Read The First Time I Said Goodbye for Free Online

me in, as she would put it, ‘bad form’. “Just tired . . . must be jetlag.”
    “Look, if you want to just shoot the breeze here today, that’s fine. Dolores and I were going to go for a drive around Inishowen anyway. You should see the coastline – stunning. Well, I mean, you should see it, but if you are still feeling tired you can see it another day. Go back to bed, get a good rest. Get yourself well mended for tomorrow.”
    “I’ll get Sam to look in on you at lunchtime if you like,” Dolores offered. “And I’m sure he has a hot-water bottle somewhere if that would help – or did he give you one last night?”
    I looked at them blankly, fussing like mother hens around me, my mother’s usual stoicism lost in a haze of childhood remembering.
    “I’m fine,” I said. “Honest. I’d love to come with you. Just give me a chance to get properly ready.”
    “Ah grand so,” my mother said and I looked at her strangely. She didn’t even sound like herself any more.
    Walking out of the room I heard Dolores whisper, “I see what you mean about a ‘bit intense’,” and I bit back the urge to adopt the best Irish accent I could and tell them both to shag off.

    Chapter 5

    I will always remember the blueness of your eyes. Even in the dark I could see them. And I see them now, every time I close my own.

    * * *

    My aunt’s car was small. I didn’t want to be all-American but this car was small . I don’t consider myself to be overly tall but I felt cramped in the back seat while my mother and Dolores sat up front. Beside me was a cool box, which my mother told me was filled with leftover sandwiches from the day before’s celebrations. I tried not to think of how long they had sat out in that too-warm room and plastered a fake smile on my face.
    “That’s lovely,” I said and my mother beamed.
    “It is, isn’t it? Just lovely. A proper picnic.”
    Dolores launched into the chorus of some god-awful song about going on her summer holidays, even though it was raining and, in my opinion, very cold indeed. Dolores didn’t seem to feel the cold though – she was wearing a T-shirt and a light rain jacket and said she was “melted”. Compared to the Florida sunshine, nothing felt very “melted” at all about this.
    “Let’s get this show on the road,” I said, and my mother turned to smile at me.
    Let’s see if Ireland and all it had to offer really was worth travelling all this distance for. I would call Craig later when I had something to tell him – something positive perhaps that made me sound a bit more like my old self. He was always telling me how I didn’t sound like my old self any more and I had been doing a merry dance on and off over the last few months – making great big efforts to be all old-self-y to try and make him happy. Maybe this would actually make me genuinely happy, or if not happy then at least generally less miserable.
    We drove for an hour, up back roads which dipped and rose like rollercoasters. I’m pretty sure I suffered a mild concussion as my head battered off the back window on one unexpectedly mammoth dip.
    “I bet you don’t get roads like this in Florida,” Dolores chimed.
    No, we have roads generally without potholes and with enough room for two cars to pass safely side by side whenever they so desired. “We sure don’t,” I said with a smile and she laughed wildly.
    “I love that,” she cheered, nudging my mother before putting on her best faux-American accent and laughing. “‘We sure don’t’ – brilliant, just brilliant!”
    There was a comfort in listening to them chat as we drove. They didn’t exclude me from their conversation but I was more than happy to sit back and enjoy the easy way they spoke with each other, occasionally clasping hands and exclaiming it had been much too long since they had parted and apologising to each other for not making the effort to get in touch more often.
    When we stopped, at a sandy bay down a very steep