The apple tree sways in our garden and I stare at it through the window until it blurs, unable to decide if its three-year growth heals or hurts me more. Right now, it scoops out my very core just to see it standing there, alive and proud, oblivious to what it represents and so ignorant to the agony I am still going through since I first planted it there in her memory.

Matt’s arms snuggle around my waist from behind and I feel his soft stubble on my neck, his familiar smell easing the hurt just a little as I close my eyes tight and fight back the tsunami of tears building inside me.

‘Breathe,’ he whispers, doing it for me as he speaks. ‘You aren’t breathing properly, Shelley. Let it out if you have to. Cry hard if you have to. I’m here. I’m right here.’

He rocks me gently before I push him away, and when I finally let go the release of tears is overwhelming, stronger than ever as I recall this time three years ago.

‘It’s just so unfair,’ I manage to say to my husband between choking sobs but he doesn’t reply because he too is broken still. I can tell by his own breathing that this is killing him. The cruelty of it all, the deep-rooted pain that will never go away as we struggle to come to terms with the loss that has ruined our lives.

‘At least you had her for three precious years,’ they said.

‘At least you got to hold her and say goodbye …’

‘At least … at least … at least …’

But there is no ‘at least’ when it comes to loss.

There will never be an at least. Tomorrow we should be celebrating her sixth birthday with balloons and bouncy castles and princesses, but instead all I have is an empty house, boxes of stowed away photos that I can’t bear to look at and a tree in the garden that is supposed to remind me of her. There is no at least.

‘Fancy a walk on the beach before I go?’ asks Matt, turning me round and wiping my eyes with his thumbs. We hold eye contact for a few seconds then he leans in and kisses my forehead so softly and somewhere within, I find the strength to thank God for this glorious man I’ve been blessed with. I lean on Matt’s chest and let him hold me close just one more time, feeling his warmth and the sound of his heartbeat, which reminds me that we both are still alive. And then as always, just before it makes me feel better, I let him go – because I don’t deserve to feel anything but pain.

‘I’d like that,’ I reply to him.

He always knows what’s best when we find the clutches of grief becoming too much to bear. Or when I am too much to bear, I should say. I know that the cracks in our marriage are slowly starting to show, no matter how much I deny it and no matter how patient Matt tries to be. I fear I may be running out of time and I will push him away once too often.

Moments later, we are walking along the sandy Killara beach in silence, with nothing but the lapping of the waves for company and the splashing of our golden retriever, Merlin, as he bounds in and out of the water alongside us.

This place truly is heaven on earth. It is absolute paradise, with the village harbour dotted in the distance and the white sandy beach that our house, Ard na Mara, looks directly upon. We designed it, we built it and we named it carefully, choosing ‘Ard’ as the Gaelic for height and ‘Mara’ which means ocean or sea. It sits overlooking Galway Bay on a hilltop that only Matt could have secured with his planning contacts and skills that came from years in his profession.

The coloured shop fronts of the village sit like a smiling rainbow in the distance and seagulls swoop above us as the evening sun sets on the sea. It is paradise indeed and it is home, but for me, it’s now a home with no heart or soul. It is empty and so am I.

I close my eyes as we walk, leaning on Matt for guidance and wanting to cling to his body just in case I fall again, or worse, in case he finally lets me go.

‘I do still love you, Shelley,’ he tells me and the rush I get from his perfect timing almost stops my heart from beating. ‘I know this is a nightmare, but I love you so much no matter what we are going through.’

I inhale a smile and but inside I feel nothing. I wish I could say the same back.

‘I don’t know how you put up with me sometimes,’ is all I can tell him and I take his warm hand in mine. We have a private joke between us, one we have repeated often throughout our ten-year marriage when the going gets tough, and his answer is always the same.

‘You put up with me too, so we’re even,’ he replies and kisses my forehead, but we both know that is far from true. Nonetheless, it makes me feel better already. But … I do know that his love has been tested to the very depths in the past few years as I have gone through every emotion known to mankind and lashed out at him when he didn’t deserve it. Our marriage has survived so far and sometimes I don’t understand how.

‘Do you think this will ever get any easier?’ I ask him with a scrunched face, and he shakes his head.

