I thought I felt pain before, but that was nothing compared to the hollow, aching darkness that claimed me once the light of my mother’s life went out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
FRANKIE
People said the words ‘I’m sorry’ a lot when someone died.
Hours ago, when my mum passed away, I thought I would die too. The pain I felt consumed me and it grew stronger until I couldn’t scream anymore, until it hurt so bad that silence enveloped me in its embrace. Everything became a blur. I remembered Michael running into the room, I remembered him crying and kissing my mum, I remembered him hugging me. I recalled the moment Enda arrived and her whimpers sent echoes around the room. Then her sons came by, then Joe and even Anna. The nurses popped in and out to check on us.
All of them told me they were sorry but what they didn’t know was that I was more sorry than any of them could ever have been for my mum dying. I had silently pleaded with God, hoping if He knew just how sorry I was that He would take pity on me and give her back to me but I knew that now God had the wonder that was my mum there was no way He was ever going to let her go.
She was love, happiness and light. All of the things meant for heaven.
The whistle of the wind outside drew my attention. I realised I was once again alone with Mum. Michael and Enda had tried talking to me, but once I sat down on the chair next to my mum’s bed, I couldn’t hear anything. I could barely see. My mind wandered elsewhere . . . just like my mum’s once did. I flicked my eyes to the closed door, I heard voices outside. I knew one of them belonged to Michael.
I turned my head and felt the ache of pain in my chest that had come to make itself comfortably at home. I couldn’t stop looking at her beautiful, serene face. I kept willing her to open her eyes and start breathing again just so I could feel like I could breathe again. The logical side of my brain didn’t even argue with me, it wanted her to wake up too.
“Cherry?”
Through my haze I turned, and through swollen, stinging eyes I saw him in the doorway. He was a presence and he had no idea how happy my heart was to see him even though part of it was broken because of him. Everything that happened between us at his concert seemed like a distant memory. The past few hours had been the longest of my life.
“My mum is dead, Risk.”
He crossed the room, got on his knees before me and placed his hands on either side of my face. I stared into his bloodshot eyes and I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to hurt any worse but it did. He had taken something before he’d come by to see me. The evidence was in his beautiful eyes.
“I know, baby. I know.”
I leaned my face against his, too empty inside to even shed another tear.
“I’m dead without her too.” I shook. “I have nothing.”
“You have me, you have Michael, you have Joe and Enda. You have a whole load of people who love you more than you could ever imagine.”
My chin quivered. “But my mum . . . Risk, how do I breathe without my mum?”
“By living for her,” he leaned in and gently pressed his lips to mine. “By being her beautiful girl with the biggest heart God has ever given a person. By honouring her every single day and remembering her life and the wonderful lady that she was.”
I lifted my hands to his broad shoulders and squeezed.
“I don’t know how to do any of that without her,” I admitted, my voice nothing more than a rasp. “I’m terrified to live a life without her in it. I need her to breathe. I’m all alone without her.”
“Alone?” Risk repeated. “Who said you’re going to be alone?”
I tried to look down, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Who said that?”
“Risk, I don’t want to do this.” I felt my body just droop. “Letting you go once almost killed me, I can’t do it again. Not now when I’m already broken. My life is in Southwold, yours isn’t. Your world, and mine, are too different. We don’t fit together. I meant what I said at Wembley and on the pier . . . we were stupid to think we could work. We can’t. We have no future together. We were once pieces to a beautiful puzzle that fit together perfectly, but we’ve both changed, our edges are sharper now . . . I don’t think we fit together anymore.”
Risk said nothing, he only leaned in and rested his forehead against mine. This was what I needed from him. Just his touch, his very presence . . . not empty words or promises that we couldn’t keep. We had never been very good at keeping our promises, no matter how hard we tried. Risk and I were like currents in the Southwold harbour, no matter how hard we tried to stop it from happening, we would always unexpectedly clash, then drift far apart.