I was living on the edge of extraordinary happiness. We always ended a night full of joy, walking back to the flat with a sense of exhilaration. Ambition fuelled this lightness. They were satisfying days. Days when I would leave the house for work early and Jenny would leave for the studio. Notes were left for each other about what time we would be home or where we should meet later on for dinner. Occasionally she drew a love heart on the note. She would often add that she couldn’t wait to see me before she signed off, love Jenny. Sometimes I wrote, darling Jenny, and although it was slightly formal it felt right. Once she wrote, love your wife, Jenny. I knew that she was just testing it out but I was very pleased and I told her so later on. It was a dangerously romantic moment and we both recognized it as such and this made us laugh. I remembered how her laughter sounded, strong and full of gusto.

30. Running the Gauntlet

August 2017

A Saturday should be filled with fun. This is what we are brought up to believe and I believe it. Sitting on the couch working on my laptop I feel like my head is going to fall on to the keyboard. Maeve is lying on her stomach, on the floor, her head propped up with her hands watching TV. Mikey and Joey are arguing. We need very much to get out of the house and soon enough the lethargy that has a hold on me will only get more of an almighty hold and I will be no good to anyone, least of all my family.

Maeve is changing. She hardly speaks to us and she’s showing signs of being excessively concerned about her appearance. I ask her what’s going on and she says that there’s nothing going on but I do not believe her or take her dismissal as a proper answer. Something’s not right, call it a father’s intuition. A walk, I suggest. Something as a family. A stroll to the top of the hill to the Obelisk. Her eyes are filled with boredom verging on tears, such is the glossiness. I look away because I am embarrassed by my suggestion, my predictability. So I laugh and I try to add a touch of excitement, an ice cream – a triple chocolate Magnum as we walk along the coast road, to the bay, to the cove at White Rock.

This is the stuff of childhood dreams.