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SHEELAGH KELLY
He had been dying to tell them all day. But, also dying for his tea, he had saved his announcement for later, as one might reserve the best bit on one’s plate until last. Now replete, Niall Doran gave a little groan of satisfaction, a leisurely stretch, and prepared to regale his family. Then he remembered what day it was.
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You would think that something like that would turn one’s routine on its head, thought Niall, but no. Weeks after the mourners had taken home their chairs, here he was doing exactly the same things at the same hour, amongst the same people, albeit one less of them. And the strange thing about it was, he still expected her to be here when he came home on an evening.
The routine might be the same but life was not – how could it be, burdened as he was by such tremendous remorse? Never in his selfish imaginings had he stopped to think what Ellen’s death would do to her offspring. But he did now. If he had been left prostrate at the age of twenty by the loss of his mother, what agony must such little children feel? Even though they had gone back to school the day after the funeral, and were once again to be seen playing their childish games in the street, the devastation they had suffered could so easily be resurrected, tears never far from the surface. One might have expected little Batty to be worst hit, he being witness to his mother’s death; and perhaps this was true, for no one could see into another’s head. Yet the five-year-old seemed to have suffered few ill effects. No, it was Brian and Juggy who were most clingy, the latter seemingly terrified to let Niall out of her sight, lest her one remaining parent not return.
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