Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

Orla, aged 14. December 23 rd

It was just starting to snow as Orla and Shay walked towards her house the next day. Orla loved snow. They didn’t get too much of it in Ireland and even less of it now she was living on the south coast of England, so it was even more special when it did snow.

‘I love it when it snows. There’s something magical about it,’ Orla said, catching a snowflake in the palm of her hand. When I was a kid, I used to love making snowmen or snow angels.’

‘Snow angels?’

‘You know, when you lie on your back and move your arms and legs to make the imprint of an angel in the snow.’

‘Ah yes, I’ve seen people do that in the cheesy Christmas movies that Fern loves so much.’

‘You never made snow angels?’ Orla asked and then cursed herself. Of course he hadn’t. Nothing about his childhood was normal. His birth parents would never have done something like that with him. ‘Sorry, that was a stupid question.’

‘You don’t need to apologise.’

‘I do, that was insensitive.’

‘You’re fine. I don’t think my life is any worse off because I didn’t make snow angels. My parents were the worst but not making snow angels with me is the lesser of their crimes.’

Orla smiled sadly. ‘You know, I think you’re pretty amazing.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re so resilient and strong. Life dealt you a really crappy hand and you bounce back.’

‘Oh, that’s all Carrie, not me. She did that. Finally being loved by someone, well three people actually, helped to heal a lot of wounds.’

‘But it takes courage and determination to want to make that change rather than letting the bitterness and anger eat away at you.’

‘There’s still some anger in there.’

‘Of course there is, but you know how to deal with it. As you said, you haven’t used that punchbag for over a year.’

Shay was silent and she hoped he was taking it on board. He wasn’t the sort of person that took compliments very easily.

They started walking up Orla’s garden path to her house and he let out a sigh. She took his hand. She knew he was nervous about facing her parents again. He’d even brought her mum a bunch of flowers to apologise, which Orla secretly thought was probably overkill considering her mum’s behaviour recently.

Orla let herself into the kitchen, pulling Shay behind her.

‘Hello!’ she called out to her parents and after a few moments they appeared in the doorway.

‘Hello Orla honey, it’s good to see you,’ her mum said, sweetly, which was definitely not like the way she’d spoken to her over the last few months. But Orla realised that her mum was as nervous as Shay was.

Shay cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Kennedy, I wanted to apologise for the way I spoke to you yesterday.’ He offered out the flowers. ‘I stand by what I said, I don’t want Orla to get hurt, but I should not have spoken to you in that manner.’

‘Shay, I’m glad you did. It gave us the kick up the bum we needed,’ her mum gestured for them to sit and they all sat down at the kitchen table. ‘We have been so blind to what we were doing to you, Orla, every day we’d scream and shout at each other and neither of us thought about how that affected you and I’m so sorry about that.’

‘It’s been unbearable,’ Orla said. ‘I never wanted to come home.’

‘Your mum’s right,’ said her dad, ‘we were selfish, only thinking about ourselves and while we have our disagreements, we both still love you.’

‘I felt like I was stuck in the middle,’ Orla said. ‘Both of you wanting me to take your side and then if I didn’t, you’d get all arsey with me. It wasn’t fair.’

‘No it wasn’t. Our argument has nothing to do with you and we shouldn’t have put you in that position,’ her dad said, and her mum narrowed her eyes slightly at him, as if she thought he was putting the blame on her. Although that part had been mainly her mum – she had refused to talk to Orla for the last few weeks because she hadn’t taken her mum’s side.

‘We talked a lot last night,’ Orla’s mum said. ‘Well, we argued and then we talked. We don’t want to drive you from your own home. Your dad is going to move into the annexe so we have some space from each other. We’d obviously done that up to start renting it out as a holiday let but this is more important. I can’t promise there won’t be any more arguments, but I categorically promise that there won’t be any more plates or glasses getting thrown. I’m going to take Shay’s advice and use the punchbag if I get that angry, but I think having some space from each other will really help.’

Her heart sank a little. She’d kind of hoped they were going to go ahead with a divorce. There was never any coming back from this; her dad had an affair twice, her mum could never trust him again and the screaming and shouting proved they hated each other – what was the point of prolonging it? Did they really think that her dad living five metres away from their back door was going to make a difference? But she wasn’t the adult in this relationship so she certainly didn’t feel like she could beg them for a divorce instead.

‘I just want to come home and not hear you screaming at each other.’

‘We’re going to do our very best,’ her dad said.

‘And as tomorrow is Christmas Eve, I thought we could decorate the tree together, in the lounge, just you and me,’ her mum said.

‘And when you’re finished you can help me decorate the annexe, put your festive touch on it,’ her dad said.

Orla felt a little sad about that. Although she couldn’t think of anything worse than decorating a tree with the three of them together as it was bound to lead to more arguments, it felt sad that big events like Christmas and birthdays would have to be so divided and separate going forward. She missed the life they had before her dad had an affair. Christmas had always been a wonderful day with her family. There was never any going back to that.

‘And for Christmas Day we thought—’ her mum started.

‘Orla is coming to mine for Christmas Day lunch,’ Shay said.

She looked at him. That was news to her, although she had mentioned to Shay how she was dreading Christmas day this year. Suddenly she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.

‘That’s right, I didn’t want to spend Christmas here and Shay offered.’

‘Well that works out fine,’ her dad said. ‘You can spend Christmas morning with your mum, lunch with Shay and the afternoon with me.’

Orla nodded. It was nice they were trying to make an effort.

‘And despite last night, we’re glad you have someone fighting your corner, like we should have. We didn’t even know you were dating anyone,’ her mum said.

‘We’re not dating,’ Shay was quick to correct her. ‘If she was dating someone, I’m sure she would choose someone a hell of a lot better than me. We’re just friends and it won’t ever be anything more than that, so you don’t need to worry.’

Orla chewed on her thumbnail as a little bit of her died inside.