‘We have to make it so,’ he says to me. ‘Yes, she was our whole world and we will always miss that, but we have to learn to live again, Shelley. We still have a lot to live for and I want my wife back. I need my wife back.’

And he is right. He does need his wife back and I so want to be his wife again. I want to be his lover, his girl who laughs with him until I am almost sick with giggles, the one who feels like home to him, who is fun and interesting and who loves jazz, who runs a book club, who is a bit of a hippy and who cooks up a storm and hosts the best parties at any excuse. The one who dances barefoot in our kitchen with him when we are tipsy and feeling in love, the one who curls up to him when we watch a scary movie, the one who would suggest at the drop of a hat that we book a holiday or convince one of our sailor friends to take us on a boat trip or throw a party just because it’s Saturday and life is so good. I want to be that person again, but she is gone and I can’t seem to figure out how to find her again.

I think of my business, the vintage boutique near the waterfront that attracts locals and tourists all year round and the one thing that has stopped me from tipping over the edge in recent times. I named it Lily Loves long before our daughter was conceived. Lily has always been my favourite girl’s name – it was the name of my maternal grandmother who was the most stylish woman I have ever known, so I always felt like I knew our own Lily before we even met her. Harry is the boy I never had. Harry or Jack. I often imagine life with the babies I lost through miscarriage before we were blessed with Lily and it soothes me to just picture their little faces. Who would they have looked like? I hoped they would look like Matt. He hoped they would look like me.

I think of Matt’s talent, the talent that has made him one of the country’s most sought after architects. We only get to see so much of the world because of his job. In fact, he travelled the world for years before we met, researching and studying his art, and when he popped the question just months after we found each other, we knew that this was where we wanted to live and bring up our family. Matt has designed skyscrapers in the Netherlands, hotels in London and homes in some of Ireland’s most prestigious locations and I am lucky enough to get to travel with him sometimes to see the fruits of his labour. I am so lucky in so many ways and sometimes I need to remind myself of that.

We have a beautiful life here by the sea on Ireland’s famous Wild Atlantic Way, but it still kills me inside that I can’t give my husband the one thing we both want the most – a family.

‘Are you sure you’re going to be okay when I’m gone this time?’ Matt asks, just as Merlin jumps up on me, his wet paws covering my top in muddy sand. ‘I could ask Mum to come and—’

‘No, please, Matt, don’t even go there,’ I reply with a pinch. ‘You know I’d rather be alone.’

‘But, Shelley—’

‘No buts, Matt. I don’t want your mother here,’ I say to him, my voice sharp with purpose. ‘I don’t want Mary or Sarah or Jack or flipping Jill, or whoever it is you’re going to suggest next, to pop in and check on me, or take me out to lunch or go shopping with me. I don’t want anyone, okay. Now, please don’t go behind my back arranging things. I will be perfectly fine and much happier left alone, just as I like it.’

The tears are coming, I can feel them. Matt takes a deep breath and kicks the sand.

‘I’m only trying to make sure you’ll be alright,’ he says again, and I can hear the hurt in his voice. I have nothing to give him back.

‘I’m fine,’ is all I can say.

‘But I’ll be gone for a week this time and what are you going to do for seven whole days while I’m away? Mope around here on your own in that empty shell of a house and cry until you’re sick again?’

I can feel my lip tremble at the thought of how ill I can make myself since Lily died.

‘Stop it Matt, please. I just want to be on my own,’ I tell him again. ‘It’s better that way, please.’

Matt’s face crumples with worry but he knows I won’t change my mind. I have developed a routine to get through this heartache; it centres around working at my boutique shop during the day, where I partake only in small talk about clothes or the weather with customers, and then preparing and cooking my evening meal, with which I might have a glass of wine to fill the void I constantly feel. I might then read for a while or take a walk on the beach before bed but I don’t mingle, I don’t mix and I don’t want to. Not yet.

The sun drifts down in the distance and the orange and gold light shines on my husband’s face as he looks at me with despair.

‘We’d better get back home or you’ll miss your flight,’ I tell Matt, ruffling the dog’s head as he obliviously bounces around in excitement. ‘I know you mean well, but I’d rather be alone, Matt. Please don’t worry. Plus, I have this big guy to look after me, don’t I, Merlin?’

The dog barks and jumps higher at the sound of his own name. Matt just shrugs.

