The First Time I Said Goodbye Read online

  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, t
he 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.”

  * * *

  Slowly, as it happened, was no exaggeration. We walked the City Walls – a mile-long trail around the very centre of the city – steeped in history. My mother talked – of course she did – but it was of the famine graves, the workhouse, the history of the cathedrals, the Siege of Derry and the Burning of Lundy. I was almost tempted to ask her if she had eaten a tourist guide earlier in the day but I decided to say no more.

  “You know a lot about this place,” I commented as we climbed down the steep stairs of the walls and crossed to a pub called Badger’s, where my mother ordered two glasses of wine and looked at the lunch menu even though I was still full from the scones an hour before.

  Taking our seats in a quiet corner, my mother sat back and sipped from her glass. “You don’t get a place like Derry out of your mind,” she said. “It’s changed so much, sweetheart. So much of it looks so different to the place I remember, but it feels the same. It feels so safe and sound – it feels like home.”

  “Meadow Falls is home, Mom,” I said softly.

  “A part of me will always consider this home,” she said. “And I suppose a part of me will always wonder why I left.”

  “You left because you fell in love with Dad,” I said. “Remember?”

  She sipped from her glass again, just as she had sipped from her teacup earlier, as if she was thinking very carefully about what to say next.

  “I’m not sure . . . I don’t think . . . there was more to it than that.”

  Chapter 7

  Of course I miss you. Of course I love you. I can’t imagine ever not loving you.

  * * *

  By the time I got back to Sam’s my head was spinning, and not just from the mid-afternoon glass of wine and the slight tinge of a hangover from the night before. I had two hours to get ready for that night’s entertainment – and two hours to try and process what my mother had told me. I doubted, as I turned on the strong streams of the power shower, that even the most invigorating of showers would clear the weird thoughts from my head. But I knew it had taken a lot for my mom to start talking to me – and that I would be expected to be the belle of the ball at the family dinner Auntie Dolores had arranged for us.

  Sam had called me earlier to warn me what was planned – and warn me of the family traditions I needed to be aware of – such as the after-dinner drinking, singing and storytelling. “Pick your party piece,” he said.

  “My party piece?”

  “The song you will sing.”

  “I don’t sing.”

  “Yes, you do,” he said confidently.

  “No. I really don’t. I was the only girl in High School asked to mime during our graduation ceremony.”

  “You’re a Hegarty,” he said. “You sing. Whether you like it or not. Inability to hit notes does not exclude you from the after-dinner joy that is performing your party piece. You will sing or you will be tortured until you do. Have you ever seen Father Ted? The character Mrs Doyle with her tea? Well, the Hegartys are all like that about the singing. It will be all ‘ya will, go on’ until you blast a wee something out. So believe me, cousin, you are best to just choose something – a short something – and get it over and done with. They will not allow you to rest until you get it out of the way.”

  I contemplated this as I stood under the shower, and thought of my mother and the day that had passed.

  “I didn’t know your father when I moved to the States,” she had said.

  “Of course you didn’t, not really. You don’t really know someone until you live with them. And I’m sure in those days you didn’t live with someone before you were married.”

  “No, pet, you didn’t. But when I say I didn’t know your father, I mean that we met after I moved over. Some years after, if the truth be told.”

  I looked at her, struggling to process things. “You didn’t meet him until then? You left Ireland, without anyone to go to? I thought it was because you were chasing your big romantic dream?”

  She gulped her drink. I don’t think I had ever seen my mother gulp an alcoholic drink in her life.

  “I was chasing something,” she said. “It was such a long time ago. It seems silly now, to be honest. But I was chasing a romance – a romance that didn’t work out.”

  “But which you thought so much of at the time that you gave up everything you knew to move to the other side of the world for?” I struggled to keep the incredulity from my voice.

  “I thought it was worth it at the time,” she said. “But it didn’t work out – and then I met your dad. And I don’t regret that for a second. He gave me you . . . but . . .”

  “But?” There were no buts. I didn’t want to hear any buts. So before she could speak I silenced her with a quick “Never mind!” as I gathered my belongings into my purse, telling her there was a lovely little gift shop I had spotted from the walls that I really wanted to visit and perhaps we should make a move.

