He reached down to brush her cheek, and as he touched her, noted without really seeing the faint echo of a smile on her stilled lips, and the single tear glimmering in each eye, two crystal orbs trapped in the silky webs of her eyelashes.
He took her hand, but there was no warmth there; she was gone, and he was alone in the dark, sterile room with all that remained of his dreams, the mortal remains of his Lissa, her face bathed in dull blue light. He shuddered; he was exhausted, or he was going crazy, or both; Lissa couldn’t have come to him; she was gone, all that had ever been her was gone, and only the shell was left behind now. Even if she had somehow come to him, what kind of message was that to give him? What kind of meaningless drivel was his mind insisting had come from her? Just what the hell did ‘touch the stars’ even mean, anyway?
He knelt down next to her, and brushed her forehead with his lips, her skin already cool and distant, no vibrancy, none of the vitality and life that had thrilled through her; she was gone, and all that was left was… this, the mortal remains of his dreams and shattered hopes. Mike bowed his head and rested his forehead on her chest, searching vainly for the patter of her heart, the thrum of her pulse, the sound of her breathing. Now he could cry; now his heart could finally feel her loss.
They found him still like that an hour later, kneeling next to her, his arm cuddled around her with his head resting on her breast.
*
The Wake was everything he’d dreaded it would be. The funeral was bad enough, John trying to deliver the eulogy and breaking down, and having to be rescued by Uncle Joe, and Mike too sunk in his own misery to really care; this was wrong, this wasn’t Lissa, this was a dog-and-pony show for the family to gawp at. Then back at the house, the traditional Wake, insisted on by his father’s family, was as dire and monstrous as he thought it would be; Lissa and he hardly knew any of these people, so what gave them the right to celebrate her life, when they had no idea what her life had been about?
And so he sat morosely in a corner, waiting for them to leave so he could, too, and never, ever come back to this place again; this was not his home now, not ever again, not now that his darling Lissa was gone forever. He stared vacantly, completely unfocussed, until a movement in his peripheral vision caused him to look up, startled, into the face of his Great-Aunt Ara, his grandmother’s older sister.
“And so, what now, Michael-Fionn?” the old lady smiled at him, “Are ye gonna sit and mope ’til you’ve forgotten why? This is all going to pass. She’ll be back one day, Michael-Fionn, you do know that, don’t you, now?” she twinkled at him. Mike felt the rage douse him like a bucket of ice-water as he sprang to his feet. What the Hell did this mad old biddy…?
Fast as he was, the old lady had moved faster, her thin, spidery fingers holding him either side of his mouth in a grip he couldn’t break.
“SHUT up and listen!” she hissed. Mike stared at her, nonplussed, then nodded, amazed at the strength in her withered, wiry hand, her wrinkled skin dry like parchment draped over bones of steel.
“Good, because I have something for you; I think you know where it comes from. Time is only a thing, Michael-Fionn, and it’s a simple thing, too. You must wait for time to pass, time to heal, for healing must happen, but soon, soon you will know when to touch the stars. Did ye get dat?”
Mike stared at her; Lissa had said the same thing in his dream, or vision, or fantasy of her, and now Great-Aunt Ara, who’d only ever spoken to him in the past to ask him when he was getting married, or to get her a top-up on her glass of Bushmills, now she was saying it to him too.
“How did you…?” he murmured, and the old woman smiled conspiratorially.
“Much as they like to say otherwise, sometimes, Michael-Fionn Cormac Sheridan, ‘The Sight’ is more than just a story to cadge drinks off of American tourists on O’Connell Street! Your granny had it, your mother has it, although she denies it… and you have enough of it to make me wonder about you, oh yes! Keep your heart whole, Michael-Fionn, you will need it soon; wherever she is, Lysette-Clodagh is still part of us, Michael mac Beag, still part of you; she was always in your stars, and she’s not finished with you just yet! And one more thing…”
She leaned in closer, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Next time you even T’INK about calling me names or showing me temper, I will lift the flat of my hand off your bare arse, Michael-Fionn, so I will!”