‘Sorry for losing it,’ I say to him.

‘Again,’ he says. ‘You mean sorry, for losing it again.’

And again I know I am pushing it. I can see in his face that he is weary and tired of trying so hard, only to be always told no. God, I dread if day when he has had enough of tiptoeing around me.

‘Yes, I’m sorry, again,’ I say, but we both know it won’t be the last time I turn down his offers of help, or the last time I will push him away.

I may have figured out how to exist without Lily, but I have a long, long way to go before I can learn to live without her and my marriage is crumbling under all the pressure and pain that her loss has left behind. I don’t want to live like this anymore.

But least we’re still clinging on.

Chapter 3

Juliette

As the sun sets in the evening sky, I can’t bring myself to go home just yet. I drive to Cannon Hill Park after leaving the hospital and spend the best part of half an hour trying to eat a ham sandwich that tastes like grit on my tongue, before I end up throwing it to the ducks in the lake. This place, this little slice of heaven is often the only piece of tranquillity I can find in my bustling day-to-day existence and I often wonder, now more than ever, why I settled for city life when the silence of nature has always appealed to me so much more.

Growing up on an inner-city housing estate, I always longed to live by the coast where I could walk by the sea, bake my own bread and grow my own vegetables and maybe have my own ducks in a pond in the garden. One day, I’d hoped to live a totally self-sustainable life, and I could read books and listen to loud music and no one would tell me not to because no one would be close enough to hear. That was my plan for my future, but my future isn’t happening now, is it? It’s too late. I have left it too late thinking I had all the time in the world. Christ.

It hurts my head to reflect too much, but I guess I’m going to have to get used to recalling my past as my days here come to an end. I remember telling Birgit, my Danish one-time travel companion, about my ten-year life plan and how she encouraged me to follow my dreams to travel the world.

‘Always stop and savour the simple things,’ was her advice back then, and even though I didn’t ever get to be that globetrotter (unless you count package holidays to Spain or an annual weekend camping at Pontins), I have always remembered her words and promised myself that one day I would do just that. I would slow down and be present, I’d take in and appreciate everything I had instead of always looking out for tomorrow … but I don’t have too many tomorrows left now, do I?

It is July, my favourite time of year; when daisies bow and sway in what looks like a yellow and white sea below me, and the tree I carved my name in when I was a teenager is just in the distance, looking a bit more solemn despite its summer bloom. Maybe it knows what’s going on today too. Maybe everyone knew this was going to happen. Everyone that is, apart from me.

I pick at my nails, my weak, brittle nails that haven’t seen a good manicure in months and then I close my eyes and breathe. Sometimes it’s good to just breathe.

My mind races and I battle with my thoughts, trying desperately not to think of all the things I am going to really miss when I go. I count the months forward in my head. Michael couldn’t give me a specific timeframe on my life but I know in my heart that at a big stretch I’ll make Christmas. I’d give anything to see a white Christmas this year and, just one more time, to sit around the tree with my family and snuggle up with them as the snow falls, in front of a blazing fire.

I hold my head in my hands and try to fight off the wave of panic and breathlessness that I know is just around the corner. Rosie. What the hell is going to happen to my beautiful, innocent Rosie who has no idea what is going on and what life has laid out in front of her? And then the guilt … my God, the guilt for the life I brought her into; no father in her life, and now I am set to leave her all by herself with absolutely no one to call her own. Yes, she has my sister and her grandparents, and Dan for what it’s worth, but it’s not the same.

Who will take her to the cinema like I do, where we stuff our faces with nachos and popcorn and fizzy drinks and then complain about feeling sick all the way home? Who will know that when she gets a headache, it’s a sign of her time of the month and to get her a hot water bottle for her stomach cramps? Who will know that if you blend the vegetables in homemade soup she will eat it and love it with no idea that it’s laced with more greens and garlic than she could ever turn her nose up at? Who will drive her to her latest boyband’s gigs and wait for her as she tries to get a selfie with them afterwards and then who will mop up her tears when she is broken-hearted because they didn’t have time to stop to say hello? Who will hug her and wipe away very different tears when she has her heart broken for the first time in real life?

My phone bleeps for the third time since I got here, disturbing my train of thought, and I give in and read my messages despite my need to switch off and absorb what I have just been told.

