Cecelia Ahern - If You Could See Me Now

Maybe imagining had worked after all. It looked like she’d just made a friend in the playroom.

Sliding the card into her back pocket, she forgot about Benjamin and continued staring at the four walls.

Nope. Still nothing.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Elizabeth sat at the glass table in the spotless kitchen, surrounded by gleaming granite work tops, polished walnut cupboards, and shining marble tiles. She had just had a cleaning frenzy and her mind still wasn’t clear. Every time the phone rang, she leaped at it, thinking it was Saoirse, but it was Edith checking up on Luke. She still hadn’t heard from her sister, her father was still waiting in her old bedroom for her mother; sitting, eating, and sleeping in the same chair for almost two weeks now. He wouldn’t speak to Elizabeth, wouldn’t even let her come as far as the front door, so she had arranged for a housekeeper to call around to cook him a meal a day, and tidy up now and then. Some days he let her in, others he didn’t. The young man who worked with her father on his farm had taken over all the duties. This was costing Elizabeth money she couldn’t afford, but there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t help the only two members of her family if they didn’t want to be helped. And she wondered for the first time if she had something in common with them after all.

They had all grown up together but separately and still they stayed together in the same town. They hadn’t much communication with one another but when somebody left ...well, it mattered. They were tied together by an old and fraying rope that ended up being the object of tug-of-war.

Elizabeth couldn’t bring herself to tell Luke what was going on, but of course he knew there was something. Ivan was right, children had a sixth sense for that kind of thing. He was such a good child that as soon as he sensed Elizabeth’s sadness, he knew to retreat into the playroom and she would hear the quiet clatter of building blocks. She couldn’t bring herself to say more to him than to tell him to wash his hands, fix his speech, and order him to stop dragging his feet.

She wasn’t capable of holding her arms out to him. Her lips couldn’t form the words “I love you,” though she tried in her own ways to make him feel safe and wanted. But she knew what he really wanted. She had been in his position, knew what it was like to want to be held, cuddled, kissed on the forehead, and rocked. To be made to feel safe for just a few minutes at least, to know that someone else was there looking out for you and that life wasn’t just in your own hands—you weren’t stuck living it all alone in your head.

Ivan had provided her with a few of those moments over the past few weeks. He had kissed her on the forehead and rocked her to sleep and she had fallen asleep not feeling alone, not feeling the urge to look out the window and search beyond for someone else. Ivan, sweet, sweet Ivan was shrouded in mystery. She had never known anyone else who could help her realize just exactly who she was, help her find her feet. But she was struck by the irony that this man who jokingly spoke of invisibility actually did wear a cloak of invisibility. He didn’t know himself, where he came from, where he was going, who he was. He was putting her on a map, showing her the way, yet he had no idea where he was going himself. He liked to speak of her problems, help heal her, help fix her, and he never once spoke of his own. It was as though she was a distraction to him and she wondered what would happen when the distraction ended and the realization would dawn.

She got a sense that their time together was valuable, as though she needed to hold on to every minute as if it were their last. He was too good to be true, every moment spent with him magical, so much so that she presumed this couldn’t last forever. None of her good feelings had lasted forever, none of the people who lightened her life managed to stay. Going by her previous luck, from pure fear of not wanting to lose something so special, she was just waiting for the day he would leave. Whoever he was, he was healing her, he was teaching her to smile, teaching her to laugh, and she wondered what she could teach him. With Ivan, she feared that the sweet man with the soft eyes would reach a day when he would realize that she had nothing to offer. That she had simply drained him of his resources and had none to give.

It had happened with Mark. She just couldn’t give him any more of herself without taking away the care she had for her family. That’s what he wanted her to do, of course, cut the strings that connected her to her family, but she couldn’t do it, she would never do it. Saoirse and her father knew how to pull those strings and so she remained their puppet. As a result, she was alone, raising a child she never wanted with the love of her life living in America a married man and a father of one. She hadn’t heard from him or seen him for five years. A few months after Elizabeth had moved back to Ireland he visited her, while on a trip home to see his family.

Those beginning months were the hardest. Elizabeth was intent on making Saoirse bring up the baby herself and as much as Saoirse protested and claimed she didn’t care, Elizabeth wasn’t about to let her sister throw away the opportunity of raising her son.

Elizabeth’s dad couldn’t hack it anymore, he couldn’t take the baby’s screaming all night while Saoirse was out partying, Elizabeth supposed it reminded him too much of the years before, when he was left holding the baby, the baby he subsequently passed on to his twelve-year-old daughter. Well, he’d done the same again; he’d thrown Saoirse out of the bungalow, forcing her to arrive on Elizabeth’s doorstep, cradle and all. The day that all had happened was the day Mark decided to take the trip over to visit Elizabeth.

One look at the state of her life and she knew he was gone forever. It wasn’t long before Saoirse disappeared from Elizabeth’s home, leaving her holding the baby. She thought about giving Luke up for adoption, she really did. Every sleepless night and every stressful day she promised herself she would make that phone call. But she couldn’t do it. Maybe it had something to do with her fear of giving in; she obsessively strove for perfection and she couldn’t give up on trying to help Saoirse. Also there was a part of her that was intent on proving that she could raise a child, that it wasn’t her fault the way Saoirse turned out. She didn’t want to get it all wrong with Luke; he deserved far better.

She cursed as she picked up another of her sketches, scrunched it in a ball, and threw it across the room to the bin. It landed short of it and, not being able to cope with something out of place, Elizabeth walked across the room and delivered it to its rightful position.

The kitchen table was covered in paper, coloring pencils, children’s books, cartoon characters. All she had succeeded in doing was drawing doodles all over the page. It wasn’t enough for the playroom and it certainly wasn’t the whole new world she aspired to create. As usual, the same thing happened that always happened when she thought of Ivan; the doorbell rang and she knew it was he. She rushed to her feet, fixing her hair, her clothes, checking her reflection in the mirror, gathering her coloring pencils and paper. She jogged on the spot in a panic, trying to decide where to dump them. They slid from her hand, and swearing, she dived down to pick them up. Her papers flew out of her hands and floated to the floor like leaves diving and landing in the autumn breeze.

While on the floor, her eyes fell upon red Converse runners casually crossed over each other at the doorway. Her body slumped, her cheeks pinked.