At First Sight by Hannah Sunderland (latest novels to read TXT) 📕

the quagmire of his grief, but maybe a trip home would coerce him into trying to tackle the pain, facing it head on instead of pretending that it didn’t exist.

I turned in my seat to face Charlie and he looked at me with worried eyes. ‘Maybe going home isn’t such a bad idea,’ I said, my voice calm and unconfrontational.

‘Not you too, Nell.’ He sighed with frustration.

‘How long did you plan on bringing him over for?’ I asked, turning back to Carrick.

‘A few days. Just long enough to go to the memorial and see his poor old mammy,’ he replied.

‘Well, there you have it. You can’t not go to your own wife’s memorial service. That would be awful.’

‘Yeah.’ Carrick scoffed and laughed a humourless laugh. ‘It’s not like he turned up to the actual funeral or anything and so it seems only right he come to the two-year memorial.’

I turned back to Charlie with shocked confusion on my face. ‘You didn’t go to Abi’s funeral?’

Click, click, click, click, click.

He looked down at his coffee again, the endless clicking sounding like it was ticking down to something, the ticks getting faster and faster. ‘I couldn’t,’ he mumbled quietly. ‘I tried, but I didn’t even make it onto the plane.’

‘Yeah, just left it all to the rest of us, didn’t yer?’ Carrick spat angrily.

‘Hey.’ I held up a polite, yet forceful hand at Carrick. ‘Attacking him isn’t going to help anything,’ I said, seeing already how Carrick’s words had made Charlie close up. I took a beat, composing myself and thinking about the best way to tackle this. ‘I think that this would be good for you,’ I eventually said. My voice was soft, reassuring. ‘I know you want to see your home again and it’s only for a few days. This time next week, it will all be long over.’

He looked up at me, his thumb pausing over the loose section of the lid and the clicking finally coming to a stop. His eyes were glassy, moist and staring.

‘No one can force you to do anything, Charlie, but I really do think that this is a good idea,’ I said, placing a comforting hand on his wrist.

He sniffed loudly before speaking. ‘I’ll go.’

‘Hallelujah.’ Carrick sighed.

‘On one condition,’ he said. ‘That you come with me.’

‘Me?’ I felt a jolt of panic. ‘Are you planning to go by ferry?’

Carrick shook his head. ‘Easier to fly to Knock than to sail to Dublin and then drive all the way to Westport.’

I swallowed audibly, desperately trying to think of an excuse. ‘I have work.’

‘Then I’m not going,’ Charlie said matter-of-factly.

Carrick raised a hand to his forehead and blew air out through pursed lips. ‘You’re more than welcome, Nell, but I need to know so I can book the tickets. It’ll be good fun. No one does a send-off like the Irish.’

Good fun? I thought. Wasn’t it a memorial he was talking about?

‘Hold on. Hold on,’ I said, pulling my phone out of my pocket. ‘Let me see what I can do.’ I pulled up Barry’s number and mentally crafted what I was going to say.

Charlie needed to go home and if me flying was the only way to make that happen, then I guess I’d just have to go, wouldn’t I?

Chapter Fifteen

I sat at the kitchen table with a condensation-beaded glass of Coke making a dark wet ring on the surface of the oak table in front of me. My half-eaten bowl of chilli con carne sat, congealing with coolness, a few inches away, my stomach unwilling to make room for food amongst all of the worry in there. I’d finally called a time of death on the flowers that now sat in the bin, the least floppy of the eucalyptus stems peeping over the top, as if sending me a final plea for help as they sank slowly to their demise. Ned was overjoyed and his voice would soon lose that bunged-up nasal tone, now that the pollen was no longer lingering in the kitchen to attack him whenever he fancied a cup of tea. I’d sat here and told Ned about Carrick when I’d got home and recounted everything that had happened since I saw him last in deep, heart-breaking detail.

‘Poor guy.’

‘I know, right.’

I’d rung Ned – as soon as I’d got the all clear from Barry about me taking the next few days off – to see if it was okay that Carrick and Charlie stayed over. That way we could all leave together for the airport in the morning. It made sense as we lived closer and there was a spare room here that people could actually sleep in, which was not a tableau of pain in the form of a double bed.

Ned laced his hands together and placed them on the tabletop in front of him, adopting the therapist’s position. ‘How are you feeling about all of this?’ he asked.

I thought for a moment before saying, ‘Terrified, completely out of my depth and irrationally jealous. Is that enough for you to work your therapist magic on?’

‘They’re all very valid feelings.’ He often sounded like a stranger when he talked like this, far too professional to be my strange buddy Ned, but I guess that’s why he’d been doing this for so long, because it was clearly what he was born for. ‘I know you’re a wuss when it comes to flying, but it’s only a short flight, perfect for breaking you in and it’s, like, a one in five million chance that you’ll go crashing to your death.’

I gulped. ‘Thanks, Ned. You’re being really helpful.’

He ignored me and carried on. ‘As for Charlie, you know the signs, Nell. If he begins to feel like he’s losing control again then you’ll be able to see it. You’re on the same wavelength now. You know everything, so don’t worry that he’s going to try and do it again. And you’re completely allowed to feel like you don’t know what you’re