‘I still love you, today and every day,’ says the first one, sent earlier this morning and I bite my lip, knowing that it’s from Dan. De’s changed his number because of our ‘break’ but despite our agreement of no contact until I’m ready, or until he does what he needs to do, he can’t resist sending a message – so I have his number just in case I need him. Despite his troubles I sometimes think I don’t deserve him. I never did.

‘Are you okay? Please text me Juliette,’ is the next one, from my sister Helen who is undoubtedly sick with worry as she waits on me to give her news. She wanted to come with me to the hospital but I wouldn’t hear of it. Michael was right when he said I was stubborn but I can’t face breaking any more hearts just yet. I want her to stay ignorant for as long as possible, even if that’s just for another hour or so.

‘Hope you enjoyed your pamper day, Mum!’ says the last one and on reading this I burst into tears. I had genuinely forgotten it was my birthday today.

Rosie has been planning something, I just know she has. I didn’t have the heart to tell her not to bother, that all this turning forty nonsense wasn’t really on my mind. This time last year I had so many plans for how I would celebrate this milestone and I suppose I still should. I’m still here, aren’t I? I’m not dead yet.

I’d better get home.

I pretend that I had no idea there would be any big fuss and smile through my touched up lipstick when I am met with a small, but perfectly formed, surprise gathering in my kitchen.

The duck egg blue cupboards and the fridge which is covered in pictures, drawings and memories from Rosie’s playgroup days through to her secondary school life, now greet me like a warm hug. It’s so good to be home.

‘You little rascal!’ I say to my teenage daughter. ‘How on earth did you do this without me knowing?’

To be fair, she has done a pretty good job as I take in the banners and the show stopping cake. Wow. I guess this really is quite a surprise.

‘Aunty Helen helped me,’ says Rosie and I hug her close again, closing my eyes and praying for the tears to stay put. When I open my eyes I see my sister staring at me, that old familiar look of fear bursting from her soul. I can’t react. Not now.

The party consists of my sister, her three boys and my daughter. I want to ask where my mother is but my sister beats me to it with an explanation.

‘Mum couldn’t face it,’ she whispers to me as soon as the kids are distracted with phones and other gadgets. ‘She has a migraine and has gone to bed. She’s crippled with worry, Jules.’

I shake my head.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I tell Helen. ‘I’ll call her later. It’s probably for the best that she rests. The less fuss we have today, the better.’

My sister gulps back her biggest fears when I say that.

‘So, what’s on the menu?’ I ask, sniffing the air. ‘Don’t tell me? Is it Helen’s famous fish pie?’

‘You got it in one!’ says my oldest nephew George as the children now wrestle for seats around my kitchen table, eyeing up the cake that sits as its centrepiece. It has my name on it and a big ‘40’ candle. Shit, this is too much.

‘I hope you’re hungry, Mum,’ says Rosie with wide eyes. ‘This is just the beginning of the celebrations. We have your favourite sweets for after and prosecco and chilli crisps and I even made Aunty Helen get ice cream though we already have cake – but my teacher told me that life begins at forty so we’ve pulled out all the stops. This is going to be your best birthday ever and you deserve it after all you’ve been through with that horrible chemo.’

Ouch.

‘It’s not every day you turn forty,’ says Helen, still trying to catch my eye but I just can’t look at her. I keep smiling and wowing and making other over-exaggerated sounds of enthusiasm to my daughter and my three young nephews but I know that Helen can see straight through me. I dare not catch her eye.

She just nods and stares as I touch my synthetic wig and when the kids have settled in front of a movie later and I break the news to her, she slowly shakes her head in disbelief and shock.

‘There has to be something we can try.’

If anyone looked through the window right now and saw us with our prosecco and cake, they’d think we really were celebrating.

‘There are no more somethings, Helen,’ I tell my only sister. ‘I could try and fight on and spend the rest of my days vomiting and pumping my organs with chemo and radiotherapy but I’d rather spend them with you and Rosie doing nice things. I want to go out of this world with a bit of grace and dignity, if you can understand that. At home, preferably.’