For the first time in what felt like forever, Mike grinned, his spirits lifted by the surreal but inspiring exchange. Ara smiled back, her hand this time coming up to caress his cheek.
“That’s better, much better! When ye do that, I see your granny, my sweet Dearbhile, long gone, but still there in your smile. I know my sister is waiting for joy to come to you again; so am I, Michael-Fionn, so are all of us, for surely it will, but it must take its time! So now ye know; ye have time, Michael-Fionn, time enough anyway to go get an old lady a drink, will ye go now!”
Michael spent the rest of that mournful afternoon in a kind of daze; the exchange with his great-Aunt, an old woman he’d always dismissed as crazier than a bat in a henhouse, had spun his world on its heel; how could she have known what he’d seen, or fantasised, or hallucinated, or just plain dreamed?
Whatever it was, her words had started a process in him; he’d finally begun to heal, gentle memory and sadness slowly taking the jagged edges off that great wound inside him.
When his uncles, aunts, cousins and other, more distant kin had finally left, Mike sent Brigitte to bed; she’d sat the whole time, a stunned, faraway expression on her face, living the unreality of what was happening, that she was keeping the Wake for her child, something no parent should ever have to do.
John took her and led her away while Mike cleared away the debris of food, bottles and glasses, rearranged the furniture, and put the house back the way it should be (but how could he do that? The most important part of this house was gone forever, now.) He finished as best he could, picked his coat off the rack, and looked around one last time; this could never be home for him again. He’d call his mother in the morning, but he knew he’d never come back here, not where so much was missing now.
*
The next few months were a blur of work, work, and yet more work; if he kept himself busy, he wouldn’t think about her, and true enough, his days were untroubled by thoughts of her.
Night-time was something else, though; it was then, as he drifted silently through his empty house, where she should be, too, that his mind would play strange tricks on him, and he would see her, stretched-out on the sofa and burrowing her feet under the cushions, her cat-like smirk of satisfaction at banishing him to the easy-chair so she could stretch-out, or slipping into the kitchen in a brief robe to make coffee.
The scent of her shampoo, lotion, and hairspray still hung heavy and redolent in the bathroom, or at least he convinced himself they did, and her trinkets and gewgaws still lived in the pin-tray on the dresser, waiting for her to pick them up and scrunch her hair back. He saw her out in the garden, dead-heading the rosebushes she’d planted, and her voice still lingered on the very cusp of hearing.
He dreamed of her; every night he dreamed of her, long, puzzling dreams, where she talked to him about things he couldn’t understand, then finally she would see his blank expression and laugh, her silvery tinkle still ringing in his ears as he jerked awake. Then he would despair, pleading with anyone, anything that was listening, to end this torture, to let him go, or help him let her go, to give him peace, any peace.
He would fall asleep, and once again she’d be there, her body gleaming palely in the moonlight as they made love wildly, the remembered feel of his hands on her breasts, the stiffness of her nipples as he drove into her, the tight, honeyed sweetness of her as he devoured her, lapping at her as he squeezed and caressed her taut buttocks, making her mew and gasp as he pulled them apart to explore the secrets within; then memory would shift to the hot slickness of her mouth as she took him in, her tongue playing with his most sensitive flesh, until he could hold back no longer, and Lissa would suck, and lick, and take every drop of his gift to her.
Other nights would be different; those nights she would dance through his thoughts all the long night, always out of reach, and always surrounded by that halo of seven golden stars he had seen in the palm of his hand, and he would awaken to the sure and certain despair and futility of the life he must live without her, to once more try and find the will to live another day without her, to somehow put one foot in front of the other and make it through the day. His need for her weighed him down like a physical burden he couldn’t shrug off even as his soul raged and fluttered like a flag in the gale of his loss, a loss that almost overwhelmed him.