Page 14 of The Love of Our Lives
‘Oh yes, your father used to love dancing, just like Cat.’
Silence stretches out, and I remember how Mum would tail off like that whenever she mentioned her.
I also remember this day, come to think of it – right before I got put on oxygen. Right before the ramp got put in.
This day has already happened, except, somehow, I’m back in it. And I’m here, and not there. I’m someone called Emily, and over there is Maggie.
This isn’t the meds.
‘You actually look quite pale,’ Mum is saying sharply now, all previous softness gone. ‘I’ll go and call Doctor Peterson, see if he’ll examine you.’
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ the other voice wheezes. ‘It was probably that walk earlier that got me. I’ll go get some water.’
‘No, I’ll get it,’ Mum says firmly, and a second later I hear the crunching of gravel.
My stomach drops, as I realise I’m beside the kitchen window. I know I need to move but something in the kitchen makes me stop.
Mum’s calendar.
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I peer through the glass at it – the twenty-seventh of July, two years ago.
Same as the clock.
A movement inside makes me duck down, and then Mum’s footsteps on the tiles come, quick and light. I start to breathe hard. After a few moments, I glance inside again to see the familiar form of her at the sink, her back to me now, and I want to look away, want to scream at the horror of this all, but I can’t help staring.
‘What’s happening?’ I whisper.
She looks up sharply and I dip down again. Because I can’t cope with this; can’t process any of it.
Keeping low to the ground, I crawl back along the pathway until the extension ends and I can stand up again. Then I get up and walk quickly away down the drive.
I have no idea where I’m going now, or what I’ll do. All I do know is that I have to leave.
Feeling lost and confused a while later, I find myself drifting off down to my favourite spot on the beach, where I come to process things sometimes. It’s the only other place I can think to go, because there’s something about the beach, about the millionsof grains of sand and the crashing waves, that’s timeless and soothing.
I sit on my rock, watching people come and go, dogs running, parents chasing kids, and I think about what Mum said – about Cat loving to dance.
I think about the last summer she did.
It was a few months after my nineteenth birthday, and for one small moment, I was stable. I was still living at home, but I’d been accepted into art school up in Aberdeen for the forthcoming autumn. It had taken a little longer after several missed years of school, but with an extra year at college, and a lot of encouragement from Cat, I’d done it – and I was going.
My artist sister, she liked to call me proudly.
Mum tried to stop me, of course. Told me it was fine to want to go to art school, but it should be here in Edinburgh, where she could keep an eye on me, where I’d be close to doctors who knew me. And I felt bad about it, I did. Because as my prognosis reduced what I could do, it made Cat determined to do as much as possible – for both of us, she always said – climbing, diving off bridges, raves, you name it, she did it. The more extreme the better. The arguments between Mum and Cat naturally increased, so they were always at each other’s throats, with Mum repeatedly telling her she was being reckless, and Cat repeatedly refusing to listen. There just wasn’t the space for another daughter to act out. So, each time she stepped forward, I took a step back. For everyone’s sake. But she would always make sure to introduce me to new friends passing through Edinburgh and bring me back little tokens from her adventures – ticket stubs from festivals and postcards from sunny Greek islands.
But art school was different – this time it was about something very important to me. I’d be learning to do what I loved.
Cat, on the other hand, had no further education plans and left home as soon as humanly possible, despite how much Mum tried to reason with her. She moved into a shared flat with two girls she knew from the bar she worked in, and even though I missed her around the house terribly, I could see how happy it made her – living however she wanted. Plus, I visited all the time, and so in a way, it felt like we were both moving on.
Life was happening, and it felt good.
I suppose I knew somewhere inside me that it couldn’t last like this, that my health would slowly, inevitably, go downhill. The signs were there already, the shortness of breath, the paleness, the dizzy spells. But there was just something about having Cat as my sister that made me feel stronger. Nothing would get me because she wouldn’t let it.
Or so I thought.
Cat met Fraser at the bar a few days into that hot and hazy June, and from the first time she told me about him on the phone, I knew she was gone. He was a musician from Edinburgh, gigging his way through the summer at various bars, including hers. He was the same age as her, and just incredible, she said. He loved animals and the great outdoors, and when the two of them weren’t on shift, they would disappear for camping trips in the Pentlands, or up to the cottage.
And I liked him too – it was hard not to really, despite the creeping jealousy that would sometimes surface. Because Cat was my other half, my person, and yet here she was spending all her time with someone else. I can still remember the first time I met him – the long sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail, the glittering blue eyes that barely left my sister. ‘You’re Maggie then,’ he said easily, pulling me into a hug. ‘I’ve heard a fairly insane amount about you – it’s good to put a face to the name. Shall we all go get some drinks together at Malones?’
