‘It’ll come to the surface in its own time,’ he says. Pat holds my hand and kisses that splintered finger. Nothing is forever and I can always change my mind if I feel like it, that’s what he says, still not believing he’s come all this way only to go home without me.
I didn’t tell him that some things are forever. Like statues made out of marble.
We go back inside and while Pat finishes his beer I have a can of Solo. I chink my can on his bottle and we say cheers at the very same time. Aunty Cecilia and Jules and Joni come because they want to say hi. Their hellos don’t really have a goodbye so Pat is stuck there until after dinner, which he says is okay because the food on the plane is rubbish and it’s the last flight out. Everyone is talking and Joni is on my lap twiddling Augie Belle’s ear over his own. I see that Mum was right. My skin brings together different people and places. Pat and I nod at each other.
‘How you goin’?’
‘I’m goin’ all right.’
Later I sit with Pat out on the front steps while he waits for his taxi. The moon has come out to say goodbye, big and round like a spotlight shining down on the front porch and leaving the rest of the street a patchwork of shadows. I know Pat’s trying to keep those floodgates closed.
‘When you’re lonely, find the moon, Pat. I’ll be watching it too.’
I wait as the taxi heads off down the road, hear it on the gravel for a good while after. And I let the cicada drone turn my sadness into static.
Back inside I sit on the couch where Pat had been. It’s still warm.
William’s eaten too much again and he rubs his stomach. ‘I need a magic cure for this damned heartburn.’
‘It’s called restraint,’ says Aunty Cecilia. ‘As in slow down with those Turkish Delights I know you stash in your sock drawer so I won’t find them. Seriously, who does your laundry, Dad?!’
I say maybe we have some restraint in the bathroom cabinet. Everyone laughs which is inappropriate because you have to take your health seriously.
Then Joni says he knows where it is. Out of the blue Joni cashes in on those words he’s been storing up. I knew he’d been listening all along. He got a glass of water, put it down next to William and whispered in his ear.
‘The magic,’ William says as he looks up at Aunty Cecilia and Jules who can’t believe what they’re hearing. ‘He says the magic is inside the water.’
There are tears in everyone’s eyes, but I just roll mine ’cause I’ve been saying that for years.
Epilogue
Sometimes I can still hear that wolf inside of me, howling quietly. Like he’s getting smaller and wants someone to hear him before he disappears altogether. That wolf is sad because his words are fading into the past. We’re always losing time and love, I tell that wolf. But he doesn’t reply.
I don’t really know if Mama ever got back home. She is with me but she has also disappeared. Now I think of being inside that painting she used to stare at in the art gallery, where the sheep is crying over her dead baby in the snow. I get goosebumps because the wind is howling all around. I’m crouching right next to the sheep feeling like that lamb of hers is mine too, and the world is empty apart from our grief. It doesn’t matter that I’m human and she’s a sheep; we have lost the same part of ourselves. Maybe with time I’ll be somewhere else in that picture, further back and out of sight. Down the hill where a warm fire burns on. I’ll sit by the window knowing I am safe because any sound in the night is too far away to hear.
It’s Tuesday and I’m expecting a call from Pat. I have a feeling he’s gonna let me know about the special someone his heart has found. I will let him tell me even though that blue-faced, orange-mohawked hoatzin bird still flies over his place keeping watch for me. No one knows the shape of their heart until someone else steps inside; let them see how deep and wide it really is.
I can hear the phone ringing now. That Pat O’Brien, he’s right on time.