  “Annabel, you wanted to know more.”

  “I thought I did,” I said, plastering a too-bright smile on my face, “but I was wrong and I’m not ready – so if you don’t mind, I’d love to visit that little gift shop and see if they have anything which I could take back home to the States with me. I want to get something extra special for Elise – she’s done a lot keeping the business on track. That shop looks just the ticket.” I was speaking fast and I know I was rambling but I didn’t want any awkward silences, so I chatted on, nineteen to the dozen as my mother would say, until she realised that the conversation we had been having would go no further that day.

  She followed me, meekly, into the shop, where I cooed over an Orla Kiely bag and started a conversation on what my party piece would be.

  * * *

  I must have packed while on drugs – even though the only drugs I took were some Advil – because as I sorted through the suitcase I had brought with me, the suitcase I thought was too heavy and contained way too much, I found that I had nothing which really suited an impromptu welcome-home party. I’d been told it was taking place in a local restaurant, in a special function room, and that the entire Hegarty clan would be there en masse. So I sorted through my clothes – pulling out jeans and sweatpants and T’s and three crisp white shirts when I’d thought I owned only two of them. I had packed sneakers, Havaianas and a pair of boots. No sandals or strappy shoes. I did find the black dress I had worn to Dad’s funeral but even looking at it made me feel sick, especially in light of my mother’s comments earlier – so I rolled it into as small a ball as I could and shoved it to the bottom of the bin in Sam’s kitchen.

  This, however, did not solve my problems about what to wear. I feared I would look pathetically underdressed as I selected a pair of my best-looking jeans, a loose-fitting white blouse and a new pair of canvas sneakers. I pulled my hair back, clipping a flower on the side, and brushed on some bronzer and blush. I slipped a simple silver bangle on my wrist, one that Craig had bought me for my last birthday, and I spritzed some scent on my neck – perfume that Craig had also bought me. It felt a little cloying but I figured that was because I was still tired from the journey, even though it had been three days since I’d left home and landed on Irish soil.

  I poured myself a glass of water and sipped it while I waited for Sam to transport us to the party, hoping that would bring me round just that little bit. I figured I would need all the strength I could muster to make it through the evening.

  Sam had done little to calm my fears about the party piece. “Don’t think you can get away with it because you’re not from round these parts. It’s not all Irish laments and rebel songs, if you think that is your get-out clau
se. My mammy does a mean ‘Lipstick on Your Collar’, and I guarantee you will hear at least two versions of ‘Sweet Caroline’ so you better start thinking and thinking fast. It’s like the Rose of Tralee, only with alcohol. You’ll be lucky not to be interviewed in front of the masses.”

  I pulled a face which expressed just how completely terrified I was and he laughed wickedly. “I’m only teasing, but just a little bit. Don’t think me mean – I just like it when the focus is not on me for a change. You know, the only single in the village. They would have an arranged marriage in place for me if they could.”

  “I’m single,” I muttered and he looked at me quizzically.

  “Do you not have a man, back home in the US of A?”

  I blushed. Of course I had a man. But we weren’t married. Technically I was single but I didn’t know why I had said it and I wasn’t quite sure how to unsay it.

  “Oh yes,” I muttered, mortified. “But we’re not married or anything. So . . .”

  “On a technicality?” Sam finished my sentence. “Okay, fair enough.”

  But I knew he thought I was a bit odd. Christ alone knew I felt a bit odd myself – about to go to a big party dressed in jeans, sipping wine and telling my cousin I was single when I had been living with Craig for the last three years. I didn’t even know why it had slipped out. So I took perhaps too large a gulp of wine, put my glass down on the granite counter and asked Sam if it was time we should be leaving.

  * * *

  My mother was wearing make-up. Her hair was curled and set and she was wearing a pale blue dress which showed off her slim figure. She was even wearing a pair of modest heels – two inches at most – but I did a double take when I saw her all the same. She looked younger – it seemed with every day she was back on home soil a year or two of worry melted away from her. I was almost envious of how well she looked when I was hopelessly underdressed and feeling a bit like a butch lesbian in my fairly utilitarian jeans and blouse, while my mother glided up the stairs into the function room like a woman half her age who was a perfect advertisement for ageing gracefully.