Helen, of course, is having none of that and her eyes are filled with fear. My God, the agony I have caused her…

‘But there has to be some—’

‘There isn’t,’ I remind her. ‘There is nothing. I know, I know. It sucks, big time but please don’t cry, Helen. I can’t cope with any more tears and this mascara goes to shit when I sneeze, never mind coping with tears.’

But it’s too late. She is sobbing and finding it hard to breathe so just like I did with Michael earlier, I get up to comfort her.

‘I don’t want you to be sad, Hel,’ I say into her hair that smells, as always, of apple shampoo. I raise my eyes towards the ceiling and swallow hard. ‘I had a quiet suspicion, no matter how much I denied it to myself that this might be the news I’d get today. Yes, it’s crap and it’s unfair and it’s not what we want but we need to accept it because there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. Nothing. I’m so sorry, Helen. I’m sorry.’

It’s as much as I can say to her as she tries to digest this latest blow because I think I may be in shock too. She gets up, wiping her nose on the back of her hand and tries to get busy.

‘But you were doing so well,’ she sniffles. ‘How can it be so far advanced? How?’

‘It’s called cancer,’ I say, and the very word makes me so angry but I will never let it show. ‘I am trying to make sense of it all too but I don’t really have time to contemplate or analyse so it’s time for me to take action and do the things I should have done years ago. I’m going to make some really nice plans.’

Now, Helen shakes her head.

‘Juliette, you don’t need to make any more plans!’ she says. ‘Your life has been one big long plan that never got completed.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The thirty things to do before you’re thirty plan? I think you managed to do five? The list of life plans you decided to make for Rosie when she turned thirteen but didn’t finish? Dan’s most magical book of wedding surprises?’

She starts to laugh and I can’t help but laugh too. She does have a point.

‘Michael says I should go away for a few days to reflect, you know, a change of scenery,’ I tell her. ‘Somewhere quiet, away from reality if you like just to let this all sink in.’

‘What? Away where to?’ she asks. ‘Is he … is he sure you won’t …?’

‘He is pretty sure I won’t die in the next week or so,’ I say with a nervous laugh. ‘I’m thinking of going to Ireland, me and Rosie, what do you think? I want to go there and stay by the sea for a few days and think about … life and well, death I suppose.’

But there’s no pulling the wool over my sister’s eyes. She knows exactly what Ireland means to me.

‘No, Juliette, you just stop right there,’ is her adamant reply as she opens and closes my kitchen cupboards and drawers, but then I didn’t expect her reaction to be any different. ‘Don’t say that. You’re not thinking straight, Juliette. You’re in shock. Just stop.’

‘But I am thinking straight,’ I say to her. ‘Even Michael said it would be good for me.’

‘Michael doesn’t know your history there!’

‘No, well, yes, but actually he knows a lot more than you think he does,’ I try to explain. ‘But that’s not why I want to go back. It’s a spectacular place, Helen. It’s my favourite place in the world.’

‘Cornwall is a spectacular place,’ says Helen. ‘Scotland is a spectacular place. It has scenery and the sea and good food and it’s—’

‘Yes, and so does Barry Island and Weston-super-Mare and bloody Blackpool but it’s not where I want to go, Helen,’ I say. ‘I want to show Rosie the one place in this world I loved the most and I want to tell her how special it was and how it still is for us both. I want to go there and switch off, and if anything else happens, then that’s a huge bonus, but that’s not the only reason why I’m going, believe me.’

My big sister is going to take a lot more convincing than that, but I was expecting this. I didn’t think for one second that she would be helping me pack my bags and cheering me on my merry way to Killara, with Rosie in tow, to find a man who once sailed boats there – when here I am, back in the real world about to pop my clogs. No way.

‘So, what are your other reasons then? I don’t believe you for one second and have you thought about Dan in all of this?’ Helen is still rifling through the kitchen drawers.

‘Helen, Dan will understand,’ I try to explain. ‘I’ll give him a call and tell him everything.’

‘Juliette, you don’t need any stress and you certainly don’t need to be chasing unicorns and rainbows at this stage,’ she says to me. ‘At last, goodness, how can it be hard to find something to write on around here?’

She opens an old notebook of mine, and then licks her finger to flick through the pages until she finds a blank one.

‘Why do you need something to write on?’ I ask. ‘I just want to go there and spend quality time with Rosie. It will be great for us both, you know it will.’

