full—so if that’s ‘okay’ …”

  “Irene broke up with him.”

  “Oh,” Leslie said. “I’m sorry to hear that. I know you were fond of Irene.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m fonder of my son. I’m actually a bit pissed off with her, which is stupid and childish, I know. He’s devastated.”

  “He didn’t look devastated.”

  “Well, he is. She told him he studies too much, if you can believe that.”

  “They are young, and young people break up all the time.” Leslie poured herself coffee.

  “And I wouldn’t mind, but he doesn’t study that much at all,” Jane said. “Obviously more than when he was in school, but this is university and Medicine, for God’s sake! What did she expect?”

  “Jane, are you taking Kurt’s breakup a little worse than he is?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know. He won’t talk to me about it.”

  “I don’t blame him.”

  Jane poured herself coffee and sat
with Leslie.

  “I slept with Tom.”

  Leslie coughed and spit up coffee so that it dribbled a little down her chin. Jane handed her a napkin, she dried her face, and Jane took it off her and aimed for the washing basket behind her, threw it, and landed the shot.

  “Tom, the husband of the woman we’re looking for, that Tom?” Leslie said.

  “That Tom.”

  “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

  “Me either. I really like him, but I don’t know if I actually really like him or if it’s because he’s unavailable. If my history’s anything to go by, it’s probably the latter. And then there is the fact that he’s married to my childhood best friend, whom he loves and who is missing. And if I’m honest, I think she’s dead.”

  “Hah!” Rose shouted from the doorway. “I knew you thought she was dead all along.”

  “Rose,” Jane said, “have you ever heard of knocking?”

  Rose sat down beside Leslie. “How are you feeling?” She pointed at Leslie’s chest.

  “Fine.”

  “You’re so brave,” Rose said. “I would have rather died.”

  Leslie laughed, and Jane silently thanked God for Leslie’s good humor. Rose was determined to go to the funeral even though she hadn’t laid eyes on the Walshes in twenty years. Jane had attempted to talk her out of it, but she insisted on paying her last respects to the woman who had taken her daughter on holiday on many occasions in the eighties.

  “But you didn’t like her,” Jane had argued. “You thought she was a holier-than-thou, pain-in-the-ass Bible basher.”

  “Jane,” Rose said, “that really is no way to talk about the dead.”

  Jane gave up. Rose was in good form—she loved a good funeral.

  “Where’s Elle?” she asked.

  “She’s making her own way.”

  “I’m really glad you’ve made up,” Leslie said. “She was lost without you.”

  “Do you hear that, Jane?” Rose said. “She was lost without you.”

  “Shut up, Rose.”

  “Darling, if you think you’re going to bag a man with that kind of attitude, you’re wrong. I mean, I know Tom’s standards aren’t particularly high and he has a penchant for cheeky little bitches, but maybe if you toned it down just a tad you’d have better luck.”