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“You fucked up. That’s what. And so did I.” My dad’s voice filters through the beeping and I turn my head to find him staring down at me. “Are you going to get up or what?”
I’m about to tell him I can’t bloody move, but before I can speak I’m standing beside him, looking down on my body laying in a hospital bed. Pheebs is sitting in a chair next to me, her head on my bed, silent sobs wracking through her.
“Am I dead? I wasn’t supposed to leave her like that. I stayed away.”
“You think staying away made her love you any less?” He chuckles and I spin to face him. “Like I said, Son, we fucked up.”
“What do you mean?” My gaze drifts back to Phoebe, but she fades away and is replaced by us at the beach with the fire flickering around us.
“That night. You both realised you loved each other. You wanted to make things official, didn’t you?”
I nod my response, unable to say anything as my eyes stay fixed on her.
“But you didn’t because Lola was upset, right?”
Again I nod, unable to speak as she laughs at something I said and the sound echoes through my body and takes residence in my heart.
“You always put everyone before yourself. You put aside what you wanted, what you needed, for the sake of your sisters. You’re a good brother, Freddie.”
“Thanks,” I whisper as the image disappears. It’s replaced by Lola toddling around the garden. I’m dressed in my football kit, carrying a ball, ready to go and hang out with my mates and play a game for our team. Lola spots me and heads straight for me. I smile because this is one of my favourite early memories. She was three and her favourite thing in the whole wide world was me. She idolised me. And instead of being annoyed by it, my eight year old self loved it.
“Hey LoLo.” I scoop her up into my arms, dropping the ball to the ground, and swing her around. She squeals her delight and I laugh at the sound.
“Come on, Son. We’ve got to get a wiggle on if you want to make the match.” I place Lola on the ground and pick the ball back up, ready to follow Dad, but she starts to cry and grabs at my legs.
She cries out when I get a little bit away from her. “Fweddie Bear. Mine. My Fweddie Bear.” I turn to look at her and myheart aches. Her chubby little cheeks are red, tears are welling in her beautiful brown eyes, and her bottom lip pouts sadly. Right there I make my decision and throw the ball to the ground and run back to her. The cries turn to laughter and all is right in the world. Because my family will always come before anything else.
“See. I know how much you wanted to play in that game. I know you got a lot of flack from your teammates for leaving them in the lurch. And I know, just like back then, you don’t care. Lola’s happiness came first.”
“What’s your point?” I ask, losing patience as this walk down memory lane isn’t what I’d hoped it would be.
“That you need to start putting Freddie first. I told you, I fucked up. I should never have made you promise…”
The restaurant comes into view. Dad’s on the floor. His face grey and gasping for breath. I turn away from this memory. I don’t want to relive it. I have it on a constant loop in my head anyway, I don’t need to see it in realtime.
“When I asked you to look after the girls, I didn’t mean for you to give up everything for them. I love you just as much as I love them. You needed to be looked after too. Making you promise what you did made you feel like you couldn't grieve, you couldn’t break, that you had to fight on your own. And that wasn’t fair.” He grips my shoulder and I let the tears flow down my cheeks. The tears for my dad, for my mum, the girls and for me.
“It’s fine.” I tell him and turn away from him letting his hand drop from my shoulder. I can’t do this now. I need to hold this shit together seeing as I’m in some sort of weird limbo.
“Okay. Let’s talk about this then.” A new picture forms in front of me. Like an old movie playing on a screen, it jumps a little before it settles. It takes me a while to recognise it, and when I do, I spin around on my heels and face my dad’s eyes with anger emanating from my every pore.
“Switch it off,” I say through gritted teeth. But he doesn’t listen. Just stares at me with his blue eyes burning into my soul.
“Turn around and face it if everything’s fine, Fred.” His tone of voice mocks me and I do as he says to prove a point. Except it’s not fine. My mum’s crying. The kids are hysterical and Lola isn’t able to comfort them as she’s a wreck herself. Ivy stands tall in her bloody heels, but I can see the tear stains on her cheeks. I know that she’s biting her cheek to avoid letting her emotions out. The dark clothes, the red roses, the sadness. It’s now abundantly clear why they're all gathered together.
It’s for me.
My funeral.
And as that realisation seeps into my subconscious, my coffin becomes as clear as day. I can’t spend too much time fixated on it as Phoebe comes into my peripheral view. Her sobs are so powerful they shake her shoulders and she clutches a picture to her chest. The one of us at the beach. She’s clinging onto it and it’s as if I can feel her pain. My hand goes to my chest and it hurts twice as much as the other pains did.
“She wasn’t supposed to feel pain,” I mutter out to no one, more to myself, and take a sharp intake of breath when my Mum puts her arm around her shoulders and they cry together. The pain in my chest deepens, making me drop to my knees.
“She loves you. They all do. They were always going to feel pain, Freddie. Grief is the price we pay for love.” My dad’s words have my head turning in his direction and he stoops down so he’s face level with me. “Your mother and I shared a love that could never be broken, not even by death. She wouldn’t swap an ounce of pain for any of the memories we made together. I know this because I feel the same. I hate watching you all and not being able to be there with you. To see her cry and not be able to hold her.
“But when I feel like that, I remember all the times I did get to hold her. When she was happy and sad. When she was overwhelmed or scared. All the times I kissed her, held her hand and told her she was beautiful. Those are what you hold onto. The lives you make for yourself mean nothing if they don’t have love in them.
“Freddie, you love Phoebe and she loves you. Make some memories together so that when the dark days come they light your way through. You’ve fulfilled your promise to me. You’ve made me the proudest father that there ever was.” He strokes my cheek and wipes away the tears that are freely falling. “Promise me something else now.”
