‘Bye, Ma,’ Juliet said as the coffin lid came down. They all filed out, leaving Jack standing alone with his daughter. He placed his hand on the hard wood. She was gone. The pain inside him raged, pulsed, and suddenly he was moving through the hallway, the kitchen and out into the back garden and he was screaming – a guttural scream from somewhere deep within. The neighbour over the wall, Tess Collins, waited till he was done before popping her head up.

‘You’re all right, Jack?’ she said.

‘Sorry, Tess, sorry for the noise,’ he said. Tess could see Molly, Grace and Bernard lined up at the window, staring out at him, all with worried expressions.

‘You just let it out.’

‘I think I’m done,’ he said, and he slumped onto the ground like a rag doll in his clean suit.

Molly was out of the house before Tess could say a word. She hugged her husband close to her. ‘I think I let her down, Molly,’ he said, and he bawled like a baby. Tess wasn’t comfortable in the presence of a bawling man. She didn’t know what to do so she ducked behind the wall, out of sight. She made her getaway on all fours, banging into a flower pot and mumbling the word ‘shite’. She stood up as she got to her back door, brushed herself off and scurried inside. Molly held Jack close. ‘You need to pick yourself up now, Jack, just for today, for Rabbit.’

Jack pulled himself together and Molly brushed him down with the tea towel she’d been wearing around her neck. As they walked inside, he stopped his wife. ‘And after today, Molly, what happens then?’

His wife hunched her shoulders. ‘Who knows?’ she said sadly, and her despair traumatised him more than his own ever could.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Molly

Chapter Twenty-Two

Molly

THE FUNERAL TOOK PLACE in Glasnevin Cemetery; the venue was a chapel, despite the non-religious service. Everyone helped, including Marjorie, and even Francie and Jay. Molly had asked the boys if they’d say a few words. Francie didn’t hesitate but Jay was more cautious. ‘I don’t know, Mrs H, what can I say except what a fuckin’ waste it is?’

‘Exactly. Say that,’ Molly said. Marjorie agreed to read the poem ‘Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep’ by Mary Elizabeth Frye, if she could get through it once without crying.

‘Think happy thoughts,’ Davey said. It was his way of trying to help.

‘Happy thoughts! My best friend is dead,’ Marjorie said.

‘Shut up, Davey,’ Molly said. ‘Cry if you want to, Marjorie.’ She stroked Marjorie’s back.

Rabbit’s editor, Derek, agreed to prepare something when Molly rang him.

‘It would be my pleasure.’

‘Thank you, she’d like that.’

‘And the book. I was thinking about approaching—’

‘I don’t care about the book, Derek. I just want to bury my daughter.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Derek said.