Cecelia Ahern - If You Could See Me Now

“Well, don’t you worry.” She kissed his hand and reached out to hug him. “Because it’s my job to look after you, OK?”

His reply was muffled as his head was pushed against her chest. She let go of him quickly to allow him to breathe.

“Edith will be home soon,” he said excitedly after he had taken a deep breath. “Can’t wait to see what she got me.”

Elizabeth smiled, tried to quickly compose herself, and cleared her throat. “We can introduce her to Ivan. Do you think she’ll like him?”

Luke wrinkled up his face. “I don’t think she’ll be able to see him.”

“We can’t keep him to ourselves, you know, Luke.” Elizabeth laughed.

“Anyway, Ivan might not even be here when she gets back,” he added.

Elizabeth’s heart thudded. “What do you mean? Did he say something?”

Luke shook his head.

Elizabeth sighed. “Oh, Luke, just because you’re close to Ivan it doesn’t mean he’ll leave you, you know. I don’t want you to be afraid of that happening. I used to be afraid like that. I used to think that everyone I loved would always go away.”

“ I won’t go away.” Luke looked at her caringly.

“And I promise you I won’t go anywhere either.” She kissed him on the head. She cleared her throat. “You know the things that you and Edith do together, like going to the zoo and the cinema, things like that?”

Luke nodded.

“Would you mind if I came along sometimes?”

Luke smiled happily. “Yeah, that’d be cool.” He thought for a while. “We’re kind of the same now, aren’t we? My mom leaving is kinda like what your mom did, isn’t it?” Luke asked, breathing on the glass table and writing his name in the fog with his finger.

Elizabeth’s body grew cold. “No,” she snapped, “it’s nothing like that at all.” She stood up from the table, switched on the light, and started wiping down the counter. “They are totally different people, it’s not the same at all.” Her voice trembled as she scrubbed furiously. Looking up to check on Luke, she caught sight of her reflection in the glass of the conservatory and froze. Gone was the composure, gone were her emotions; she looked like a possessed woman hiding from the truth, running from the world.

And then she knew.

And the memories that lurked in the dark corners of her mind began to creep ever so slowly into the light.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Opal,” I called gently from her office doorway. She seemed so brittle and I was afraid that the slightest noise would shatter her.

“Ivan.” She smiled tiredly, pinning her dreadlocks back from her face.

I could see myself in her shining eyes as I entered the room. “We’re all worried about you, is there anything we, I, can do to help?”

“Thank you, Ivan, but apart from keeping an eye on things around here, there’s really nothing anyone can do to help. I’m just so tired, I’ve been spending the past few nights at the hospital and I haven’t allowed myself to sleep. He’s only got days left now, I don’t want to miss it when he . . .” She looked away from Ivan and to the picture frame on her desk and when she spoke again her voice was trembling. “I just wish there was some way I could say good-bye to him, to let him know he’s not alone, that I’m by his side.” Her tears fell.

I went to her side and comforted her, feeling helpless and knowing that for once there was absolutely nothing I could do to help this friend. Or was there?

“Hold on a minute, Opal, maybe there is a way you can. I have an idea.” And with that I ran. ...

Elizabeth had made last-minute arrangements for Luke to sleep over at Sam’s house. She knew she needed to be alone that night; she could feel a change within her, a chill had entered her body and wouldn’t leave. She sat huddled up in her bed, wearing an oversized jumper covered by a blanket, desperate to keep warm.

Her stomach cramped with anticipation. The things that Ivan and Luke had said today had turned a key in her mind and had unlocked a chest of memories so terrifying that Elizabeth was afraid to close her eyes.

She gazed out the window through the open curtains at the moon, who gave her an encouraging nod, and she allowed herself to drift. She opened the lid of the chest, closed the lids of her eyes.

She was twelve years old. It was two weeks since her mother had brought her for a picnic in the field, two weeks since she had told her she was going away, two weeks of waiting for her to come back. Outside Elizabeth’s bedroom, a screeching one-month-old Saoirse was held, hushed, and comforted by her father.

“Hush now, baby, hush.” She could hear his gentle tones getting louder and then quietening as he paced the floor of the bungalow in the late night hour. Outside, the wind howled, squeezing itself through the windows and door locks with a whistling sound. It raced in and danced around the rooms, taunting, teasing, and tickling Elizabeth as she lay in her bed, hands over her ears, tears falling down her cheeks.

Saoirse’s cries got louder, Brendan’s pleas got louder, and Elizabeth covered her head with her pillow.

“Please, Saoirse, please stop crying,” her father begged quietly and attempted a song, a lullaby that Elizabeth’s mother always sang to them. She clamped her hands over her ears harder, but still could hear Saoirse’s cries and her father’s tuneless song. Elizabeth sat up in her bed, her eyes stinging her from yet another night of tears and lack of sleep.

“You want your bottle?” her father asked gently over the roars. “No? Ah, love, what is it?” he asked in a pained voice. “I miss her too, love, I miss her too,” and he too began to cry. Saoirse, Brendan, and Elizabeth all cried for Gráinne together, yet all feeling alone, in their bungalow being blown about in the wind.

Suddenly, headlights appeared from the end of the long road. Elizabeth leaped out of her covers and sat at the end of her bed with her stomach twisted in excitement. It was her mother, it had to be, who else would be calling all the way down here at ten o’clock at night? Elizabeth bounced up and down at the end of her bed in delight.

The car pulled up outside the house, the car door opened, and out stepped Kathleen, Gráinne’s sister. Leaving the door open with the headlights still on and the wipers moving violently across the windscreen, she marched to the gate, pushed it open, causing it to creak, and banged on the door.

With a screaming Saoirse in his arms, Brendan opened the door. Elizabeth rushed to the keyhole of her bedroom door and looked out into the hall at the action.

“Is she here?” Kathleen demanded, without a hello or kind word.

“Sshh,” Brendan said. “I don’t want you waking Elizabeth.”

“As if she’s not already awake with all that screaming. What have you done to the poor child?” she asked incredulously.

“The child wants her mother,” he said in a raised voice. “Like us all,” he added in softer tones.

“Give her to me,” Kathleen said.

“You’re wet.” Brendan stepped away from her and his arms tightened around the tiny bundle.

“Is she here?” Kathleen asked again, her voice still angry. She was still standing outside the front door, she hadn’t asked to come in, and she hadn’t been invited.

“Of course she’s not here.” Brendan bounced Saoirse around, trying to calm her. “I thought you’d taken her to that magical place that would cure her forever,” he said angrily.

Kathleen sighed. “It was supposed to be the best place, Brendan, better than the other ones, anyhow. Anyway,” she mumbled the next few words, “she’s gone.”