late nights and early mornings

The texting starts at six am. Ramblings about solitude and having to face up to life on your own in the end. She is on day six after her seventh round of chemotherapy and her sister has gone back to Ireland leaving her with the nurse. I should be there, but I can't. I have been there many times from the beginning - but my own life has taken over and everything is balanced precariously. And last time was too much - too long.

I return the messages with reminders about loneliness being a state of mind and how she is surrounded by people who love her, but who cannot always fly out to be with her.

Then the phone rings 'I need to speak to your father'. I do not react, I have been the messenger for some time now. 'I have had some terrible news, have you heard?' She tells me of the sudden death of Frank - who she used to know when they were still together. She has the information before he does, and she wants to use it to establish a link again. But he won't take her calls. So I text and he replies saying he is getting on a plane from Lagos to Abuja and says he'll call when he lands. Which he does. Which upsets her - though they have been estranged for 10 years after a 5 year acrimonious divorce.

When he calls I talk for a little while, and his voice tells me he does not know.
So I ask 'Do you know?' and he asks 'know what?', and I ask 'Can you call mum?' and he says 'I cannot'
So I have to give him the news, which he would have heard anyway, but it is a small betrayal to her need to be close to him. I text her to say that he called and that he knows.

'What?! WHO TOLD HIM!' she yells with the letters

I look at this, sad that her need to use this information was the only way she had of getting close to him, even for a moment, and sad that she is not considering that this information is actually about a man who has died. A man I knew very well, who gave our little fractured family a home at Christmas when she was not there, a man who never judged me when I was having trouble growing up. A man who was a friend to us all and who will be missed more than she could know. Or maybe she does. How can I tell which it is anymore?

I send a reply '?'

Because I will not enter into a discussion about ownership on this, and I can no longer tell if there is an ulterior motive behind it or not, because I have seen it one way for too long.

I think about a book I have read, that tells you to repeat a little phrase in your mind when people overwhelm you. I think about a way of getting beyond this potential little fall out, without phoning dad and yelling 'why don't you just call her?' or phoning mum and saying 'what does it matter?' and without having to lie to both of them to stop either from hurting more.

And I decide to try out the little phrase that is supposed to help stop me from staring in to the massive well of deceit and pain that has been filling up for years.

.....

I need to talk about it because I need to get it out of my system, this build up of negotiated sensitivity, but I cannot think of someone who could share and listen without feeling the burden of it too. I cannot tell my husband, his tolerance for this has all but gone.

A great friend like the voice of an angel calls and draws it out of me and reminds me of Kurt's book 'Man without a country' who says there are not enough people in a modern marriage, not enough to share all the things we need to share and listen to all the things we need to say. That they come home, full of the stress of their day and do not want to know about the dysfunctional relationship that he once tried to fix and now wants to break completely.

She reminds me of how hard it is when they see someone hurting you and tell you to stop seeing them, and you turn around and say ' but I cannot because I love them.'

She reminds me to talk to other people and not put everything on him. She is my best friend and she has been doing this for longer than me.

He comes back late and I am finishing off a paper that has taken me two days to write and he is tired. I say nothing about the day. I make him some toast.

I cannot send the paper as the web goes down and I panic.

He tells me I am just making things worse, like the bank, like my life. He does not give me anything but criticism.

I lie alone in bed. He comes in and asks what is wrong I try to outline the ways in which the support has gone, and he just tells me to get a life of my own.

So I get up and go into the other room.

I feel the muscles that have relaxed to accommodate the child that is growing there contract in pain, I feel the need to stop everything, I feel the need to stop listening to them and to him and start being heard. To be on my own without all of this stuff that is in between.