She starts to write.

‘You’ll never find him,’ she says, still writing. ‘You hardly know anything about him. You said you don’t even remember his proper name.’

She has a point. Except it’s not that I don’t remember his proper name. I never knew his proper name in the first place.

‘I do remember the rest of him though,’ I reply, and it’s true. I remember his dark hair and his muscular back and the fumbling and laughing and urgency and the smell of alcohol – and the shame I felt when I woke up alone and the fear on the way home to Birmingham when sobriety kicked in and I realised how stupid we’d been not to have used any protection whatsoever.

I remember how I looked for him before I left the village the next day, just to see if he cared or wanted to see me again or would acknowledge what had happened between us but he had disappeared. I remember the hurt and shame I felt and then how Birgit and I had laughed and laughed at the very thought of me, a good Catholic girl from a convent school having a one night stand with a handsome Irishman when I didn’t even get his real name, never mind his number.

But most of all, I remember the emptiness I felt when I got on the plane home to Birmingham without Birgit to laugh about it with, and the feeling that my life had just changed forever. And oh, how it had.

All of that, I can remember loud and clear.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask my sister who is still making notes in front of me while I daydream down memory lane.

‘Nothing,’ she says.

‘You’re writing nothing?’

‘Okay, okay, I’m making plans,’ she says. ‘It’s my turn to make some plans. It’s not just you who makes plans in life, you know.’

I look across at my sister’s notes and let out a loud sigh that makes her jump when I see the latest entry on her ‘plan’.

‘What?’ she shouts, dropping the pen with panic. ‘Are you in pain? What, Juliette?’

‘No, I am not in pain,’ I tell her. ‘I’m just wondering why on earth you’re writing that stupid stuff in front of me. Make room for Rosie? At least wait until I leave before you try and plan your life after me. Jesus, Helen, you have as much tact as our mother sometimes.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, I’m not that bad,’ says Helen, tearing out then scrunching up the notepaper but it’s too late, I already saw it. ‘And don’t try to change the subject. You are not going to Ireland to track down this stranger after all this time. You’re not going. End of.’

I pull a funny face. She doesn’t laugh.

‘I think his nickname was Skipper,’ I remind her. ‘He was a captain on the boats so that sounds about right, doesn’t it? Skipper. Or was it Skippy? Something like that. Or Skip … No, it was Skipper. A captain. A boatman.’

‘Yes, you said he was a sailor or something. You dirty rotten stop out.’

‘A mighty fine sailor he was too,’ I say with a cheeky grin but my sister is disgusted. ‘I’m joking! Well, actually I’m not joking. Look, I swear, I don’t even know if he was from Killara! He was probably just ‘sailing’ through like I was. He’s not why I’m going back, I promise.’

But Helen has had enough of my jokes. She closes her eyes and then looks at me, not joking one bit right now.

‘Please, Juliette,’ she whispers. ‘Oh my God, please think of Rosie right now. She was so excited today to arrange your party. I couldn’t bear to watch her put the candles in the cake and wrap your presents. Did you like your presents? She was so proud of herself. And Dan? He left you a gift. Did you see it?’

I nod my head. A silver locket that he has known I’ve had my eye on for years sits on the worktop. It’s too hard. All of this is too hard.

‘I loved my presents,’ I tell my sister. ‘Thank you. You’re the best sister in the world, you know that.’

‘I’m your only sister,’ she reminds me. ‘You have to say that.’

‘You’re still the best, though.’

‘That poor little girl has no idea,’ she says to me. ‘Her little face will … oh, how are you going to tell her, Juliette? You’re her whole world.’

Helen is at breaking point now as this all sinks in. I do not want to see this so I look away.

‘Don’t, Helen. Please don’t say “poor Rosie” and don’t you dare cry again. I don’t want you to be so sad.’

But she’s off. It’s hitting home with my sister that my life is about to end while hers and Rosie’s and Dan’s lives will all change dramatically.

‘You do know I will look after her as best I can,’ she sniffles. ‘It won’t be the same as you, I mean, it won’t be as good as you, but I’ll do my very best by her and Brian will help out too of course. I promise you we will do our best. We’ll try and let her have her own room. My boys can bunk in together, it won’t do them a bit of harm and—’

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