Fionnuala Kearney - The Day I Lost You - A heartfelt, emotion-packed, twist-filled read

As quietly as he could, memories of many Christmas Eves in his head, he went to the landing and pulled down the loft stairs. From the top of the stairs he removed a large holdall he and Harriet had used on their skiing holidays. He pushed the full suitcase back under the bed, made sure there was enough room for the holdall on the other side – Harriet’s side. Within an hour he had removed all of his wife’s clothes from the wardrobes they shared, from the drawers she used. He placed his hand on the empty hangers, moved them left to right along the hanging rail, spaced them out to try and hide the stripped reality.

At 03:12, he climbed into bed, knowing he had an early practice meeting at the surgery five hours later. He was exhausted as he pulled the duvet over himself one more time. His head throbbed; a steady pulsing beat. He swallowed two paracetamol, then fell into a restless sleep, where one moment he was skiing with Anna and a holdall full of Harriet’s clothes, and the next, a nameless Frenchwoman’s head was smiling at him from Harriet’s pillow.

Five minutes before he needed to leave the next morning, Theo sat fully dressed on his son’s desk chair. He watched as Finn rubbed the sleep from his eyes and growled like a bear as his hand swiped his phone alarm off.

‘Morning, son,’ Theo said.

‘Dad! You scared me!’ Finn sat up straight, shielding his eyes with an angled arm as Theo switched on his bedside light.

‘There’s been more rain overnight; looks cold and wet out there,’ Theo said, before taking a seat again. ‘I have an early meeting so Bea will take you to school. Wrap up warm.’

Finn slumped back on his pillow. ‘Right.’

‘Finn, I’d like you to sit up, please.’

Something in his tone seemed to make Finn listen. He straightened up, his back against the wooden headboard, his slim pillow bunched behind him. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘Just wanted a word,’ Theo replied as he reached across to Finn’s bedside table and lifted his laptop. Finn’s eyes widened. ‘What?’ he repeated, not before Theo had already noticed something very close to panic in his eyes.

‘I want to show you something.’ Theo spoke as his fingers moved on the keyboard. He kept the laptop on his knee, turned it around to face the screen at Finn. ‘See that?’

His son leaned forward. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘That is something I deal with regularly. That is a smoke-damaged lung. It belongs to a thirty-three-year-old woman with lung cancer.’

Finn was so silent, Theo could hear his breathing. ‘And listen, hear that? That’s you breathing slightly anxiously because you don’t know what to say. That’s your still-healthy lung breathing in and out, doing its job.’ He stood up and passed the laptop back to Finn, placed it on his long limbs stretched out under the duvet. ‘And that, Finn, is your laptop. Unless you want me to take it off you, along with your phone and climbing lessons, you will agree not to smoke again. You are eleven years old. Do you understand me?’

Finn’s expression was one of shock.

Theo walked towards the door. ‘I know things aren’t easy right now. I know you’re probably feeling very confused, but you talk to me, you hear?’ He turned around to a silent son hugging his laptop. ‘And Finn? I mean it about the smoking.’

‘I—’

‘Don’t.’ He raised a hand. ‘Don’t even attempt to lie to me.’

‘I was just going to point out that I am, in fact, almost twelve.’

Theo chomped on a cheek, wondered when exactly his son had become a smartass. ‘Yes, and if you want to make it to your birthday, you’ll chuck that packet of cigarettes in your third drawer before I get home from work this evening.’

Theo closed the door behind him; tried to ignore the image he had of Finn sticking his tongue out or doing whatever foul gesture it was that ‘almost twelve’-year-olds did to their father when they were pissed off at the world. He checked his wrist and sighed. He was going to be late.

Watching Downton Abbey fades in importance as I listen to Max apologize for calling so late on a Sunday. I study him as he speaks. He’s tall, with tight cut hair and brooding, heavy-lidded eyes. On the third finger of his left hand there is the faint tan line of a thick wedding band. He reminds me of someone; an old college tutor of Anna’s whose name I’ve forgotten. As he shifts uncomfortably on our tatty sofa, I wonder what possessed Anna and me to bring it home. Even if we had ever got around to reupholstering it, as planned, it really is too big for one and too small for two.

He’s taking in the room, eyes scanning left and right. They linger on a large black-and-white canvas photo of Anna and Rose that I have on the wall. Pug, delighted at new blood, is pushing a tennis ball along the floor, hoping that Max will take the hint and play with her.

‘How’s Anna’s little girl?’ Max asks.

‘She’s doing well. Considering. She’s a happy child.’

‘That’s good. Does she miss her, I mean obviously … can you tell if she does?’

I’m surprised at his bluntness. There’s something refreshingly honest about it and, rather than disarming me, I’m drawn to him.

‘There’s times – she asks me about Mummy being with the angels.’ I raise a palm in the air. ‘Not my doing. I never told her that. It was something her father told her way too soon. A couple of weeks after … It was much too soon … Anyway, she’s away on holiday with him at the moment.’

I stop talking, not sure why I’m rambling about Sean’s belief in the afterlife.

‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here.’ Max suddenly seems nervous, pulling on his shirtsleeve every few seconds.

‘You don’t need a reason. You’re a friend of Anna’s.’

‘I’ve always thought you must have a million questions, about that day.’

‘Did you see what happened?’ I watch as his Adam’s apple reacts to my question.

‘Yes.’ He pulls himself together. ‘A group of us were sitting across the valley, looking through the binoculars to see if we could spot them. They had gone up top, all of them off-piste.’

‘Go on,’ I urge him. He’s looking at me as if he’s not sure I’m ready to hear. He’s probably right but I press him anyway.

‘We heard it first. We hadn’t heard the boom, that sound you hear when it’s a controlled one. When the snow came, it was as if the whole of the mountaintop just slid downwards.’

I feel an ache in my chest that seems to have started in the centre of my heart and is sending gripping, clawing pains outwards. My hand automatically rests there. Pug is circling my left foot, looking up at me. She whimpers softly.

‘I was watching her ski,’ Max continues. ‘She was a great skier, beautiful to watch. That day she was dressed in an all-in-one red suit.’

The one I bought for her last Christmas. I searched high and low, contacted every ski store in the land until I found the one she’d circled in a magazine. On Christmas morning, she had whooped with the delight of a two-year-old getting their first doll. That was our last Christmas together, the three of us. We—

‘One minute I could see her, then snow, so much of it, and I saw her go. She tried to out-ski it, but I saw her disappear …’

His eyes fill quietly and immediately I envy him. I envy him the ability to cry when I’m left with this constant, searing pain in my heart. He wipes the tears away with his sleeve, looks across the room at me. I avoid his eyes and, afraid that he will judge me some sort of cruel, unfeeling woman, tell him, ‘I haven’t been able to cry. Not since … Not at all. It’s bizarre really, I could cry at Bambi beforehand and now, now …’ I stand. ‘It’s like my tear ducts are permanently blocked.’