‘So … will you come back?’ he asks, his face crumpled in disbelief. ‘Or is this it? Is this goodbye?’
I stare at him, my mind scrambled and my heart sore. He nods slowly at my silence, then clenches his fingers into the palm of his hands and breathes out long and slowly.
‘It’s what I have to do – at least for now, David,’ I gasp, feeling my throat closing in. ‘I’ll have to stay here for as long as it takes to put my family back together.’
We stand there face to face on the pavement outside my family home as life goes on around us – children race past us on bikes, an ice-cream van rings out in the distance – while both our hearts break over the differences I feared would always catch up with us.
The truth is I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to where we left off and pretend my father’s death was nothing to do with us.
‘I just need some space and time to fix things here, so I’m going to have to take some compassionate leave from work and try to do just that,’ I say to David. ‘For now, that’s as much as I can plan ahead. I’m sorry.’
DAVID
It’s been three weeks since Kate’s father died and, as I go through each day on autopilot, not knowing if or when she is ever going to come back here, I slip deeper and deeper into a place where I never wanted to go in my mind.
It’s a place where darkness rules and old thoughts of negativity come back to haunt me and it feels as if it’s taking control, pulling me downwards with its mighty grip.
The apartment is a mess as I live off takeaways and beer, disguising the smell of alcohol on my breath as much as I can to my fellow staff and students every day at school but, of course, young people are intuitive, and one of them has already copped on that something has changed within me.
‘You look like shit,’ he tells me when he comes back after class to pick up some books he’d left behind. ‘Hope you’re all right, sir. You could sure do with a wash and a shave, just saying, and you smell like a brewery.’
After that, it isn’t before long until Andrew Spence, the principal who boosted my career wholeheartedly when he promoted me to head of department only two years into the job, realizestoo that things are totally off kilter with my teaching, not to mention my appearance, and he calls me in for a chat.
‘I’m not here to lecture you, David. That’s not my style and you know it,’ he says to me across the table. ‘In fact, as you know, I’ve always run this school with empathy at its core. You’ve been a huge part of its success, so if you’re in any sort of emotional or even financial trouble I’d prefer you came to me instead of trying to hide it like you’ve been doing.’
I blow out a deep breath. My throat is dry and my head is banging as it is constantly these days. Three weeks have felt like three years and so much has happened in that time, so much that it feels as though everything is out of control.
I try to find the words. I can’t.
‘What’s going on?’ he asks me. ‘Forget I’m the school principal and talk to me, man to man. My God, we spend days drumming that into our students, so I’m asking you to spit it out and get it off your chest. You might feel better just by doing that?’
I can feel my lip tremble in a way it hasn’t done since I was a child. I look around the room, my face in a deep frown as I try to find the words to explain how I’m feeling. Yes, I’m heartbroken about Kate and I’m petrified of a future without her, but this is bigger than all that. It’s like a moment I’ve been expecting, a moment I’ve dreaded, an inevitable crash I always knew wasn’t too far away has swallowed me whole and I don’t know how to get out of it.
‘I think … oh God … I think I’m having some sort of belated breakdown, Andrew,’ I tell the man in front of me, as I contemplate the fallout from years of built-up trauma – my relationship with my father, the bomb and how it haunted me, Aaron’s untimely and cruel death, the miscarriage with Lesley and the cancellation of the wedding, my mother’s long illness, my injury in Haiti and the trauma I witnessed there, and now Kate’s father’s death and the fact that I did know something was wrong with him but I kept it to myself.
‘Keep going.’
‘I feel like I’m falling apart,’ I say as my voice changes. ‘I need to get off this damn carousel once and for all. I’m so dizzy I feel as if I’m going to fall off and never get up again.’
And at that I break down into tears – huge, sobbing, ugly tears that distort my face and run into my overgrown beard and sting my tired eyes.
I forget that I’m in school, in my principal’s office, here in a place where I’m held in such high esteem. A place where I’m the one everyone goes to for advice, where I’m a leader and a tower of strength. I’ve crumbled at last. It was only a matter of time but I’ve totally crumbled.
‘I should have told Kate that her dad was afraid,’ I say to Andrew, who listens and watches as I fold in front of him. ‘I didn’t want her to worry, nor did he, but Kate isn’t a worrier, she’s a doer – she would have helped him. I just feel like I’ve messed up by keeping that from her and I don’t know where to start to fix it.’
Mr Spence sits forward in his chair and clasps his hands together.
‘Every upset in our lives is like a drip in a cup, David,’ he tells me softly when I get a grip of my emotions and quieten down at last. ‘It can only take one drip to make your cup overflow and it seems that’s what’s happening to you now. It’s your relationship that has caused this overflow now, but you also have to deal with all the drips from before. I’m here to help. I’m telling you I can help you. You don’t have to suffer through this alone.’
I shake my head.
‘She’s … she’s gone,’ I say to him, holding my head in my hands. ‘I just know that Kate’s gone and that she won’t be back. We were meant to be buying our first proper home. We were meant to be planning a wedding and a family but it’s all ruined now. She isn’t coming back, Andrew, I know it. I can’t believe I’ve lost her and even though I understand her upset at what happened, I thought we were so much more than that. I thought she’d be back by now.’
I realize Andrew is probably struggling to keep up with my incoherent ramblings, but he was right to get me to talk about it. It feels good already to have been able to get it all out and tell someone the truth of what has been going on, instead of picking up a bottle to drown my sorrows – sorrows that are very quickly learning how to duck and dive and keep up with me now.
‘I would usually suggest some time out of work to anystaff who have a bit too much going on, but I think you need to try and stay focused, David. So I’m going to ask you to do this,’ he says to me. ‘Put the damn bottle down for a start, eh? Clean yourself up and try to show Kate that you are worth coming back here for.’
‘I don’t know if I’ve any more fight in me left,’ I tell him.
